10

with which you can conjure away all

sorrow

Dear friends, this is no fancy sketch. Cases like it are constantly occuring. Who among my readers has ever lost beloved friends, where partialism presents no hope? And if such an event has never happened to you, how soon may it occur! If, then, we would do more than others for the comforting of the mourner, let us use all our endeavors to spread abroad a knowledge of the true Gospel of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, so that all may be furnished in time of need, with this precious moral catholocon which alone can give relief. To be safe from the attacks of sorrow, every one must have a lively hope of final universal blessedness, well settled and grounded by an enlightened faith.

This will be to every one who is so fortunate as to cherish it, an immoveable anchor amid all the storms of affliction. It will enable its

possessors to safely ride out the fiercest tempest of sorrow; whereas, without its help, they would probably be dashed as thousands are upon the rocks of despair. And then when the tempest abates, and the gloom passes from off the face of the heavens; when the star of hope which shone even amid the darkest gloom of the storm, has become a radiant sun; enlightening with peace and joy the now calm and unruffled ocean of life; when the dark clouds of affliction have passed away, and a calm and serene day again smiles around, then the breath of God's love will safely waft the voyagers to the haven of immortal rest.

Let others strive for wealth, or fame, or power, or pleasure, or popularity, or all this earth can give; but be it mine to present to weary and fainting pilgrims, cups of living water from the ever-flowing fountain of God's love; that love which runs like

a river through the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. Be it my taskand shall it not be yours, my readers? -to labor for the promulgation of this blessed Gospel. If we would do more than others for the benefit and salvation of the world, we must constantly strive to build up the cause of universal grace and salvation in the earth. We must defend it as we would our own lives against every assault. We must labor for the destruction of every error which can retard its progress. Go on then, and destroy the monster of error that appalls so many souls by the vision of endless sin and misery; truth demands it. The supplicating looks and pleading voices of our brothers and sisters who are about to be crushed beneath its iron heel, call us to the rescue. In the words of an eloquent writer,-"Let it die. Think not that Christianity will die with it, or even clothe itself in sackcloth on this account. Nay, but purified from its deepest corruptions, and relieved from a body of sin and death, that had borne it down, and wasted its strength, and crippled its power, it would arise in its beauty and go forth to renewed and more glorious conquests." It would bear the banner of love in triumph from pole to pole, and from the rivers to the ends of the earth. Wherever its conquering car was heard, swords would be beat into plough-shares, and spears into pruning hooks. Men could learn hate no more, when the religious atmosphere in which they breathed was an atmosphere of love and love only. They could mourn no more, when all around them and before them was joy and salvation.

REV. J. B. SAX.

A house is no home unless it contains food and fire for the mind as well as the body.

THE TRIALS OF THE POOR.

Adversity, and the intellectual and spiritual powers and qualifications requisite for the trial, comprise considerations in which every human being in some period of life meets with the frowns of fortune, the loss of property, or friends, reputation, health, or what is sadder still, the loss of religion, virtue, character. Any of these visitations brings the day of adversity.

I turn my mind to one class of beings, numerous in nearly every community, who are in general regarded as children of misfortune. I mean the poor. Some esteem poverty a greater misfortune than do others, and the reason is, they do not so well know how to meet its demands and live content with its privations. The world, generally, look upon this as a severe, hard lot; as among the most baleful dregs in the cup of life; and, indeed, if the classic Jupiter, when he gave the fatal box to Pandora, had forgotten to place in it this cruel evil, all others could be borne with patience: Or if, when the spell was broken by the common parents of mankind, the charm that bound them to Paradise and filled their souls with holy thoughts and heavenly peace, when all was lost, and from Eden they were pursued with evil and misery, had not poverty

come with its severe frown to lash them and their posterity through the world, to be avoided only by sweat and toil, or by "seeking out many inventions" which are very liable to bring their sorrows, surely all the rest of the curse could have been borne with tolerable composure. But this source of toil, trial, privation-this gaunt, tattered, pale, hollow-eyed, forsaken creature, comes to us for a companion; and want and dependence and coarse apparel and obscurity and the proud man's scorn,

are her attendants. Thus is poverty regarded by "the children of this world," who are "wise in their own generation." Oh how the masses of men do dread its barren coasts! The fear of it gives more wakeful, anxious troubled hours to some people, than an eternity of torments in which they most cordially believe! That fear seems to grow in some persons like a disease, till but little soul, and a peevish, nervous, worn-out body remains, and they live but for one object, and that is, to avoid the iron clutches of poverty. Most of men are as fearful, work as watchfully, cheat their neighbors as often, shave the unwary as close, pinch the poor as hard, when they have thousands. in possession, as when they began to accumulate. In fact, as they advance from penury, as wealth is procured, the dread of their former condition is aggravated to a living panic, and it sticks to them and enslaves and torments them like the nightmare. Now, the condition of the upright, industrious, contented and cheerful poor man, is an angel's fortune compared to this monomania existence.

Poverty may be justly regarded as a misfortune, and extreme penury as one of the severe trials of adversity. But many of its evils are fancied, as many of the blessings of wealth are wholly imaginary, while its curses

are

sometimes real and terrible. Truly there are some real evils attending poverty, which people in medium circumstances or in affluence, know but little about. They never feel them, and too seldom enter into the real feelings of those who suffer them. I say nothing of the privations of those luxuries in which the wealthy seem to delight; nothing of the gratifications of that pride and ambition which make up the life of the fashionable and gay, upon whom worldly fortune smiles. We pass by

the privileges of associating with the reputed great, who are known as the aristocracy whence the poor are in general excluded, and, if our observation does not deceive us, such is the fashion of the world. We will not mention these as the real evils of the poor. Think not now of those leisure hours of amusement and pleasure with the cheerful throng, glittering in costly attire, and running the round of ease and dissipation-from all which the sons and daughters of poverty must stand at a respectful distance, or climb there by dint of skill in wearing the insignia of wealth, and obtaining them at the expense of many home comforts and blessings, and perchance at the hazard of honesty and uprightness. All this, whether it be a fortune or misfortune, the honest poor must reckon among the unattainable things. The poor man's troubles, if he be wise, are the necessary privations of his condition. When pale disease visits his home when his daily income is cut off by sickness, and there are few comforts or privileges to lighten the hoars of pain-when the ordinary privations of the poor man and family are forgotten, and children with all their clamorous wants and pitiful dependence harrow the deepest feelings of the soul, and the questions press hard upon them, "How shall we live! how shall we keep from starvation! or, that miserable alternative, the alms house? How ward off the wintry cold and storm, and meet the wants of a stinted existence?" Then are felt the real evils of poverty. And such, too, is the common liability of the poor. Their dependence under divine Providence is upon health. How poor and forsaken of the world are they when that is gone! Another of the evils of this class, is in general the want of time and means for intellectual pursuits and

cultivation. cultivation. They have little or no time to give the mind freedom, for the hard necessities of living occupy thought, feeling, nerve, time-all there is of the poor man's soul and body. In the present state of society

in its present uncultivated, undisciplined, irreligious state, this evil is known and felt in all its desolating blasting power. And it leaves the laboring classes exposed to temptations and vicious pursuits and associations, from which higher privileges would protect them. How hard to them are the seasons of adversity! How hard to the dependant poor! Their minds are poorly prepared to meet the shock, and they tremble and pine and moan before the blast, or must rise in the strength of an unearthly heroism. And yet there is no ill connected with poverty so dreadful as ignorance and vice. The privations of life are nothing compared to the degraded soul. For there is nothing by which the spirit is so weakened, and under which it faints, as beneath a load of vicious habits and darkened thoughts. These are some of the trials and sorrows and exposures of the poor man. And yet, there is nothing in his condition that necessarily makes him unhappy, despised or dishonored. Far from it. "If he faints, his strength is small." He need shed no tears over his humble lot. Has he come to this by poor parentage-by a sudden change of fortune, by mistake, or folly, or crime? He has reason to lament his folly or his sin; but there are greater evils than want of worldly goods. For there is a power upon which the poor of this world can rely, and by which they can battle bravely, nobly with the adverse tide. Yes, they can be joyously triumphant. And while they are pennyless, lo, they have a mine of wealth which the treasures of the world cannot pur

chase. I mean the riches of mind and heart and character. I mean that power of soul that rises above the obstacles that meet them in every advance, and still renders life sweet and pleasant and peaceful as May morning, as pure and earnest and active and nobly great as Truth, Virtue, and religion can make it. It is the sorriest weakness to faint under the reverses of fortune, to sink back in despair, or feel that our prospects are all gloom, or happiness gone. The poor of this world have blessings left them, within, around and above, in which they feel love, gratitude and delight, if they but realize the character of those blessings, and improve the gifts which Heaven bestows upon them.

A life consecrated to virtuous activity and generous love, and passed in the light of divine truth and intellectual improvement, is not beyond the reach of any who will seek the holy gift. Such a life gives dignity and honor to poverty itself, and turns to golden light the clouds of adversity. It is truth that furnishes the mind with strength to combat with success the evils of dependance. Virtue, with her refined sensibilities, her pure emotions, her tried integrity, her calm and celestial bearing, stands forth in unadorned and native dignity and spotless worth; her smile brightens and blesses the toil of the poor man, and makes him forget his poverty and his tears. And can there be in the wide world a fitter residence for the religion of Christ, for devotion to God, for the clear and firm hope of immortality, than in such a home? Where better can an altar be reared to God? Where can principles of right, justice, philanthropy and piety do more for humanity than in such a household? With these and with habits of industry, economy and pru

dent husbandry, the homes of the poor would hear no sighs of sorrow, no groans of wretchedness, no bitter lamentations. The humblest roof that shelters virtue and goodness and Christian hope, is a paradise, compared with the mansion filled with the trappings and adornings of wealth, where haughty pride, profaneness, or worldly lust, or mammon worship, desecrates the splendid halls. For such splendor is heartless and vain. It is mockery all. The poor should neither nor envy desire to be of those who dwell there. Neither should they feel for a moment, any inferiority because they are poor. They should not at home nor abroad attempt, by word or deed, to conceal their condition-should not try to follow the gaudy fashions of the vain and vulgar rich. They should rise above

the whims that now enslave them and be free! This freedom is favorable to virtue, to mental and moral progress, to that real nobility which rises above caste or ambition, and defiance to conventional tastes and rigid rules made only for slaves of fashions-the creatures of mere human manufacture. This strengththis freedom, lies in virtue, morality, religion, in heavenly trust and hope,-in thoughtful and well stored minds. With these, how can the poor faint? They are strong in adversity. They are not afraid nor ashamed of poverty. They remember that that humble pathway has been made honorable by the footsteps of illustrious men. They remember that Genius has worn her rags, has slept upon her bed of straw and toiled beneath her humble roof.

Ashamed to be poor! We remember the Son of Mary was poor; and what the world calls adversity was the attendant of his life. He had not a place whereon to lay his head. He had no costly mansion-no gay, out

ward attractions. His life was humble. But he made that lowly station glorious by the majesty and power of truth, of goodness and love. The world has almost forgotten his poverty; and while thousands clamor for the Christian name, they are fearful the world will know or believe them poor. No, it is not the severest adversity to suffer the loss of property or to live destitute of its luxuries, or even fashionable conveniences. Weak is the nature that cannot rise above that trial and be free, and good and happy,--loving and loved; that cannot meet all the ends of existence, fulfill all the duties of life, and accomplish all the good of which mortals are capable, and live and die in the same vale of poverty where the Prince of Peace and the Saviour of the world lived and died. REV. J. S. BROWN.

VISIONS.

In the study of what men have said and done in times past we very frequently meet with assertions concerning knowledge by means of visions-especially is this true when one reads the Bible. Visions seem to have occupied no small part of the daily life of the ancient peoples and my attention has been called to it very recently by reading of Paul and his defense before Agrippa.

In the apostle's conversion from Judaism to Christianity there is is something very remarkable and very inspiring. On the journey to Damascus he heard the voice calling to him and beheld the brightness about him. This he tells the King was a "heavenly vision" to which he was not disobedient.

This is not the place to enter upon a psycological discussion of dreams. When such men as Locke and

Leibnitz have arrived at no definite reliable conclusions in the matter, it

is folly for us to spend our time in such a consideration-rather, accepting the fact of visions, let us seek some practical application of it.

There are a great many people who are interested upon some earthly vision. They think of former opportunities for wealth or for a better education. In old age men look back to the vigor of youth, and think that if the earlier opportunities could be their's again they could improve them fully. These are visions of the past.

Other people are continually thinking about their present situation. They see riends or acquaintances whose lot differs from their own; and they say to themselves "If I were situated as is Mr. B., how much I would do!"

Sometimes we come in contact with persons who have no visions of the past, very few of the present, but who have many of the future-they are never quite ready to do anything. They promise great things for the future. They will do more, very much more they build air-castlesbuild them very frequently and very extensively their hopes of what the future will enable them to do are many. But alas, that time for real, earnest effort never comes!

O the dreams that men have! We are either brooding over opportunities of the past which are forever lost; being dissatisfied with the situation in which we now are; or the mind is full of what the future will offer.

Such as these are earthly visions and these the most of mankind make the extent of thought. Visions like these make up the conception of life held by many. They serve no higher purpose than their own existence. Dreams like these are, generally, interesting to the individual experiencing them, but they awaken no enduring divine motive.