Sire Jfarailg ©role. THE SPARROWS. By Makie Roseau. From these quaint old roofs and chimneys To the steps and court below, A crowd of noisy sparrows Are flitting to and fro. Now chattering to each other Upon the mossy eaves; Now chirping in full chorus Amid the ivy leaves. I have wondered long and often What they find to do and say ; How such little restless creatures Can keep busy all the day. I know, though never idle That they neither toil nor spin ; Nor barn, nor store house have they, And the hoarded grain within. Yet I never once have wondered How those birds are boused and fed; That in thinking of the morrow, They have neither care nor dread. For I know our Father eareth For His creatures weak and small; That His watchful eye regardeth The sparrow if it fall. Yet my faith grows Tjeak and falters ’Neath the weight of future years, And my heart is over-hurdened With the morrow’s anxious fears. Their cost—the merest trifle— A farthing would repay; My priceless soul is surely . W orth far much more than they. 0 ! faithless heart and foolish! Shall the children starve for bread ? Or shall needful shelter fail them, While the birds are housed and fed ? Paris, November. LITTLE GLOSSTAIL. A FABLE. Once upon a time a little chicken, with a feathery toilet of brown &n 4 white, sprin kled with green and purple, waked from a comfortable three-weeks’ dream, and said, “ Where am I? ’ Where was he, indeed ? ' In jail. There was neither door nor win dow : the walls were solid, without so much as a clink to let in the sunlight. “I’ll never bear this,” said little Glosstail, rousing himself and winking the; sleep but of his eyes. “While I slept I dreamed there was a dreadful giant, and he shut me up here. Let me once get out, and I’ll fight him like a man !” So Glosstail knocked on the wall till he had made a hole. Then he drew in his breath, and sniffed the fresh morning air with the hard part of his face, -which was meant for a nose. “ Good,” cried he, and knocked again. He had eleven brothers and sisters, and they were all waking up and knocking too. Their little white prisons were crumbling away, mite by mite, but Glosstail’s cruim bled fastest. Presently out he stepped, trembling with oagerness, fortified with resolve, and also very sticky with bits of egg-shell. “ Hurrah for met" peeped he, looking down disdainfully upon his struggling brethren, and trying to balance himself upon a wisp of straw, “ I have conquered! Hurrah for me! ” You will at once observe that this heroic chicken started wrong. His three-weeks’ sleep had disagreed with him; his brain was muddled. He entertained a nightmare fancy that some horrid giant on two lbgs held a deadly spite against him, had locked him up in a shell, and meant now to pursue hin to the ends of the earth. So he shook his tiny head and began to look about for his enemy. He could not see over the top of the bar rel. Right overhead were the beams of the barn; but young Grlosstail, being .quite inex perienced, did not know them from the soft est clouds of the summer sky. “ But I see something,” said he, bristling” his tender little body as fiercely as he could, “1 see something; and we’ll soon find which' is the strongest, he or I.” It was the dear old motherly hen, ho saw. “ Good morning, my darling/' said she, with an affectionate roll of her eye—“ yon are my eldest born, and I bid you welcome to this barn and barn-yard, and all the glo rious hayseed and worms therein contained. Thrice welcome, my son !” “ You'don’t say so!” exclaimed, the as tonished Grloastail, nodding his cotton-ball of a head in" a dr unhen way, spreading out his yellow, fingers, and; glancing up doubt fully at his maternal relative, “ I have be gun life with a mortal fear of being cheated, and I don’t know whether you tell the truth or not, madam. Pleasg speak again!—Yes, there is a certain something in your sweet voice which goes straight to my heart. I do, I will, I must believe you are my dear mother, and no giant.” A shower of corn-meal dough put an un timely end to Gloss tail’s remarks. His young heart, which had just begun to throb with filial affection, now went pit-a-pat with a desperate fright. Over the-edge of the barrel was leaning a beautiful young girl, with a straw hat on her head. Her name was Lucy Warner; and she smiled down very, pleasantly upon the new chicken. But the unhappy Glosstail, who was look ing for his giant, wailed aloud, and tried! with desperate courage to fly into her face but only succeeded in falling over an egg shell. “ My dear son,” said his mother soothing ly, but in the/gentle hen-ljtnguage which is not iptelligijble,, ,tq human»beings, “be,,not alarmed. J3he iyh,pm you in your nervous ness mistake for -an enemy, is our best friend. She has a very enormous face, it is true, and savageteeth such, as we , hen, THE AMERICAN PRESBYTERIAN, THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 1869. should be ashamed to wear in our bills; but she means well. See her smile, poor thing! Hear her speak to you I Yes, my son, she really supposes she is talking; that is the best such poor creatures as mankind can do with their great red tongues and thick lips. If they had nice hard bills like us, then they could talk, and there would be some sense in it.” “ But, mother,” moaned little Glosstail, still trembling, “ she looks as if she wanted to eat me up.” “’Shi ’Sh !" said Mrs. Biddy reproachful ly. “I am ashamed of you, my son I ” So Master Glosstail calmed himself, ate his breakfast, and looked about him to greet his brothers and sisters as they crept forth from the shell. They were sensible little creatures, and very well contented to take the world as they found it, having never so much as dreamed of a giant. Presently when they had all pecked through, Miss Lucy took them one by one out of the barrel of straw, and let them wander off to see the world. The balmy air, the tender grass, the dainty worms were so new to the little prisoners, that their in nocent hearts throbbed with delight—all but the heart of Glosstail. He, unhappy biped, tried to fight with his own shadow; he looked at the rake and pitchfork with distrust; and all the children who called; “ Chickie, Ghickie,” were sure to frighten him out of his slender wits. “ Alas, my son;”, said his kind mother, shaking the dust from her black and gold dreßS, “you are almost as short-sighted as a! human being; and that is saying enough, I hope! We who belong to the wise race of chickendom must not be frightened by trifles. If you run from your best friends what will become of you when your real enemies appear such as Neighbor Darling’s yellow cat?” “ Oh dear,” replied little Glosstail, who had seen nothing but sunshine all the ten days of his life, “ things have gone against me ever since I was born. If anything bad hasn't happened yet, it certainly will some time!” That very night report came that the bushy tail of a fox had been seen in the neighborhood. “ Lucy you may as well jsut those chick ens into a box," said farmer Warner; and went out to finish mending his fence’. So Lucy and her mother, when the sup per dishes were washed, walked into the yard and called Mrs. Biddy and her brood. Then they took the chickens, one at a time, and dropped them into a basket, over which was thrown an old coat. “ Going to jail, are we ?” cried Master Glosstail, ,afrai<f,of his best friends as, usual, and running round and round as if his silly head was off—“ Going to jail'!" “Be quiet, my son,” counseled Madam Biddy, “ it is all for your good.’’ “ But I’ve been in jail once,” said Gloss tail 'stoutly, “ and I’ll never go again !” The other chickens bowed their heads meekly and popped into the basket with very good grace; but our hero refused to be caught. He continued his little war dance around the two ladies, repeating, “ I nerver’ll go to jail, I never, never’U go to jail.” !“ The handsomest of all the brood,” said Miss Lucy sorrowfully. ; “Do see the royal purple on his wings ! Why won’t he let me save him! There now, he has run under /the barn.” . ~ Foolish Grlosstail, in his obstinacy, had jumped out of the frying-pan straight into the fire. ' What was waiting under the barn? It was Neighbor Darling’s yellow cat; and if you suppose her amber eyes were glowing therein the dark for nothing, and that she had no use for the sharp-point ed daggers insido of her velvet paws, that shows that you are not acquainted with cats. Come here, my own precious tidbit,” said she softly to Glosstail, “ I have boon waiting here on, purpose to see if some of your mother’s family wouldn’t pay me a visit.” . ■ “ I was the only one that had 'sense enough to come,” said Master Glosstail with an air of triumph. Alas I It was his last “ air.” ' “ Ran away from a horrid basket and a dreadful coat, so youdid," continued Pussy, hugging Glosstail affectionately; “ wouldn’t believe a word your mother said; that’s right, that’s right'!” Stupid thingsaid the deceitful crea ture to herself in a different tone, as the chicken rapidly disappeared down her throat. “ She makes very-good eating, /what there is of her ;' but if shef 'Ha'd minded what was told her she might have grown bigger and then she would have made a great deal better mouthful for me ?” , “I think,” added Puss, daintily wiping her lips, “ I shall draw ,a moral from this for: my young ones. ‘ Don’t be chicken hearted, I Bhall remark; for what looks like misfortune, (say a bushel basket, for instance) often turns outto'be only a bless-, ingj in disguise.’”— SopJi&May. PBAYING AND GIVING. ‘. -d. minister writes : : In obtaining sub scriptions fora benevolent purpose, I called upon a gentleman in one, .of our. largest cities, who generously contributed to the object. Before leaving, I said t° him,- ‘ How .mnen, think J°u. will such an individual subscribe ?’ ‘ I don’t know/ said he, ‘ but could you hear that man pray, you would think that he would give you all he is worth,’ So I called upon him -; but, to my surprise, he would not contribute. As I was about’ to take my leave, I said- to him, As I came to your house, tasked an indivi dual what you would probably give ? “ I ~o q t know/’ said he, “ but- could'you hear that man pray, you would think ;he would jive you all he is worth.’” The man's lead dropped, tears .gushed from - his eyes he took out hiß- ppeket-hook,' and gave me seventy-five dollars." < V- ./ HISTOEIOAL PIE. Sometimes in the best ordered printing offices it so happens that a form (which is one or more pages of reading matter, set up in type, and fastened in an iron frame ready for the printing press) meets with an accident. The man who is carrying it trips and drops it, or he bangs it down in such a way that it is loosened, and out tumble the type helter-skelter. It is then “ in pie,” as the printers call it, and some one must pick up the scattered type, and, examining each little bit of metal one by one, restore it to its proper position. The printer who sits in the corner busied with his pie is not in the least like Jack Horner, but is generally for the moment a sad and sorely-tried boy. How, see what has happened to us. Such a fine little table of history as we had set out for the, boys and girls this, week! There was meat; and drink in , it, but somehow it all fell into pie, and the printer who tried t<i mend it didn’t do his work well at all. Will any industrials boy-orgirirh]elp us'out of our trouble? it & only to arran'ge this jumble into correct-statements. , You will ? Ah 1 we knew it. Here it is : ; The most ambitious is James Galileo Watts, tho_ inventofc of the horse'; and among the best and is the i>uke of Alva, who perfected the steam engine; Alva was a Corsican; Cesar, as you all know, was an American ; Napoleon was a Span iard ; Washington! wbo invented the pendu lum for navigators, was:born at Borne. : Among the scientific men who have most influenced the history of mankind, we have Napoleon, who discovered the law Of gravi tation; Christopher Ferdinand Columbus; Newton, Duke of Gatten burg; and the ass Julius Cesar. And/the animals who, so far have been most useful to man in enabling him to act out his career, are the ox, the cow and the printing dog; but the most generally known are the elephant and the dromedary. * , . Every word and every punctuation mark are here; but that: stupid,pie-mender has made sad work of the story. To the first boy or girl who writes it out exactly as it should be written (and sends it to us with the proper post-office address,) we will for ward a beautiful prize by return mail. All try. —Hearth and Some. LONG WAITING EEWAEDED. Faith is rarely more severely tried than in the case of parents who are waiting, upon the Lord from year to year, and watching for the answer of prayers in the salvation of their children. There is, no doubt, much that sounds like prayer, on this and on other matters, which is only a sound—or at most the breathing of natural affection. Even; where they “ ask in prayer, believing,” there may often be long delays ; during which it may be their sad lot to look oh while the child of many prayers grows apparently hardened in sin and reckless in ungodliness. There may, it is humbling to think, have been: errors in training or inconsistencies in the life even of praying parents, of which such a course is the'legitimate heshlt. Few sorrows can be keener than that which ae-, companies, the consciousness of this; and what wonder that.such parents should,pot be! permitted to" witness the' fulfilment of thjßir prayers. “ It is‘hot'necessary that I should be here to keep watch over Clod's faithfulness/' gaid a refer ence to Some/ were still unanswered. Doubtless when all secrets are reyealed, it will be found that there are no unanswered prayers, though it will at the same time be found that much that passed forprayer was unreal, \?y i T The facts we are about to’record upon the authority of one well acquainted with the parties, may be encouraging to some who are waiting in sorrow. ‘ A Christian father and' mother, who were no strangers to the of prayer, had long borne their son upon their hearts before the Lord. From a wayward boy he grew up to be a profane and profligate : young man; and in addition to all their other sorrows, it was their grief to know that he was pointed at by the un godly as a proof of the uselessness of re ligious training and of the worthlessness of prayer. The restraints of his father’s house, little as he. seemed to heed them, soon be came intolerable; and he departed, no one knew whither.' His parents subsequently learned that, after a brief career of profli gacy, he had sought refuge on board a ship as a common sailor. During his first voyage, while he stood on the bulwarks of the ship uttering wanton blasphemies, he lest his footing and fell overboard. Though every effort was made to rescue him, as the vessel *was under, con-; siderable headway and the- sea' tan high, ■there was some delay before he could be reached by the boat, and he was taken out of the water apparently lifeless. Under some impulse the surgeon of the ship per severed in the use of means to restore ani mation after the captain and every one on j board pronounced it mere folly. His efforts were at last rewarded by some signs of life. The feeble spark Was carefully cherished, and at length the young mail opened his eyes, and with a faint expression of joy struggling through the feebleness and pain of such an awakening exclaimed, “ Jesus' Christ has saved my soul!” A long time elapsed before he recovered, sufficiently to give a connected account of his feelings while in the water. When he did, he said that, on his fall, his mind seemed at once opened to a discovery of the wicked- 1 ness of his life and his awful guilt in the sight of God. He had-.no hope of being rescued, and for a time —it seemed an age— he contemplated his hopeless guilt and the wrath, of God that seemed await him. All at remembrarice of his father’s oft-repeated testimony, “ Thiß is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Jesus Christ dame to. .save. sinners; 'of wliom 5 T am cMef/’“flasEed upon’- his mind. In the presence of all his black .guilt, Jesus Christ ithe Son .of God was. re- vealed to him as an all-sufficient Saviour, whose blood cleanseth us from all sin. His soul rested there. He knew that he was saved ; a sweet calm succeeded his anguish, and then he sank into unconsciousness. His after-life proved that this was no passing delusion. He was Boon received back joyfully to the home where he had caused so much grief. He is now, or was very recently, a faithful and honored preach er of that Gospel of whose divine power he was a signal example. At the end of a long life of faithful service his salvation will not be more complete than it was at the moment when he sank into unconsciousness in the water. Had he not been recovered, his case would have been quoted as an instance of prayer unanswered; but, even then, be lieving parents, with their trust unshasen, would have looked forward to the day of our gathering together unto Jesus, to find their son who was lost among the trophies of re deeming love. “ And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing ye shall receive.”- Witness. THE STUDY OP THE BIBLE. It belongs to the Protestant Church to make great account of the Bible. .For this it has been distinguished, from the first days of the Reformation; and we hope the time may never, come, when it shall be less sacredly regarded or highly prized. As an inspired revelation from God, and as meeting us in : a darkened and perverted world, surrounded as we are by sin, error and temptation, all calculated to lead us astray and involve us in utter ruin at last, it fully merits, and should always receive, our deepest venera tion, and excite our profoundest study. But it cannot be denied, that our professed regard for the Bible is not always illustrated in such a manner, as .best to prove its sin cerity. The claims of the Bible are not to be put off with eulogies, however high wrought and beautiful these may be. There are many, who would be quite willing to fight for the Bible, who yet find it very difficult even to read it with any degree of concentration and care, to say nothing of shaping their lives by its precepts. Weeks and months, in the case of some, are allowed to pass away before they once turn to its sa cred pages; and then, often, the only purpose that actuates them is an idle curiosity, or the desire to controvert the position taken by some one else in regard to its teachings. With all the effort, that has been made in. its favor, the fact still remains and is patent -r-the Bible, does not sustain that sacred re lation to the heart that it ought to sustain —is not for the general Protestant mind that holy and sublime interest that it should be—does not carry in it, that grand trea sure which in words we attribute to it. Here and there an earnest, old style Pro testant Christian may be found, who, in the way of practical attention to the Bible, con sistently illustrates and forcibly proves his profession. He has given his heart and mind to the work of poring over its pages. Hot only his spare time, but the time, also, which ho cannot so well spare, he seizes and devotes to this purpose. It is the man of his counsel, and the guide of his steps. His earnestness is seen in the biblical- literature which he has gathered, by which he is aided in unlocking its meaning and coining to the possession of its lofty truths. Thus : he honors the, Bible truly. He seeks -to enter it, not. simply with his own narrow mind, uneducated, or half educated, preoccupied and full of predilections and prejudices, nor yet with the best and most highly devel oped intellect. 'lt deserves, he says, more than “this. ' Itis worthy oftho best’ tho'ught, guided by the most ardent prayers of all the ages of the Church. Into this he en deavors to live himself, so that he may be the better qualified properly to honor the-Sacred Treasure, and from it derive those less Ohs which may guide him on his way through a perverted world to his Fa ther’s house. But how seldom do we find such instances of Bible devotion at the present day! How seldom it is, that persons are found seeking aids, of the character indicated, to help them to a proper understanding of the Word of God! When it is read, it is for the most part in a perfectly disconnected way, with out rule or, system of any kind. The whole manner of Bible reading, as a general thing, shows plainly enough,, that, however prec ious the Bible may be in itself, it is not for the readers what, by their/prOfessions, they say it is’. •• • v “ ~ ~‘“ There is plainly a deception in regard to this subject. Our professions are ill sus tained by our conduct. Love for the Bible, or attachment to it; is, not, by any means, as great as we often suppose. How is this general carelessness to be accounted for? ,Not certainly on the ground of an insuffi cient effort, to circulate, the Holy Scriptures No period has been more distinguished for Work of this character than ‘the present Besides, men are exhorted to read and trea sure it with an earnestness, which has cer tainly never been surpassed 3 and yet the fact is, that previous periods are far in ad vance of the present in earnest, deep, pray erful searchings of the Word of God. We press the question—why are the Holy Scriptures so superficially skimmed over, so thoughtlessly read, or so generally neglected and dishonored? There is no fact but that has its producing cause Somewhere, or in some thing; and certainly there is such a cause for this. It is important, that we should understand.it. In no other way can it be removed. The Holy Scriptures de mand a reverence, which, .we,must , a ll con fess; they do not how receive."' To cultivate ■this; the cause producing‘the present irrev erence must be ascertained , and removed. This must be ascertained, not by one mind nor ■ by one hundred, But by the general Christian mind. AH earnest spirits'are in terested in this question. What mind. zeal ous for the gloryof God and the, proper b° nor 0 C His Wwd, s can .rest, satisfied with the; present status df pfdffisSedif ChhiStihh icommumties in their relation tof he Bible? And then even the present posture of the mind in relation to the Scriptures, bad as it is, is rapidly growing into one that is worse. The evil seems to be increasing day by day. What must the end be ? We shall not now indicate oar own view as to the cause of this growing evil. Our object is to 6tart the question in other minds; Why is the Holy Bible thus neglected and dishonored, although, so freely and generally circulated ?—Reformed Church Messenger. THE BOTTOM OF THE OCEAN. In 1853, Lieutenant Brooke obtained mnd from the bottom of the North Atlantic, be tween Newfoundland and the Azores, at a depth of more than 10,000 feet, or two miles, by the help of his sounding apparatus. The specimens were sent for examination to Eh renberg, of Berlin, and to Bailey, of West Point, and those able microscopists found that this deep’sea mud was almost entirely com posed of the skeletons of living organism— the greater proportions of these being just like the Globigerinse, already known to oc cur in the chalk. • Thus far the work had been carried on simply in the interests of science, but Lieut. Brooke’s methodofsoundingucquirodahigh commercial value whenpthe enterprise of laying down the telegraphic cable between Great Britain and the United States was un dertaken; For it became a matter of im mense importance to know not only the depth of the* sea over the whole line along which the cable was to be laid, but the ex act nature of the bottom, so as to guard against chances of catting or fraying the strands of that costly rope. The Admiralty consequently ordered Captain 'Dayman, an old friend and shipmate of mine, to ascer tain the depth of the whole line of the cable, and to bring back specimens of the bottom. In former days such a command as this might have sounded very much like one of the impossible things which the young prince in the Fairy Tales is ordered to do before he can obtain the hand of the princess. However, in the months of June and July, 1827, my friend performed the task assigned to him with great precision, without, so far as. I know, having met with any reward of that kind. The specimens of Atlantic mud which He procured were seut to me to be examined, and reported upon. The result of these operations is that we know .the contours and nature of the surface soil covered by the North Atlantic for a dis tance of 1,700 miles from east to west, as well as we all know that of any part of the dry land. It is a prodigious plain—one of the widest and most even plains in the world. If the sea were drained off you might drive a wagon all the way from Yalentia, on the west coast of Ireland,* fo~ Trinity Bay, in Newfoundland. Atid, except upon one sharp in cline, about two hundred miles from Yalentia, l am not quite sure that it would be-even necessary to put the skid on, so gentle are the ascents and decents on that long route. ; From'Yaleutia the road would lie| down hill for about 300 miles to the Eoint at,.which the bottom is now covered y;l,700 f&thtoms Of seaSwatbr. Then would co me -the: central plaint in Ore than 1,000 miles wide, the inequalities of the surface of which would be hardly perceptible, though the depth of the water upon it varies from 10,Q00 to 15,000 feet; and there are places in which Mount Blanc might be sunk without showing its peak above water. Beyond this, the ascent on the Ame.rican side commences, and gradually leads, for about 300 miles; to the Newfoundland shore. Almost the whole bottom of this central plain (which extends for many hundred miles in a north and south-direction) is cov ered by a fine mud, which, when brought to the surface, dries into a grayish white fri able substance. You can write with this on a blackboard, if you are so inclinid, and to the eye it is _ quite like very soft grayish chalk. Examined chemically, it proved to be composed almost wholly of carbonate of lime; and if you make a section of it in the same* way as that of a piece of chalk was ma< l®> an _d view it with a microscope, it presents innumerable Globigerince embedded in the granular matrix. Thus the deep sea mud is substantially chalk.— Prof. Euxley. - A young girl, 12 years old, near Burling ton Kacine county, Wisconsin, l.as been suf fering from diphtheria, and had nearly re covered on the Bth day of January, when she: called her father to her bedside, and t ° ld ““.“be was going to-sleep, and that ®K e , s^. ould al ®®P fo f a loa .g, long time. She said she should look as though she was dead, but.she shouffi not be dead, and she made her father promise that he would not hurrv Soon after making the request the chiid apparently died. The body was en shrouded and placed in a coffin, but it show ed no, signs of death, although the heart ceased to move, and nothing showed that the respiratory organs were in use. Tie" eyes closed. In this state the girl has lain now for 20 days without a sign of life and with iio sign of death, other than a sinking natuifl J?u kS and which would be a t ° D u who had fa sted for so long a vein wk a ear ! y P art °f last week was tapped and blood flowed as na- K 7SS • lt J woald in aliving person. A blister raised on the flesh precisely as it would on that of one alive: A person nres sed a finger on the hand of the girl P Her flesh was solid, and upon taking S awav the finger, + the epot‘ was £hite. I? a lew pressed in the -Same manner? is Sal?aSof C W- att6^°namon S SreffiKv to tIT IBO^ 8111 ; watched \careluiiy to the end. A large number of L e A r aVe i ViBst€dtfre bous S e and alTex press themselves as lost in wonder
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