POETRY. Poetry. THE PILGRIM'S REST. My rest is in heaven, my rest is not here, The thorn and the thistle around me may grow, LET ME GO. BY WILLIAM BAXTER. Let me go: my heart has tasted See and know him face to face: Rise before me, waving bright, And the distant crystal waters Flash upon my failing sight. Let me go: for songs seraphic, Now seem calling from the sky; 'Tis the welcome of the angels Which, e'en now, are hovering nigh; Let me go; they wait to bear me To the mansions of the blest, Where the spirit, worn and weary, Finds at last its long-sought rest. ANECDOTES, SELECTIONS, AND GEMS. Anecdotes, Selections, and Gems. Anecdotes. THE QUAKER'S WATCH.-F. B. has sent us the following: whether it be true that such a conversation actually took place or not he does not pretend to say; and though it be a little humorous, yet as it contains a good moral we insert it:-"A person of the denomination of Quakers once took his watch to its maker with the following remarks, 'Friend, I have once more brought thee my erroneous watch which wants thy friendly care and protection. The last time it was at thy school it was no ways benefited by thy instructions. I found by the index of its tongue that it tells false, and that its motions are unsettled and wavering, which makes me believe it is not right in its inner man I mean the mainspring. I would have thee improve it with thy adjusting tool of truth, that if possible thou mayst turn it from the error of its ways. And if thou findest its body to be foul, cleanse it with thy brush from all dust and disorder, so that it may vibrate and circulate according to truth. I will leave it with thee for a few days, and pay thee what thou requirest, providing thy charge doth not exceed the one eighth part of a pound sterling. But friend, when thou dost correct it, see that thou dost so without passion, lest by severity thou drivest it to destruction. And I would have thee set it by the sun's motion, and thus teach it its true calculation table and equation, and when thou findest it conformable, send it home with a just bill of moderation, and it shall be faithfully remitted to thee by thy True Friend.”” THE POOR MAN'S FUNERAL.-A poor man at Hamburg was to be buried: four men bore the coffin, and the wife followed. They had some difficulty in passing through the narrow lane; the way was straight; not a sunbeam found its way down there,-it was only when they emerged into the broader streets, that the sun-light fell on the humble coffin. I heard a story about this funeral, which is as poetically touching as it is true. Within this narrow street, high up in an equally narrow chamber, lay this poor corpse. The wife sat and wept over it; she knew of no expedient to get it buried-she had no means. The window stood open, when a canary-bird flew into the room and settled by the head of the corpse, where it began to sing;-it made a strange impression on the woman; she could weep no longer, for she imagined it must have come down to her from the Lord. The bird was tame; it allowed itself to be caught directly; and she related the circumstance to a neighbour, and showed her the bird; this woman remembered that she had shortly before read an advertisement in the newspaper about a canary-bird that had flown away from its home. It was the same bird; and the woman, on restoring it to its owners, found there humane hearts, who rendered her such assistance as enabled her to bury the dead, and the funeral was now passing by. Rambles in the Hartz Mountains, by H. C. Anderson. ANECDOTES, SELECTIONS, AND GEMS. KING JAMES, with all his pedantry could sometimes do a witty thing, and sometimes say one. A man once stood upon his head on the pinnacle of a church steeple, and afterwards applied to James for some suitable reward for his fool-hardiness. His majesty expressed his admiration of the feat, and said--"We will grant thee our letters patent, that none else but thyself shall perform the same experiment." Selections. LOVE TO CHRIST.-The test of love to Christ is, that we "keep his commandments;" and the remembrance of how much he has done and suffered for us, should quicken our feet in the way of obedience. We should dread, above all other curses, the doom of the "wicked and slothful servant,"-" wicked," because "slothful." Compared with the anguish of the Saviour's soul, the cross we are called to bear will feel "light" and " easy" indeed! We shall count it an honour to be employed in any service for Him. His will we shall regard as our law; and find that it is the law of love. It will be our meat and our drink to glorify Him on the earth. To be silent in His praise will be impossible. His love will constrain us. We shall feel the attractions of His cross, and ponder our obligations to His grace. Every principle of justice, and every sentiment of gratitude-every dictate of our judgment, and every emotion of our heart, will prompt us to run in the way of His commandments. Under the influence of love to Jesus, duty will be cheerfully performed, trial magnanimously sustained, and prosperity meekly enjoyed. Not "drawing back unto perdition," nor resigning our hope of heaven through love of earth, nor selling our birthright for a mess of pottage; but cheered by the promises of God, sustained by the grace of Jesus, and strengthened by the might of the Spirit, we shall seek to be able to "comprehend with all saints, what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height" of "the love of Christ." SCHOFIELD. SMALL BEGINNINGS.-Everything around us tells us not to despise small beginnings; for they are the lower steps of a ladder that reaches to great results, and we must step upon the lowest before we can ascend to the highest. Despise not small beginnings of knowledge. A host of instances rise up to testify that, by properly improving the small and perhaps imperfect beginnings of knowledge, we may become the most skilful and intelligent person in our trade or profession. Despise not the small beginnings of error and sin. The walls of a castle have been undermined by the burrowings of small and despised animals; and the beginning of error and crime, though at first unheeded, will soon, if not checked, sap the foundations of truth, of virtue, and character. First errors are generally small; despise them not: or they will soon increase to great ones, and be your ruin. ANECDOTES, SELECTIONS, AND GEMS. THE HISTORY OF THE HUMAN RACE is being written daily. From the rising to the setting of the sun this great diary of human feelings, thoughts, passions, and activities, is spread before the eye of Omniscience, and every man has a word, or a line, or a sentence in it. Every man in every land enters something daily on the pages of this vast journal. There is not an idle man in being. All are scribes. There is wondrous variety in the entries; yet, as a whole, there is great sameness in the record; for, with here and there a glorious exception, it seems to have been written with tears, or traced in blood, or burnt into the page by the action of fire. This book is destined to be opened before all its authors when the last entry shall have been made by the last man in the race of humanity, and the praise awarded or the blame thrown upon each will have reference at once to himself, and to his relative position. The man and the brother's keeper-the man and the brother's benefactor-the man and the brother's tyrant-the man and the brother's curse, as the case may be, will then be identified. It will be found literally true that no man either liveth or dieth to himself. LEASK. FAITH, HOPE, CHARITY. FAITH, Hope, and Love, were questioned what they thought Of future bliss, by pure Religion taught: Now Faith believed it firinly to be true, And Hope expected so to find it too; Love answered smiling, with a generous glow, Believe-expect-I know it to be so. Gems. DAISIES.-I have often thought that christians are like daisies-harmless and lovely-and yet they are trodden underfoot or unnoticed. Well: they spring up again, and flourish all the year. F. B. THE IVY AND THE OAK.-I have also thought that a christian is like the ivy, and the Saviour is like the oak, fast hold of which the ivy clings as it climbs, or it would never be seen so high up yonder. F. B. A CHRISTIAN should be like a river, watering all the lands it passes through, and carrying on its bosom rich cargoes, and finding an abundant entrance into the great ocean of eternity. DEATH never comes without a warrant, but often without a warning. Be ready. ON LOVING GOD.-The true measure of loving God is to love him without measure. IGNORANCE AND IMMORALITY.-We may dispel the former by education, but the latter can only be rooted out by the power of the gospel. OUR FAULTS.-None are fatal but those we cover or cherish. Better starve them to death at once. Pluck out a right eye, and cut off a right arın, And sell not thy soul for thy sin; It were better, though maim'd, from destruction to fly, Than whole, with thy sins, to go in. THE PENNY POST. Facts and Hints. A TINY NEWSPAPER, entitled The Northern Luminary, is published monthly in the town of Knaresborough, at the press of Mr. John Burniston, who is sole editor, reporter, compositor, and reader, and prints it with a press manufactured by his own hands. Though diminutive in size, it possesses all the features of a newspaper. THE FIRST ARCHBISHOP IN ENGLAND is his Grace, as some people call him, of Canterbury. It is said that he receives £52 10s. Od. per day! Many would think themselves rich with £52 10s. Od. per year—which would be twenty shillings per week, and ten shillings over. IN LONDON there are 12,000 children regularly under training to crime, 30,000 thieves, 6,000 receivers of stolen goods, 23,000 picked up in a state of drunkenness, 50,000 habitual gin drinkers, and 150,000 persons of both sexes leading an abandoned life. THE DIALS of the new clock at the new palace, at Westminster, are to be thirty feet in diameter-the largest in the world! HIGHWAYS.-There are 100,000 miles of highways in England and Wales, the annual expenses of which are £1,408,750. Public highways are one of our greatest privileges. The Penny Post. UNITED STATES.-Not by Penny Post, certainly, we wish it were so, and hope Elihu Burritt may succeed in getting us an "Ocean Penny Postage," but by the shilling post, we have received a letter from one of our old correspondents, a labouring man, J. H., late of who, being persecuted as a dissenter in a small village in Warwickshire, saved his money, and went over the wide Atlantic to the United States, to seek a honest bread, and freedom to worship God, in some part of its wide regions. (See Pioneer, 1848, page 58.) Poor fellow! in going over, some rascally passenger robbed him of all his money, £12, and when he trod on the shores of America, he found himself without money or friends. Somehow or other he made his way to Verona, near Madison, Dane County, State of Wisconsin, from which place he has now sent another letter, without a date. He seems to think it hard that we and his former friends, did not, when we heard of his mishap, try to do something for him. He says:-"I have a sabbath school in the woods to attend to, and have to work hard all the week. If I could get forty dollars from England, a friend here would make up my loss, and then I could get on some land." J. H. was always a zealous advocate for separation of Church and State, for he had been made to feel the evil effects of the system, and he adds:-"If I could do anything to effect it, I would gladly do it, if I had to work my fingers to the bone in doing it." This may seem to some to be only vain boasting, but we believe our humble friend is quite sincere in his desire, and it is only a sample of the strong feeling which exists in the breast of many a British peasant on this subject. "GREEN BRANCHES AT CHRISTMAS."-One of our readers wishes to be informed respecting the origin of this custom. We have some general notions about it, but if any of our friends will write a short piece on the subject, and send us a copy, we shall be obliged. |