POETRY.

like, and which are very unfair and unjust, like the game laws, and other things, but we have nothing like this! Only think of a poor Englishman being sent to prison, because one of his children had brought home from Sunday-school a little book with a tale in it, or pictures in it, about these game laws, and the quarter sessions sent him to prison ten years for having it in his possession. Well: well: you Americans may boast of your liberty as you like, but I

say:

'England, with all thy faults, I love thee still."

We have our bibles, and our books, which no man dare touch, and well will it be for us if we make good use of them.

Poetry.

THE SAINT'S HEAVENLY HOME.

WHILE through this barren wilderness, so wearily we roam,
How sweet to cast a look above, and think we're going home;
To know that there the trials of our pilgrimage shall cease,
And all the waves of earthly woe be hushed to heavenly peace!
Home! sweet Home!

Oh! for that land of rest above, our own eternal Home.

Blest thought! in that delightful home the parent hopes to meet
His offspring saved there, to cast their crowns at Jesus feet;

For ever free from sin, and from temptations power,

To mingle in the bliss and joy of Eden's happy bower.
Home! sweet Home!

Oh to enjoy that bliss above, the family at Home!

Here trees are not the trees that grow in beauty by the side

Of that bright flood, whose living streams through sinless regions glide. We see not here the immortal fruit, the fadeless flowers that bloom

On hills of light, in vales of peace, at our bright Eden home.

Home! sweet Home!

Oh for that land of rest above, our own eternal Home.

The tones we hear are not the tones of music and of love,

That breathe from thousand harps the song of endless joys above.
We tread in haste along, with trembling and with fear,
For this is not our home! We've no continuing here.
Home sweet Home!

Oh for that land of rest above, our own eternal Home!

Oh! for the death of those that die, like daylight in the west,

And sink like the waves at eve to calm untroubled rest;

They stand before their Father's face, and tears and trembling o'er, Redeemed and washed, they dwell at home, and shall go out no more. Home! sweet Home!

Oh for the land of rest above, our own ETERNAL HOME!

ANECDOTES AND SELECTIONS.

Anecdotes and Selections.

PLENTY OF WORK AND GOOD WAGES.-Ah, says the labouring man, that is what I want! It is good news if it be true. Well, I dont wish to tantalize or disappoint you, and so I may as well tell you at once that the work and the wages to which I refer are not what perhaps you think they are. I wish from my heart I could say that there is now to be had plenty of work and good wages for all. This would be good news to many, and I should rejoice if I could tell it. I am glad, however, that there has been an improvement in these things lately. Some have had more work and better wages, and all have had cheaper bread, and that is a great good. Let us hope that all will before long. But I wish to say a word to some of my readers about working for a Master who always pays good wages, and who employs all who come-God does. Work for him, and he will pay you well. I have said he employs all. Why if you cannot read a b c he can set you to work; but if you can read you will make a better servant. Take your bible, or some good book, and go and visit your aged or sick neighbours, and it will do their hearts good to hear you read the words of their Father in Heaven, who loves them, and would fain forgive them and save them-or open your own house for a prayer meeting, invite neighbours to come in, and get some christian man to come and give them a word of exhortation-or take tracts round among them or get them to take every month a cheap little religious magazine like this or go to the sabbath school, and as you enter, hear your Lord saying, "Take this child, and nurse it for me, and I will give thee thy wages." Now what say you-will you work for God? only work hard and well for him and HE WILL GIVE

THEE A CROWN AND A KINGDOM.

J. B. KEEP YOUR TEMPER.-A collector of rates, in London, called lately upon a tradesman in High Holborn, when the following conversation took place. Said the tradesman;-"You will excuse me, but I dont know how it is, you always appear so good-tempered. Yours is a troublesome occupation, having often to call two or three times on some before you get your money." "Yes, more than that, sir, eight or nine times on some. But if none were to give more trouble than you do, I should have none at all." "But it must be very trying to your temper." "Why yes sir, some would say so; but I have not been in a passion for these five-and-twenty years." "How is that? Your nature must be different from that of other men." "No sir, I used to be passionate, but I found that more flies were caught by honey than vinegar.' "Well, that is true." "Yes sir, and I looked at the beasts of the field, and found that when they are put out of temper, they kick, and prance, and sometimes do themselves harm. Then I thought, man is endowed with

ANECDOTES AND SELECTIONS.

reason to distinguish him from the beasts, and therefore, if he is out of temper, and flies into a passion, he is worse than the beasts." "Your philosophy is very good; I wish it were so with me: but I think if you were of my business you would be put out of temper." The collector smiled and went his way. T. K.

POOR IN BOTH WORLDS.-There are some who have no treasure either in heaven or earth. They are spiritually and temporally poor: poor for eternity, and poor for time: in this world they have only a vale of tears; and in another, “lamentation, and mourning, and woe." You cannot suppose, unless you imagine the writer a barbarian, that he can say this without feeling. But he may feel, and yet be faithful; and how indeed could he express a concern for your welfare if he were to allow you to remain under a delusion the most dangerous? You think, perhaps, that your hardships and trials will recommend you to God; and you are often heard to say, "It is better to suffer here than hereafter." But you will suffer in both if you reject the counsel of God against yourselves, and adjudge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life. Christianity has indeed a most tender and a peculiar aspect towards the sons and daughters of want and woe-"The poor have the gospel preached unto them." But you must receive it in order to be benefited by it. Then, indeed, your privations will be sanctified; the Lord will bless your bread and your water, and your humble dwelling will become as a palace. JAY.

OPPRESSION.-Milton, as he ought, experienced that noble pride and enthusiasm which the consciousness of genius inspires. He could, therefore, not behold without abhorrence an order of things in which the accidental possessor of wealth, or place, or a title, assumed the air of a superior, or of a master; while he acknowledged no master but God, no controlling power but the law, which, when just, is God's minister. He never forgot that man was created in the image of God; that, by putting on the human form, Christ had raised and sanctified it; and, therefore, that whoever sought to debase and oppress human nature was, in fact, the enemy of God and Christ.

THE SABBATH.-An under-sheriff of London mentioning the saying of a Puritan divine, "Hem the sabbath well, and it will not ravel out all the week;" adds, "My office has enabled me to confirm the value of the sabbath, there being scarcely a criminal, whether for death or minor punishment, who was not daily confessing to me, in Newgate, that he considered his first fall, and subsequent misery, to be owing to the violation of that blessed day."

THE AUTHORITY OF THE PEOPLE is, in reality, the object for which the people are striving, and which they sooner or later will attain an object far higher and far nobler than worldly prosperity. Powerful must the nation become, as well as the individual, who, by free will alone, without any compulsory outward power, knows how to determine its own destiny. But powerful is no one, and great in no degree, who does not first acquire rule over his own sinful heart.

THE FIRESIDE.

The Fireside.

IMPORTANT TO WORKING Men and theIR WIVES AND FAMILIES. -We have now and then thought it right to say something about the mischief of the drinking habit among working men, convinced that by nothing are many of them suffering more than by that. Here is another statement made by one who had the best means of knowing all about it. We hope all wives will, if needs be, read it over again to their husbands.

The amount expended in ardent spirits, exclusive of wines, tobacco, snuff, beer, &c., consumed chiefly by the labouring classes, cannot be much less than from £45,000,000 to £50,000,000 per annum in the United Kingdom. By an estimate which I obtained from an eminent spirit-merchant, of the cost to the consumer of the British spirits on which duty is paid, the annual expenditure on them alone, chiefly by the labouring classes, cannot be less than £24,000,000 per annum. According to the growing conviction of those who have studied the subject, and to the increasing experience of large numbers of working men themselves, this enormous sum is expended to produce pure evil. There is evidence on every hand that the nutritious food, warm clothing, fuel, better houses, which could all be secured by a tithe of this outlay, would give strength, comfort, and a sound mind; while those so-called luxuries, which swallow up the means of all other luxuries, produce, it is true, a temporary excitement wearing the semblance of strength, but undermine the constitution, predispose to disease, shorten life, darken the intellect, and overturn the moral being. The Report quoted above contains statements from all parts of England and Scotland, to the effect that comfort does not depend on the wages of the labourer in anything approaching the degree in which it depends on his habits. Whole bodies of men having wages from thirty shillings up to three pounds a week, may be found living in wretchedness, bare of every decency of life, and without a shilling laid by; while others, having less than half of the least of these sums, bring up their families respectably, and have comfortable homes. Indeed it appears that so prevalent is the habit of spending all beyond the sum wanted for the bare necessaries of existence on drink, that high wages too often tend solely to demoralise. We all know the efforts now made by the friends of temperance to conquer this dreadful evil. Sanitary reform and improved dwellings will powerfully second the good cause; and it is not too much to hope that the rising generation will, by all these aids, and the increasing means of education, rise above it, or even that the present one may shake it off in a great degree.

THE PENNY POST.

The Penny Post.

Dear Sir,—You wish your poor friends to send their thoughts to you for your "Penny Post." Encouraged by this I have sent you mine on two subjects-one on the return of my birth-day; the other after a severe fit of the toothache for nearly three months, which led me to meditate on that cheering and delightful description of the heavenly world in the 21st chapter of Revelations.

We usually prefer that our friends should write for the "Penny Post" in plain prose, but sometimes they seem to prefer verse, so this month we let them have their own way. Another Friend has sent us a few lines which he says were suggested by meeting with the words "Cry and Cling;" which made him think of crying and clinging to Christ. He says they are adapted to the tune "Aaron."