Study Character.

I suppose that our dear Master looked upon us as we look upon scholars in the school. Here comes to my school a bright orphan boy. He is from the city. On tracing him back I find him to be of German parentage. His father and mother were educated people. They came to this country, and sickened and died, and left him in a state of poverty. He was found in the street, and caught up and taken into some eleemosynary institution, and brought into the countryand sent to my school. He has an aptitude for learning. It is born in him. He is thorough-bred-bred in the blood. I put him to books, and oh, how he learns to read, and write, and cipher! The trouble is to give him tasks enough. I have to put twice as much on him as I do on some of the other boys, to keep him busy.

The next one that comes is a thicklipped, heavy-jawed boy. His father was a good plodding farmer, that never knew much, and did not amount to much. I have to drill that boy. He studies and works hard; but it takes him longer to get through simple addition than it takes the other boy to get through the whole arithmetic.

Well, what do I do? I adopt two rules of measurement. I do not judge of this boy by a comparison of him with that boy. I judge of him by what he is himself, by what he has in him; by what he is capable of; by what his aptitudes are. The standard by which he is to be measured, is to be formed according to that with which God has endowed him. And I do not punish him because he does not get along as well as the other boy. I encourage him, and I encourage him at just the point where I would whip that other boy. I take into consideration what his organization is. I consider the coarseness of his bones, and the slenderness of his nerves, or the difficulty of getting at them.

And there is a third of intermediate condition between that of extreme susceptibility, and that of an almost entire want of susceptibility.

Was there ever a man who took care of a gang of hands that did not sort them out, and assign their work according to their peculiar organizations? If the foreman wants anything done quick,

he

says: "Here, Bill. Where is Bill? Bill, do this." Bill is selected for that special duty because he is best fitted for it by his organization. If, on the other hand, he wants a thing done which requires patient, plodding industry, he calls another man who is best fitted for that thing by his organization. So in every relation of life men are sorted for their work, and different men are recognized as being adapted to different pursuits.

Now, do not you suppose that the Lord Jesus Christ knows as much of human nature as we do? Do you suppose that He is less discriminating than we are? Do not you suppose that He adapts His administration to men according to what they are? Do not you suppose that they are what they are by His permission? Do not you suppose that in the working out of the problem of every man's life, the divine grace, and wisdom, and patience, and kindness are exercised in accordance with his temperament and his faculties? I believe it. I know it.-S. S. Times.

A Truly Agreeable Helpmate.

INSTEAD of turning every young woman into "a heavenly Una, with her milk-white lamb," better let us have her a " neat-handed Phyllis," cooking savory messes, and looking at lambs, like Lady Walter Scott, with a chief eye to their speedy appearance in pastries. She holds all the husband who holds his stomach. That is the true piano-forte for the accomplished instrumentalist to play upon who wishes to be mistress of her own household. The ear never tires, the heart never nauseates of that music, if pitched on the right key. Literature, drawing-room accomplishments, graceful manners, a fine bearing, an elegant conversation, are admirable charms no doubt; but they don't make and they don't keep a home. The woman who in middle society-I hardly know why I should make this limitation-has quartered herself upon a husband whose future is but a contingency, and cannot be cook, nurse, seamstress, and housekeeper on an emergency, enjoys her establishment under false pretences.-Dublin University Magazine.

"Where are my two sons, that they too, may drink of the cup of blessing?" "They will not be far off," she said, and placed food before him that he might eat. He was in a gladsome and genial mood, and when he had said grace after the meal, she thus addressed him: "Rabbi, with thy permission I would fain propose to thee one question."

"Ask it then, my love," he replied. "A few days ago a person entrusted some jewels to my custody, and now he demands them; should I give them

back?"

"This is a question," said the Rabbi Meir, “which my wife should not have thought it necessary to ask. What! Wouldst thou hesitate or be reluctant to restore to every one his own?"

"No," she replied; "but yet I thought it best not to restore them without acquainting thee therewith."

She then led him to their chamber, and stepping to the bed took the white covering from the dead bodies.

"Ah! my sons! my sons!" loudly lamented the father. "My sons! the light of my eyes, and the light of my understanding. I was your father, but ye were my teachers in the law."

The mother turned away and wept bitterly. At length she took her husband by the hand, and said,

"Rabbi, didst thou not teach me that we must not be reluctant to restore that which was entrusted to our keeping? See, the Lord gave, the Lord hath taken away, and blessed be the name of the Lord!"

"Blessed be the name of the Lord!" echoed Rabbi Meir," and blessed be His name for thy sake, too! For well is it written: Whoso hath found a virtuous wife, hath a greater treasure than costly pearls; she openeth her mouth with wisdom, and in her tongue is the law of kindness.' Prov. 31: 26.

Too Late.

man

The prize for the essay on metaphysics was awarded to a young man named Max Markmann, who had sent his essay under the name of "Hans Wildenstein." When Markmann's name was announced, a pale, poorly-clad, exceedingly wretched-looking young stepped forward, and was greeted with a hearty round of applause. His hair was thin and already sprinkled with gray, and his whole appearance excited the sympathy of the audience. After receiving the prize he quietly returned to his seat. One after another, as the titles of the best essays were announced, the accompanying envelopes disclosed Markmann as the author, and the applause grew tumultuous as the young man, looking more weary every time, stepped forward. The excitement among the students was so great that a suggestion would have caused them to carry him off in triumph.

The essays being all examined, the poems came next in turn and the prize was Markmann's. It was entitled "The Village School-master," and Berthold Auerbach, who was one of the committee, pronounced it one of the most gracefully written stories he had ever read. This was the last prize awarded; but hardly had the fortunate competitor arisen to go and receive it, when he fell fainting on the floor. A death-like stillness reigned in the hall, while they carried the young man into an adjoining room, where the physicians succeeded in restoring him to consciousness; but that was all, for four hours afterward he was a corpse! His decease was the result of long years of deprivation, he was literally starved to death.. The rewards came too late to be of real service to him.

In contrast with such a sad case, how

cheering it is to reflect that the Christian can never receive the prize of his high calling too late to be of service to him. Even death cannot rob us of that prize, or render the rewards of faithful labor for Christ valueless as were the student's prizes.

Where Are the Children?

Christian parents, are your children found by your side in the house of God? Can you say, as you present them there each Sabbath," Behold, I and the children that thou hast given me?" If not, where are they during these consecrated hours? A few years more and they must go forth into the world. Will it not be without the settled principles and habits which can guard them in the warfare of life? A little while longer and you must leave them, and without your guiding hand they must go forward "sounding on their dim and perilous way." Your influence then will be confined to the chain of memory which runs back to the past. Will their recollection then recur to hallowed hours when you sat together in God's temple so that they feel they can not abandon the habit which you have inculcated, or coldly turn away from the worship of their father's God?

Our Lord lays it down as a proof of our love for Him, "Feed my lambs!" The children are the hope of the church; but with the fearful influences now abroad-coldness at home and skepticism without-what will the next generation become? We believe the day is not far distant when the church, in sorrow and penitence, will awake to an acknowledgment of the truth that the "old paths are the best "-that the divinely constituted institutions of the Church and the home can alone truly train the young for Christian life-and that if for them are substituted the novelties and excitements of this age of experiments all will prove but a delusion and a snare.-Exchange.

Dr. John Hall uttered this golden sentence in one of his Yale lectures: "The best way for a man to get out of a lowly position is to be conspicuously effective in it." Here is opportunity for the humblest teachers and workers.

CHRIST'S LAMBS.-The attention of a servant-maid in Edinburgh, to the spiritual interests of a little girl commited to her charge, and who died when nine years old, was peculiarly owned of God. The servant was accustomed to attend on the ministry of Mr. Patison, and the child was permitted to accompany her. By degrees the attention of her young charge was so drawn out to the sermons she heard that the account she gave of many of the precious truths, which fell from the lips of that worthy minister of Christ, far exceeded what might have been expected from her tender years. Happening, one day, in the course of his family visits, to call at the house where the dear child and her maid lodged during the bathing season, Mr. Patison entered into conversation with her, and, from her punctual attendance on public ordinances, he took occasion to ask her if she recollected his preaching on Isaiah 11: 11: "He shall feed his flock like a shepherd; he shall gather the lambs with his arms," etc. Yes," replied the child, "I remember it very well; for all the time you were preaching I was wishing with all my heart that I were one of Christ's lambs." "Ah, my dear!" said the good man, not a little affected," what a happy day would it have been in Bristo Street, had all hearers been employed in a similar manner!"-Dr. A. C. Thompson.

WHEN a rich man gives his beautiful garden into the hands of a gardener, the flowers, plants, and trees are not the gardener's, to do with as he pleases. They belong to the master. The gardener's duty, is to tend them, with all diligence, skill, and care for the owner. Homes and Sabbath-schools are God's gardens, parents and teachers are but His gardeners.

THE ripple that the boy's oar starts on the western shore of the Atlantic goes quivering and rolling clear across the ocean, and breaks on the farther shore. So the waves or ripples of influence which our lives start here will not be stilled or stayed, till they have broken upon the eternal shores. No man's work will be finished till all the results of life have been gathered up in final consummation.

A MAN who was in the Confederate army, tells how he was brought to Christ. He had heard eloquent sermons, and they had not affected him. At last, wounded, sick, covered with vermin, he crept up to the house of a wounded man in Maryland, and asked to sleep in the barn. They said, "No, sleep in the house," but he would not. A bed was made for him in the porch. He went to bed, and at length he heard a little child at prayer, as follows: "Bless papa, and mamma, and bless the soldier in the porch. If he don't know Christ then, Saviour, let him see Thee, as I saw Thee and know Thee as I know Thee. Let him believe that Thou art near him now, ready to save him. Let him see how Thou lovest him." The heart of the soldier was broken. He said to himself, Does God love me? Yes. Proof, Christ came from God to save me. This is the message. The child brought it. I believed it and am saved.

Ir is related of the late Mr. Butler of Providence, Rhode Island, that he was so obliging as to re-open his store one night solely to supply a little girl with a spool of thread which she wanted. The incident took wings, brought him a large run of custom, and he died a millionaire, after subscribing $40,000 toward founding a hospital for the insane. There is no capital which a young man can invest in business of any kind, which will yield him such a percentage of revenue, as a sweet and simple courtesy. On the lowest ground, that of mere worldly policy, it pays to be kind and obliging to all.

DURING the severest crisis of the war, a poor widow came to Mr. Lincoln to beg that she might have back a son out of the army. The good man listened patiently and tenderly to her pleading. Then in a gentle voice he told her that he could not grant her request, as all must suffer together till the nation was saved. And privately he put into her hand aid from his own purse, and sent her away, denied, but comforted and helped. Thus God sometimes answers His people's prayers, denying them what they ask, but giving them such comfort and help that they go away rejoicing.

A STORY is told of a great captain who, after a battle, was talking over the events of the day with his officers. He asked them who had done the best that day. Some spoke of one man who had fought very bravely, and some of another. "No," said he, " you are all mistaken. The best man in the field today was a soldier who was just lifting his arm to strike an enemy, but, when he heard the trumpet sound a retreat, checked himself, and dropped his arm without striking a blow. That perfect and ready obedience to the will of his general is the noblest thing that has been done to-day." And nothing pleases God so much as absolute and unhesitating obedience.

DURING the siege of Paris, while hostile armies lay all about the city, cutting off all communications, messages were sent out by carrier pigeons. With the little parcels fastened about them, they would soar away up into the air, and then dart off in a straight line for their destination. And no armies could stop them or intercept their messages. So prayers can be sent up to God from the very thickest perils. No dungeon is so deep but out of it they can fly.

A MOTHER said that from the time her children began to call her" mother," the word had a wondrous power over her which she could not describe. She might be in the attic, busily engaged, but if, three stories below, she heard one of her little ones calling her "mother," The very name it went to her heart. was so sweet that it drew her right away from her work to answer the call. What power, then, may we not suppose the dear name "Father," from the lips of His children, to have with the Father in heaven.

THERE is said to be an enactment on the statute books of a western state, making any resident land owner liable to severe penalties for permitting Canada thistles to grow on his premises. Yet there are men whose lives bristle all over with immoralities and sins infinitely more pestilent than Canada thistles, of whom human laws take no cognizance. Who can estimate the evil done in the community by one wicked man?