FACTS, HINTS, GEMS, AND POETRY. smell (called "Malaria") exhaled from animal and vegetable substances in a state of putrid fermentation. REMEMBER!-That cleanliness and good air will improve your health and strength, will check disease, and UNDER GOD will preserve you from all the variety of wretchedness and misery occasioned by Infectious Fever. Facts, Hints, Gems, and Poetry. Facts. It is reckoned that there are upwards of one thousand million inhabitants in the whole world. In Europe there are three hundred millions; in Asia, seven hundred millions; in Africa, sixty millions; in America, seventy millions; and in Oceania, twenty millions. No animal can endure the same differences of climate as man. The height of mountains is reckoned from the sea-level; when many mountains are united at their base, and their general direction is the same, they are called chains; when the width of mountain ranges is as great as the length, they are called groups. Plains have different names in dif. ferent countries. In North America great plains are called savannahs or in South America, llanos or prairies; pampas. The Pacific Ocean occupies more than half of the surface of the globe. The basin of a river, is that part of the country drained by a river with all its tributaries; and the elevated land which divides one basin from another is called the watershed, or water parting. Hints. A fair day in winter is the mother of a storm. You can never make a good shaft of a pig's tail. A man of great memory without learning, hath a rock and a spindle, and no stuff to spin. The noise is often greater than the nuts. Ready money is a ready medicine. He that goes to bed thirsty rises healthy. He that lives in hope, dances without music. He that is surprised with the first frost feels it all the winter. When all men have what belongs to them, it cannot be much. The house is a fine house when good folks are in it. We leave more to do when we die, than we have done. and the little all little. The great would have none great, Gems. Better be a humble sinner than a haughty saint. The bumble are ignorant of their own humility. He that breaks his will and yields The love of money and the love of is ascending; he that gives the reins learning rarely meet. to his passions, is falling. Experience makes able men; the Cross, good Christians. Bad companions are the wet nurses of the devil. FACTS, HINTS, GEMS, AND POETRY. Without the aid of a mirror no one His robe was white as flakes of snow can perceive his own face. The sufferings of truth are but for a moment, the victory is for ever. Even Christians are slow of heart to believe how far this world has swerved from the truth. A haven is not home; but it is a place of quiet rest where the_rough waves are stayed. Such is "the Lord'sday." Joy fatigues the spirit: grief, like night, is salutary. It cools down the soul by putting out its feverish fires. To be popular, it is not enough that a man be a good talker; he must be a shallow thinker. Abide in the low plain of thought, and the multitudes will throng you; but ascend to the mountain height of purer thought, and your multitudes will be reduced to a few disciples. LONG had my tears of penitence That through my soul kept calling; One night I watched the shapeless clouds That o'er my mind were rolling, Till the clock's slow and measured tones The hour of twelve were tolling. Then o'er the loved disciple's page I read, and mused, and read again, Within me gently glowing; The clouds that o'er my spirit hung When through the air descending; I saw the clouds beneath Him melt, And rainbows o'er Him bending; And then a voice-no, not a voice,— A deep and calm revealing Came through me like a vesper-strain O'er tranquil waters stealing. And ever since that countenance Is on my pathway shining: A sun from out a higher sky Whose light knows no declining. All day it falls upon my road, And keeps my feet from straying; And when at night I lay me down I fall asleep while praying. BE VALIANT FOR CHRIST AND A GAIN alphabetically in rhyme, Faithfully serve Him in everything; Or, even further, to serve your own ends. Remembering all who thus faithful are found, S hall one day with untold glory be crowned. Then, soldiers, fight on and never give o'er Until your armour be wanted no more. Verily, comrades, it cannot be long They changed to white and purpling flakes W hen from the conflict shall join the bright As at the dawn of morning; And then looked through the countenance, throng. 'X pectants, true to your Captain remain, Y ield not to any, I say once again, Zealous be you for His honour. Amen. J. C. THE CHILDREN'S CORNER. The Children's Corner. THE BOY AND THE BUTTERFLY; OR, TURN NOT ASIDE AFTER VAIN THINGS WHICH CANNOT PROFIT." SEE how the boy, with eager eye, In vain each artifice he tries Now o'er the petals of a rose Now in the tulip's spacious vase And now the prize, so wildly sought, Now hear it, in the pangs of death, Know, pleasures here are gilded flies, Those joys are only worth our chase -Ellen Roberts. "HE TRUSTED ME." THERE was a placard on a window in a street of a great city, that read, "A Boy Wanted," and a great many boys had been in to see about it; but it was only morning, and the merchant who had caused it to be written had not yet come into town. So the boys waited, all hoping to get the situation, and each one expecting his would be the great fortune. Apart from the rest was a boy whose face was sad and thoughtful. It was a good face, clear and open, but that boy had just served a term in the city bridewell. He had stolen a loaf of bread from a baker who employed him occasionally to run on errands—a hard, grasping, avaricious man, who had repeatedly charged him with derelictions from duty when he was innocent, and who had no mercy on him when he was guilty. His mother-his poor toiling, patient mother--the only true friend he had ever known, had died while he was in jail, and now that he was free again, with the disgrace clinging to him, he felt like an alien from humanity. While the boys were waiting, the bells sounded an alarm of fire, and they scampered off after the engine-all but the boy from jail, who waited in a sort of dumb expectancy. Presently a gentleman drove up in a carriage, and stopped before the shop door. His horse was restive, and, as he was getting out, he would have fallen, but the boy started forward, and caught the animal by his head, holding him firmly in one position. "Thank you, my boy," said the gentleman, "that's for your trouble;" and he handed him some loose change, which the boy refused. "It wasn't no trouble," he said, and was turning away. 66 "Stop," said the gentleman; "have you been in there?" pointing to the shop in whose window the placard was. 66 66 'No, sir; the gentleman that wants a boy hasn't come down." 'Well, I am the gentleman. Suppose you come in with me; I would like to talk with you. Do you want a place to make yourself generally useful?" 66 Yes, sir," said the boy, "but"-and then his courage failed. He could not say he had been in jail. "HE TRUSTED ME." "Come into the office," said the merchant; and be passed through the long store, with its row of important-looking clerks, into a small apartment where several men were busy writing. They looked up a moment, bowed to their employer, and, resuming their writing, were deaf to all other sights and sounds. 'Sit down," said the merchant kindly, "and tell me your name and age." "John Dawson-age fourteen." "And now, John, where did you live last?" There was a long silence-a long struggle in John's breast, when he answered, as calmly as he could, "In Jail." The merchant started as if a pistol exploded before him. For a moment he was too surprised to speak. He was no type of a thief or rogue-this fair, frank-looking boy. There was no villainously low forehead, no round, cropped head, no leer in the blue eyes-yet he was a jail-boy. "What were you convicted of?" he asked at length. And John Dawson told him the whole sorrowful story of his sick mother, and his long struggles with want, and temptation, and sin; how at last he stole the loaf of bread, when they were too poor to buy food and fuel, and must have both. O, sir," he went on, "that baker was such a hard man. He never trusted me; he accused me of stealing when I had never touched a pin, and I believe was glad when I did fall; but if you will only trust me, I will never deceive you, sir, or lay my hand on anything that is not mine." Mr. Blake, the merchant, thought long and deeply. There was a chance to save a soul from ruin; he might not succeed, but if the boy had a trial and turned out well, how great a work would be accomplished. He thought of his own little son at home, surrounded by love and virtue, and that decided him. "I will trust you," he said firmly. "You will have plenty of chances to steal even if you are watched, but I shall not watch you. If you deceive me, you ruin your own soul and offend your God. You say your mother was a Christian; for her sake do right, and you will find a virtuous life bring its own reward. Dare to do right, dare to be firm in the cause of virtue, and your own conscience will approve, and your Father in heaven will smile upon you. Now you can begin, and I will give you twelve shillings a week, which will pay your board and clothe you if you |