ARABS OF THE MIDDLE AGES. covered with satin cushions and velvet hangings; and muslins and lace of fairy-like texture adorned the Moslem bride. In metals the Arabs were also excellent workmen. They forged huge chains and bars of iron; the steel of Damascus was renowned in the cities of Europe. Their jewellery was the fairest and costliest of the age; they lavished gold and silver in decorating their mosques and their palaces; and their mints produced a coinage that was the model of the European world. As architects they invented a strangely graceful style of building, in which the fancy of the artist seemed to revel in new creations, and of which the lovely ruins of the Alhambra form a living example; in their private houses they gathered the richest marbles, the costliest mosaics, fountains of dancing waters, and gardens of perpetual beauty. The Arab workman was usually temperate, almost to austerity. Mohammed had enforced the doctrine of total abstinence with a rigour unsurpassed by the most austere of modern reformers. He denounced temporal and external woes against the Mussulman who should touch the accursed wine. He had himself set an example of perfect abstinence, and in their purer age his followers obeyed the precept of their prophet. It was only in the decline of the nation the Mohammedans learned to imitate the drunkenness and license of the Europeans. Temperate in their diet, frugal in their mode of life, the Arabs posssessed sound intellects in sound bodies; they soon began to display an intellectual vigour that raised them to the front of civilization. They eagerly sought for knowledge amidst the ruins of Grecian literature, and the poets and philosophers of Athens and of Rome were translated for the benefit of the students of Bagdad and Cordova. The colleges and schools of the Arab cities were thronged with attentive scholars when the great nobles of France and England could neither read nor write; they produced eminent poets and graceful writers while Europe had neither literature nor a language; their libraries numbered thousands of volumes when Oxford possessed only a few imperfect manuscripts chained to the walls; and the poorest merchant of Bagdad lived with more comfort and was far better informed than the proud knight who came at the head of his barbarous squadrons to die on the burning plains of Syria in an ineffectual crusade. THE MANUFACTURE OF PINS. THE MANUFACTURE OF PINS. THE pin machine is one of the closest approaches that machines have made to the dexterity of the human hand. A small machine about the height and size of a lady's sewing machine, only stronger, stands before you. On the back side a light belt descends from the long shaft at the ceiling that drives all the machines, ranged in rows on the floor. On the left side of our machine hangs on a peg a small reel of wire, that has been straightened by running through a compound system of small rollers. This wire descends and the end of it enters the machine. This is the food consumed by this snappish, voracious little dwarf. He pulls it in and bites it off by the inches, incessantly, one hundred and forty bites to a minute. Just as he seizes each bite, a saucy little hammer with a concave face, hits the end of the wire three taps, and " upsets" it to a head, while he grips it in a counter sunk hole between his teeth. With an outward thrust of the tongue he then lays the pin sideways in a little groove across the rim of a small wheel that slowly revolves just under his nose. By the external pressure of a stationary hoop these pins roll in their places, as they are carried under two series of small files, and grow finer towards the end of the series. They lie at a slight inclination on the points of the pins, and by a series of cams, levers, and springs, are made to play "like lightening." Thus the pins are pointed and then dropped into a small box. Twenty-eight pounds of pins is a day's work for one of these jerking little automatons. Forty machines on this floor make five hundred and sixty pounds daily. These are then polished. Two very intelligent machines reject every crooked pin, even the slightest irregularity of form being detected. Another automaton assorts half a dozen lengths in as many different boxes, all at once and unerringly, when a careless operator has mixed the contents of boxes from various machines. Lastly a perfect genius of a machine hangs the pins by the head in an inclined platform through as many slots as there are pins in a row on the papers. These slots converge into the exact space spanning the length of a row. Under them runs the strip of thin paper. A hand-like part of the machine catches one pin from each of these slots as it falls, and by one movement sticks them all through two corrugated ridges in the paper, from which POETRY. they are to be picked by fingers in boudoirs, and all sorts of human fingers in all sorts of human circumstances. have its genesis : Thus you "Tall and slender, straight and thin, Pretty, little, useful pin.” Poetry. "BE STILL, MY SOUL.” BE still, my soul! the Lord is on thy side; In every change He faithful will remain. Be still, my soul! thy God doth undertake All now mysterious shall be bright at last. Be still, my soul! when dearest friends depart, Be still, my soul! the hour is hastening on Be still, my soul! when change and tears are past, Be still, my soul! begin the song of praise Through passing clouds shall but more brightly shine. ANECDOTES AND SELECTIONS Anecdotes and Selections. A SHARER WITH CHRIST.-It is a sweet, a joyful thing, to be a sharer with Christ in anything. All enjoyments wherein He is not, are bitter to a soul that loves Him, and all sufferings with Him are sweet. The worst things of Christ are more truly delightful than the best things of the world; His afflictions are sweeter than their pleasures, His "reproach" more glorious than their honours, and more rich than their treasures, as Moses accounted them. Love delights in likeness and communion, not only in things otherwise pleasant, but in the hardest and harshest things, which have not anything in them desirable, but only that likeness. So that this thought is very sweet to a heart possessed with this love. What does the world by its hatred and persecutions, and revilings for the sake of Christ, but make me more like Him, give me a greater share with Him in that which He did so willingly undergo for me? "When He was sought for to be made a king," as St. Bernard remarks, "He escaped: but when He was brought to the cross, He freely yielded Himself." And shall I shrink and creep back from what He calls me to suffer for His sake? Yea, even all my other troubles and sufferings I will desire to have stamped thus, with this conformity to the sufferings of Christ, in the humble, obedient, cheerful endurance of them, and the giving up of my will to my Father's. -Archbishop Leighton. Never A WORD FOR Young Men:-Keep good company or none. be idle. If your hands cannot be usefully employed, attend to the cultivation of your mind. Always speak the truth. Make few promises. Live up to your engagements. Keep your own secrets, if you have any. When you speak to a person look him in the face. Good company and good conversation are the very sinews of virtue. Good character is above all else. Your character cannot be essentially injured except by your own acts. If one speaks evil of you, let your life be such that none will believe him. Drink no kind of intoxicating liquors. When you retire to bed, think over what you have been doing during the day. Make no haste to be rich, if you would prosper; small and steady gains give competency, with tranquillity of mind. Never play at any kind of games of chance. Avoid temptation, through fear you may not withstand it. Never run into debt, unless you see a way to get out again. Never borrow if you can possibly avoid it. Never speak evil of any one. Be just before you are generous. Keep yourself innocent, if you would be happy. Save when you are young to spend when you are old. GREAT MEN.-The great and successful men of history, are commonly made by the great occasions they fill. They are the men who had faith to meet such occasions, and therefore the occasions marked ANECDOTES AND SELECTIONS. A them, called them to come and be what the successes of their faith would make them. The boy is but a shepherd; but he hears from his panic-stricken countrymen of the giant champion of their enemies. fire seizes him, and he goes down, with nothing but his sling and his heart of faith, to lay that champion in the dust. Next he is a great military leader, next the king of his country. As with David, so with Nehemiah; as with him, so with Paul; as with him, so with Luther. A Socrates, a Tully, a Cromwell, a Washington-all the great masterspirits, the founders and lawgivers of empires, and defenders of the rights of man, are made by the same law. These did not shrink desparingly within the compass of their poor abilities, but in their hearts of faith they embraced each one his cause, and went forth, under the inspiring force of their call, to apprehend that for which they were apprehended. THE RUSSIAN PIE-BOY.-The first Prince Menschikoff was a pie-boy at Moscow, and was delivering things at a nobleman's kitchen one day, when Czar Peter the Great was expected to dine at the house. While waiting about, he overheard the nobleman giving special direction for the preparation of a favourite dish of the czar's and afterward, when the cook was absent, the boy saw him place something in a dish, which he believed to be poison. As soon as Menschikoff saw the czar in the streets, he cried out his rolls more loudly than usual, and even began to sing and approach the czar, to make himself seen. Peter called him, and asked him some questions, to which he answered so happily that the prince said, "I will keep thee in my service." Menschikoff accepted the offer with joy. At dinner time, without orders, he entered the banqueting hall, and stood behind Peter. When the dish appeared he bent down and whispered "not to touch it." Peter got up, and with a smiling face, made pretence to take the boy into an adjoining apartment, when Menschikoff explained his suspicion. Upon the czar returning to the table, the boyar again offered the dish, and Peter asked him to sit by his side and partake with him. The nobleman coloured, and said it became not a subject to eat the same as the emperor, who, seeing his embarrassment, took the plate and offered it to a dog, who swallowed all its contents. But a few moments afterwards it began to run and howl, then staggered, fell, and soon expired. The boyar was secured, but next morning was found dead in his bed. Menschikoff had not to sell rolls any longer; the first step to his rapid fortune was made, and his descendents are a powerful family in Russia to this day. RANGE OF THE HUMAN EYE.-The range of the human eye may be judged of from a consideration which gives us at the same time a good idea of the scope of animal structure. Supposing that an individual of every known species where to take its stand between the two species that were respectively the next larger and the next smaller than itself, the smallest known animal at one extremity of the line, and the largest |