OTHER-am I born to die?" said little Bessie, one day, in a somewhat anxious tone.

Doubtless such a question was not expected by her mother, whose thoughts probably were with her busy fingers in her domestic engagements. So her answer was not satisfactory to poor Bessie when she replied, "Yes, we shall all die; there is nothing more certain."

"But if I do some great thing, and earn a lot of money, and if I am very good, cannot I escape death? for I do not like the thoughts of the grave," continued Bessie, anxiously, as if she wished for something to be said for her relief.

Doubtless her mother took it to be very natural and childlike for her to ask such questions; and her answer was unflinching and honest, as she continued, "No, there is no escape from death; everybody that is born into the world must die sooner or later; rich and poor, old and young, must die; there is no escape; and there is but one source of comfort for you,” said her mother, "that is, God is able to take away the fear of death, and make you willing to die; and Jesus said, 'Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in My name, He will give it you.""

Now, Bessie was only a little child; she did not understand that she had an immortal soul, and that she must appear before a just and holy God; but the words, "God is able to take away the fear of death," were very comforting to her mind, and she now often thinks that they were like the "apples of gold in pictures of silver" that we read of in Proverbs xxv., for they have been very useful to her for nearly thirty years, and she would not like to part with them for any amount of gold or silver.

But we must run back to her then childish thoughts, which were as follows: "God is able to take away this fear, but the next thing is, will He do so?

How shall I make known to Him my wants? Will He hear me if I pray?" She had heard her mother read the little hymn :

"God is in Heaven, and will He hear A little child like me?"

She could believe so much of the hymn, but she was afraid to believe the following lines in her book, namely―

"Yes, thoughtful child, thou need'st not fear,

He listeneth unto thee."

No, that did not suit poor Bessie; she had heard the Bible read. She believed God was holy and just, and she felt sure that He must be angry with her for her sin. And, under this feeling, she one day asked a person how they first began to pray; but I do not think that person understood her case, for she gave her no straightforward answer, but made her a present of a small prayer-book. But how trying this was to her, for, poor child, she could not read it; but, by some means or other, she learned just a few of the prayers, and was sorry to find that they were of no use to her. No; to know Jesus Christ, the sinner's Friend, was what she wanted; but, like a babe, she could only cry, for she was not able to speak out one word of her wants. But God is able to read the hearts of all, both old and young; and Bessie has now good reason to believe that where there is a cry for mercy, that cry will be attended to sooner or later by the Saviour of sinners.

Let us, then, think for a moment. Have we a cry in our hearts for deliverance from the power of death and the grave? or are we going on careless about our souls? There is nothing more certain than death. A few short years, which will quickly pass away, and we shall each be numbered with the dead!

"How stands the case, my soul, with thee? For heaven are thy credentials clear?"

I have just visited a cottage where there are three out of four of the family stretched on the bed of affliction, quite helpless. As the nurse entered the room where I was, she said, "This is a bad case, but there is a worse next door."

Now, there was but one person ill next door; how, then, could that be a worse case? Sad to say, it was so. I could hear the poor sufferer groaning as death was staring her in the face, and she without hope and without God; while the former were calm, and resigned to the will of Him whom they had sought to know and desired to serve while in the enjoyment of their health and prosperity.

Yes, here I again saw that God is able not only to take away the fear of death, but also to make us happy even in the midst of sore affliction.

Reader, have you been brought to seek His mercy and the pardon of your sins through the blood and merit of Jesus? We shall all need Him when we come to die. May the Lord help us constantly to remember that

"Dangers stand thick through all the ground,

To push us to the tomb;

And fierce diseases wait around,
To hurry mortals home."

E. Q. (A GLEANER).

NEVER TOO OLD TO LEARN. A SHEEP farmer who was examined in a sheep-stealing case, deposed to the iden. tity of the stolen sheep by a particular mark in the sheep's jaw. The counsel for the prisoner asked the farmer whether he had examined the teeth in both the jaws. Amidst the laughter of the court, the farmer informed the learned counsel that the sheep of this country had teeth only in the lower jaw.-Kind Words.

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A LITTLE BOY'S SERMON. |DDIE," said Harry, "I'll be a minister, and preach you a sermon." "Well," said Eddie, "and I'll be the people."

Harry began: "My text is a short and easy one, Be kind.' There are some little texts in the Bible on purpose for children, and this is one of them. These are the heads of my sermon :—

"First. Be kind to papa, and don't make a noise when he has a headache. I don't believe you know what a headache is; but I do. I had one once, and I did not want to hear any one speak a word.

"Second. Be kind to mamma, and do not make her tell you to do a thing more than once. It is very tiresome to say, 'It is time for you to go to bed' half-a-dozen times over.

"Third. Be kind to baby".

"You have left out, Be kind to Harry," interrupted Eddie.

I

"Yes," said Harry, "I didn't mean to mention my own name in the sermon. was saying, Be kind to little Minnie, and let her have your 'red soldier' to play with when she wants it.

"Fourth. Be kind to Jane, and don't scream and kick when she washes and dresses you."

Here Eddie looked a little ashamed, and said, “But she pulled my hair with the comb."

"People mustn't talk in meeting," said Harry.

"Fifth. Be kind to Kitty. Do what will make her purr, and don't do what will make her cry."

"Isn't the sermon most done?" asked Eddie; "I want to sing." And, without waiting for Harry to finish his discourse or give out a hymn, she began to sing, and so Harry had to stop.--Children's Record.

[There are many people besides Eddie who like short sermons, especially when their faults and their duties are pointed out.-ED.]

THE DARK DAY

IN the 19th of May, 1780, the day was darkened over a very large part of the United States. The cause of the darkness has never been explained. It was too extensive to be caused by forest fires; besides, no fires were reported; and the darkness came on suddenly. The area covered by it was more than three hundred thousand square miles.

Previous to the 19th a vapour filled the air for several days. There was a smell of sulphur. The morning of the 19th was overcast with some clouds, and rain fell over the country, with lightning and thunder. Scarcely any motion was in the air; what wind there was came from the south-west. By nine o'clock in the forenoon, without previous warning, the darkness stole gradually on, with a luminous appearance near the horizon, as if the obscuring cloud had dropped down from overhead. There was a yellowness of the atmosphere that made clear silver assume a grass-green hue. Then a dense undefinable vapour settled rapidly and without ærial movement over all the land and ocean from Pennsylvania to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, the darkness it caused sinking by degrees until the sunlight was effectually shut out. Ordinary cloud it was not. The rapidity with which so large an extent of country was enveloped precludes the possibility of supposing this to have been a natural cloud moveing laterally. Besides this the day was too calm to imagine such a thing. Down came the darkness thicker and thicker. By ten o'clock the air was loaded with a thick gloom. The heavens were tinged with a yellowness or faint red; the lurid look increased; few, if any, ordinary clouds were visible. The sun, in disappearing, took on a brassy hue. The lurid, brassy colour spread everywhere, above and below. The grass assumed the colour of the sky, and all outdoors wore a sickly, weird, and melancholy aspect-a dusky

IN NEW ENGLAND.

appearance as if seen through a smoked glass. By eleven o'clock it was as night itself, and from this time until three in the afternoon the darkness was extraordinary and frightful.

The darkness appears to have extended over a large part of Canada. The hour and minute could not be discovered on the face of a clock or watch by persons of unimpaired eyesight. Candles became an absolute necessity both outdoors and in, as it was impossible to transact ordinary business without them. Fires on the hearthstone shone as brightly as on a moonless November evening, and all dinner tables were set with lighted candles upon them as if it were the evening repast. The keenest eyes indoors could not see to read the common print. So far beyond any ordinary fog was the effect, that stages on the road either put up at the nearest hotel during the midday hours, or carried candles or lanterns to enable the perplexed driver to see his way.

The birds sang their evening songs, as if night had come. The flocks and herds sought shelter as if for the night, or in time of danger. The mechanic left his tools in the shop, the farmer his plough in the furrow, and each moved in silent and marvelling mood toward the barn or dwelling. On the home threshhold they were met by pale and anxious women, who tremblingly inquired, "What is coming?" The alarmed traveller, seeking the sympathy of his fellow-man as one impressed with a sense of impending peril, put up at the nearest house, and mingled his anxious questionings and forebodings with those of the family. Strong men met and spoke with surprise on their countenances, and little children peered timidly into the deepening gloom, and then sought the sheltering parental arms. Schools broke up in affright, and the wondering pupils scampered homeward with many expressions of childish

all

fear. The inevitable candle shone out of the windows of all dwellings; every countenance gathered blackness; hearts were filled with fear of an approaching unparalleled storm, or the occurrence of a terrestrial convulsion; but it was not the blackness of a storm-cloud, such as sometimes, with frightful agitation, breaks over a single city; it was the silent spreading of the pall-cloth over the earth by strong, invisible hands. Many anecdotes of terror are related. In Boston, from the hours of eleven or one till three o'clock, business was generally suspended and shops were closed. At Groton, a court was in session in a meeting-house full of large windows, as was the old style of houses of worship; but at half-past eleven all faces began to wear a sombre hue, whereupon magistrate and people followed suit with all New England and called for lighted candles.

Connecticut went totally under the cloud. The journal of her House of Representatives puts on record the fact that "None could see to read or write in the House, or even at a window, or distinguish persons at a small distance, or perceive any distinction of dress, &c., in the circle of attendants. Therefore at eleven o'clock, the House adjourned till two o'clock in the afternoon." Amid the deepening gloom that wrapped about the city, darkened the rooms of the State House, and set the lawgivers trembling with the apprehension that the Day of Judgment was at hand, when the motion for adjournment was made, Colonel Abraham Davenport, afterward Judge of Stamford, Conn., and State Councillor in the Legislative Chamber at Hartford, said: "I am against the adjournment. Either the Day of Judgment is at hand, or it is not. If it is not, there is no cause for adjournment. If it is, I wish to be found in the line of my duty. I wish candles to be brought."

The darkness of the day having been succeeded an hour or two before evening by a partially clear sky, and the shining of the sun still obscured by the black and

43

vapoury mist, this interval was followed by a return of the obscuration with greater density, that rendered the first half of the night hideously dark beyond all former experience of probably a million of people who saw it.-Halifax Witness.

NO GOOD FROM PASSION. "WILL putting one's self in a passion mend the matter?" said an old man to a boy, who had picked up a stone to throw at a dog. The dog only barked at him in play.

"Yes, it will mend the matter," said the passionate boy, and quickly dashed the stone at the dog.

The animal, thus enraged, sprang at the boy and bit his leg, while the stone bounded against a shop window and broke a pane of glass.

Out ran the shopkeeper, and scized the boy, and made him pay for the broken pane.

He had mended the matter finely indeed!

Take my word for it, it never did, and never will mend the matter to get into a passion about it. If the thing be hard to bear when you are calm, it will be harder when you are in anger.

If you have met with a loss, you will only increase it by losing your temper.

There is something which is very littleminded and silly in giving way to sudden passion. Do set yourself against it with all your heart.

Try, then, to be calm, especially in trifling troubles; and when greater ones come, try to bear them bravely.

ORDER IS HEAVEN'S FIRST

LAW.

THERE are two ways of going about your work: I, with a plan; 2, without a plan; and, as order is heaven's first law," try to do all things decently and in order.

[WHEN speaking with a friend a few days ago, we were pleased to hear him say how serviceable he had found the advice given him in his younger days by an aged and godly man; and he mentioned especially one thing, which he said had often been a help to him amidst the cares of life, namely, "Remember," said the old man, "there is nothing too little to take to the Lord." We have often proved this to be true in our own case, and, thinking that the word of advice might be of use to our readers, we here give a practical illustration of its truth, as related by a poor woman to a lady visitor.] She said :

:

"Last Christmas I lost my bucket down the well, and I was in a great deal of trouble about it at the time. My husband paid two men a shilling each to get it up again, but they could not, so they gave it up; and, ever since that, I have every morning borrowed a bucket of some of my neighbours, and got up enough water for the day, and then that satisfied me. Well, yesterday was a week I was working with Hannah Brown's bucket, and down it went. Oh, I was in such a way! I felt as if I had dropped my child down. Why, it was borrowed! Borrowed! Who could lend me one again? What could I do? I called in my next-door neighbour. She is a good strong woman, and she was very kind, and tried at it for a long time; and her husband came home for his dinner, and he came in and tried; and Hannah Brown heard of it, and she came over and tried; and my husband came home for his dinner, and he tried. They all pushed me back. They said, "You poor weak woman, you had better stand out of the way." At last Mr. Walsh could stay no longer, nor could he longer spare his wife, as he wanted her to get his dinner; Hannah Brown must go home to hers; and my husband was impatient for his dinner, as it was time to return to his work; so they all left me, promising to return and try in the evening.

When

they were all gone, I sat me down, and I thought to myself, thinks I, 'There's one Friend I have not been to yet, and I ought to have gone to Him first;' so I shuts to that door, and I kneels down at that there chair where you sits, and I prays to the Lord to help me. It was an uncommon poor prayer I made. I could not think of many words, but I told Him what trouble I was in, and that, if it was pleasing to Him, He could help me out of it; and then I got up, and sits me down in the chair, but I could not get on with my needlework neither, so I goes into the yard and looks down into the well, and, without hardly thinking what I was about, I begins to wind. The gravels [meaning grappling irons] were on. Presently it feels rather heavy; so I goes on winding, and what comes up but my own bucket, that had been down ever since Christmas!"

"Well," I said, with delight, "you do surprise me! Surely our God is a faithful God. I expect now to hear that you tried for the other."

"No, my dear madam," she replied. "No; I felt it was the Lord that could help me to get up the other, if it was pleasing to Him; but I would not try without asking Him first, so I comes in again and kneels down at the chair. I could make no better prayer than before. It was a very poor prayer, but I told the Lord how thankful I was that He had helped me, but, if it was pleasing to Him, I would try for the other; if not, I would give my bucket to Hannah Brown. So then I went out, and lets down my grappling irons again, and first turn up it comes. I called in my neighbour and said, 'There's my bucket, and there's Hannah Brown's.""