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lesson he did not forget. The barley har. saw a small boy, in an old straw hat, comvest never kept him at home again on the ing out stealthily from a little country Sabbath.

grocery shop, which stood opposite her Should it be taken for granted that sick dwelling. The boy was evidently in haste ness afflicted the families of all who absent and agitated, and he glanced up and down themselves from our churches, we should the road in an eager, frightened way, which have a long list of names to be prayed for! aroused Mrs. Strong's solicitude at once.

She was certain that the boy had been

guilty of some deed for which he feared de"OF NO USE!”

tection, and she saw that his left hand was

tightly closed, as though it concealed some“ MAY BE it's wrong to feel so, but I can't help it once in a while,” said Mrs. Mrs. Strong was not long in making up Christopher Strong to herself; and then she her mind that the boy had been robbing the heaved a sigh which went deeper than her money-drawer during the absence of the words, and which must have fallen very proprietor, who did not keep a shopman. She heavily on any heart which listened to it. saw, too, that the culprit looked just about “ I can't see what use or benefit I am to the age that her youngest born would have anybody in the world, and why it would reached by this time, and with that thought not be just as well off if I was out of it, stirring her mother-heart, she hurried to anyhow. But God knows best. May-be the door. he has some wise, hidden purpose in pro “ Won't you come across here, my longing a life that I can't see is of any child ? " power or use where it is."

It was a pleasant, earnest voice, that Now, Mrs. Christopher Strong was not went straight across the narrow road; but one of the grumbling, despondent sort of the boy started as though a bomb-shell had folk. You had only to know that to look burst at his side, and his colour changed into the widow's sweet, sereno face, where perceptibly under its tan and freckles. He the marks of the great storms which had looked up and down the road, and then thundered over her life had written them. across to the cottage, where the pleasantselves, and needed no interpretation.

faced little woman stood in her front door, But Mrs. Christopher Strong was just as though he could not quite make up his now in one of those damp days of the soul mind which course to take. which more or less come to all of us. She Her voice, a little more decided, but soft was not yet an old woman, but the sorrows | ond kind, still at last gave the right imwhich had ploughed into her life had pulee. The little ragged ligure moved across stricken her more than a score of added the road, and stood before Mrs. Strong's years might. Her husband had been a front door, and the tanned, soiled face, captain, and had gone down one terrible with its dark eyes, wild for wonder and night, when the waves made great black fear, looked up at the lady. hills turfed with foam, a few miles from " What have you been doing across the shore ; and her two brave boys and one there ? ” she asked, earuest but not severe. sweet daughter lay under lower waves, “ Nothin';" looking very awkward and green or white, as it chanced to be summer frightened. or winter.

Ah! yes, you have, my child. You've So Mrs. Christopher Strong lived alone done something very wrong over there ; in the little cottage, where the voices of something that you would not be willing her children had once made sweet music to any one in the world should see you do; her heart; lived on in feeble health and and you hold now in your hand that which loneliness, waiting God's will with a cheer. isn't yours, which you have no right to ful heart. Only sometimes the mists rode keep.” If Mrs. Strong had seized him by in heavily from the east upon her soul-as the shoulder and shaken him with all her they do upon all of us-the mists of doubt, strength, if she had talked in a loud voice distrust, despondency.

and called him by any harsh and rough A few moments after this little mono epithet which came first to her lips, he logue, Mrs. Strong went to the window would have understood it; but that gentle, to see if any beams of sunlight had strug. grieved voice, that kind, pitiful face, was an gled through the clouds—for the day was entirely new expression to the boy. So he cloudy too--and looking across the road she stood still, finding no word to say, staring

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in the woman's face with his wide eyes and I “YesI'll do something for him," an. mouth, and a faint flush beneath the tan swered the boy eagerly. and freckles.

" Then go right across the street and put “ Tell me the truth, now!" with her back that money which is not yours, and eyes looking straight into his eyes. “Open which you have no right to, in the drawer your hand, and let me see what you've got | whence you took it, and then come back there."

to me."" The boy seemed to have lost all power of It was done in a few moments; and there resistance. Mrs. Strong's very gentleness was a new life, and radiance, and joy, in proved a moral force which subdued him. that boy's whole face, that was touching to The tight fingers unclosed, and there, in see, as he returned once more to the widow, the little, brown, soiled palm, shone two saying, eager and triumphant, “ I've done half-crowns; and now the faint flush burned it! Io God pleased with me now?" up into.crimson, rising until it touched the “ Yes, my child.” Mrs. Strong could roots of the boy's yellow hạir. Mrs. Strong not say another word just then. But she held her breath for a moment, she was so took the boy into the house, and set the best shocked ; but the next one, pity and sym | breakfast which he ever remembered par. pathy for the friendless child supplanted | taking of before the hungry child, and her first emotion of repulsion.

learned then that he was an orphan with She rushed down the steps and laid her only dim, far-off memories of his parents, hand tenderly on the yellow hair. “ My and that having no friends in the world, and child," she said, “ did you know God saw the man with whom he had lived having in you when you stole that money ?"

a fit of drunkenness turned him out of “There wasn't anybody," the boy seemed doors, he had resolved to start off into the to answer almost against his will."

country, find a place with some farmer, "Oh yes, there was! God saw you, and and make his own living in the world. God heard, too, the lie which you have just There was energy and determination in the told me; and you have grieved that great, face which now brightened out from under kind, loving heart of bis, by all this." those masses of tangled bair. Mrs. Strong's

“No, I ain't, neither," angwered the heart yearned over the boy. She did for boy stoutly. “He don't know anything | him what she could: she gave him a new about me. He don't care for such as I l suit of clothes, which had belonged to her

eldest boy; she gave him a little money to The tears sprang warm into Mrs. Strong's | buy his breakfast for another day, as he eyes. “Poor child ! poor child !”—and her affirmed that he had stolen the money from soft hand was now tender as a mother's the grocery that morning simply because he over the tangled hair " has nobody ever was so hungry; and, what was better than told you what a good God he is, and how, all, she gave him tender and blessed coun. because he made you, you bave a place sels with her last blessing, and admonisbed warm and tender in bis heart, a place all him to always carry in his heart the thought yours; and how he watches over you, and that God saw him, and to covenant with cares for and pities you all the more be himself solemnly never to do an act that he cause you are a poor, lonely, friendless would be sorry or ashamed to acknowledge little boy?"

before God; and then he need not fear: The child drank in every word, as his Father in heaven would surely take though each was new, and life to him, as he care of him. And a new, almost prophetic stood there with his greedy eyes fastened inspiration touched the lips of Mrs. Strong on Mrs. Strong.

as she spoke those last words. Two great tears shone bright on the And so the boy went out with a new brown cheeks when she paused. “No vigour in his step, with a new hope, and body ever told me that afore," he said, courage, and life in his soul. Mrs. Strong when she paused. "If they had I wouldn't stood at her front door and watched him ha' taken it."

until he was out of sight, and murmured, “ Well, now, my child, I have told you. “ Poor fatherless and motherless child! I Will you like to do something that will hope I've done him some good. If I could please this great, good God, who is watch know that, I should feel as though I'd been ing over you always, and longs to have you of some use in the world, after all!" become a good and happy boy, a wise and | How the angels must have smiled to useful man?"

| hear her!

be."

Years after, that homeless, friendless lit- | that one poor, feeble, lonely woman. She tle boy stood up before a crowded audience came to me at the right time, and spoke of the finest and most cultivated class in a the right words to me-words which, ponlarge metropolis, and told his story. He dered and lived, will make for any man a was a man now, widely known and uni- | wise, brave, true manhood, for any woman versally respected ; an orator, the stirring a sweet, tender, gracious womanhood." eloquence, and keen logic, and manly in The grass had bound with its dark green spirations of whose discourses had fired plush for many summers the grave of Mrs. many hearts through the land with new Christopher Strong, but it may be that she aspirations and fervid purpose.

leaned down and smiled on the speaker, re* And," continued the speaker, as he membering how she had thought herself, closed, “I owe, under God, all that I am one far-off morning, amid the darkness and now, all the possibilities of my future, to | mists of earth,“ of no use."

Gems from Golden Mines.

COMFORTING THOUGHTS. from above is first pure, then peaceable. Why should not a man, that would die at Knit your brows at the backbiter's approach, all, be as willing at thirty or forty, if God and he will soon sneak away. If you do not see fit, as at seventy or eighty ? Length of | take the venom in, he will not long continue time doth not conquer corruption: it never to give it out. Call up the angry countenance withers or decays through age. Except we to chase the troubler from your presence, as receive an addition of grace as well as time,

you would unleash the gruff watch-dog to we naturally grow worse. “O my soul, de. scare the robber from your garden. You part in peace!" As thou wouldst not desire may as well attempt to let light into a an unlimited estate in wealth or honour, so chamber without expelling the darkness, as desire it not in point of time. How many of

to retain affection for the good without bethe precious servants of God, of all ages and coming a terror to the evil. You are cruel places, have gone before thee! Thou art to your friend, and not kind, if by your softnot to enter an untrodden path, nor ap

ness you stimulate still further the growth pointed first to break the ice. Except Enoch of a thorn, already choking the good seed in and Elijah, which of the saints have escaped

his heart. Give the devil that possesses your death ? And art thou better than they ?

brother a blow, although your brother himThere are many millions of saints dead,

self should feel the smart : when he comes more than now remain on the earth. What a to himself he will thank you. - Dr. Arnot. number of thine own bosom friends and companions in duty, are now gone; and why shouldst thou be so loth to follow ? Nay, hath not Jesus Christ himself gone the way?

THE THANKFUL HEART. Hath he not sanctified the grave to us, and If one should give me a dish of sand, and perfumed the dust with his own body ? and tell me there were particles of iron in it, I art thou loath to follow him too? Rather might look for them with my eyes, and search say as Thomas, “Let us also go, that we for them with my clumsy fingers, and be may die with him."-Baxter.

unable to detect them; but let me take a magnet and sweep through it, and how would

it draw to itself the most invisible particles ANGER AND LOVE,

by the mere power of attraction! The unTHERE is a place for anger as well as forlove. thankful heart, like my finger in the sand, We do not want fretful, passionate people, discovers no mercies ; but let the thankful neither do we want unvarying softness. Let us heart sweep through the day, and as the mag. have a man who loves good and hates evil. net finds the iron, so it will find in every We want something with two sides; that is hour some heavenly blessings; only the iron a solid, real character. The wisdom that is l in God's sand is gold.-0. W. Holmes.

Our Missions.

RESULTS OF NEGRO EMANCIPA

| ance, as being the largest of the islands of TION IN THE WEST INDIES.

British West Indies, and the greater numSo much has of late been said as to the ber of its people. unfitness of the negro for freedom, in There can be no doubt that, from a comconnection with the war raging in the mercial and agricultural point of view, United States, that it may be both useful Jamaica has lost ground since emancipaand interesting to give a brief resumé of tion: both its trade and productions have the results of emancipation in our West | suffered a large decrease. About one-half Indian colonies.

the sugar estates have been abandoned, and The question naturally divides itself into as many coffee properties permitted to run two parts ; viz., the general commercial and to bush. Many of the warehouses of economical condition of the islands, and Kingston are closed, or give signs of the social state of the negro population. diminished trade; while the shipping The two things are necessarily distinct; for trading to its port has undergone a like it might happen that the commercial con diminution. Although nearly all this dedition of the islands may be prosperous cay has taken place since emancipation, it while the state of the labouring population is by no means true that emancipation is is wretched; and, vice versa, emancipation the cause. The trade of Kingston was, for may be found to be a blessing to the one the most part, an intermediate one, that and a loss to the other; and yet in neither port being a convenient depôt for goods case be a failure. If, then, we take a adapted to the trade of the Gulf of general view of the whole of the islands of Mexico and the South American States. the West Indies, we find that the produc This trade has either become direct with tion of sugar is at the present time equal to the countries alluded to, or has been that of any period previous to emancipa: diverted into other channels. tion. Closer examination, however, shows Then as to the decay of the estates. It that this arises from the extraordinary pro is well known, that for years previous to gress of some of the islands more than the abolition of slavery, the planters were counterbalancing the decline of others. on the eve of ruin. So long ago as 1811 Trinidad exports nearly twofold more sugar the Assembly of Jamaica told the Prince than it did under slavery. Barbadoes has Regent that estate after estate had passed also increased its export, and the same is into the hands of the mortgagees, and true of St. Kitts. On the other hand, cul whole districts were denuded of every tivation has declined in Grenada, St. Lucia, resident proprietor. At emancipation it and especially in Jamaica. The condition was stated, without contradiction, that the of the labourer is almost as varied; but in island was burdened with mortgage debts all the islands he enjoys an increase of to the amount of twenty millions sterling; comfort, and the blessings of a civilized 80 that the twelve millions, or thereabouts, life. In Trinidad the cultivation of the apportioned to Jamaica, as its share of the sugar cane is carried on by immigrants compensation-money, were more than swalfrom the East; the negro baving become lowed up by the payment of the mortgages, the mechanic and artisan of the colony. In the calling.in of which deprived the Barbadoes and St. Kitts he is still an planters of the capital requisite for the agricultural labourer, with little property cultivation of their properties under the in the land, and dependent on wages for | new system of labour. Still, up to the his subsistence. In the one, wages are low, year 1846, the value of land in Jamaica on account of the number of the popula did not decline ; and it was not until the tion: in the other, wages are high, because free trade measures of the British Parliathe demand for labour is greater than the I ment came into operation that decline fully supply.

Bet in. Then was lost that protection which By general consent, however, the ques the sugar of Jamaica had so long enjoyed. tion as to the results of emancipation is to By the year 1854 it was brought into be tested by the state of things in Jamaica, complete competition with the produce of and that both on account of its import: | all other countries; and with this the ruin" of the planters was assured. A century of and little bit of provision-ground. In many protection had encouraged a wasteful culti- cases he was driven from the estates, bis vation, a costly system of management, house levelled to the ground, and his fruit, increased by the absenteeism of proprietors, trees cut down. Severe laws were passed to and an extravagant style of living. The compel him to accede to the planter's productive powers of the soil were, in terms. He was thus compelled to shist for many instances, exhausted. Estates had himself; and by means of the missionaries been formed in the very midst of the many estates, sold to pay off the mortmountains, far removed from the seaboard, gages, were purchased, and parcelled out at and most difficult of access, and which cost price among the persecuted peasantry. could pay only under a very high protective Free villages sprung up on every hand. tariff. Free trade brought all this to an Thus, in St. Ann's parish, in the first three end, and with it came a depreciation in the years of freedom, the peasantry connected value of sugar of nearly one-half. Great with the Baptist churches spent £10,000 as was the blow thus struck at the pros in the purchase of land. By 1845 forty perity of Jamaica, its force was enhanced free villages had been founded in this by a reckless expenditure on the part of the parisl alone. In Trelawny parish, in the House of Assembly, and the increase of the same time, twenty-three villages had been public debt by foolish schemes of immigra built; and in other parishes in the same tion. A great crisis was never more un proportion. This process has gone on worthily met by any legislature in the until a very large part of the cultivated world.

land of the island, amounting to 300,000 Previous to emancipation the production acres, has become the freehold possession of of coffee was over seventy millions of pounds. the emancipated peasantry. It is calcuShortly after, the protective duty on this lated that, taking an average of the entire article was equalized with that from other population, each family is the absolute countries; and Ceylon, in twenty years, owner of five acres of freehold land. Of increased its export some three hundred course some are considerable proprietors. millions of pounds, while that of Jamaica One man known to me, formerly a slave, is decreased to twenty-seven millions. Coffee the owner of 600 acres, and three others properties naturally fell into decay : they of 300 acres each. On these properties the could not compete with the more fertile people have built houses, stocked them island of the East.

with horses, pigs, goats, fruit-trees, and That the ruin of the planters was not sugar-mills, the number of small sugarowing to a want of labour, or to its dear. mills in their possession being reckoned at ness, is clear from two facts : first, wages 4,000. Many are owners of pimentohave gone on diminishing in amount since walks, the produce of which fragrant tree the introduction of free trade, and are has risen from three to nine millions of lower in Jamaica than in any other island ; pounds under their cultivation. Some have and secondly, the number of agricultural become producers and exporters of the labourers has increased. The population staples. At the present time I have been which, in the time of slavery, was fast making arrangements in London for the diminishing, since its abolition has multi sale of the sugar and ginger of some negro plied. Notwithstanding the decimation of planters, both on the north and south side the people by cholera in 1851, the popula- ! of the island. Placing the acquisitions of tion has increased sixty-three thousand the emancipated peasantry at the lowest persons since 1844, and that entirely possible figure, they have accumulated, among the labouring classes. Labourers since they became free, property to the are abundant enough, and at low rates of value of two millions and a quarter wages ; but, from causes to be presently sterling : certainly no inconsiderable gain alluded to, they do not give that con in the twenty-three years they bave been tinuous labour the planters desire.

free. If, now, we turn to the enfranchised Their industry and intelligence are not negro, we shall find that emancipation has less evident if we take the apuual value of been to him an unmixed advantage. No their labour. By a Parliamentary return it Booner was the slave a free man, than an appears that the gains of a negro family are attempt was made to exact labour without reckoned by authorities in Jamaica at £30 a fair remuneration. The most exorbitanti a year. This will give a sum of more thai rents were demanded for his miserable hut two millions as their annual earnings. A

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