Written for Moore’s Rural Now-Yorker. 
“’TIS SWEET TO LIVE.” 
BY IDA. FAIRFIELD. 
Life hath dark shadows, doubts and fears, 
And bitter storms, which give 
A shade of gloom to after years, 
And mark a pathway stained by tears, 
But yet, “ ’tis sweet to lire.” 
The weary child of want and woe, 
Who begs from day to day, 
With bare feet, through the biting snow, 
And young heart beating sad and slow, 
For length of days will pray. 
The stricken mourner, bending low 
Above her best love’s bier, 
Bereft of joy by one fell blow, 
Still finds, amid her bitterest woe, 
That life and health are dear. 
Hope ever lends her beacon light, 
Whose soft, alluring ray 
Rich promise gives of days more bright, 
Unclouded years of sweet delight, 
To cheer each wanderer’s way. 
Life hath up-welling founts of love 
For every human soul, 
Glad hours, whose golden memories prove 
Incentives, wheresoe’er we rove. 
To wait, and reach seme goal. 
The glory of the actual dwells 
Before our eager eyes, 
What life hath been, our being swells 
With chance of greatness, which foretells 
The future promised prize. 
And sometimes love, and hope, and joy, 
Their richest treasures give, 
That peace which death can ne’er destroy, 
Life’s purest gold without alloy, 
And then “ ’tis sweet to live.” 
Ashaway, R. I., Dec., 1859. 
Written for Moore’s Rural New-Yorker. 
HINTS FOR THOSE WHO NEED THEM. 
Usually, where there is poverty there is a 
slovenly, untidy, heedless woman. A man may 
work ever so hard, and get good wages, and yet 
have a barren, thriftless home, himself and children 
go ragged and comfortless, unless his wife under¬ 
stands true economy and takes care of what comes 
er way. 
is surprising how few women consider it 
necessary to use prudence in the management of 
their wardrobe and household affairs. A woman 
who considers it beneath her time and attention to 
use half-worn garments to supply her family with 
bed-clothes or carpets, and cannot take the trouble 
to keep a rag-bag or basket, deserves to be poor 
always. How much better old dress skirts look, 
neatly tied into bed-comforters, than stringing 
all about the house, and tucked into odd corners 
or broken panes. No matter if poverty does not 
compel you to save paper-rags, keep a bag never¬ 
theless, and when full give it to your poor neigh¬ 
bor ; it will cost you not a moment of time to take 
care of “lots” of things that, if you do not want 
them, will be useful to some one. I like to help a 
tidy, industrious, poor family, but when I go into 
a house and see disorder, waste, filth, and enough 
laying about, if properly taken care of, to make a 
comfortable home, I feel it is of no use to give 
such people things to abuse and destroy. They 
will always be poor, and no person could possibly 
assist 'them. 
Pomposity and false pride, or shiftlessness, and 
pride, and poverty, usually go hand in hand. 
What a pity that men and women, who have no 
love of labor, no fancy for housework, no love of 
children, should marry and attempt to raise a 
family, to be a nuisance to themselves and the 
community. 
Some err through ignorance, hut many more 
through idleness, and unwillingness to study and 
practice the constantly recurring details by which 
people in this country usually amass a comfortable 
independence. They go to their graves, mourning 
over their poverty, and envying those “ more for¬ 
tunate,” as they call it, and wondering at the 
“mysterious ways of Providence,” while, all the 
time, the fault lies at their own doors. q. 
KEEP THE BIRTH DAYS. 
A Western exchange makes the following 
excellent suggestions, which must • meet the 
approbation of all. We trust they will also be 
received with favor by the “ old folks.” It says: 
Keep the birth days religiously; they belong 
exclusively to, and are treasured among the 
sweetest memories of home. Do not let anything 
prevent some token, be it ever so slight, that it is 
remembered. Birth days are great events to 
children. For one day they feel that they are 
heroes. The special pudding or cake is made 
expressly for them; a new jacket, or trowsers 
with pockets, or the first pair of boots, are donned; 
and big brothers and sisters sink into insignifi¬ 
cance beside “ little Charlie,” who is “ six to-day,” 
and is so soon “going to be a man.” Mothers, 
who have half-a-dozen little ones to care for, are 
apt to neglect birth days; they come too often— 
sometimes when they are busy, and sometimes 
when they are “ nervous;” but if they only knew 
how much such souvenirs are cherished by their 
pet Susey, or Harry, years afterwards, when 
away from the hearth-stone they bad none to 
remind them that they had added one more year 
to the, perhaps, weary round of life, or to wish 
them, in old-fashioned phrase, “ many happy 
returns to their birth-day,” they would never 
permit any cause to step between them and a 
mother’s privilege. 
He that hath called us is love; his Spirit, a 
spirit of love; his ordinances, ordinances of love; 
his followers, a communion of love; and our voca¬ 
tion, a calling of love. 
READER! SPARE THE BOOK.* 
[Dedicated to all Possessors of Yolumz 5 of tub 
Rural Nhw-Yorkkr.] 
Reader ! spare the book! 
Cut not a single leaf! 
You dream not of the pains we took, 
Or you’d regard our grief. 
For many a thoughtful hour 
* ¥e cull’d our fruitful brain 
To set before you fruit and flower 
All strung on Beauty’s chain. 
Reader ! spare the book! 
It is our fancy’s pet: 
Tarn daintily its leaves, and look 
How tastefully ’tis set! 
There’s learning in its page ! 
There’s humor in its lines! 
And there the wisdom of the sage 
With poesy combines. 
Header ! spare the hook! 
Make it your daily pride, 
And keep it in a cherish’d nook 
Your cunning skill to guide. 
And if your file is not complete t 
Please name the lacking number, 
And you shall be in its receipt 
Before you long can slumber. 
* Not by Tupteb, nor entirely original, 
t B\j our new mailing machine. 
Written for Moore’s Rural New-Yorker. 
TAKING A PAPER. 
A VERY SEASONABLE AND SUGGESTIVE DISCOURSE. 
The most august transaction, next to getting 
married, is taking a newspaper! Show me the 
paper he takes, and I will show you the man. If 
you will have the decency to think me serious, I 
will say, subscribing for a paper ought to be pre¬ 
ceded with prayer and fasting. The stranger who 
seeks your confidence must bring an introduction, 
and even then you lock up your money and your 
spoons before you go to bed. Will you lay your 
heart bare—not the thing made of flesh and blood, 
but the immortal essence, worth all besides, to 
every unannointed adventurer in the domain of 
letters? You buy a booh ; it is a remedy for some 
specific want. You get it reviewed .and revised, 
and even then you brace your feet against the grate 
and read it with a desperate determination to do 
as you have a mind to about believing it. You 
take a newspaper — its face grows familiar; it 
comes in at twilight, at all hours; it waits the 
favorable moment, the susceptible moods, the 
favoring circumstances. Repulsed at one point, it 
approaches at another; ubiquitous, fruitful in 
resource, nothing is so profound or so simple, so 
high or so low, as to escape its pervading influ¬ 
ence. It has infinite advantage for its work of 
good or evil. 
I repeat, taking a newspaper is a most august 
transaction—an important era in a man’s life! 
How much it will cut and carve your theology, 
twist your politics, modify your philosophy and 
form your general estimate of things you are not 
fully aware. With pomp and circumstance, with 
a parade of logic and metaphysics, with patient 
consultation of eminent authorities, you adopt 
your creed and profess your faith. Not so; your 
creed, as you really hold it, was made for you long 
before; it came to you through the ten thousand 
avenues of sentient existence; it is the reflection 
of your life’s experience and training. You con¬ 
sulted books and summoned logic to justify fore¬ 
gone conclusions; your statements and formularies 
represent but in part the real faith that is in you. 
How tenderly should we watch, and how assidu¬ 
ously cultivate the heart in its young growth! 
The smallest thing in time may determine the 
weightiest interest in eternity! What shall we 
say, then, of our literature?—the pabulum, par 
excellence, on which the young soul feeds. Espe¬ 
cially what shall we say of our Newspaper Lit¬ 
erature, the most potential of all literatures — 
the moral lever that moves the world? How care¬ 
ful should we be that these periodical visitors 
should fairly reflect the truths of Nature and of 
God —that they should obscure nothing and dis¬ 
tort nothing—that their pictures of life should be 
genial, loving and ennobling. 
With what transcendent horror should we re¬ 
coil from those sordid adventurers in the world of 
letters, who pander to depraved tastes and disor¬ 
dered imaginations—who seize on the love of the 
marvellous to draw pictures, which, if they repre¬ 
sent life at all, represent only its worst phases and 
its most unhealthy conditions. They feed us on 
food seasoned so high that nature’s simple flavors 
become insipid. Y ou may know this class of jour¬ 
nals by the absence of facts and the prevalence of 
fictions. Abjure them and cast them out. Fore¬ 
stall them by introducing practical and useful 
journals in the departments of Religion, Science, 
Agriculture, Politics and the Useful Arts. Get 
journals which have some defined object. “Lit¬ 
erature ” is another name for moonshine. If a man 
has a truth which presses for utterance, hear him; 
it is the only literature worth reading or paying for. 
Especially encourage journals that note the vary¬ 
ing phenomena of material and spiritual existence 
—that strive to make full and correct records of 
such manifestations as throw light upon the 
weighty problems of human life. Out of these 
materials, Governments, Churches, Politics, Phil¬ 
osophies, Political and Domestic Economies are 
constructed, and without these all will be confu¬ 
sion and mistake. The least fact in human expe¬ 
rience is a school-master at whose feet the most 
illustrious savant should humbly sit. God, Him¬ 
self, is seen in the records of His providential deal¬ 
ings. 
I will only add that, since Agriculture, as an 
Art and a Science, is still in its infancy, it needs 
the fostering care of ably conducted and well sup¬ 
ported journals. Agricultural papers should be 
enriched by the choicest and most suggestive ex¬ 
perience of farmers and thinkers everywhere.— 
Whatever they would communicate to a neighbor, 
as a valuable and useful hint or suggestion, they 
should tell to the larger audience of newspaper 
readers in simple, plain and concise language.— 
Thus Agricultural Papers are, and should be, 
store-houses of important facts that everybody 
ought to possess. There are three duties, which, 
if they are not put down in the Catechism, are 
nevertheless binding upon the consciences of the 
Rural Population: 
First— To take an Agricultural Paper. 
Second —To contribute to it short facts and sug¬ 
gestions. 
Third —To get others to subscribe. 
There is no reflective sound mind engaged in 
Agricultural or Horticultural pursuits, but can 
get ten times its cost out of any well-conducted 
Agricultural Journal. Men have stopped their 
paper because they could not afford to take it, 
when it had saved them fifty times its cost! We 
want a paper, not merely to tell us what we don’t 
know, but to remind us of what we do know. 
We are not bound to follow implicitly all the 
advice that is given us, but we are all dull 
scholars indeed if we can’t, in the exercise of a 
sound discretion, turn the facts, conjectures, 
theories, and suggestions furnished by intelligent 
minds to some good account. The splendid super¬ 
structure of modern discovery has been reared by 
myriad hands, each adding but a mite to the grand 
result! The illustrious names belong to those 
who luckily put on the “cap stones,” and so in too 
many cases took credit for the whole. 
It is not a wise man Yvho undervalues the 
wisdom of a fool. There is no one but knows 
somethings better than anybody else. Treasures 
of rich experience are to be found in the humblest 
walks of life. These, then, are reasons why all 
should write. They are reasons why all should 
read. My ideal of a good Agricultural and 
Family Newspaper is a periodical stored with the 
choicest bits of human experience, gathered from 
the four corners of the earth. 
All honor to the journalist who strives for and 
expects success by deserving it. His position is 
one of great delicacy, responsibility and labor. It 
is only rare talent that succeeds at all iu this 
department, and I take it upon myself to say 
“ without fear or hope of reward” that the perfec¬ 
tion of human meanness is to grudge the printer 
the few shillings he receives for his paper. He 
generally earns it by a laborious life, and an early 
death. Timely and efficient encouragament on 
the part of the public will enable him to make a 
better paper with less personal labor. The best 
thing each subscriber can do is to get others to 
subscribe, and so enlarge the parish of readers, 
and consequently of writers, and put it into the 
power of the editor to do tetter service. How 
many, to suppose a case—and bring an idea to its 
practical bearings —how many will devote a day to 
their best interests by gettiig subscribers to the 
Rural New-Yorker? ‘^Jvjjiany? Here is 
one! h. t. u. 
-» 
THAT PORTRAIT, AGAIN. 
Mr. Moore :—I was about to ask a favor, but 
do not know that I have any right to do so, or how 
far I may be getting “beyond my limit;” but, at 
a venture, I can but speak—for I have put it off, 
and hesitated, for a year or more. Would it be 
inconsistent, or out of place, if you were to give 
us the portrait of D. D. T. Moore, in the Rural? 
and is not my wish that of thousands, were it 
expressed ? For one, I confess to a great anxiety 
to see how he looks, and to know somewhat of his 
previous history, up to this time. But, as I do 
not expect ever to meet him vis-a-vis, I will be 
content with the shadow of his phiz, and whatever 
information he is pleased to bestow. If the 
request is deemed impertinent, or betrays lack of 
just sense of things, I have no excuse to offer, for 
I can frame none. We naturally become much 
interested in; and attached to, an Editor whose 
paper has been our daily companion for years, and 
each one of us imagines, him our particular friend, 
for he encourages, sympathizes, cheers, advises 
and amuses us all, by turns, till it almost seems 
that he must have had our individual case in view. 
As for Mr. Moore, “may his shadow never he 
less,” and we wish him a right merry Christmas, 
and many New Years, in which to continue the 
good work iu which he has been so eminently 
successful. Vive la Rural. Queechy. 
Dec. 20,1859. 
Note:—W e appreciate the above, as it is from one who 
has written (over various signatures) many capital and in¬ 
structive articles for the Rural. But, complimentary and 
sincere as is the request—and gratifying as we confess it to 
be, from such a source—we are moved to decline, and to re¬ 
iterate what we said last year in response to a like'appeal, to 
wit:—This, and similar requests heretofore, toucheth our 
approbativeness, and, with wool “beaver" in hand, we 
“make our manners” in acknowledgment. But, really, 
our friends must “ wait a little longer,” if not a long time— 
for, though not over young, our youthful (we will not say 
green or verdant,) appearance, (and the lack of siver-grey- 
dom,) is so commonly remarked whenever we attend Fairs, 
&c„ that, even if we possessed sufficient merit to warrant 
the exposure, we doubt the propriety of going into the pia- 
iers. When we get 100,000 Rural subscribers, and sufficient 
age and dignity, perhaps it may answer. It would not do 
now, at all, for (aside from the above and other cogent rea. 
sons,) recent illness has made us so much worse looking 
than usual, that a portrait would indeed prove a counter¬ 
feit presentment! Excuse us, friends! 
Give your children fortune without education, 
and at least one-half of the number will go down 
to the tomb of oblivion—perhaps to ruin. Give 
them an education, and they will be a fortune to 
themselves and their country. It is an inherit¬ 
ance worth more than gold, for it buys true honor; 
they can never spend nor lose it; and through 
life it ever proves a friend—in death a consolation. 
Look not bach on your dark, stumbling paths, 
nor within ou your fitful and vacillating heart, 
but forward to the land that is far off. 
The best way to do ourselves good is to be 
doing good to others; the best way to gather is to 
scatter. 
Never condemn a friend unheard, or without 
letting him know his accuser and- the charge pre¬ 
ferred against him. 
Love demands little else than the power to feel 
and to requite love.— Jean Paul Richter. 
Written for Moore’s Rural New-Yorker. 
IT’S OF NO USE. 
“ It’s of no use,” young man, to put on so 
many airs! Just as well act natural. If you have 
no sense of honor, if you break the Sabbath, ridi¬ 
cule virtue and religion, you are no gentleman, 
and there is no use of pretending you are one. It 
matters not how rich may be your garments, or 
how agreeable your conversation; the true metal is 
not there, and there is no use of counterfeiting, 
“It’s of no use,” youDg lady, to mince, and 
simper, and act as if you were better than anybody 
else. You may never enter the kitchen, and may 
sneer all you please at those of your sisterhood 
who labor for their bread, but you are no lady — 
nothing but a silly, ignoramus—so there is no use 
of feeling so big. 
What is the use of strutting about so pompously 
and using all the large words Webster’s Diction- 
nary affords to make people think you are educa¬ 
ted ? Did you never notice that the most talented 
and best educated persons are almost invariably 
those who use the simplest language—and did it 
never occur to you that you show yourself to 
be a simpleton every time you speak? 
“ It’s of no use” to make a great spread, and try 
to keep up an appearance of wealth, when you are 
not worth a cent in the world. Why not live 
within your means, and, instead of trying to ape 
those who are rich, wait till you have something 
of your own. People will think as much again of 
you, and what if they don’t—do have the courage 
to act as you please, for depend upon it, you will 
always get found out. You cannot “make a 
whistle out of a pig’s tail. 
Finally, “ it’s of no use” for any of us to try to 
“ shine in borrowed feathers.” It is a great deal 
better to always act natural; then we shall never 
be troubled lest people find out we are not what 
we seem. Amelia. 
Cayuga, N. Y. Dec. 1S59. 
ANCIENT FASHIONS. 
The New England Historical Register for 1857, 
contains the following interesting account of the 
clothing in the Old Times : 
Stockings were anciently made of cloth or milled 
stuffs, sewed together. Henry II of France, was 
the first who appeared with silk stockings. That 
was in 1559, and in 1561 Queen Elizabeth was pre¬ 
sented by her milliner with a pair. The first pair 
of worsted stockings knit in England was made in 
1564. 
Red-colored stockings, whether of yarn, worsted 
or silk, were much worn in New England for 
nearly half a century after the arrival of our 
fathers. 
In 1629, when provision was made for emigrants 
to Massachusetts, the stockings furnished were 
accompanied with ten dozen pairs of Norwich 
garters. At an early period of our country, silk 
garters were worn by the more fashionable, and 
puffed into a large bow-knot at the knee, but as the 
costume fell under the notice of the civil authori¬ 
ties, it was forthwith prohibited. 1 
Gloves have been long in use, and it was once a 
proverb that, to be well made, three kingdoms 
must be concerned in the making,—Spain to dress 
the leather, France to cut it, and England to sew 
it. But France, for a considerable period, is said 
to have had the preference in all these three 
respects. 
Sixty years ago, pall holders, and other persons 
attending funerals, wore white leather gloves. In 
1741, men’s and women’s “white glazed lamb” 
gloves were offered for sale in Boston. 
“Ruffs,” however odd it may appear to us, were 
formerly worn by males as well as females. Queen 
Elizabeth appointed officers, it is related, to clip 
the ruff of every person seen wearing it of larger 
dimensions than the law permitted. A clergyman 
in 1608 took occasion to allude to a lady who wore 
a ruff that looked “ like a sail; yea, like a rain¬ 
bow.” Ruffs were wired as well as starched. 
Anne, widow of Dr. Turner, for assisting the 
Countess of Essex to poison Sir Thomas Overbury 
in 1613, received the following sentence:—“ That, 
as she was the first to introduce the fashion of 
yellow starched ruffs, she should be hung in that 
dress, that the same be held in shame and detesta¬ 
tion.” In the play of Albusnazzar, edited in 1614, 
Arsinilina asks Trincalo, “ what price bears wheat 
and saffron, that your, band is so stiff and yellow ?” 
Speaking of starch, it first came into use in 
England in 1564. It was carried thither by a Mrs. 
Dinghen Vanden Plasse, who set up business as a 
professed starcher, and instructed others how to 
use the article for £5, and how to make it for £20. 
The News Letter of 1712 gives this notice:—“ Very 
good starch, made in Boston by a starch-maker 
lately from London, is for sale.” 
The picture of Gov. Winthrop appears with an 
elegant ruff. The custom was imported by some 
of our primitive settlers, but in 17.29 this part of 
the dress became so enlarged that the Legislature 
of Massachusetts felt obliged to command that it 
be kept within due bounds. 
In the reign of James I, bands succeeded the 
full, stiff ruff. They were prepared with wire and 
starch, so as to stand out “horizontally and 
squarely.” They were held by a cord and tassel 
at the neck. 
People of the ton had the strings and tassels of 
their bands sometimes elegantly scolloped and 
embroidered, which custom finally attracted the 
attention of our civil authorities, who, in 1634, 
“forbade bands to be ornamented with costly 
work.” In 1639, a law was likewise enacted pro¬ 
hibiting the wearing of bands as had been the 
fashion. _ 
day-break. 
Lo! suddenly a trembling sigh there came 
From the torn bosom of the widowed Night; 
Far in the East a streak of yellow light 
Marked the dim outline of the world with flame, 
All else was dark, but slowly came a change: 
A song awoke within the dusky wood; 
There grew from out the gleam a mountain range, 
And glimmered at the base the river’s flood, 
The distant city with its spires and domes, 
The pleasant valley with its fields and homes; 
The stars put on their pale lights one by one; 
The ghastly shadows faded fast away ; 
The hill tops told the coming of the day, 
And from his couch uprose the morning sun. 
THE EVER GREEN MOUNTAINS OP LIFE. 
BY JAMES G. CLARKH. 
There’s a land far away ’mid the stars, we are told. 
Where they know not the sorrows of time— 
Where the pure waters wander thro’ valleys of gold, 
And life is a treasure sublime. 
’Tis the land of our God—His the home of the soul, 
Where ages of splendor eternally roll, 
Where the way-weary traveler reaches his goal, 
On the ever green mountains of life. 
Our gaze cannot soar to that beautiful land, 
But our visions have told of Its bliss — 
And our souls by the gale from Its gardens are fann’d, 
When we faint in the desert of this; 
And we sometimes have long’d for its holy repose, 
When our spirits were torn with temptations and woes, 
And we’ve drank from the tide of the river that flows 
From the ever green mountains of life. 
O! the stars never tread the bine heavens at night, 
But we think where the ransom’d have trod, 
And the day never smiles from his palace of light, 
But we feel the bright smiles of our God. 
We are traveling homeward—thro’ changes and gloom, 
To a kingdom where pleasures unchangingly bloom, 
And our guide is the glory that shines thro' the tomb 
From the ever green mountains of life. 
“READY FOR EITHER.” 
One of our missionary associations has adopted 
a device found on an ancient medal, representing 
a bullock standing between a plow and an altar, 
with the inscription, “ Ready for either.” Ready 
to toil and labor in the field of service, or to be 
offered up as a sacrifice in defence of the faith of 
Christ. No more significant device could be 
chosen to express the feelings of the missionary. 
None need enter this field who shrink from the 
most painful and trying drudgery, considered from 
a worldly point of view, to which man can be 
subjected. With but a few to sympathize and 
encourage, unsupported by the applause and 
admiration which his noble self-sacrifice and 
heroic constancy excite in the breasts of his 
brethren in his own land, meeting neglect and 
contempt from those for whose eternal happiness 
he has sacrificed home, friends and country, he 
must endure labors under an enervating tropical 
sun that most men would shrink from under 
circumstances best calculated to stimulate and 
encourage. From morning till night there is no 
rest for mind or body, for millions are perishing 
around him, and there are but few to lighten his 
labors. But the foreign missionary must be 
equally ready to seal his testimony with his blood. 
Surrounded by the idolatrous heathen whose 
religion teaches that the destruction of the Christ¬ 
ian is a meritorious act, he may be sacrified at any 
moment. Many have perished in this manner, and 
many more will doubtless lay down their lives 
before the evangelization of the race is accom¬ 
plished.— N. C. Presbyterian. 
“MYSTERIOUS POWER.” 
Christianity, like a child, goes wandering over 
the world. Fearless in its innocence, it is not 
abashed before princes, nor confounded before 
synods. Before it the blood-stained warrior 
sheathes his sword, and plucks the laurel from 
his brow, and the midnight murderer turns from 
his purpose, and like the heart-smitten disciple, 
goes and weeps bitterly. It brings liberty to the 
captive, joy to the sufferer, freedom to the slave, 
repentance and forgiveness to the sinner, hope to 
the faint-hearted, and assurance to the dying. It 
enters the hut of the poor man, and sits down with 
him and his children; it makes them contented 
in the midst of privations, and leaves behind an 
everlasting blessing. It walks through cities 
amid all their splendor, their imaginable pride 
and unutterable misery, a purifying, ennobling, 
remedying angel. It is alike the beautiful cham¬ 
pion of childhood and comforting associate of age. 
It ennobles the noble, gives wisdom to the wise, 
and new grace to the lovely. The patriot, the 
priest, the poet, and the eloquent man, all derive 
their power from its influence.— Mary Howitt. 
True Comfort. —Comfortless ones, be comforted, 
Jesus often makes you portionless here, to drive 
you to nimself, the everlasting portion. He often 
dries every rill and fountain of earthly bliss, that 
He may lead you to say, “All my springs are in 
Thee.” “ He seems intent,” says one who could 
speak from experience, “ to fill up every gap love 
has been forced to make; one of his errands from 
Heaven was to bind up the broken-hearted.” How | 
beautifully, in one amazing verse, does he conjoin 
the depth and tenderness of his comfort with the 
certainty of it—“as one whom his mother com- 
forteth, so will I comfort you, and ye shall be 
comforted.” 
--- 
The Sabbath. —This is the loveliest, brightest 
day of the week, to a spiritual mind. These rests 
refresh the soul in God, that finds nothing but tur¬ 
moil in the creature. Should not this day be wel¬ 
come to the soul, that sets it free to mind its own 
business, which has other days to attend to the 
business of its servant the body ? And these are 
a certain pledge to it of that expected freedom 
when it shall enter on an eternal sabbath and rest 
in Him for ever who is the only rest of the soul.— 
Leighton. 
Not more faithfully did the pillar-cloud and 
volume of fire of old precede Israel, till the last 
murmuring ripple of Jordan fell on their ears on 
the shores of Canaan, than does the presence and 
love of Jesus abide with his people. 
The quality of love in man is exactly like love 
in God—in element, but in quantity ! A taper is 
big enough to tell you what what light is, but not 
i what the whole history and power of light is. 
