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THE ACCURATE BOY.

There was a young man once in the office of a Western railway superintendent. He was occupying a position that four hundred boys in that city would have wished to get. It was honorable, and "it paid well," besides being in the line of promotion. How did he get it? Not by having a rich father, for he was the son of a laborer. The secret was his beautiful accuracy. He began as an errand-boy, and did his work accurately. His leisure time he used in perfecting his writing and arithmetic. After a while he learned to telegraph. At each step his employer commended his accuracy, and relied on what he did because he was just right.

And it is thus with every occupation. The accurate boy is the favored one. Those who employ men do not wish to be on the constant lookout, as though they were rogues or fools. If a carpenter must stand at his journeyman's elbow to be sure that his work is right, or if a cashier must run over his book-keeper's column, he might as well do the work himself as employ another to do it in that way; and it is very certain that the employer will get rid of such an inaccurate workman as soon as he can.

KNOWLEDGE OF THE BIBLE.

Here are some examples of men and women who have shown their love for the Scriptures by studying them.

The Emperor Theodosius wrote out the whole New Testament with his own hand, and read some parts of it every day. Theodosius the Second committed a great part of the Scriptures. George, prince of Transylvania, read over the Scriptures twenty-seven times. Alphonsus, king of Arragon, read the Scriptures over, together with a large commentary, fourteen times.

Sir Henry Wotton, after his customary public devotions, used to retire to his study, and there spend some hours in reading the Bible. Sir John Harop, in like manner, amid his other vocations, made the Book of God so much his study, that it lay before him night and day. James Bonnel, Esq., made the Holy Scriptures his constant and daily study; he read them, he meditated upon them, he prayed over them. M. De Renty, a French nobleman, used to read daily three chapters of the Bible, with his head uncovered, and on his bended knees.

Lady Frances Hobart read the Psalms over twelve times a year, the New Testament thrice, and the other parts of the Old Testament once. Susanna, Countess of Suffolk, for the last seven years of her life read the whole Bible over twice annually.

The

Sunday- School Drawer.

SPASMODIC PIETY.-A quaint writer compares a certain class of professors of religion to "sheet-iron stoves, heated by shavings." When there is a little reviving in the Church they all at once flame up and become exceedingly warm and zealous. They are ready to chide the pastor and the brethren for their coldness and want of activity. But alas! the shavings are soon burned out, and the heat goes down as it went up. They are never seen in the prayer-room, or more spiritual meeting of the Church again, until there is another excitement. If such people had not souls they would not be worth taking into the Church. They encumber it, though they may themselves receive benefit from a connection with it.

A BEAUTIFUL SPIRIT.-I was once walking a short distance behind a very handsomely-dressed young girl, and thinking, as I looked at her beautiful clothes, "I wonder if she takes half as much pains with her heart as she does with her body?" A poor old man was coming up the walk with a loaded wheel-barrow, and just before he reached us he made two attempts to go in the yard of the house; but the gate was heavy, and would swing back before he could get in. "Wait," said the young girl, springing forward, "I'll hold the gate open." And she held the gate until he had passed in, and received his thanks with a pleasant smile as she passed on. "She deserves to have beautiful clothes," I thought, “for a beautiful spirit dwells in her breast."

NEVER TRIFLE WITH THE TRUTH.-A little boy, for a trick, pointed with his finger to the wrong road when a man asked him which way the doctor went. As a result, the man missed the doctor, and his little boy died, because the doctor came too late to take a fish-bone from his throat. At the funeral, the minister said that, "the boy was killed by a lie, which another boy told with his finger." I suppose that the boy did not know the mischief he did Of course, nobody thinks he meant to kill a little boy when he pointed the wrong way. He only wanted to have a little fun, but it was fun that cost somebody a great deal; and if he ever heard of the results of it, he must have felt guilty of doing a mean and wicked thing. We ought never to trifle with the truth.

HOW TO ADDRESS CHILDREN.-Theodore L. Cuyler says: "The secret of addressing children well is to help them to think up toward your level, instead of trying to talk down to their level. As to language, I doubt whether a minister ought ever to use a word in any of his sermons which an average lad of twelve years cannot understand. The great Teacher never used a big word " This is valuable advice. Children are too often

addressed as if they were idiots; while all the time it is the speaker who is in danger of making himself what he supposes the children to be. Old age runs backward, but childhood is ever advancing, and often overtakes the thinker and speaker of riper years. Therefore, speak with simplicity, but always give your highest and best thoughts to children.

LAST WORDS OF WILBERFORCE.-"Come and sit near me, and let me lean on you," said Wilberforce to a friend, a few minutes before his death. Afterward, putting his arm around that friend, he said: "Let us talk of heaven. Do not weep for me; I am happy. Think of me, and let the thought press you forward. I never knew happiness till I found Christ my Saviour. READ THE BIBLE-READ THE BIBLE! Let no religious book take its place. Through all my perplexities and distresses I never read any other books, and I never felt the want of any other. It has been my hourly study; all my knowledge of the doctrines, and all my acquaintance with the experiences and realities of religion, have been drawn from the Bible only. I think religious people do not read the B ble enough. Books about religion may be useful enough, but they will not do in the place of the simple truth of the Bible."

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TWO WAYS OF TEACHING.-I was travelling one day to W. in my Sunday-school work, and in trying to follow the directions given me for going across lots," so as to shorten my walk, became confused and lost the way. Coming to a boy picking strawberries, I asked him to set me right. Giving a flirt with his hand, but hardly looking up, he said; "You see that house?" "Yes." "Well, go right on till you come to it, and then take one of them rouds there and you'll go straight to W."

At another time I had been exploring a neighborhood, giving notice of a meeting, and found myself at sunset in a deep thickly wooded valley where a few Swede families had built their log cabins. There was no direct road to the place where I was to pass the night, so a little Swede girl volunteered to put me in a path which wound through the ravines and along the hillsides directly to the house I wished to reach. She piloted me a quarter of a mile, and then showing me a very narrow way, and pointing out landmarks ahead, closed her directions by saying with much emphasis: "You follow that path there, you must not turn off any where !"

The speeches and the teachings I often hear in Sunday school remind me of these two incidents. I thought, from the boy's remark, that all of "them roads there" led to W. But they didn't. Only one was the right one. And I have been afraid that children, in these you must be good boys and girls' exhortations, get a very poor perception. if any at all, of what should be impressed upon each heart—· You must follow that road there; you must not turn off any where!" Only one way leads through the strait gate into the kingdom. May my tongue ever bear the cry, JESUS THE WAY!

THE following figures are from the British Foreign Secretary's report to Parliament, being the average daily rate paid to mechanics, after being reduced to our money: Austria, $1; Belgium, 60 cents; France, $1 10; Denmark, 60 cents; Italy, 40 cents; Netherlands, 75 cents; Norway, 60 cents; Sicily, 30 cents; Portugal, 40 cents; Prussia, 75 cents; Russia, 75 cents; Sweden, 60 cents; Switzerland, 60 cents.

Editor's Drawer.

AN æronaut has discovered that a woman's voice is audible at the height of two miles while a man's voice has never been heard higher than a mile.

DUNLOP says that in all European literature there are not more than three hundred distinct plots, and two hundred and fifty of these are earlier than Christianity, and had their origin in Asia. Almost all the newspaper jokes have reached a venerable age; all the Irish bulls on record are Greek.

A school-boy being requested to write a composition on the subject of "pins," produced the following: "Pins are very useful. They have saved the lives of a great many men, women and children-in fact whole families." "How so?" asked the puzzled teacher; and the boy replied, "Why, by not swallowing them." This matches the story of the other boy who defined salt as the stuff that makes potatoes taste bad when you don't put any on."

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At a recent examination for admission to Bowdoin College the written papers for geography contained the following spelling: Iterly,' 'Merrymac,' 'Perknobscot,' Mishigan,' Florady,' Missisuri,' 'Nareganset.' It was stated by one candidate that the Catskill Mountains were in Vermont, by another that they were in Pennsylvania. The Alps were placed in Asia. Stockholm was said to be in Holland, Berlin in Spain, Geneva in Italy, and Algiers in France. The Rhine was said to flow southeast and empty into the Atlantic, the Danube to flow westward and empty into the Baltic. By one pupil the Nile was said to empty into the Red Sea; by another into the Atlantic.

John G. Saxe sends the following to a temperance convention :

You have heard of "the snake in the grass,"

my boy,

Of the terrible snake in the grass;

But now you must know,

Man's deadliest foe

Is a snake of a different class.

Alas!

'Tis the venomous snake in the glass!

JOHN SMITH.-In Latin, is Johannes Smithus: the Italians smooth him off with Giovanni Smith; the Spaniards render him Juan Smithus; the Dutchman adopts him as Hans Schmidt; the French flatten him out into Jean Smeet; and the Russian sneezes and barks Jonzofi Smittowski. When John gets into the tea trade in Canton he becomes Jovan Shimmit; but if he clambers about Mount Hecla, the Icelander says he is Sohne Smithson; if he trades among the Tuscaroras, he becomes Ton Qua

Smittia; in Poland he is known as Ivan Schmittittiweiski; should he wander among the Welsh mountains, they talk of Jihon Semidd; when he goes to Mexico, he is booked as Jautli F'Smitti; if of classic turn he mingles among Greek ruins, he turns Ion Smikton; and in Turkey he is utterly disguised as yourself, as Voe Self.

THE VALUE OF SPARE MINUTES.-Madame de Genlis composed several of her charming volumes while waiting in the school-room for the tardy princess to whom she gave daily lessons.

Daguessau, one of the Chancellors of France, wrote an able and bulky work in the successive intervals of waiting for dinner.

Elihu Burritt, while earning his living as a blacksmith, learned eighteen languages and twenty-two dialects, by simply improving his "odd moments."

A celebrated physician in London translated Lucretius while riding in his carriage on his daily rounds.

Dr. Darwin composed nearly all his works in the same way, writing down his thoughts in a memorandum book, which he carried for the purpose. Kirke White also learned Greek while walking to and from a lawyer's office.

Who uses minutes, has hours to use;

Who loses minutes, whole years must lose.

THE following is a list of some men of literary note in England who hold official positions: Arthur Helps is clerk of the Privy Council, an office from which he derives $8500 a year. Henry Taylor, the author of Philip von Artevelde, has $5000 a year as one of the senior clerks at the Colonial Office; and J. W. Kaye, who began his literary life as the editor of an Indian journal, issued in London, and whose works on Indian history are so highly valued, is the political and secret secretary of the Indian Office. Mr. Dasent, formerly sub editor of the Times, a writer of novels and translations from the Norse, is the second civil service commissioner, at a salary of $6000; while William Michael Rossetti, the poet and critic, has $4000 a year as an assistant secretary at the Inland Revenue Office. W. Rathbone Greg, who succeeded McCulloch, the political economist, as the head official at the Stationery Office, enjoys $7500 a year; while Herman Merivale has $10,000 as permanent under secretary at the Indian Office. Mr. Galton is a director of works at Whitehall; Frank Buckland has $3500 a year as inspector of salmon fisheries, and Lionel Brough $3000 as an inspector of coal-mines. F. T. Palgrave is an examiner at the Educational Council Office, and Matthew Arnold holds the post of inspector of schools; C. Pennel, the piscatorial writer, gets $2500 as the inspector of oyster fisheries, while J. Glaisher, and Edwin Duncan do not get more between them for inspecting the stars. Mr. Henry Reeve, editor of the Edinburg Review, has a very good position; while offices are also enjoyed by Mr. J. R. Planche, Sir T. Duffus Hardy, and Mr. T. Walker.

FROM the recent census it appears that there are 3 Greenlanders in the United States (who are they? some of Barnum's curiosities?), 2657 native Africans, 864 Asiatics, 63,042 Chinese (not including 518 Chinese born in this country), 40,289 Bohemians, 493,464 British Americans, 301 Central Americans, 5319 Cubans, 30,107 Danes, 116,402 French, 1,690,533 Germans, 550,924 English, 1,855,827 Irish, 140,835 Scotch, 74,533 Welsh, 46,802 Hollanders, 17,157 Italians, 114,226 Norwegians, 14,436 Poles 4,644 Russians, 4,542 Portuguese, 584 Sandwich Islanders, 3,764 Spaniards, 97,332 Swedes, 75,153 Swiss, 302 Turks, at sea 2,638. The total foreign-born population is 5,567,229. The total native born population is 32,991,142.

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