A VALUABLE TESTIMONY.

3. That persons accustomed to such drinks may with perfect safety discontinue them entirely, either at once, or gradually,

after a short time.

4. That total and Universal Abstinence from alcoholic beverages of all sorts would greatly conduce to the health, the prosperity, the morality, and the happiness of the human race.'

Is there, then, sufficient motive for relinquishing strong drinks ?

In my judgment there are two motives, either of which jusjustifies, and even demands it:-Ist. A man's own safety and advantage: and 2nd. The influence of his example in inducing others to avoid the most fruitful of all causes of vice and misery.

The peculiar danger of intoxicating drinks is in their extreme seductiveness, and in the all but unconquerable strength of the drinking habit when once formed; and their peculiar malignity is in their being the parent or nurse of every kind of crime, wickedness, and woe.

I say boldly that no man living who uses intoxicating drinks, is free from the danger of at least occasional, and, if of occasional, ultimately of habitual excess. I have myself known such frightful instances of persons brought into captivity to the habit, that there seems to be no character, position, or circumstances that free men from the danger. I have known many young men of the finest promise, led by the drinking habit into vice, ruin, and early death. I have known such become virtual parricides. I have known many tradesmen, whom it has made bankrupt. I have known Sunday scholars whom it has led to prison. I have known teachers, and even superintendents, whom it has dragged down to profligacy. I have known ministers of religion, in and out of the establishment, of high academic honours, of splendid eloquence, nay, of vast usefulness, whom it has fascinated, and hurried over the precipice of public infamy, with their eyes open, and gazing with horror on their fate. I have known men of the strongest and clearest intellect, and of vigorous resolution, whom it has made weaker than children and fools. I have known gentlemen of refinement and taste, whom it has debased into brutes. I have known poets of high genius, whom it has bound in a bondage worse than the galleys, and ultimately cut short their days. I have known statesmen, lawyers, and judges, whom it has killed. I have known kind husbands and fathers, whom it has turned into monsters. I have known honest men, whom it has made

ANECDOTES AND SELECTIONS.

WORKING AND WAGES ON THE SABBATH.-An eminent minister in Wales, hearing of a neighbour who followed his calling on the Lord's-day, went and asked him why he broke the sabbath. The man replied, that he was driven to it, by finding it hard work to maintain his family. แ "Will you attend public worship," said Mr. P., "if I pay you a day's wages?" "Yes, most gladly," said the poor man. He then attended constantly, and received his pay. After some time, Mr. P. forgot to send the money; and recollecting it, called upon the man and said, "I am in your debt." "No, sir, he replied, "you are not." "How so?" said Mr. P., "I have not paid you of late." "True" answered the man, "but I can now trust God; for I have found that he can bless the work of six days for the support of my family, just the same as seven." Ever after that he strictly kept the sabbath, and found that in keeping God's commands there is not only no loss, but great reward.

THE DAY OF DEATH.-Awake, asleep, at home, abroad, we are going onward to that important day. By day, by night, in business, in pleasure, in health or in sickness, we are still with speed approaching life's closing hour. A traveller in a steam-ship was asked how she liked it. She replied, she should know when the vessel was going. It was going then, but so gentle was the motion, that she perceived it not. Thus it is in human life. We are always floating hastily down the stream of time to the vast ocean of eternity, nor going the slower because we may not perceive the rapid motion, or may be insensible of the speed with which we pass over the billows of life. J. G. PIKE.

A HAPPY KNACK.-There are those who read the records of public events as devoutly as they do the New Testament. To that class belonged good John Newton, so celebrated for simplicity and love, common sense and mother wit. Mr. Newton was wont to say he read the newspaper to see how his heavenly Father was governing the world. All news ought to be sanctified. There is not a subject of public record that does not connect itself with some point of Scripture, as tending to illustrate Divine Providence.

CHRIST IS AN UNSEARCHABLE MERCY; who can fully express his wonderful name? who can tell over his unsearchable riches? Hence it is that souls never tire in the study or love of Christ, because new wonders are eternally rising out of him; he is a deep which no line of any created understanding, angelic or human, can fathom.

CHRIST IS AN EVerlasting MerCY; "the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever." All other enjoyments are perishable, timeeaten things; time, like a moth, will fret them out; but the riches of Christ are "durable riches," the graces of Christ are durable graces. All the creatures are flowers that appear and fade in their month; but this Rose of Sharon, this Lily of the Valley, never withers.

THE FIRESIDE. THE PENNY POST BOX.

The Fireside.

COUNSELS TO PARENTS RESPECTING THEIR CHILDREN.

1.-Impress upon their minds the excellence and importance of integrity. Teach them that it is much better to be poor and honest, than to be rich and dishonest.

2.-Show to them the inestimable value of a good character. You should imbue their youthful minds with the conviction that property is to be acquired only by industry and strict honesty; and that fraud is the high road to poverty, as well as to disgrace. Tell them that honest men always speed better than rogues.

3.-Teach them the important fact, that without peace of conscience they never can be happy.

4.-Remind them often that the eye of God is upon them; that he looks not only upon the outward act, but at the heart; that all dishonest designs, as well as words, and acts, are known to Him.

5.-You should impress upon their minds that one crime generates another-one falsehood causes another to be to told-one wrong act leads to another, until there is no knowing where it will end.

6. Keep your children from bad company. You should restrict them while they remain under your care. From ten to twenty is the most important period in their lives. Then they select their associates and form many of their habits-good or bad.

7.-Give your children, as well as good precepts, a good example. If you tell falsehoods, steal, or cheat, your children will naturally imitate your example; on the other hand, if you conduct yourselves and your affairs in an upright, sincere, and honest manner, then will they be more likely to follow your example.

8.-Lastly: Pray with, and for your children. Read the Bible every day with them. Tell them of the love of Jesus Christ. Then you may anticipate seeing your children pious and happy, for the blessing of God is promised on such efforts for their good.

The Penny Post Box.

THE PIN AND THE NEEDLE.

I MET with a good little fable the other day, which may be useful to fill up a corner of the Pioneer. It teaches us all that we are not to despise one another, and that however humble our position in life we may all be useful in our way-the peasant as well as the prince-for even "the king himself is served by the field," as the wise man saith. SELECTOR.

"A pin and a needle, neighbours in a work contract, both being idle, began to quarrel as idle folks are apt to do. I should like to

A VALUABLE TESTIMONY.

villains. I have known elegant and christian ladies, whom it has converted into bloated sots.

Is it not notorious that under the ravages of drunkenness the land mourns ?-that it is this which-I may almost say exclusively-fills our prisons, our workhouses, our lunatic asylums, our dens of pollution, and our hospitals;—which causes most of the shipwrecks, fires, fatal accidents, crimes, outrages, and suicides that load the columns of our newspapers; -which robs numberless wives of a husband's affection, and numberless children of a parent's fondness;-which strips thousands of homes of every comfort, deprives scores of thousands of children of education, and almost of bread, and turns them on the streets: -which leaves so many places of worship almost empty, and so many mechanics' institutes languishing, whilst the pot-houses are crowded; which brings down, it is estimated, sixty thousands of our population every year to a drunkard's grave.

And of all the victims of intemperance, be it remembered, there is not one who did not begin by moderate drinking, or who had the remotest idea, when he began, that he should be led into excess.

Such, then, being the peculiar seductiveness and danger of the practice of taking intoxicating liquors, and such the enormous malignity of its consequences, is there not a strong, and even a resistless, ground for appealing to good men, to patriots, to philanthropists, above all, to christians, and to christian ministers, if not for their own sake, yet for the sake of others, whom they see gliding down by scores of thousands, as on a slope of ice, to the gulf of temporal and eternal ruin, to take their stand on the safe platform of Total Abstinence?

No direct scripture authority can be quoted for total abstinence but it is worthy of remark, first, that the wines of Palestine and the East, in the time of Christ and the Apostles, as at the present day, were incomparably less intoxicating than the wines and beer of northern countries, and the vice of drunkenness was incomparably less prevalent; and, second, that the principle of total abstinence, under circumstances like ours, seems to be involved in two memorable passages, -as regards a man's own interest and duty, in the precept of our Lord to pluck out the right eye or cut off the right hand or foot, if it cause to offend,--and as regards our duty to our neighbour, in the declaration of the Apostle Paul-"It is good neither to

POETRY.-ANECDOTES AND SELECTIONS.

eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor anything whereby thy brother stumbleth, or is offended, or is made weak." Roin. xiv. 21. As I myself was led by the example of some whom I respected to discontinue intoxicating liquors, others may possibly be led by my example: and if one drunkard should be encouraged by my appeal and testimony to snap the chain of his bondage, or one young man should be saved from so terrible a snare, if one wife should be preserved from a broken heart, or one child from neglect and ruin, I shall be thankful to my dying day. EDWARD BAINES.

THE DRUNKARD'S WILL.-"I -, being a little more sober than usual, though feeble in body, and fearing I may soon be more feeble in mind, do make this my last will and testament :-My property, being nearly all gone! is not worth willing away; my reputation I desire to be buried in the same grave with myself; to my poor wife, who has cheered me thus far through life, I give shame, poverty, sorrow, and a broken heart. To each of my children, I bequeath the inheritance of the shame of their father's character. Finally, I give my body to disease, misery, and early dissolution; and my soul, that can never die, to the disposal of that God whose commands I have broken, and who has warned me by his word, that no drunkard shall inherit the kingdom of heaven."