THE best meaning people, from the kindest motives, sometimes in trying to relieve others get themselves into trouble. Perhaps our readers have heard of the young man who was found standing astride a wild boar in the woods holding it by the eare. Having tried to rescue a brother whose life was threatened by the ferocious beast, be at length got it under control. But the moment he would let go his hold it would surely turn on him. As the affrighted brother had run away, this one held on for his very life. Why, Bill," said the man who found him, "what are you doing here?"

"Trying to let this boar go," was his laconic reply.

Our readers know what a fine specimen of a high-toned polished gentleman Henry Clay was. No man in Washington was more faultlessly dressed, and better furnished with all the graces of social refinement. He was a man of great gallantry, a friend and protector of woman for the sake of her sex, and not only for that of her fashionable apparel and rank. We can imagine with what gravity and elegance of diction he one day seized upon both horns of a dilemma on Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington. We are told that as he came out of the Capitol, seeing a frightened woman in the street, vainly striving to ward off the attacks of a sportive goat, he gallantly, in spite of his years and office, seized the goat by the borns. The woman thanked him warmly and sped hurriedly on. Mr. Clay would have liked to move on also, but the goat had his own views about the interference with his innocent amusement. As soon as the woman's deliverer loosed his hold on the two horns, the animal rose majestically on his hind legs and prepared for a charge. In his own defence Mr. Clay now took the animal as before by the horns, and thus for a time they stood, while a crowd of street boys gathered around immensely amused at the spectacle of a senator and a goat pitted the one against the other in a public street. As long as Mr. Clay held the goat_by the horns, all was well enough. But the moment the quadruped was free came a fresh preparation for a charge. Not a boy offered assistance, but after

a while one ventured to suggest,
"Throw the Bill down, sir." Mr. Clay
at once accepted and adopted the report
of that commi tee, and tripping the
goat up essayed to pass on. Before he
could fairly turn away, however, the
goat was up in lofty preparation for a
new charge. Mr. Clay gave his enemy
the floor or the pavement once more,
and, keeping him there, turned to his
new adviser with the question, "And
what shall I do now?"
"Cut and run,
sir," replied the lad. Prov. xxvi. 17.

VERY often people get a fixed impression that they are fated to be carried off by a certain disease. They brood over it by day and by night. It is said that students of medicine from studying cases and their cures in their text-books, often come to fancy that they are in the incipient stages of one of the ailments described. As an instance of groundless anxiety of this kind the following is told of a certain Archbishop of Canterbury who had a great dread of paralysis: A grand concert was given in London, and a distinguished Duke and Duchess invited the Archbishop to accompany them and take a seat in their private box. The Archbishop occupied a seat between the Duke and Duchess. Before the evening was over the Duchess manifested great uneasiness. She not only fidgeted, but she made grimaces. She would bound from her seat and her manner was distrait. The Duke gave reproving glances, and by his manner led her to understand that her behaviour bordered on the indecorous. The attention of the husband and wife was now directed to the Archbishop, who meekly folded his hands upon his breast and said: "It has come! at last it has come! O Lord, give me patience to bear it "

"Bear what, your lordship?" inquired the Duke.

"Paralysis," said the Archbishop. "I have feared it and prayed against it."

"But," said the Duke, "don't you think you are mistaken? I see nothing unusual in your looks." "I cannot be mistaken," said the Archbishop, "for I have been pinching

my leg vigorously all the evening, and I have no sensation in it."

"O!" cried the Duchess, "it is my leg that you have been pinching, and I did not know what to make of it."

but which probably have never happened."

Do not worry over trifles. It is a waste of valuable strength and time to do so. One of the evils of a morbid state of the nervous system is to keep proWE retain a vivid impression of the bing and irritating trifling annoyances little Holland village of Broek. Its which in the end amount to very little. endless scrubbing and sweeping, the A slight or wrong of long ago, instead lines of wooden shoes standing outside of letting it lie buried with the past, is of certain doors, left there by visitors called to mind and vainly worried over inside, the village laws rigidly enforced for the hundredth time. Let it alone. against the defiling habits of careless Ten years after this one half of the strollers through the narrow streets- things about which people now lose all these and more, we do well remem- their temper, appetite and sleep will ber. The following extract from a have lost all their interest and value. recent work written by De Amicis "A reckless waste is found in the furnishes a pen picture of the unique intensity of feeling we spend over place: "It is not long since an inscrip- trifles. An expected letter fails to tion to the following effect could be come. A storm delays our journey. seen at the entrance to the village: The friend we looked for is detained 'Before and after sunrise, it is forbidden from visiting us. Somebody has borto smoke in the village of Broek except rowed a favorite volume and neglected with a cover to the pipe-bowl (so as not to bring it home. A servant is exasto scatter the ashes); and, in crossing the perating or careless. A little child is village with a horse, it is forbidden to perverse and contrary. A dish is broremain in the saddle: the horse must ken. The cup of coffee is upset on the be led.' It was also forbidden to go clean table-cloth. There are muddy through the village in a carriage, or footprints on our immaculate front with sheep or cows, or any other ani porch. The carpets are wearing out. mal that might soil the street; and, The clothes do not get dry, and the although this prohibition no longer washing is likely to be round the whole exists, carts and animals still go round week. An acquaintance, hitherto corthe village, from old custom. Before dial, passes us with a hasty how. A every house there was once (and some friend misconstrues our motives. An may still be seen) a stone spittoon, into enemy sows tares in our field of wheat. which smokers spat from the windows. There are a hundred little things in The custom of being without shoes every life-nay, in every day—that, if within doors is still in vigor, and before allowed, may disturb our composure every door there is a heap of shoes and and give us distress. We waste our boots and wooden pattens. That which resources in feeling too keenly the has been told about popular risings in trifles which should be met with philoBroek, in consequence of strangers hav-sophical firmness, or better still, with ing scattered some cherry-stones in the Christian patience. street, is a fable; but it is quite true that every citizen, who sees from his window a leaf or straw upon his pavement, comes out and throws it into the canal. That they go five hundred paces outside the village to dust their shoes, that boys are paid to blow the dust out of the cracks of the pavements four times an hour, and that, in certain cases, guests are carried in the arms lest they should soil the floors, are things which are told, said this good woman,

A very large waste of time and of force comes from the habit of postponing necessary effort. By-and-by, we say, will do as well as the present time for this and that engagement. And so our work gets ahead of us, and we never overtake it. They who look steadily after the present moment, utilizing it and grasping it with its appointed task, are surest of harvesting their sheaves in golden hours of glad fulfillment and joy."

.

A VERY good authority says:-"They not believe in a child's seeing life, as it that be drunken, are drunken in the is called, with its damnable lust and night." Not only drunkenness, but wickedness, to have all his imagination every other vice, holds high carnival set on fire with the flames of hell. Nounder the cover of night. As with the body goes through this fire, but they lower animals, among which a certain are burned, burned, burned; and they kind go to their nests and secluded nooks can never get rid of the scars." at night, while others are beasts of prey, and only leave their abodes at night in which they can carry on their mischief more concealed; so whilst many people enjoy the blessings of home at night, others turn night into day, and under the cover of darkness follow after sin. Henry Ward Beecher is thoroughly orthodox when he says:

THE Italian poet, Petrarch, could not only write fine poetry, but he could speak the truth under all circumstances. He had a truthful heart, and became noted as a truth-speaking man, a liver and lover of truth.

One day he was summoned to court as a witness on trial. On entering the witness box he prepared to take the usual oath, when the judge, closing the Holy Book, said, "As to you, Petrarch, your word is suffi ient."

Wasn't that a fine compliment to the poet's character? He had always been so careful to speak the truth that his word was considered equal to other men's oaths.

"If you want to make the ruin of a child sure, give him liberty after dark. You cannot do anything nearer to insure his damnation than to leave him liberty to go where he will without restraint. After dark he will be sure to get into communication with people that will undermine all his good qualities. I do not like to speak to parents about their children; but there are thousands who think their child cannot do wrong. SOMETIMES a polite regard for other Their child will not lie, when his tongue people's feelings makes it difficult to is like a bended bow; he will not drink, tell them the truth in a direct and unwhen there is not a saloon within a mile qualified form. President Lincoln amid of his father's house where he is not as his many pressing duties, once listened well known as one of its own decanters; patiently while a friend read a long he never does iniquitous things, when manuscript to him, and who then asked: he is reeking in filth. Nineteen out of" What do you think of it? How will every twenty allowed perfect freedom at it take?" The kind-hearted President night will be wounded by it. There is could not think of wounding the ambinothing more important than for a child tious feelings of his friend, and yet he to be at home at night; or, if he is must speak the truth. After reflecting abroad you should be with him. If he a little while, he answered: "Well, for is to see any sights or take any pleasure, people who like that kind of thing, I there is nothing that he should see that think that is just about the kind of thing you should not see with him. It is not they'd like.' merely that the child should be broken down, but there are thoughts that never ought to find a passage into a man's brain. As an eel, if he wriggle across your carpet, will leave his slime, which no brushing can ever efface, so there are thoughts that never can be got rid of, once permitted to enter; and there are individuals going round with obscene books and pictures under the lappels of their coats, that will leave ideas in the mind of your child that will never be effaced. There are men here who have heard a salacious song, and they never will forget it. They will regret having heard it to the end of their lives. I do

BEWARE of weeds. Unlike wheat or useful plants, they grow without being sown. And they scatter and multiply with amazing rapidity. How the seed of a few mullen stocks are blown over the frozen earth, and fill a whole field with their offspring. And the Canada. thistle sows its pernicious seed over whole townships in a short time, and once it takes root it is exceedingly hard to dislodge. What weeds are in the vegetable kingdom, sinful thoughts and habits are in the moral world. Beware, lest the seeds of moral weeds be borne into your soul. They come of their

own accord, and take root easily and deep. It is extremely perilous to let young people "sow their wild oats,' with the hope of correcting their evil habits in later life. Said a certain gentleman to us, who was greatly distressed about the conduct of his wayward son: "I see it now. I and my wife meant it well with our boy. We gave him many liberties, thinking that he could withstand temptation, and in maturer years he would of his own accord reform of such faults as he might fall into. We did wrong; I see it now."

grand funeral oration to his honor and memory.

Soon after this Libanius took charge of another student, from Antioch, whom he learned to love. His name was John, and his mother's name was Anthuзa. When John first applied to Libanius for instruction, he told the great man how his father had died soon after his birth, and that since then his widowed mother had devoted all her time, strength, and loving care to his training. In words that moved the heart of the heathen, he spoke of the exalted piety As for "sowing wild oats," Tom and self-forgetting love of Anthusa. AfHughes says:-"In all the wide range ter hearing the eloquent story of the of accepted British maxims there is youth, Libanius exclaimed: "What none-take it for all in all-more tho-noble women these Christians have." roughly abominable than the one 'as to the sowing of wild oats. Look at it on either side you will, and you can make nothing but a devil's maxim of it. The only thing to do with wild oats is to put them carefully into the hottest part of the fire and get them burnt to dust, every seed of them. If you sow them, no matter in what ground, up they will come, with long tough roots like couch grass, and luxuriant stalks and leaves, as sure as there is a sun in heaven-a crop which it turns one's heart cold to think of."

ST. JOHN CHRYSOSTOM, or the goldenmouthed, as he was called, by reason of his eloquence, studied under Libanius, a noted teacher of Rhetoric. It was in Antioch, where the disciples were first called Christians, and happened in the fourth century, over 1500 years ago.

Libanius was a scholarly defender of the heathen religion. He was the teacher of Julian, afterwards called the Apostate, who was a nephew of Constantine the Great. The heathen teacher perverted the mind of the young man from Christianity to heathenism. He neutralized his early teaching, and inspired him with a determination to exterminate Christianity. He claimed to be the restorer of the heathenism which his uncle had tried to destroy. For a short time matters looked very threatening, but St. Athanasius called it only a little passing cloud. Julian was killed in early life, in a war with the Persians, and his teacher delivered a

When asked who should be his successor after his death, Libanius replied: "John, if only the Christians had not taken him from me." Anthua was a better teacher than the apostate Roman Emperor had. All the arguments, eloquence, and affection of Libanius could not spoil or pervert her son from his faith. And the tribute which he paid to the excellence of Christian women, and their great superiority over those of the heathen, derives additional force from the fact that its author was a formidable enemy of Christianity. Thus Chrysostom was first taught how to love and serve God by his pious mother, and afterward he was taught eloquence by a heathen orator. Had Libanius taught him first, would Anthusa's work have brought the same fruit?

OUR BOOK TABLE.

The Fathers of the Reformed Church in Eu-
rope and America.-BY REV. H. HAR-
BAUGH, D.D. CONTINUED BY REV. D. Y.
HEISLER, A.M. VOL. V. Reading, Pa.:
Daniel Miller, 1881. pp. 427.-Price $1.50.

The first volume of this work was issued in 1857. For years previous Dr. Harbaugh had felt the importance and necessity of such a publication for the Reformed Church. Despite his numerous other duties then, he began the gathering and arranging of material. During the preparation of part of the first volume, Rev. J. L. Reber was associated with him in the writing of it, and who it was designed should furnish