The Lambs in Bis Arms." N a Chinese Christian family at Amoy, children, on asking am only a little boy; it will be easier for Jesus to carry me. This logic of the heart was too much for the fa ther. He was ere long baptized. The whole family, of which this child is the youn all members of the Mission Church at Amoy. - Miss. The Beautiful but Deadly Tree. HERE is a tree, called the Manchaneel, which grows in the West Indies; to appearance it is very attractive, and the wood of it peculiarly beautiful; it bears a kind of apple, resembling the golden pippin. This fruit looks very tempting, and smells very The fragrant; but to eat of it is instant death; and its sap or juice is so poisonous, that if a few drops of it fall on the skin, it raises blisters, and occasions great pain. Indians dip their arrows in the juice, that they may poison their enemies when they wound them. Providence hath so appointed it, that one of these trees is never found, but near it there also grows a white wood, or a fig-tree, the juice of either of which, if applied in time, is a remedy for the diseases produced by the manchaneel. Now when I read this account, I thought of sin and salvation. Sin, like this poisonous apple, looks pleasant to the eye, and men desire it, and eat of it, and die. But there is a remedy at hand. Apply, therefore, to this means of cure! Fly to a crucified Saviour! there is no time to be lost! the poison works within us! the disease every moment is increasing. Go to the great Physician without delay. Whitecross. The Man that killed his Neighbours. R EUBEN BLACK bought the farm next to was a torment in the neighbourhood where he resided. His wife had a sharp and uncomfortable look. His boys seemed to be in perpetual fear. His dog dropped his tail between his legs, and eyed him askance, as if to see what humour he was in. The cat looked wild, and had been known to rush straight up the chimney when he moved towards her. Every day he cursed the town and the neighbourhood because the people poisoned his dogs and stoned his hens. Continual lawsuits involved him in so much trouble and expense, that he had neither time nor money to spend in the improvement of his farm. Such was the state of things when Simeon Green Reuben's. This had been much neglected, and had caught thistles and other weeds from the neighbouring fields. But Simeon was a diligent man, and one who commanded well his own temper, for he had learned of Him who is meek and lowly in heart. His steady perseverance and industry soon changed the aspect of things on the farm. River mud, autumn leaves, old bones, were all put into use to assist in producing fertility and beauty. His sleek horse tossed his mane and neighed when his master came near; as much as to say, "The world is all the pleasanter for having you in it, Simeon Green!" When Simeon turned his steps homewards, his children threw their caps and ran shouting, "Father's 66 coming!" His wife sometimes said to her neighbours, Everybody loves my husband that knows him. They cannot help it." Simeon Green's acquain tance knew that he was never engaged in a lawsuit in his life, but they predicted that he would find it impossible to avoid it now. They told him his next neighbour was determined to quarrel with people whether they would or not; that he was like John Lilburne, of whom it was happily said, "If the world were emptied of every person but himself, Lilburne would still quarrel with John, and John with Lilburne." "Is that his character ?" said Simeon. "If he exercises it upon me, I will soon kill him." People were not slow in repeating Simeon Green's remark about his wrangling neighbour. "Kill me, will he?" exclaimed Reuben. He said no more; but his tightly compressed mouth had such a significant expression that his dog slunk from him in alarm. Then commenced a series of teasing worries and persecutions, for Reuben was determined to make his new neighbour quarrel with him. But for some time all his attempts failed. Simeon would not be quarrelled with. Nay more, he and his wife made many little ad vances to a friendly state of things, and never seemed affronted when they were rejected. This imperturbable goodnature vexed Reuben more than all the tricks and taunts he met from others. Evil efforts he could understand, and repay with compound interest, but he did not know what to make of this perpetual forbearance. It seemed to him there must be something contemptuous in it. He disliked Simeon more than all the rest of the people put together, because he made him feel so uncomfortably in the wrong, and did not afford him the slightest pretext for complaint. At last, one night, after sitting very thoughtfully smoking for a long time, he gently knocked the ashes from his pipe, and said, with a sigh, 66 Peg, Simeon Green has killed me!" "What do you mean?" said his wife, dropping her knitting with a look of surprise. "You know when he first came into this neighbourhood, he said he would kill me," replied Reuben; "and he has done it. The other day he asked me to help his team out of the bog, and I told him I had enough to do to attend to my own business. To-day my team stuck fast in the same bog, and he came with two yoke of oxen to draw it out. I felt ashamed to have him lend me a hand; so I told him I wanted none of his help; but he answered just as pleasant as if nothing contrary had happened, that night was coming on and he was not willing to leave me in the mud." "He is a pleasant-spoken man," said Mrs. Black, "and always has a pretty word to say to the boys. His wife seems to be a nice neighbourly body too." The next morning, much to his wife's astonishment, Reuben took up a fine ripe melon, and said he would take it "over there." Over, accordingly, to Mr. Green's house he went, feeling very awkward, and after brushing his hat, and rub. bing his head, and looking out at the window, he said suddenly, as if by a desperate effort, "The fact is, Mr. Green, I did not behave right about the oxen." "Never mind -never mind," replied Mr. Green. "Perhaps I shall get into the bog again one of these rainy days. If I do, I shall know whom to call upon " "Ah, well, we must try to be to others what we want them to be to us," rejoined Simeon. "You know the good Book says so. I have learned by experience, that if we speak kind words, we hear kind echoes. If we try to make others happy, it fills them with a wish to make us happy. Perhaps you and I can bring the neighbours round in time to this way of thinking and acting. Who knows? let us try, Mr. Black, let us try. And come and look at my orchard. I want to shew you a tree which I have grafted with very choice apples. If you like, I will procure you some cuttings from the same stock." They went into the orchard together, and friendly chat soon put Reuben at his ease. When he returned home, he made no remarks about his visit; for he could not, as yet, summon suffi cient greatness of soul to tell his wife that he had confessed himself in the wrong. A gun stood behind the kitchen door, in readiness to shoot Mr. Green's dog for having barked at his horse. He now fired the contents into the air, and put the gun away into the barn. From that day henceforth, he never sought for any pretext to quarrel with the dog or his master. Simeon Green was too magnanimous to repeat to any one that his quarrel- his wife, "I thought we some neighbour had con should kill him after a while." Sunbeams in the fessed himself to blame. He The Falling Rain. CARK the rain that falls from above; the same shower that drops out of one cloud increaseth sundry plants in a garden, and severally, according to the condition of every plant. In one stalk it makes a rose; in another a violet; diverse in a third; and sweet in all. So the Spirit works His multifarious effects in several complexions, and all according to the increase of God.Jeremy Taylor. The Sinner Pleading with Christ. FOR ever here my rest shall be, Close to Thy bleeding side; This all my hope, and all my plea, For me the Saviour died. My dying Saviour, and my God, And cleanse and keep me clean. Wash me, and make me thus Thine own, And all my soul be love. |