'What art thou doing there, I gave half of it to P. Priorus, and Joachim? Dost thou not see how made the man glad."

idle thou art? Come out and make thyself useful.' Then he took out the medal, and contributed it

to the object. Come, my dear friends, added M. Legrand, look in your pockets and see if there be not some idle Joachims in

42. "Making a Man Glad."—One of Bishop Burnet's parishioners, being in great distress, applied to

him for assistance. The Prelate requested to know what would serve him, and reinstate him in his trade. The man named the sum, and Burnet told the servant to give it 41. Luther's Unselfishness. to him. "Sir," said the servant, Disinterestedness was a leading "it is all that we have in the

them."

feature

in the character of house."

Luther; superior to all selfish considerations, he left the honours

"Well, give it to this poor man; you do not know the pleasure there is in making a man glad."

and emoluments of this world to those who delighted in them. The poverty of this great man 43. Saying and Doing.-A Londid not arise from wanting don merchant having been emthe means of acquiring riches, barrassed in his circumstances, and for few men have had it in their his misfortunes having been one day power more easily to obtain them. the subject of conversation in the The Elector of Saxony offered him Royal Exchange, several persons the produce of a mine at Sneberg; expressed great sorrow; when a but he nobly refused it, "lest," foreigner who was present said, said he, "I should tempt the devil, who is lord of these subterraneous treasures, to tempt me." The enemies of Luther were no stran

gers to his contempt for gold. When one of the Popes asked a certain Cardinal why they did not stop that man's mouth with silver and gold, his Eminence replied, "That German beast regards not money!" It may easily be supposed that the liberality of such a man would often exceed his means. A poor student once telling him of his poverty, he desired his wife to give him a sum of money; and when she informed him they had none left, he immediately seized a cup of some value, which accidentally stood within his reach, and, giving it to the poor man, bade him go and sell it, and keep the money to supply his wants. In one of his epistles, Luther says, "I have received one hundred guilders from Taubereim; and Schartts has given me fifty; so that I begin to fear lest God should reward me in this life. But I will not be satisfied with it. What have I to do with so much money?

66

I feel five hundred pounds for him; what do you feel?"

44. Trying to do Good.-Lady had nothing to do; that she did not Holland was ever lamenting that she know what to be at, or how to employ her time. "I recommended thing new-to try to do a little her," said the poet Rogers, "somegood." Once fairly engaged in that business, one will never have is a good cure-all to laziness or to complain of nothing to do. It listlessness.

45. Well-spent Life. Dr. Cotton Mather, who was born at Boston, U.S., in the seventeenth century, commenced a life of the most active beneficence when very young, and at the age of sixteen adopted as a maxim that a power and an opportunity to do good not only gives the right of doing it, but makes it a positive duty. On this maxim he determined to act, and continued to do so during the remainder of his days. Accordingly he began in his father's family, by doing all the good in his power to his brothers and sisters, and

to the servants. After he had necessary visits; and, to prevent attained to man's estate, he im- intrusion, he caused to be written, posed on himself a rule "never in large characters, over the door to enter any company where it was proper for him to speak without endeavouring to be useful in it; dropping, as opportunities might offer, some instructive hint or admonition." By way of improving every moment of his time, he avoided paying or receiving un

of his study, these admonitory words, "Be short." Not a day passed without some contrivance on his part "to do good," nor without his being able to say, at the close of it, that some part of his income had been distributed for pious purposes.

THE BIBLE.

Psalm xii. 6, cxix. 18; Isaiah xl. 8; John v. 39; Acts xvii. 11; 1 Thess. ii. 13; Hebrews iv. 12.

46. Bible Cart.-When the ar- | immemorial. What else could rival of the cart which carried the have demolished that system of first sacred load of the Scriptures idolatry which had so long present by the British and Foreign Bible vailed among us? No human Society to Wales, in 1806, was arguments could have induced us announced, the Welsh peasants to abandon that false system." went out in crowds to meet it; welcomed it as the Israelites did the ark of old; drew it into the town; and eagerly bore off all the copies as rapidly as they could be dispersed. The young people were to be seen spending the whole night in reading it. Labourers carried it with them to the field, that they might enjoy it during the intervals of labour, and lose no opportunity of becoming acquainted with its blessed truths.

We

The same question being put to another, he replied, "I believe the Bible to be the Word of God, on account of the pure system of religion which it contains. had a system of religion before; but look how dark and black a system that was, compared with the bright system of salvation revealed in the Word of God! Here we learn that we are sinners, and that God gave Jesus Christ to die for us; and, by that goodness, salvation is given to us. Now, what but the 47. Bible the Word of God.—The wisdom of God could have proRev. J. Williams, missionary to the duced such a system as this preSouth-Sea Islands, tells us that the sented to us in the Word of God? question was once asked of a And this doctrine leads to purity." number of Polynesians, "Do you There was a third reply to this believe the Bible to be the Word of question, and it was rather a sinGod?" They were startled; they gular one; but it was a native had never entertained a single idea. "When I look at myself, I doubt on the subject; but, after a find I have got hinges all over my moment's pause, one answered, body. I have hinges to my legs, Most certainly we do; undoubt- hinges to my jaws, hinges to my edly we do." It was asked, "Why feet. If I want to take hold of do you believe it? Can you give anything, there are hinges to my any reason for believing the Bible hands to do it with. If my heart to be the Word of God?" He thinks, and I want to speak, I have replied, "Why, look at the power got hinges to my jaws. If I want with which it has been attended, to walk, I have hinges to my feet. in the utter overthrow of all that Now, here," continued he, "is we have been addicted to from time wisdom, in adapting my body to

66

the various functions which it has to discharge. And I find that the wisdom which made the Bible exactly fits with this wisdom which has made my body; consequently I believe the Bible to be the Word of God." Another replied, "I believe it to be the Word of God, on account of the prophecies which it contains, and the fulfilment of them."

with the gift. He had at length exhausted all his store, with the exception of one copy; this he offered to a man standing near him. The man took it, opened it, and, turning to a companion, said, sneeringly, "Oh! this will do to light my pipe with"-a discouraging enough reception; but the book having been once given was beyond recovery. About a year and 48. Blind Guides.-A learned distributor of the Testaments was a half after this occurrence, the Oriental, having been to visit the on a short journey through the library of a French convent, writes South of France, and stopped on thus to his friend in Persia, concern- his way at a roadside inn for reing what had passed:-" Father," freshment and a night's lodging. said I to the librarian, "what are On entering the house, he soon these huge volumes which fill the perceived that something of a whole side of the library?" melancholy nature had transpired. "These," said he, "are the inter-On inquiring of the landlady what preters of the Scriptures." "There it was, she informed him that her is a prodigious number of them," eldest son had been buried that replied I; "the Scriptures must She went on very have been very dark formerly, and naturally to dilate on his many very week. be very clear at present. Do there excellences, and spoke of his happy remain still any doubts? Are death-bed. 66 'And, sir," said she, there now any points contested?" "all his happiness was got from a "Are there!" answered he with little book that was given him some surprise" are there! There are time ago." The gentleman inalmost as many as there are lines."quired further concerning the little "You astonish me," said I; "what book. "You shall see it," said the then have all these authors been mother: "it is upstairs." doing?" "These authors," re- sought and gave him a small book. turned he, 66 never searched the On opening it, he found it to be Scriptures for what ought to be a French Testament, and further believed, but for what they did identified it as the very one he had believe themselves. They did not himself given, so many months consider them as a book wherein before, to that seemingly unpromiswere contained the doctrines which ing soldier at Toulon. He disthey ought to receive, but as a covered that five or six of the first work which might be made to pages had been torn out, thus authorise their own ideas." proving that the man had actually commenced the fulfilment of his

49. Casting Bread upon the Waters. -During the time of the Russian war, several regiments of French soldiers were quartered at Toulon, waiting for orders to embark for the Crimea. A pious person in the neighbourhood, thinking that amongst the men he might find some opportunities of usefulness, visited the camp, taking with him a number of French Testaments; these he distributed to the men, many of whom seemed pleased

She

threat of using the book to light his pipe with. This was not all; on the fly-leaf was written these words:- -"Given to me at Toulon, on day; first despised, then read, and finally blessed to the saving of my soul."

50. Collins's One Book.-The poet Collins, in the latter part of his life, withdrew from his general studies, and travelled with no other book than an English New Testament,

such as children carry to school. A friend was anxious to know what companion such a man of letters had chosen; the poet said, "I have only one book, and that book is the best."

a

that every fresh perusal of the sacred page seemed to unveil new beauties. Here he stopped, and said to his friend, as soon as he recovered himself, "I could not suppress the emotion I felt, as I recollected the delight it pleased God to afford me in the reading of His Word."

51. Costly Bibles.-Of W. de Howton, Abbot of Coxton, it is stated that he bequeathed to the abbey at his death, in 1274, " 53. God's Word Precious.-Two Bible, in nine tomes, faire written, men came one night to Mr. Ellis, and excellently well glossed by the missionary of Madagascar. Solomon, Archdeacon of Leicester, They had walked a hundred miles and paid for it fifty markes stirling,' "out of their way to visit him.

or £33 6s. 8d. And in a valuation "Have you the Bible ?" asked Mr. of books bequeathed to Merton Ellis. "We have seen it and College, at Oxford, before the year heard it read," one man said; "but 1300, a Psalter with glosses, or we have only some of the words of marginal annotations, is valued at David, and they do not belong to ten shillings; and St. Austin, on us; they belong to the whole Genesis, and a Concordantia, or family." "Have you the words of Harmony, are each valued at the David with you now?" asked Mr. same price. These sums should be multiplied by fifteen, to bring them to the present value of money; and in some instances the comparative value would be still too low, as in the case of the labouring men, whose pay in 1272 was only threehalfpence per day, and who must therefore have devoted the earnings of fourteen or fifteen years to the purchase of a Bible. Towards the close of the thirteenth and at the commencement of the fourteenth century, the average wages of a man-servant, with meat and clothing, were only from three to five shillings per annum; reapers were paid twopence a day; a sheep sold for a shilling; and thirty quarters of fossil coal for seventeen shillings and sixpence.

52. Delights of Bible Study.-In a conversation with a friend, a short time before his death, Dr. Buchanan was describing the minute pains he had been taking with the proofs and revisions of the Syriac Testament, every page of which passed under his eye five times before it was finally sent to press. He said he had expected beforehand that this process would have proved irksome to him, but

Ellis. They looked at each other, but would not answer. Perhaps they were afraid; but Mr. Ellis spoke kindly to them. Then one of the men put his hand into his bosom, and took out what seemed to be a roll of cloth. He unrolled, and, after removing some wrappers, behold, there were a few old, torn, dingy leaves of the Psalms, which had been read, passed round, lent, and re-read, until they were almost worn out. Tears came to Mr. Ellis's eyes when he saw them. "Have you ever seen the words of Jesus, or John, or Paul, or Peter ?" asked the missionary. "Yes," they said, "we have seen and heard them, but we never owned them." Mr. Ellis then went and brought out a Testament with the Book of Psalms bound up with it, and showed it them. "Now," said he, "if you will give me your few words of David, I will give you all his words, and all the words of Jesus, and John, and Paul, and Peter besides." The men were amazed and delighted; but they wanted to see if the words of David were the same in Mr. Ellis's book; and when they found they were, and thousands more of the same sort, their joy knew no bounds.

They willingly gave up their poor, tattered leaves, seized the volume, bade the missionary good-bye, and started off upon their long journey home, rejoicing like those who had found a great spoil.

54. Literary Excellence of Bible. -The following is related by the eminent American, Daniel Webster:

“Then,” said Wesselus, "I beg you to give me, out of the Vatican Library, a Greek and a Hebrew Bible." "You shall have them," said Sixtus; "but, foolish man, why don't you ask for a bishopric, the best of reasons," said Wesseor something of that sort ?" "For lus; "because I do not want such things."

56. Negro Reasoning.

When

Naimbana, a black Prince, arrived in England from the neighbourhood of Sierra Leone, the gentleman to whose care he was entrusted took great pains to convince him that the Bible was the Word of God, and he received it as such with great reverence and simplicity. When asked what it was that satisfied him on this subject, he replied, "When I found all good men minding the Bible, and calling it the Word of God, and all bad men disregarding it, I then was sure that the Bible must be what good men call it, the Word of God."

57. Peasant's New Testament.

"When in Paris, some years ago, I received an account of a French infidel, who happened to find in a drawer of his library some stray leaves of an unknown volume. Although in the constant habit of denouncing the Bible, like most infidel writers he had never read any part of it. These fugitive leaves contained the prayer of Habakkuk (Hab. iii.) Being a man of fine literary taste, he was captivated with its poetic beauty, and hastened to the club-house to announce the discovery to his associates. Of course they were anxious to know the name of the gifted author, to which inquiries the elated infidel replied, 'A writer by the name of HAB-BA-KOOK, of course a Frenchman! Judge of A peasant in the county of Cork, the infidel's surprise when informed understanding that a gentleman that the passage he was so enthu- had a copy of the Scriptures in the siastically admiring was not proIrish language, begged to see it. duced by one of his own countrymen, He asked whether he might borrow nor even by one of his own class of the New Testament in his own so-called free-thinkers, but tongue, that he might take a copy penned by one of God's ancient from it. The gentleman said that he prophets, and was contained in could not obtain another copy, and that much-despised book, the that he was afraid to trust it to take Where will you Bible. This," Webster adds, "I a copy in writing. regard as one of the sublimest get the paper?" asked the gentlepassages of inspired literature; "I will buy it." "And the and often have I wondered that pens and ink ?" "I will buy "Where will you find a some artist, equal to the task, has them." not selected the prophet and his place?" "If your honour will allow scene of desolation as the subject me your hall, I will come after I of a painting." have done my work in the day, and take a copy by portions of time in the evening." The gentleman was so struck with his zeal that he gave him the use of the hall and a light, in order to take a copy. The man was firm to his purpose, finished the work, and produced a copy of the New Testament in writing by his own hand. A printed

was

55. Most Precious Gift.-One of the most learned men in the fifteenth century, John Wesselus, of Groningen, called 'the light of the world," having been once introduced to the presence of the Pope, was requested by the Pontiff to ask for some favour for himself.

man.