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No sooner was the bargain settled, than the sailor opened the cage-door, and let all the birds fly away.

The boy, looking quite astonished, exclaimed, "What did you do that for, sir? You have lost all your birds.”

"I will tell you," said the sailor, "why I did it. I was shut up three years in a French prison, as a prisoner of war, and I am resolved never to see anything in prison that I can make free."

Perhaps Jack did not act very wisely in this; though the birds would most likely be all of the boy's own catching, and be able to find their food. But it showed his generous gratitude for having got his own liberty, and his love to see all prisoners set free. It is a playful and pleasant story, but does it not show us, dear reader, how it is that souls whom Christ has set free, long to see other souls enjoying the same liberty! By nature we are all, young and old, the prisoners of sin, and the servants of the devil. Jesus alone can deliver us. In coming to him, we are saved from sin, both from its curse and its power. "If the Son make you free, ye shall be free indeed.

"

PETER AND SUFFERINGS.

"IT is better, if the will of God be so, that ye suffer for well doing than for evil doing" (1 Pet. iii. 17). Peter's mind loved to dwell upon sufferings. Sixteen times in this first Epistle he speaks of Christ and his people's "sufferings." There was an old tradition among the early Christians that Peter, during the remainder of his life, after his fall and repentance, could never hear the cock crow without weeping.

WHERE THERE'S A WILL THERE'S A WAY. As God has made it our duty to do good to others, so he takes care in his providence to furnish us with opportunities for it.-Matthew Henry.

"HOW WONDERFUL!"

A MISSIONARY'S wife who was living in India lost two dear children within a short time of each other, but it was her comfort in her sorrow to know that her little ones were safe with their Saviour. The following is part of a letter which she wrote to a friend in England soon after her great loss:

"I was lately walking in the evening with my little girl, when some Hindu women came up to me, and asked, Where are your other children?' I told them that the two eldest were in Europe, and that the two youngest had died. 'Oh,' they said, 'where is the mother who cannot say that one or more of her children have died? But when your children die, you do not allow your heart to mourn as we do. When one of our children dies we lament and call it by name all day, and when we wake at night we call again. You are quiet, no one sees that there is anything the matter with you!' I replied, "There is certainly a great difference between us and you. You lament and call your children, and ask where they are gone to, because you do not know where they are gone. But I have a Saviour, and to him my children are gone; he keeps them for me until I go to him too. Then I shall find them with him all safe.'

The women

said, 'Are you quite sure that you will find them again? I said, 'Yes; as sure as I am that my little girl stands near to me now, so sure am I that I shall find my two children again. They are only gone before me; and though we have laid their little bodies in the grave, our Saviour will come, and call them out again, and they will live for ever. I do not know what may befall the two, who are gone to Europe, but the two little ones are safe. 'How wonderful! how wonderful!' they said, and went away. I am sure they will never forget that conversation; and while walking home I thought that the hope of finding their departed children again might become a means to draw the heathen mothers of this land to Christ.' The Lambs of Christ's Flock.

THE LESSON AND THE TEACHER.

And

CHRIST is the lesson; we must learn Christ.
Christ is the teacher; we are taught by him.-Matthew
Henry.

MISSIONARY NOTES.
"Thy Kingdom Come.”

Madagascar.-Coronation of King Radama II.

THE new King of Madagascar was crowned in the capital on 23d September. Mr. Ellis, and the newly arrived missionaries of the London Missionary Society, were present, by the special invitation of the King. Mr. Ellis writes:

"After a night of short sleep I rose, and soon after six a captain and twenty men, in uniform and armed, came to my house, and drew up in front of the door. The officer said they were sent to conduct me to Mahamasura, the place in which the coronation was to take place, and to attend upon me through the day, and see that I was not incommoded by the people. When ready, I seated myself in my palanquin, with the star of the Order of Radama II., with which his Majesty had honoured me, and proceeded with my attendants through the city.

The Queen ascended the flight of steps leading to the seats prepared for their Majesties, under the canopy erected over the sacred stone on which the monarch on commencing his reign, exhibits himself to the heads of the nation. The King followed, wearing the British fieldmarshal's uniform presented by her Majesty Queen Victoria, and a splendid light-coloured robe. When their Majesties had been seated a few minutes the King rose, and taking the crown from a stand on his right, placed it on his head. The firing of cannons announced the fact. The band struck up the National Anthem, while the multitude saluted the newly-crowned monarch with the Malagasy salutation, May you live a thousand years.

"The King then delivered his kabar or speech to the people, assuring them that his confidence in and affection towards them, and that his purposes for the welfare of his country and the prosperity of all classes, were the same as when he was raised to the throne."

A Poor Place for Priests.

Mr firm impression is, that it is not of the least use to attempt to spread the Roman Catholic religion in Madagascar. One of the Roman Catholic priesthood whom I met there, observed to me that one might just as well attempt to cut a rock with a razor, as attempt to make Roman Catholics of the Malagasy!-Bishop of Mauritius.

A Church Jubilee in Greenland.

ON November 1st, 1861, we solemnly kept the jubilee of the opening of our church, a hundred years ago. Our people felt the solemnity of the celebration, and joined with heart and soul in the meetings of the day. About the time of this jubilee, a dead whale, which after having. been harpooned by some whaler must have escaped, was found floating near our island, and proved a real Godsend. Having towed it to a convenient strand, they kept the jubilee with joy, and then went to slice from the trunk the blubber and flesh, which were both in sound condition.-Brother J. W. Uellner, (Moravian) Lichtenfels, Greenland.

BOOKS.

THE GREAT CHANGE. By the Rev. W. Reid, A.M. Edinburgh: James Taylor. 16mo, 16 pp. Price One Penny. THE KING AND HIS CAPTIVE; Or, THE BIRTHDAY FEAST. BY the Rev. A. N. Somerville. Glasgow: T. Murray and Son. 32mo, 24 pages. Price One Penny.

The first of the above was, we believe, written for the new year, but is well adapted for general circulation. It is faithful, searching, and affectionate: not especially intended for the young, but earnest and interesting in style. The second tract is an address to the young on the martyrdom of John the Baptist. It has many solemn thoughts, both for warning and encouragement. We have been glad to observe, last New Year, an increasing number of our ministers appearing in print with counsels to the young of their charges.

THE HAPPY HOME. Edited by the Rev. N. L. Walker. Edinburgh: James Wood. 8 pp., post folio, with Woodcuts. Price One Penny.

A happy title, and the work does not belie it. While not exclusively religious, its contents are interesting and varied, and fitted to be useful to old and young at the family everyday fireside. Amid our many periodicals, the Happy Home is, in Scotland, so far as we know, the only one of its kind, and is well-deserving of a large círculation. The January number contains an excellent likeness of the late beloved Prince Albert, and an excellent article refering to his death.

IN MEMORY

OF A VISIT TO PRIESTHILL, AND THE MONUMENT OF
JOHN BROWN, august 1, 1862.

[JOHN BROWN, a godly Covenanter, was cruelly shot at his cottage door, at Priesthill, Lanarkshire, by Graham of Claverhouse, on May morning, 1685.]

A GOWAN and a buttercup

I plucked from where he stood
That morn, beside his cottage door,
Begirt with men of blood,-

A place amid the lonely hills,
A moorland solitude.

There you may trace where walls were once,

The "hallan" and the hearth;

Where John, at eve, would lift his soul
Above the cares of earth,
And in the page of Wisdom read
Redemption's wondrous birth.

And there's the little garden-plot,
In which the week's toil over-
On Saturday's sweet eve he'd sit
And list the lonely plover,

And watch the sunwarped veil of mist
Gray Wardlaw's summit cover,

And muse on Him who died to save-
Who formed the human soul;

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