A HERMIT'S CELL. A HERMIT'S CELL. PERHAPS some one asks, What is a hermit? A hermit is a man who thinks he can best serve God by going away from all his fellowmen, living in a rude cave, with nothing but vegetables and water to eat, and spending all his time by day and a great part of his time by night, in repeating prayers, and in thinking about another world. Once there were many such men all over Europe. The Papists were not the first men to live in this way. Far back, very long before there was a Pope at all, men thought in this way to serve God. Hermits were, and still are, common all over the East. You need not be told how wrong and foolish these men were. God did not give us hands merely to scratch up roots out of the ground to live on, nor yet bodies to be ill-used. God meant that men should work, and find in this what can never be found in the idleness of a hermit's life. He also meant that if men had any light in themselves, they should not hie away to a cave and hide it, but that they should live among their fellowmen, and cheer and guide them by the truth which they had learnt. Silly men are again trying to make people think A HERMIT'S CELL. that only such like men can be good. But with the Word of God in your hands, we hope that no such idle fancy will seize you. The better men are, the more the world needs them; and instead of living in forest caves or rude huts, they should dwell in the crowded cities. Very weak and foolish fables are told about some hermits; how, for instance, they stood up to their chins in water in winter, and did not feel cool; swam over rivers on their cloaks, smeared themselves all over with honey to entice the wasps and bees and were not stung, and often saw visions of saints, and held long talks with them. But all those tales are without any good purpose, and only found people to believe in them when the people were grossly ignorant. It may be good sometimes to be alone, and to think on good things; but to live alone as these hermits did is a sure way of filling the mind with wild and childish fancies. They who were called hermits had great power over dark and superstitious people. It was a man who was called Peter the Hermit who roused men to go off to the Holy Land to wrest the Holy Sepulchre from the followers of Mahomet. Although much good came out of the crusades, as they were called, which this hermit started, it was in another way than TWO DOGS. the hermit meant. Many towns got charters from their lords by giving them money to go off to the Holy Land, and the freedom of the people was increased. TWO DOGS. CHILDREN are never tired of hearing stories of animals; and of all animals that interest them, I do not know of one that is equal to the dog. Only one dear little girl whom I know thinks squirrel stories the very best in the world; but just now I have a dog story in my mind, and I mean to tell it, hoping some little black eyes, or blue, or great round brown eyes, may brighten as their owners hear it. Do you know where San Francisco is, black eyes? If you do not, nor blue eyes, nor brown eyes, nor yet the little pair of grey eyes that I forgot to mention up above-forgive me, dear grey eyes!-why, I will tell you. It is a great town in California. Sailing in at the Golden Gate, a narrow path in the water that leads big ships into the grandest harbour in America, you would reach San Francisco. A number of years ago, in the streets of this bustling city, lived a dog whom nobody seemed to own. Very likely his master had been killed, for TWO DOGS. once human life seemed worth very little in that State of California, where everybody was intent upon getting rich, and pushing everybody that stood in the way of this object out of the path, and perhaps out of life. At any rate our dog was without a master; and yet, somehow, he never went hungry, for every servant at the hotels, and every restaurant-keeper, knew and befriended this dog. When he was out of provision, all he had to do was to trot round to a saloon in Montgomery-street, wag his tail, and speak to the keeper, when straightway there came flying through the air and falling at his feet such a delicious bone! enough to make all dogs envious-meat enough on it to satisfy two or three dogs any time. Because this dog got his living thus from public charity, and did no work, such as guarding houses or defending a master, he came to be called Bummer. They call a man who lounges at the corner of the streets, and does not work, as all honest men should, with his head or his hands, a “bummer.” Now it was not the dog's fault that he did no work, so I am rather sorry he got such a name. A man who should choose to get his living out of other people, and fold his hands in idleness, would be worthy of the contempt of all honest persons everywhere; but Bum |