FACTS, HINTS, GEMS, AND POETRY. Facts, Hints, Gems, and Poetry. Facts. A YANKEE FARMER. THE rich and proud slaveholders of the South who breed, and sell, and whip black men to make them do the work which they are neither able nor willing to do themselves, despise the Yankee farmers of the North as being mere labourers and stupid clowns. An English writer at New York, says: A WE should be careful of our actions, any one of which may result in consequences for good or evil beyond all we now can know or imagine. Actions are the foundations of character. The sound of your hammer at five in the morning builds it up, but coming out of the beer-shop at eleven at night pulls it down. No evil action can ever be well done; but a good action, pity 'tis to say it, may be spoiled by being badly done. "Let me tell you a little about one of these Yankees whom I know well, and in whose house I have lived weeks at a time. He is a small farmer, tilling less than one hundred acres, which have been owned and tilled by his family for generations, and living upon that and a little money out at interest. He not only goes to the fields with his men, but works with them there. I have many a time seen A Real Man's life is made up of him riding home on a load of hay, a the good actions he has done, not of good part of which had fallen before the splendid things he has only his own well-swung scythe. Now, thought of doing. what do you think that man's recreations are? Chiefly astronomy. fine observing telescope is his hobby. He is up with it in the middle of the night, and before the dawn, upon all good opportunity. His library, not large, but well chosen, is so thoroughly and intelligently read by him, that some of the most pungent opinions I have ever heard upon literature have come from his lips in English, than which no better, according to the standard of Oxford and Cambridge, is spoken anywhere. The word farmer conveys to you a certain idea. Does it convey the idea of such a man as this? From my observation I should judge decidedly not. And yet this man is only a farmer, and the son and grandson of Yankee farmers on both sides. But you will say that this There can be no nobler motive to do good. But we may often get good action than the desire to get good and by doing good. Good actions have eloquent voices. They discourse such sweet music, that all ears are ready to listen to them. Our actions are our property, and ever will be, for they follow a man into eternity for good or evil-as the Bible says, "and their works do follow them." In judging of actions we must always be guided by the immutable standard of right and wrong, making all reasonable allowance for circum FACTS, HINTS, gems, and POETRY. stances. The most charitable deci- earth and filled it with mourning, lamentation, and woe! sion being usually the least unjust. All creation is in action. The ground, cursed for man's sin, is turned into a blessing by his action. But the idle man curses himself. Gems. EARTH AND HEAVEN. Look at these, and compare them one with the other. How different! What striking contrasts! Only in one other place, and that place is Hell, is there a greater difference, or more striking contrasts. But we are yet on earth. We know what earth is, and we have heard what heaven is, and the contrast between these is sufficient to excite our notice. Earth is a scene of partial light and darkness, ever changing, and often uncertain-Heaven is filled with perfect and perpetual light. "There is no night there." The employments of earth are laborious and often painful; the employments of heaven are delightful and invigorating. Suffering and sorrow abound on earth-they are alike unknown in heaven. Groans and sighs are the utterances of earth-songs of joy unceasing and ever renewed are heard in heaven. Cares, disappointments, anxieties, fill us with apprehensions and fears on earth-not one of these ever arise in heaven. Death casts his dark shadow across our path and over all we see on earth; but death never has, never can, never will enter heaven. Graves rise all around us on earth. There are none in heaven. For sin, the cause of all these contrasts and differences, has never blighted heaven as it has blasted THE CHILDREN'S CORNER. The Children's Corner. BOYS, READ THIS. FROM the deepest caves of ocean, down amid dark sea-weed and worthless stones, the diver brings up the costliest pearls. Hid in the bowels of the earth is the diamond, which is dug up, and handed to the lapidary, and polished on the wheel, and set in the crown of royalty, where its flashing brilliancy dazzles all beholders. So it is a fact worth noticing that many of the greatest and best men have sprung from the lower classes of society. They have been cradled in poverty and nursed on the rough lap of want. However successful their after career-whatever triumphs they have won in politics, literature, science, or religion-how numerous soever their honours-they have owed nothing to birth, parentage, or early advantages. On the other hand, they have risen to greatness and renown in spite of the obstacles which their mean origin and needy youth threw across their way. I might take up all this space with an enumeration of names illustrative of this fact. Let a small selection suffice. I give them as I think of them. James Ferguson, the astronomer, was the son of a day labourer, and commenced his astronomical and mechanical studies while a shepherd boy. Martin Luther's father was a working miner, and hardly knew how to find his family bread. Robert Bloomfield was the son of a tailor, and passed through the changes of a farmer's boy and a working shoemaker. And that other Robert-I mean Robert Burns-was the son of a gardener, and himself in his early years followed the plough. Ben Jonson, the poet, was a bricklayer. Sir Francis Chantrey, the sculptor, was a milk-boy, who brought milk to Sheffield in tin cans fixed on each side an ass. Captain Cook, the discoverer, was the son of a farm servant, and commenced his career as a common sailor. Early in life William Cobbet followed the plough, like Robert Burns, and then enlisted as a private soldier. William Gifford, who for many years edited "The Quarterly Review," was a sailor boy, and afterwards a shoemaker's apprentice. The father of George Stephenson was a fireman earning twelve shillings a week; and the great engineer himself began life as a cowherd at twopence a day. John Foster, one of the profoundest thinkers of this or any other age, was the son of a hand-loom weaver, and the essayist when a boy followed the same calling. William Carey, the heroic missionary and learned Orientalist, was once a poor shoemaker. One of the most remarkable preachers of modern times, William Jay, of Bath, was a stonemason. The Welsh preacher, Christmas Evans, was left fatherless and in abject poverty when only nine years old, and spent his youth as a day labourer. And John Kitto, the great Bible scholar, at fifteen years of age was a parish pauper.. HYMNS ABOUT HEAVEN ; TO BE READ, OR SAID, OR SUNG ON EARTH. "We speak of the realms of the blest, That country so bright and so fair; And oft are its glories confest, But what must it be to be there ?" ANTICIPATION. O WHEN shall we sweetly remove, The mother of spirits distrest! Where sorrow and death are no more; But saints our Immanuel sing, And cherub and seraph adore. Not all the archangels can tell Thou know'st, in the spirit of prayer, To mourn for thy coming is sweet, And shout to the trumpet of God. HYMNS ABOUT HEAVEN. HOPE. How happy every child of grace, The land of rest, the saints' delight, A stranger in the world below, Its joys as soon are past; To that Jerusalem above While in the flesh, my hope and love, There my exalted Saviour stands, And still extends his wounded hands, What is there here to court my stay, The race we all are running now: And if I first attain, They too their willing head shall bow, They too the prize shall gain. Now on the brink of death we stand; And if I pass before, They all shall soon escape to land, And hail me on the shore. Then let me suddenly remove, |