"Whom have I in Heaven but Thee?" (PSALM LXXIII. 25). 39 History of a Bean. (HE history of a single bean, accidentally planted in a garden, is traced by a newspaper correspondent, who figured out its produce for three years. The bean was planted in a rich, loamy soil, and when gathered in the autumn its yield, as counted, "was 1,515 perfectly developed beans from a single stalk. Now, if a single bean produces 1,515 beans, and each bean produces 1,515 more, the sum total of the second year's product would be 2,295,225, equal to 1,195 pounds, or 597 quarts,equal to eighteen and five-eighths bushels. This would be the product of the second year. Now, if we plant this product and the yield is the same, we have a product of 5,268,058,800,625 beans, equal to 1,371,890 tons, or 42,871,572 bushels. This third planting would give the steamship Great Eastern ninety-two full freights." WHO MADE THAT BEAN? All the men on earth, with all their machinery and wealth, could not make one bean in six thousand years. They might make a pen-knife, but could they make a knife that would make ten others? Could they make a watch that, if buried in the damp earth, would divide itself into 1,515 watches just like itself, and each of these watches produce 1,515 more, and so on to the end of the world? What is this mysterious power that works with such certainty, celerity, uniformity and persistency? "Law?" What is law? and who made it, and who executes it? What law can enforce and execute itself? Beyond all the deep and mysterious operations of the natural world, we see the constant guidance of an over-ruling, allcontrolling, and Omnipotent Hand. "There E marvel sometimes that God's justice is not promptly and signally displayed, and that those who sin are not at once destroyed. They would be, if they depended on the forbearance of good But wicked men live and prosper, men. not because God is indifferent, but because He is patient, and gives them time and opportunity to forsake their evil ways. The world is full of instances to show us that Divine justice, though long delayed, is at last executed. Nothing is more foolish, if we were aware of it, than to envy the prosperity of the wicked. 40 "His commandments are not grievous" (JOHN v. 3). WHO WILL HELP? 'HE following application for a grant of our Tracts is from a Clergyman in England, who is engaged in seeking out the poor and neglected of his parish by visiting them at their dwellings, and trying to bring them under the elevating power of the Gospel of Christ. Such efforts to reclaim the outcast are generally carried on under very many discouragements, and they deserve the sympathy and help of Christians everywhere. For this case, and others of similar urgent need, we ask our readers and friends who may have it in their power to assist by their means, in order that a prompt and adequate response may be made to such appeals: "I am curate of in this town, and am trying my best to get the poor and degraded in the parish under the influence of the Gospel. They are by hundreds so terribly degraded that they never enter either a church or chapel; and I find, to my great grief, know but little of the Bible, and some know nothing of it at all. I am urging some Christian friends to visit these people in their houses and dens, and am doing so myself as far as time and strength allow. We are sorely in need of pointed, telling, yet interesting tracts, and are, I am sorry to say, too poor to supply our various wants As the worst part of the parish falls to my care, I have been pressed by circumstances to apply to you, to know if you will grant me some tracts, which would indeed greatly encourage and stimulate us, and be, without doubt, under God, the means of much blessing to the people." The Comforts of God. "Thy comforts delight my soul."—PSALM xeiv. 19. 'HERE is a plurality of them,-many comforts. What should encounter with sorrow but comfort? Comfort, therefore, it is for the nature. What should oppose a multitude, but a multitude? Many comforts, therefore, they are for their number. Are we troubled with the wants and miseries of this life? We have a comfort for that: "The Lord is my portion; He is my shepherd. I shall lack nothing." Do we sink under the burden of our transgressions? We have a comfort for that. Mary Magdalene heard it to quiet all her alarms: "Thy sins are forgiven thee." Are we haunted with temptations, hurried with persecutions? We have a comfort for that: "I will be with thee in trouble :" saith the Lord. I will sum up these comforts in a few words: "The Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repenteth Him of the evil."Adams. THE GOSPEL TRUMPET. Published by the Trustees of the late PETER DRUMMOND, at Drummond's Tract Depot, Stirling, N.B. "Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature." 42 "The Lord is my helper" (HEBREWS XIii. 6). again and again with ever-deepening bear upon the spot, he at length intensity. It was that of a poor widow woman, who, having a room in the house, had a short time before left her children asleep, to go some distance to see a sick sister, and now returned only to find them in the very midst of a terrible conflagration. With the energy of despair she cleft her way through the crowd, and, seizing one of the fire-escapes, planted it against the wall, its top below the window of her little room. It was with difficulty she was prevented from rushing up the steps of the ladder—nor did she desist from the attempt till she saw one of the firemen actually entering by the window. It was a time of awful suspense to every beholder-the flames in the flat below making rapid progress, and threatening not only to destroy the children, but to arrest the heroic man who, with his life in his hand, had gone in search of them. In a few seconds, however, he appeared again at the window with a child in either arm, and commenced the descent of the ladder. A few seconds more and that would have been impossible the steps of the ladder being already licked and blackened by the flames. But the full power of several engines being brought to descended in safety, amid the acclamations of the multitude, and gave the trembling little ones to their mother, who, her intense agony at last relieved, fell in a swoon at his feet. Father mother! you can scarce read the story thus tamely told without excitement. What of your own children? Are they safe? Or your neighbours' children? or those little waifs who daily cross your path, and for whom nobody seems to care? Are they safe, soul as well as body? What have you done to save them? And with what energy of faith and love and effort? How fearful, that while the endangered bodily life of a single poor child should convulse a whole multitude with the wildest excitement, the peril of its immortal soul should often give even its parents no concern! ARE YOUR CHILDREN SAFE? WHEN thou art to embrace religion, it is good going in company, if thou canst get them,-for the greater blessing falls upon a multitude, but resolve to go, though alone; for thou shalt never see the Lord Jesus, if thou tarry till all Jerusalem go with thee to Bethlehem.-Thomas Adams. "Arise, call upon thy God" (JONAH I. 6). The Critical Moment. "And they told him, that Jesus of Nazareth passeth by." (LUKE Xviii. 37.) BEGGAR, and hopelessly blind at that! How sad a case! He cannot go to any celebrated physician, and it were useless if he could. He has heard of One (invalids are quick to learn such facts) who cures the blind. But He has never been to Jericho. Will He ever come? "Shall I know it if He come, and, knowing it, can I gain an audience?" Painful and oft-repeated questions, suspending his hopes on the frail thread of remote contingencies. But one day there is a crowd rushing along, trampling over and by the poor blind man. Hearing the multitude, he asked what it meant. The answer thrills him by the double fact so briefly told. It is Jesus, and He is "passing by!" It is the moment of the man's life. JESUS ALONE CAN HELP HIM; was then at Jericho for the first and last time, and was even then leaving. What a thread for a blind man to find and follow! He calls, is opposed; calls louder, is heard. Jesus stops, speaks to him, does for him all he asks; he sees the Lord of Glory, and follows Him in the way with gazing, feasting, adoring eyes! Oh! many blind sinners sit by the wayside of the world. Once in their life Jesus comes near, nearer, nearest, but is "passing by." 43 beggar, when Jesus goes out once at LITTLE sins, if they be so, will make way for greater. Little wedges open the way in the most knotty wood for bigger. As thieves, when they go to rob a house, if they cannot force open the doors, or break through the walls, let in a little boy at the window, who unbolts and unlocks the door, and so lets in the whole rabble; thus the devil, when men startle at greater sins, and by them he hath no hopes to get possession of their souls, he puts them upon those sins which they think little, and by these insensibly enters; for they, once admitted, open the doors of the eyes, of the ears, and of the heart too, whereby the whole legion enter, and rule and domineer in their souls to their ruin.-George Swinnock. As we must render an account of every idle word, so must we likewise of our idle silence. "OH! TO THINK THAT THEY CAN HEAR, AND WON'T!"-A poor old woman, who was so deaf that she could not hear a word, was remarkable, notwithstanding, for her constant attendance at the house of God, and very forcible was her frequent exclamation of pity and true sorrow, when she saw the carelessness and indifference of the great mass of hearers-"Oh! to think that they There is a critical point for every sinful can hear, and won't!" How much, for them, hangs on that fact at that precise time! You were in a crowd, or in some deep sorrow, or with His disciples, or alone with the Holy Spirit, when He was "passing." And you knew He was going by. Did you call, and did He stop and answer you? |