HINTS FOR THE HOUSEHOLD. BED FOR THE SICK-ROOM. Two narrow beds, iron bedsteads, with fresh hair or straw mattresses, are the best. These beds are easily moved, and thus the patient will not be compelled to look constantly at the same cracks in the wall, or count the same three spots in the corner. You can move him now into a shaded corner; now to the western window, to see the sun go down; again front of the fire, that he look at its cheerful blaze; may and anon into the most secluded corner, that he may rest and sleep. All this is an immense gain, and is sure not only to comfort the prisoner, but to shorten his sickness. No matter what the malady may be, there is more or less fever, and, in every possible case, the emanations from the skin render the bed foul through and through. All the emanations from bodies are foul, and should be got rid of as soon as possible. The only way to manage it is to have two beds, and lift the patient our from one to the other. When the bed which has been in use from four to six hours is released, the mattress and blankets should be put where they can be thoroughly aired, and, if practicable, sunned. This will not only shorten and mitigate the graver stages of the malady, but it will greatly hasten the convalescence. its appearance in this country. Very many persons sleep in eight by ten rooms; that is, in rooms the length and breadth of which, multiplied again by ten for the height of the chamber, would make it just eight hundred cubic feet, while the cubic feet for each bed, according to the English apportionment for hospitals, is twenty-one hundred feet. But more, in order "to give the air in a sick room the highest degree of freshness," the French hospitals contract for a complete renewal of the air of a room every hour, while the English assert that double the amount, or over four thousand feet an hour, is required. Four thousand feet of air an hour! and yet there are multitudes who sleep with closed doors and windows in rooms which do not contain a thousand cubic feet of space, and that thousand feet is to last all night, at least eight hours, except such scanty supplies as may be obtained of any fresh air that may insinuate itself through little crevices by door or window, not an eighth of an inch in thickness. But when it is known that in many cases a man and wife and infant sleep habitually in thousand-feet rooms, it is no marvel that multitudes perish prematurely in cities, no wonder that infant children fade away like flowers without water, every year. VENTILATE YOUR ROOMS. There is reason to believe that more cases of dangerous and fatal disease are gradually engendered annually by the habit of sleeping in small, unventilated rooms, than have occurred from a cholera atmosphere in any year since it made BLANC-MANGE. Take one quart of the best milk, and mix it with four ounces or four table-spoonfuls of Brown & Polson's patent corn flour; flavour to taste, then boil the whole eight or ten minutes; allow it to cool in a mould, and serve up with milk and jelly, or milk and sugar. THE MOTHERS' TREASURY. CHRIST THE COUNTERSIGN. NE of the most self-denying, earnest clergymen in New York city was converted under circumstances which are so rich in meaning, that I venture to tell the story as I heard it from his lips a few months ago. His mother's great wish and prayer to God was that her son might be a minister of the gospel. But the years rolled by, and brought no evidence that her prayers had been heard. His academical and collegiate course was completed without a change of heart, and then the civil war broke out. Now followed years amid the temptations of army life, where the son won distinction as a soldier, but not yet the rank of a soldier for Christ. The war over, and the army disbanded, he entered mercantile life in New York, where, among army acquaintances, he led a life of thoughtlessness. Still that faithful mother prayed on. After a year or two he was prostrated by a peculiar disease, and death seemed certain. Having learned the worst from his physician, and the hour of the crisis of his disease, he lay awaiting his fate with the calm courage of one who had faced death on many a battle-field. The critical moment arrived, and with it life seemed to have deserted his body. He was perfectly conscious, but his soul seemed detached from his body and to lie in it as in a clay casket. Intensely alive in thought and emotion, he yet had not the power to move an eyelid. This is death, he thought; and instantly all the problem of eternity presented itself under a military aspect. He had commanded scouts in the army, and often approached the enemy's outposts. Now he seemed approaching the outposts of heavenhe, a sinner, an enemy to God. He waited for the cry of the sentinel, "Who goes there?" ready to respond, "A friend." But what should he say to that next summons, "Advance, friend, and give the countersign?" What was the countersign of heaven? Could it be "good works"? Rapidly he reviewed his life. No. If he had been the best of men, that would be no countersign to open heaven's gates. Then the need of atonement, and the atonement made, flashed through his mind-Christ. Christ must be the countersign; there could be no other word. The joy of a great and certain discovery filled his mind; all fear vanished. He was ready for the summons, for he knew the countersign. Resting peacefully on this great discovery, he reviewed his life, and a great desire came into his soul to return to his fellow-men and tell the countersign. His desire was gratified. Slowly the grasp of death relaxed, and yielded him up to the efforts of his friends. In two weeks he was with his mother at home again. His mind was decided, but he said not a word; and when he left his home again, followed by the prayers of this faithful mother, she supposed it was in order to return to business. His next letter was written to her from Princeton Theological Seminary, whither he had gone directly from his home, and where he was now enrolled as a student. Oh! praying mother, pray on; God's grace and power were not exhausted when Augustine yielded to a mother's prayers. To-day this child of prayer is preaching in New York city "Christ the countersign." GONE HOME. "We lay thee in the silent tomb, We just began to view thy bloom, C. T. COLLINS. READ these lines on a white tombstone at the head of the grave of a little boy; they are beneath one of the prettiest pictures I ever saw engraved by the sculptor's chisel. Mountains are represented in the background, and then a field in the foreground, with a little boy asleep on the grass, his head resting on a hillock, and a basket of flowers by his side, and one broken rose just fallen from his hand. "Yes!" said the mother of this dear child as she stood by my side, "that was all his employment while he was in this world-gathering flowers."" Behind the sleeping child stands the trunk of a broken tree,-broken off only a few feet from the ground, showing that his life was cut off early from the earth; had he lived, he would have been now nearly a full-grown But this dear child was not afraid of death; young as he died, he had learned to love the Saviour two years before. Thinking that he still might recover, his mother asked him, "Frankie, if it should be the will of God to take you, are you ready?"-a most serious and solemn question to ask a boy eight years old! He turned his face to the wall like a king of Judah, when told that he must die. But, unlike Hezekiah, the little boy did not weep; he thought seriously a long time, and then turned towards his mother, and said: "Mamma, I would like to live, and grow up, and preach the gospel; but if it is God's will that I should die, I am ready!" It was hard for these lonely mission man. aries to give up their only child; but here, in this silent graveyard, the little stick which just measured his height has, according to the Indian custom, lain on his grave a dozen years. Near by is the only other gravestone in this simple burial-place; it marks the place of a mother's rest: a hand points heavenward, and above it the simple sentence says, "Gone home." When she knew that she must die, her only grief was that she must leave her little ones to a heartless world; but one morning she greeted the kind missionary with a smile, saying, "I have gained the victory! I can now leave my children with Jesus." And so in this humble field, as in many another over the wide earth, the blessed dead are dying in the Lord, and awaiting that day when He will redeem all His promises of a glorious resurrection, and make up His jewels. THE BEREAVED MOTHER. ATHER, forgive the trembling That breathes frail nature's Forgive the oft unbidden tear,— On all that once was loved so well,- I could not shed another tear. For, oh my loved one, what was Jesus received thy parting breath: soon, Or mourn the lot thy God has given, ᎧᎧᎧᎧᎧᎧᎧᎧᎧᎧᎧᎧ No! Faith shall raise her drooping eye, And wing her way to worlds on high; My child, I see the mansion there Yes! 'tis the song to Jesus' name, Oh! could I wish to stay the strain, THANKS BE TO GOD, WHICH GIVETH US THE VICTORY THROUGH OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST. C. P. 20000000000000 |