CURIOUS FACTS ABOUT WATER.

"O Lord, how manifold are Thy works! in wisdom hast Thou made them all: the earth is full of Thy riches.”—PSA. civ. 24.

THE extent to which water mingles with bodies, apparently the most solid, is very wonderful. The glittering opal, which beauty wears as an ornament, is only flint and water. Of every 1,200 tons of earth which a landlord has on his estate, 400 are water. The snow-capped summits of Snowdon and Ben Nevis have many million tons of water in a solidified form. In every plaster of Paris statue which an Italian carries through our streets for sale, there is one pound of water to four pounds of chalk. The air we breathe contains five grains of water to each cubic foot of its bulk. The potatoes and turnips which are boiled for our dinner have, in their raw state, the one, seventy-five per cent., and the other, ninety per cent. of water. If a man weighing ten stone were squeezed in a hydraulic press, seven and a half stone of water would run out, and only two and a half of dry residue remain. A man is, chemically speaking, fortyfive pounds of carbon and nitrogen, diffused through five and a half pailfuls of water. In plants we find water thus mingling no less wonderfully. A sunflower evaporates one and a quarter pints of water a day, and a cabbage about the same quantity. A wheat plant exhales in 175 days, about 100,000 grains of water. An acre of

growing wheat, on this calculation, draws and passes out ten tons of water per day. The sap of the plant is the medium through which the mass of fluid is conveyed. It forms a delicate pump, up which it flows with the rapidity of a swift stream. By the action of the sap various properties may be assimilated to the growing plant. Timber in France is, for instance, dyed by various colours being mixed with water, and sprinkled over the roots of the trees. Dahlias are also coloured by a similar process.-Biblical Treasury.

HARVEST.

HE hills rejoice on every side;
The fertile plain is clothed with corn;
In rich profusion, far and wide,

The waving crops her fields adorn : 'Tis God who gives the golden grain ; His paths drop fatness o'er the plain.*

Mindful of all His creatures' needs
(And man receives the largest share),
He hears the raven's cry, and feeds
The little sparrows of the air :
'Tis God, the bountiful, the good,
Whose hand supplies the earth with food.

Seed-time and harvest, night and day,
Incessant while the earth endures,

Shall His unerring voice obey,

Whose word His children's bread ensures.†

What joy these constant gifts impart,

When taken with a thankful heart!

And now the reaper is repaid

For all the labour, all the pain,

That in the wintry days he had,

When sowing in the snow and rain:
Thus, when my time shall come to reap,
May I forget" the time to weep."

The tears of seed time now may drop,
But they shall not the seed destroy,
For God secures the full-ripe crop,

And, bound therewith, the reaper's joy: ‡
Oh, to endure the storms that come,

And wait the joy of "harvest home!"

Isa. lxv. 8-13.

+ Prov. x. 3.

Ps. cxxvi. 5, 6.

Then, favour great (oh, be it mine!),
To bow before the Centre Sheaf,*
To see His endless glories shine,

And own Him of ten thousand Chief;
All safely in His garner stored,
Bound in life's bundle with the Lord.

The gleaners, too, their portion take
Of what the fruitful harvests yield,
And follow in the reaper's wake
Untiringly, from field to field:
Thrice happy they whose smaller store,
Thanks God, the Guardian of the poor.

There is a field where I would glean
My little portion day by day;
All other fields are naught and lean;
All other bread will soon decay;
The gleaning here more food provides
Than all the barns on earth besides.‡

Here may I enter to be fed,

And eat, and live for evermore ;§ Eternal life is in the bread,

With milk and honey for the poor: Here would I come with empty hand, For clusters from this goodly land.

Lord of the harvest! Thou alone

Must draw the needy to Thy gate;
Give me a heart Thy will to own,
Content in its appointed state :
Well pleased to reap a larger crop,
Or glean the handfuls Thou shalt drop.

* Gen. xxxvii. 7,

JABEZ, Junr.

I Sam. xxv. 29.

Psa. iv. 7; Judg. viii. 2; Job xxiv. 6.
John vi. 35.

PROFIT BY KEEPING THE SABBATH.

ABBATH keeping benefits both the body and mind, and thus must also tend to increase the worldly estate; for who does not know that a sound mind in a sound body is all-important to the success of his business? For what say facts here? They say that those who work six days in a week will do more work, and do it in a better manner, than those who labour seven. Cases in proof of this to almost any extent might be mentioned, if space were allowed; two or three must suffice. At a Sabbath convention in Baltimore, which was attended by one thousand seven hundred delegates from all parts of the United States, a great drover from Ohio stated that he had made more money by resting on the Sabbath with his droves than he would if he had kept on seven days. His cattle and sheep always brought him a better price than others which were constantly kept travelling. In one case, where his neighbours could not find a market in consequence of the cattle having been overdriven, he cleared five hundred dollars, and this he attributed to resting on the Lord's day. A salt-boiler tried the experiment of resting on the Sabbath, which it was thought that business would not admit of; but he found at the end of the season that he had made more salt than any of his neighbours, with the same dimension of kettles, whilst his whole expense for breakage and repairs was only six cents. Some years ago, in this country, after a long wet spell in harvest came a clear Sabbath, when many farmers hurried in their grain which, from being housed before it was full dry, was greatly damaged; whilst others, who feared God and kept His commandment, were enabled to gather in theirs in good condition. No doubt money is sometimes made for a time by Sabbath labour, as in the case of those who, in violation of the laws both of God and man, sell liquor on that day, and find perhaps more customers than on any other day; but the sad history