And even as wise parents disallow Too much of sweet to craving babyhood, So God, perhaps, is keeping from us now Life's sweetest things, because it seemeth good. And if, sometimes, commingled with life's wine, We find the wormwood, and rebel and shrink, Be sure a wiser hand than yours or mine Pours out this potion for our lips to drink. And if some friend we love is lying low, Where human kisses cannot reach his face, Oh, do not blame the loving Father so, But wear your sorrow with obedient grace. And you shall shortly know that lengthened breath Is not the sweetest gift God sends His friend; And that, sometimes, the sable pall of death Conceals the fairest boon His love can send. If we could push ajar the gates of life, And stand within, and all God's workings see, We could interpret all this doubt and strife, And for each mystery could find a key. But not to-day. Then be content, poor heart! God's plans, like lilies pure and white, unfold; We must not tear the close-shut leaves apart; Time will reveal the calyxes of gold. And if, through patient toil, we reach the land Where tired feet with sandals loosed may rest, When we shall clearly see and understand, is I think that we will say, "God knew the best!" MRS. MAY RILEY SMITH. GLORIFY THE ROOM. Α The first essential for a cheerful room Sunshine. Without this, money, labor, taste, are all thrown away. dark room cannot be cheerful; and it is as unwholesome as it is gloomy. Flowers will not blossom in it, neither will people. Nobody knows, or ever will know, how many men and women have been killed by dark rooms. "Glorify the room! Glorify the room!" Sydney Smith used to say of a morning when he ordered every blind the top of the window. thrown open, every shade drawn up to H. H. GOOD BUSINESS RULES. Business men, especially those who are thorough, prompt, and methodical, are guided by certain elementary principles. In some cases these principles are formulated into simple rules, which cover even the details of conduct. A prominent banker attributes his success in business to the care with which he has obeyed these plain rules: Take time for eating, sleeping, and digestion. Don't worry. Be satisfied with your work after doing it well. Never ask another to do what you ought to attend to personally. Shun the slightest appearance of dishonesty as you would shun the plague. Always meet your appointments on time; never late; if possible, not much ahead of the moment. Don't talk too much: let your actions speak for yourself. Be honest, even if you lose money by it. duties. Remember that money alone cannot buy peace, nor true friends, nor a loving family. It is refreshing, in these days of speculation and dishonest dealings to know that a man can live according to the above principles and yet make money. | It shows that honesty and business can go hand in hand. UPRIGHTNESS. Depend upon it, friends, if a straight line will not pay, a crooked one won't. What is got by shuffling is very dangerous gain. It may give a moment's peace to wear a mask, but deception will come home to you and bring sorrow with it. Honesty is the best policy. Be as true as steel. Let your face and hands, like the church clock, always tell how your inner works are going. Better be laughed at as Tom Telltruth than be praised as Crafty Charlie. Plaindealing may bring us trouble, but it is better than shuffling. JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK. CARING FOR YOUR EYES. Keep a shade on your lamp or gasburner. Avoid all sudden changes between light and darkness. Never begin to read, write, or sew for several minutes after coming from darkness to a bright light. Never read by twilight or moonlight. Never read or sew directly in front of the light, window, or door. It is best to let the light fall from above obliquely, over the left shoulder. Never sleep so that, on first awakening, the eyes shall open on the light of a window. Do not use the eyesight by light so scant that it requires an effort to discriminate. The moment you are instinctively prompted to rub your eyes, that moment SOCIETY IN NATURAL OBJECTS. I experienced sometimes that the most sweet and tender, the most innocent and encouraging society may be found in any natural object, even for the poor misanthrope and most melancholy man. There can be no very black melancholy to him who lives in the midst of nature There was and has his senses still. never yet such a storm but it was EoHan music to a healthy and innocent ear. Nothing can rightly compel a simple and brave man to a vulgar sadness. sons, I trust that nothing can make life While I enjoy the friendship of the seaThe gentle rain which a burden to me. waters my beans, and keeps me in the house to-day, is not drear and meiancholy, but good for me too. Though it prevents my hoeing them, it is of far more worth than my hoeing. If it should continue so long as to rot in the ground and destroy the potatoes in the lowlands, it would still be good for the grass on the uplands, and, being good for the grass, it would be good for me. THOREAU. THE HEALTH OF CHildren. The health of children depends very much on their mental condition and freedom from strain. The former ought to be easy and happy, and the latter an unknown quantity, at all events until they are seven years old. Consequently mothers and nurses ought to strive to avoid all unnecessary irritation and thwarting of the small people committed to their keeping, and this commands much self-control and suppression of their own worries and weaknesses. The child who is always contradicted is likely to be either contradictory or spiritless, according to its temperament; neither of these states of mind is conducive to health, while the one who is looked upon as a nuisance is likely to become so in reality. But the child who is comfortably clothed and fed, and has plenty of amusement of a wholesome kind, is pretty sure to be innocently happy, and this serene frame of mind is the very thing productive of robust health. and EVANGELICAL MESSENGER. MENTAL culture. Life is certainly not worth living if it has nothing better to bring than the excitement of business and wealth. It is a very low motive to urge upon a boy! the neglect of mental culture in order to obtain wealth. Only the actions of the just IT DEPENDS.-A philosopher being asked whether life is worth living, answered, "That depends on the liver." NOT AFRAID. A little child in a Sabbath school was asked by her teacher if she always said her prayers night and morning. "No ma'am, I don't." "Why, Mary, are you not afraid to go to take care of you, and watch over you to sleep in the dark without asking God till morning?" "No, I ain't-'cause I sleep in the middle.' FARM HINTS. If you are afraid to use Paris green to kill the Colorado beetles that swarm on your potato-vines, make a mixture of five pounds each of slacked lime and copperas in twenty gallons of water, and sprinkle the vines. If taken at just the right time, once going over the field ought to do; but, if that does n't stop their voracity, try it again. It helps the plants. IF the "striped bug," the squash-bug, or the borer threaten the cucumbers, the squashes, or the melons, make a solution of saltpetre, an ounce to a gallon of water, and sprinkle them once a day for three or four days in succession. It won't cost much to try it, and melons and cucumbers are good things to have. It is easy to propagate currants and gooseberries from cuttings taken from new shoots. Put them in rich earth, leaving an inch and one bud above ground, with four or five inches below the surface. IF you try to raise celery, give it plenty of water. It is a great drinker, and, if it hasn't enough to quench its thirst, it is apt to grow tough and hollow. Keep the plants growing right along from the time they appear above ground in the seed-bed till they are transplanted to rich soil, and water as often as they need it, and you'll have it tender and plump. THE female moth of the canker-worm is wingless, and must crawl up the trunk of the tree to deposit her eggs. Anything that will prevent her from getting up will stop the ravages of this terrible pest of our orchards, which seems to be gaining ground every year. Scrape off the rough bark three feet from the ground, and fasten bands of paper tightly round the trunk, and smear it with printer's ink from the middle of October to hard freezing, and then again for two or three weeks after the middle of March. A cow kept by herself will generally give better results in the way of milk and cream than the same cow in a herd with others. One reason of it is, no doubt, the fact that she is better fed and cared for; but another is that most of the butter made from her comes from real cream, which is rarely the case when the milk and cream of a herd of cows are mixed before churning. EVERY farmer has noticed a great difference in the time required for churning to bring the butter from the milk or cream of different cows. This is owing to the difference in the size of the butter-globules in the milk of cows. In some the butter-globules are very much larger, and the time required to break them and bring the butter is correspondingly short. THERE is a constant or insensible exhalation of moisture from the leaves and foliage of growing plants something analogous to the insensible perspiration of the healthy human skin, which is always perspiring, though the sweat may not stand in drops. Of course, this evaporation, constantly going on, though unperceived, involves the exhaustion of moisture in the soil. CLOVER, like most of the grasses, ought to be cut at the time of blossoming. If the tedder is used, it may be got ready to be cocked up the same day. The best farmers usually prefer to cure it chiefly in the cock. To handle it when the stalks and leaves are dry and brittle involves a great loss. It requires more care than ordinary hay. A COMPOST of hard-wood ashes and oyster-shell lime enabled a Pennsylvania farmer, last year, to raise and sell over $6,000 worth of potatoes from twelve acres of land. He ploughed deep, used medium-sized, wellformed, uncut potatoes planted three feet apart, gave level culture, and cultivated often. He took forty-one fine large tubers from one hill. It is well known that a pound of the best beef contains only about the same quantity of actual nutritive matter as a quart of milk, but it doesn't follow that the beef is not worth more as an article of food. The fact is, that though the quantity of nutritive materials is about the same, say a quarter of a pound in each, they are different in quality, and of greater value as an article of food It is worth while for us to plant the white ash much more generally than we do. It is easily raised from the seed, which is produced in great abundance It is a wood which has three important characteristics, lightness, elasticity, and strength, a rather rare combination, which adapts it to the wood-work of agricultural implements and many other purposes, and so it is likely to increase in value. THE black walnut is a tree that is not difficult to raise, and it furnishes a timber that will always command a good price. Now and then there is a tree with a curly or twisted grain that furnishes the most beautiful veneers, and commands, for this use, an almost fabulous price. One single black walnut tree of the curly variety sold, when sawn into veneers, for over $2,000, and another in Michigan brought $1,200. Plant the nut in the fall with the shuck on, three inches deep, and wait for the result. GOOD seed is one of the great secrets of success on the farm and in the garden. The old habit of selecting good ears of corn, and hanging them up in the attic or the kitchen, where they will be kept perfectly dry, was a good one. And so with all other seeds. It is worth while to take special pains to get the best and to take the best of care of it. The fall is the best time to look after it. We can breed up with plants as well as with cattle. Is N'T it strange that with the low price of grain and other poultry food, and the abundant room on every farm in this country, we are importing vast quantities of eggs that we ought to produce at home? In the first three months of last year we imported very nearly a quarter of a million dollars' worth of eggs. They came in vast quantities from Germany, and Canada followed next as to quantity, coming into the markets which we ought to supply. AMONG the wastes of the farm the loss of the liquid excrements of cattle, sheep, and horses, holds a very prominent place. Some farmers have tanks or reservoirs by which they succeed in saving a portion of this rich fertilizing material, but most rely chiefly on the absorbent quality of the litter used in the stalls and yards. The best litter serves to some extent as a shelter in preventing the escape of animal heat, while serving at the same time as an absorbent. For these purposes sawdust is excellent, and if it can be had for the hauling it is worth while to use it freely. The next best thing is straw. It serves the double purpose of holding the animal heat and the liquids of the stall. The leaves of forest trees are also good, and ought to be stored up in large quantities for this use. A WEED is a plant that grows where it is not wanted, and where it is stealing the food which is wanted for some valuable cultivated crop. If this definition is correct, any cultivated plants that are standing too thick, so as to rob each other of needed sustenance, must be regarded as weeds; that is, if there are three stalks of corn, or any other plant, where you need and wish but one, the two superfluous ones are practically weeds, as much so as if they were pigweeds or thistles. It is n't best to crowd growing crops so as to shut out the sunlight. APPLES, to have the best keeping qualities, ought to be picked a little before they are fully ripe. If they have reached a state of maturity where they fall off the tree at the slightest touch, they are too ripe to keep Iwell. It is a law of nature that when a fruit has become fully ripe it begins to decay. We want to take it before this process is ready to take place- that is, a little before complete maturity. |
