Sabbath Reading

" The ctcrnal God íb thy ref ugef and underneath are the everlaetiiiK arms." It ia the eveniag hour, Andthankiully, Father, Thy weary child Has come to Thee. I lean my acbing head Upon Thy breast, And there, and only there, I am at reet. Thou knowest all my lifo- Each petty sin ; Nothing ie hid from Theo, Without, within. All that I havo or am Is wholly Ihine ; So is my eoul at peace, For Thou art mine. To-morrow'R dawn may find Me here or there- It matters Httlo since Thy love Is cverywhere. - A'ew York Obuerver. Charity is Greatest. The three principal graces identified with the Christian religión are, " faith, ope, charity ;" the "greatest" of which "is charity" - love. The pre-eminence of love must be based upon oertain f acts ; if not so, the apostle would not have so stated its ascend?ncy in the scale of moral principies. It is the " greatest. " And from what consideratious is it such ? li is more godlike than faith and hope. God never hopes nor believes. He is a being of absolute knowledge, and in full possession of every element essential to His existence as God - His happiness and glory. He knows all things, and all things are His, which precludes the necessity of hope and faith. But, while God does not hope and believe, He loves. - Religious Telescope. The Church In the Household. As it was at first, so it is now - the church of the First Born sends the roots of its strong and sturdy life into the household, there to be watered with the tears of penitence, and invigorated by a faith that discerns the grace and majesty of its sovereign Head. A declension in religión, a decrease of moral power in the community, and a fatal lukewarmness in the service of Ghrist, have ever sprung from some gross neglect in families of those dnties and obligations whicü conscienoe has recognized and habit nullifled. A return of spiritual activity in the church, and of improved public virtue, have also been found to be connected with a revival or reformation in the liouseholds of the people. 80 that we come back and take up Paul's phrase, " the church in thy house," and flnd it to contain a meaning quite universal in its bearings and applications. - Lcmdon Baptist. The Comforter. One mistake which really good and pious people commit is, that they thitik ;he Holy Spirit of God to be merely, or iittle beside, certain pleasant frames and 'eelings, and comfortable assurances in aeir own minds. They do uot know aat those pleasant frames and feelings eally depend prinoipally on their own ïealth; and, then, when they get out of ïealth, or when their brain is overworked, and the pleasant feelings go, hey are terrifled and disheartened, and omplain of spiritual dryness, and ory ut that God's Spirit has deserted them, nd are afraid that God is angry with hem, or even that they have committed he uapardonable sin; not knowiug ihat God is not a man that he should ie, nor a son of man that he should reient; that God is as near them in the arkness as in the light; that whatever heir own health or their own feelings may be, yet still in God they live and move and have their being; that to 3-od's Spirit they owe all which raises hem above the dumb animáis; tbat nothing can separate them from the ove of Him who promised that He would not leave ns comfortless, but send to us lis Holy Ghost to comfort us, and exalt ua to the same place whether He has one before. - ïïev. Charles Kingsley. The Necessary Penalty. This is not a threat, but a natural, ! philosophical f act. What is sin ? Not i something that has a separate, j 3endent existence ; it is merely a ' versión of f unction. It is a use of someiiing for a purpose, or in a manner not ntended by tlie Maker. i This will destroy anything. A farmer i ireaks prairie with a "doublé shovel," i or hitehes his team to the plow-handles, i or rakes hay with his grain-drill orhorse'ork, or harrows with his pitohfork, or ; uses his tool-house for a stable, and he spoils his work and his tools both. A nut is off or a bolt lost from a machine ; you continue to use it and it comes to rieces. Polish mahogany with a brickaat and you make a bad job. Use the stomach as a receptacle for something 3esides food, and the man dies. Take your clothes for fuel and dress up in stove-wood, and it is not a success. So of everything. Perversión of funo;ion produces disorder, and disorder continued inevitably leads to destruction. 3in is perversión; henee it necessarily produces disorder, and just as necessarily death. It will do this of itself without any interf erence whatever on God's part. No machine can repair itself. The remedy must come from without. Henee the sinner must have foreign aid, or none at all. The rejection of this will make the death eternal. And if the sinner rejects it in the present life he will in the next, unless hU surroundings are better, stronger, holier than here. Henee there is little probability that he wculd accept the aid, as there is none at all that he will have the offer of it in the future life. Henee, in a purely philosophical iight, the wages of sin is eternal death. - Adam C. Johnson, in the Standard. Mississippi Yetoes the Bell-Punch. Mississippi, alter thorough investigation by a committee of the Legislature, has decided against the bell-punch system of taxing liquor dealers. Since the diminution of the receipts in Richmond, Va., from $6,000 collected in October last, to $3,500 in January, Southern legislators are not so sanguine that they have struck a bonanza in whisky. Besides, all the 'influence of the liquorsellers is thrown against the bell-punch, and, in the South, that influence is at least as powerful as in any section of the country. A bilí for the introduction of the bell-punch has failed to become a law in Tennessee, and tho prospects for the success of a similar measuro in Louisiana are very slencler. Shabpsburg, Ky. , has a natural inathematician in Eeuben Fields, who, while he knows not one figure from another, correctly solves intricate problems in his mind, without hesitation, computes the time of day almost in an instant, and tells how many revolutions the drivingwheel of a locomotive will make be tween giyen ppints. H eamot; rea or write.