DIAMOND DUST.

No doubt you have heard of Benjamin Franklin. He wrote a great many wise things, under the name of Poor Richard. Here are his twenty maxims. You would do well to commit them to memory and practise them all your days:

1. Plough deep while the sluggards sleep, and you will have grain to sell and to keep.

2. Pride is as loud a beggar as want, and a great deal more saucy.

3. Silks, satins, scarlets, and velvets put out the kitchen fire.

4. Diligence is the mother of "Good Luck."

5. Pride breakfasted with plenty, dined with poverty, and supped with infamy.

6. Extravagance and improvidence end at the prison door.

7. It is easier to build two chimneys than keep one in fuel.

8. If you would know the value of money, go and try to borrow some.

9. The eye of the master will do more work than both his hands.

10. What maintains one vice would bring up two children.

11. He that goes a borrowing goes a sorrowing.

12. Rather go to bed supperless than rise in debt.

13. Sloth, like rust, consumes faster than labour wears.

14. A life of leisure and a life of laziness are two different things.

15. Three moves are as bad as a fire.

16. Creditors have better memories than debtors.

17. The rolling stone gathers no moss.

THE CITIES OF REFUGE.

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18. If you would have your business done, go; if not, send.

19. It is foolish to lay out money in the purchase of repentance.

20. Buy what thou needest not, and thou shalt sell thy necessities.

THE CITIES OF REFUGE.

"Who have fled for refuge, to lay hold of the hope set before us."-Heb. vi. 18.

IN Exodus xxi. 13, God said he would appoint a place of refuge whither the slayer might flee. In Num. xxxv. 11, the Israelites were to do it. In Deut. iv. 41, we are told that Moses did it on this side of Jordan. In Deut. xix. 7, the Israelites were to do it on the other side of Jordan. In Josh. xx. 7, Joshua and the Israelites did it by Moses' command, received from God, thus reconciling these apparent contradictions, and fulfilling God's purposes.

The names of these cities were

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1st. Bezar," which signifies rock.

2nd. Ramoth," which signifies high ones. 3rd. "Golan," which signifies great joy.

4th. Keedesh," which signifies holiness.

5th. "Shechem," which signifies quietness.

6th. "Kirjath-Arba," which signifies society.

So those who flee for refuge to the rock, Christ Jesus, shall have fellowship with the high ones, the holy, blessed and glorious Trinity; they, and only they, are the persons who have occasion for great joy; they are the holiest people; they only know what true peace and quietness is ; and they are those who shall be sure to find societysome with whom they can have fellowship and communion both here and hereafter.

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HELPING THE PREACHER.

Dear reader, have you fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before you? Are you indeed within the city of refuge? If found without you must perish, even were your feet upon the threshold of its gate. You must be "found in Christ," or you will perish eternally!

WHEN Jeremiah Evarts was in the sixth year of his age he came to his father and asked him for a new book. His father asked him if the last book he had given him was worn out. "O no, sir," said Jeremiah, "but I have read all the sense out of it." He meant to say that he had read it thoroughly, and had made himself master of all the ideas it contained.

This is the right way to read, in order to profit. By reading in that way, Jeremiah Evarts made great improvement, and became one of the wisest and most useful men of his country.

HELPING THE PREACHER.

A PREACHER once said to an old lady who had expressed her wonder to him that she was permitted to live, as she could not do any more good:

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You are doing a great deal of good; you help me to preach every Sunday."

She was surprised, and inquired how it could be.

"In the first place," said he, "you are always in your seat on Sunday, and that helps me; in the second place, you are always wide awake, and you always look right up into my face, and that helps me; in the third place, I very often see the tears running down your face, and that helps me very much."

HEAVEN.

A LITTLE Swedish girl was walking with her father one night, under the starry sky, intently meditating upon the glories of heaven. At last, looking up to the sky, she said, "Father, I have been thinking if the wrong side of heaven is so beautiful, what will the right side be!"

JUVENILE REPORTER.

AT the meeting of Synod lately held in Newcastle, a number of our ministers went into the streets and open places of the town and its neighbourhood, and preached the Gospel to the people.

The Foreign Mission Committee of the English Presbyterian Church has appointed another missionary to go to China. He may be considered as the Children's Missionary, although they have not collected nearly enough to support him.

The Scottish "Monthly Tract Society" circulated last year nearly two millions of tracts.

The Rev. W. M. Thomson's congregation at Woolwich, have just erected very handsome Day Schools there, which cost about £2,500. They will be attended chiefly by the children of soldiers, and we hope will be the means of doing much good.

When Mr. Burns and his two native teachers were arrested in China some months ago, for going too far into the country, the Chinese Commissioner, writing to Mr. Parkes, the British consul, about it, says, "We observed three persons seated in a boat on the river, whose appearance had something in it that was unusual. We found in their boat, and took possession of, seven volumes of foreign

80 LESSONS FOR THE SABBATH AND SCHOOL.

books, and three sheet tracts; but these were the only things they had with them. On examining the men themselves, we observed that they all of them had shaven heads, and wore their hair plaited in a queue, and were dressed in Chinese costume. The face of one of them, however, had rather a strange look; his speech in respect to tone and mode of expression being not very similar to that of the Chinese. We, therefore, interrogated him carefully, whereupon he stated to us that his true name was Pin-Wei-lin (William Burns), that he was an Englishman, aged 42 years, and a teacher of the religion of Jesus."

There is a place in India called Shuah Geen, where the Gospel was preached by Dr. Mason, of America, for the first time only three years ago, and so greatly has the truth spread, that there are now about three thousand converts in the place.

The income of the Foreign Mission this year-including the Juvenile Fund-amounts to £1,508 11s. 2d.; that of the Home Mission, £923 4s. 5d.; the College Fund, £926 4s. 1d.; and the School Fund, £353 15s. 6d.

LESSONS FOR THE SABBATH AND THE SCHOOL.

DATE.

SUBJECT.

TO LEARN.

Question.

TO READ.

May 17 Paul's escape XXXIV.& Acts xxiii. 11. Acts xxiii, 6–35. from Jerusalem XXXV.

24 Paul before Felix XXXVI. Actsxxiv.25,26 Acts xxiv.

31 Paul beforeFestus XXXVII. Actsxxvi.22,23 Acts xxvi.

and Agrippa

June 7 Paul's Shipwreck XXXVIII Acts xxvii. 42, Acts xxvii. 6. 44.

44.