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does this mean?" cried the little stone in terror, as it was rudely torn out. But the workman heeded not its cry. It was carried away into a strange room, and there it was cut and sawn, and then put upon the wheel and ground. "Why is all this? Why are they destroying me? Why are they cutting and grinding me all away?" Thus groaned the stone; but the men heeded not its complainings.

It is a grand day in the palace. It is a coronation day. The King is to be crowned. Amid the shouts and acclamations of the multitude, the new crown is brought forth and put upon his head. It is all aglitter with diamonds. But there is one stone that is brighter than all the rest. Its beam flashes out like a ray of glory. "Now I understand it," says the little stone. "Now I know why I was dug out, and cut, and ground, and polished. They were not destroying me. They were only preparing me to adorn this crown." And God knows how to grind His jewels. He knows how to prepare them for His own crown.-The Presbyterian.

LIFE AMONG THE EARLY CHRISTIANS.

It is very hard for those born within sound of the church-going bell to understand a world desolate without Christ and without faith. No wonder that the early Christians spoke of the change as a "rising with Christ," a real resurrection from sin, and darkness, and despair. Nothing in all the writings left us by Justin Martyr, the first Christian author after the apostles, is so beautiful and affecting as the description of his hopeless condition after a thorough study of the doctrines of the stoics and Platonists; his anxious walk by the sea-side, where an old man met him and preached unto his wondering heart "Christ crucified." Though an eloquent man, language fails him when he tries to describe the hope, the joy, the peace of his believing. And his experience was the experience of all who out of paganism came unto Christ.

The Christianity of these early believers strikes us first by its practical character and its strict morality. I can give no better description of it than that sent by a gentle consort to Diognetus. It is found among the works of Justin Martyr (page 417), and Neander says it is one of the most beautiful remains of antiquity, "a splendid portraiture" of true Christian life. "Christians differ," says this author, "from other men neither in their place of abode, nor in their language, nor habits. They neither inhabit cities of their own, nor use any peculiar dialect, nor any singular

mode of life. Neither do they study any system wrought out by men of subtle intellect, nor follow any human dogma. They dwell in Greek or barbarian cities as may happen, following the customs of the inhabitants in dress, food, and other things. They share everything as citizens, they obey the laws, and excel them in their lives. As the soul is in the body, but not of the body, so Christians dwell in the world, but are not of the world."

The wonderful change wrought in the morals of all who embrace Christianity is noticed by every writer. Origen says: "The name of Jesus introduces everywhere decency of manners, humanity, goodness, and gentleness." One of the earliest charges made against them by pagans was, "that all their hopes being in another world, they were idle and unprofitable citizens." Tertullian boldly denies this charge. "We are," says he, "no dwellers in woods, no exiles from common life. We do not retire from the forum, the markets, the baths, and the shops. We engage in navigation, in military service, in agriculture, in trade, and you profit by our skill! We do not purchase garlands for our heads,' you say. What is it to you how we use the flowers we purchase? or if we think them more beautiful when left free, than in a crown? Do you say that through us the revenues of the temples fall off? We Christians bring you a better revenue by leading honest lives and paying what we owe." The defiance which the "bold Tertullian" flung out to the heathen world is a remarkable proof of the lovely and blameless lives led by them, in the midst of a world wholly given to idolatry and licentiousness. "Search your prisons through," says he, "and though you will find multitudes there, you will not meet one who is a Christian, unless he be there because he is a Christian; and not because he has committed any crime." Such bold assertions, unless true, could not have been made, and remained uncontradicted in the midst of a hostile gèneration.

The singular love of Christians for each other attracted universal attention. "See how these Christians love one another," is a pagan saying recorded by Tertullian. The wealthy churches sent regular contributions to the poorer provincial churches, and large sums were often raised for special purposes. At Carthage on one occasion over $4,000 was gathered to redeem some Christian slaves in the interior, and Cyprian sent with it a letter, asking for information of any other Christians needing assistance.

Those suffering for conscience' sake either imprisonment or martyrdom received the peculiar love of the whole Church. Prayers were continually offered up for them, distant churches sent deputies with messages of love and encouragement, devout lips kissed their very chains, and their relatives were the particular care and legacy of the Church.

But their love was a grander and more universal sentiment than this. It extended unto their enemies, and embraced all "for whom Christ died." During a terrible pestilence in Egypt Eusebius says, the Christians who had been driven away by persecution returned in the midst of the pestilence to nurse the sick and dying and perform decent funeral rites for the dead; for the heathen had fled from the plague, or threw the smitten into the streets, leaving the dead bodies to decay there, and spread still worse the infection.

At Carthage, when the same calamity occurred, and parents deserted even their young children, and no one would go near the sick, or bury the dead, Cyprian assembled the Christians together, and exhorted them to rival one another in deeds of mercy. Encouraged by his counsel and example, the Christians first cleared the streets of the dead, giving all decent burial, and then went about caring for the sick and destitute. The rich gave money, the poor their labor, and by the pity and loving-kindness of the Christians of Carthage, the city was spared from a universal pestilence.

Noble and self-sacrificing as was this love, it has not with the growth of centuries waxed cold. In every age the same noble deeds, and others more excellent, have been re-enacted. Our own generation would furnish abundant examples. It is the dear glorious Christ love, the love that is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever.

WHAT SHALL WE DO WITH OUR BOYS ?

WE are getting a large crop of boys. They are growing up everywhere. We find them in the drawing-room; we run against them in the street. We do not see so many of them in the Church as we should like to. But what shall we do with them? The vast majority of them cannot have a collegiate education, nor get further than the cominon school, and we are not sure that they are the worse for that. But they are growing up, and the question is, "What shall we do with Johnny ?" Johnny wants to be a great sculptor, or he wants to write "Johnny pinxit" on an acre of canvas, or he wishes to be an author. But he does not wish to work on the farm, nor does he wish to engage in mercantile life. He does not like business, and the law is not to be thought of. And 'so Johnny lounges about the farm, doing odd chores at times, working on his marble, or his canvas, or re-writing his essay on the Relation of the Infinite to the Intangible. But what shall we do with him?

We suppose there are few families where the problem is not awakening solution, and nothing regarding which more mistakes are committed. Let us say right here to each incipient Praxiteles and Raphael that the road to fame in this country lies through the workshop, the store, or the farm. Nothing is more difficult in this country than the early pursuit of literature or the fine arts. If your boy has these tastes, and even talent, thank God for it; but do not let them prove his ruin. Let him learn well and thoroughly some trade, or else make a farmer of him or put him in a store, and then, when he shall have acquired the means of earning his own livelihood, let him at his leisure develop his tastes.

This, indeed, is the history of the success of our two greatest sculptors, one of whom is no longer living. One was an apprentice, and a good worker he was. The other went into the mercantile business, and employed his odd leisure moments in fashioning bits of statuary. But now his reputation is world-wide, and orders come in upon him as thick as the summer leaves. Put Johnny to work. Whether he likes it or not, make him work; but if possible give him work which he goes at willingly. A boy who will do nothing but chisel, or paint, or write poetry, or write essays, will scarcely, if ever, succeed at it. First the farm, the workshop, the counting-house; after that the marble bust, the painting, the epic, or the essay. Boys need discipline, the hard discipline though it be, of life; and it is better that they should have real hard knocks at first than that they should lose their manliness and the respect of others in the pursuit of that idleness which is as pernicious as it is disgraceful.-Christian Work.

SPLENDOR AND DISTANCE OF SIRIUS.

MR. PROCTOR'S "King of Suns" is the magnificent Sirius-that splendid star of the south-eastern sky, whose fixed blaze is not diminished, even though he has receded from us, during the past century, more millions on millions of miles than we would dare to say. How must he have appeared-with what unutterable glory-to the first races of mankind?-to the human beings who preceded the ancient Egyptians? These latter worshiped Sirius.

He wore a red hue, then-three or four thousand years before the time of Christ. His color has changed during the last four' thousand years, and he, himself, is untold and untellable miles farther away than he was then; but such is his unimaginable distance, that even his swift recession from this particular region of

endless space seems to make, in any one century, no perceptible difference in his appearance.

Of one star alone, of all the infinite host outside of our solar system, the distance has been measured. It is Alpha Centauri. It is found to lie more than 200,000 times further away than the sun. At this distance our sun would shine much less brightly than Alpha Centauri. But Sirius, that ineffable sun, is still more remote. He is at a vastly greater distance away; the best computations assign to him a distance exceeding that of Alpha Centauri five-fold to ten-fold.

Taking the smallest of the distances, it follows, that if Sirius shone no more brightly than Alpha Centauri in appearance, he must nevertheless give out twenty-five times as much light. Yet a careful comparison of his brightness with that of Alpha Centauri shows that Sirius is about four times brighter. Therefore, says Mr. Proctor, in reality he must give out about one hundred times as much light as that great star.

In other words, coming back to our sun, it is found that Sirius shines in reality three hundred times more brightly than the sun. Proctor proves, mathematically, that if this be true (and he believes it), then it follows that the volume of Sirius is about twenty-two hundred times as great as the sun's. Even the diameter of this King of Suns is between seventeen and eighteen times that of our

sun.

Out of that kingly sphere, of light inconceivable, two thousand such orbs as our sun might be formed, "each fit to be the centre of a scheme of circling worlds as important as that over which our sun bears sway." What must be the planetary system of Sirius?

THE BIBLE IMMORTAL.

IN the year 303, when that last great effort was made by the Emperor Diocletian to extinguish the Christian name, he sent on the 23d of February his legions to the great church of Nicomedia. When the doors were forced open and the soldiers entered, they searched and searched with diligence, but they searched in vain for any visible symbol of Deity whom the Christians worshiped. No banners, no crucifixes, no images of the saints were to be found in any part of the building, noble though it was, and towering as it did, and, as historians tell us, above the very palace of the Cæsars. But as they searched, they fell upon one record-upon one object on which they proceeded to vent their bitterest vengeance. They lighted upon the Scriptures of truth. They committed the Bible

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