provisions for the starving people; and the very next day a treaty of peace was signed.

In memory of this event, the people of Hamburg still keep, every year, a festival called the Feast of Cherries; when the children of the city, clad in white garments, march through the streets, bolding green boughs, to which the people, coming out of their houses, hasten to tie bunches of cherries; only now the children are chubby and merry, and they eat the cherries themselves. -Riverside Magazine.

TROUBLESOME VERB.

"I begin to understand your language better," said my French friend, Mr. Arcourt, to me; " but your verbs trouble me still, you mix them up so with your prepositions."

"I am sorry you find them so troublesome," was all I could say. "I saw our friend, Mrs. James, just now," he continued, "she says she intends to break down housekeeping. Am I right there?” "Break up housekeeping, she must have said."

"Oh, yes, I remember, break up housekeeping." "Why does she do that?" I asked.

"Because her health is so broken into."

"Broken down, you should say."

"Broken down-oh yes. And, indeed, since the small-pox has broken up in our city-"

"Broken out-"

"She thinks she will leave it for a few weeks."

"Will she leave her house alone?"

"No; she is afraid it will be broken-broken--how do I say that?"

"Broken into."

"Certainly; that is what I meant to say."

"Is her son to be married soon?"

"No; the engagement is broken-broken--"

"Broken off."

"Ah! I have not heard that."

"She is very sorry about it. Her son only broke the news down to her last week. Am I right? I am so anxious to speak English well."

"He merely broke the news: no preposition this time."

"It is hard to understand. That young man, her son, is a fine fellow-a breaker, I think "

"A broker and a very fine fellow. Good day." So much for the verb "to break."

The Sunday-School Drawer.

DR. FRANKLIN said, "A good kick out of doors is better than all the rich uncles in the world."

NONE are so fond of secrets as those who don't mean to keep them; such persons covet secrets as a spendthrift covets money, for the purpose of circulation.

KEEP your mouth shut when you read, when you write, when you listen, when you are in pain, when you are running, when you are riding, and by all means when you are angry. There is no person in society but will find, and acknowledge, improvement in health and enjoyment from even a temporary attention to this advice.

THE Emperor Napoleon III. once had a quiet evening with a few friends. In the course of conversation he remarked that it was very hard to define savant. "I don't think so," retorted M. Drouyn de Lhuys; "I would propose this definition: A savant is a man who knows all that the world doesn't know, and who is ignorant of what all the world knows."

SWIMMING TO SCHOOL IN NEW ZEALAND.-We never hear of a mother sending her children to school. But very often, when the bell rings, we see the children running to school at their utmost speed. It is very amusing to see some of them, if a canoe is not at hand when the bell rings, tie their clothes in a bundle on their heads and swim across the river. Others have descended a mountain upwards of three thousand feet every morning, and are often here soon after six o'clock.-The Children's Record.

RICHARD I., on his way to the Holy Land, was taken captive and imprisoned in a dreary castle far away from his nation. At last, in the hands of his enemies, while wonder was dying fast, and he was perishing from the memory of mankind, he was discovered in a very strange manner. He had a favorite minstrel-Blondel; he knew that his master and king was confined in some cell in a castle among dreary mountain forests: and he traveled from one to the other, waking at the dungeon bars some well-loved melodies from his harp. At last the strain from the harp without was answered by the king from within down in the dungeon. The lay and the harp of the minstrel thus became the means of the emancipation of the prince. Thus the spirit of man sits like a captive king in a dungeon, until the voice of the divine music wakes echoes hitherto unknown along his prison-house, and stirs him with new knowledge, new consciousness. The senses are the bars of the prison. Every minister (and teacher) should be a Blondel.-Rev. E. P. Hood.

COVETOUS people often seek to shelter themselves behind the widow's mite, and to give a paltry sum to benevolent objects under cover of her contribution The following incident has a moral for all such: A gentleman called upon a wealthy friend for a contribution. "Yes, I suppose I must 'give my mite," said the rich man. "You mean the widow's mite, I suppose?" replied the other. "To be sure I do." The gentleman continued, "I will be satisfied with half as much as she gave. How much are you worth?" "Seventy thousand dollars," he answered. "Give me, then, a check for thirty-five thousand; that will be just half as much as the widow gave, for she gave all she had." It was a new idea to the wealthy merchant.

BEAUTIFUL DEATHS.-A girl thirteen years old was dying. Lifting her eyes towards the ceiling, she said softly, "Lift me higher, lift me higher!" Her parents raised her up with pillows, but she faintly said, "No, not that; but there!" again looking earnestly toward heaven, whither her happy soul flew a few moments later. On her grave-stone these words are now carved: "Jane B., aged 13. Lifted higher."

A beautiful idea of dying, was it not? Lifted higher!

Another little girl, gasping for her last mortal breath, said "Father, take me." Her father, who sat dissolved in tears by her bedside, lifted her into his lap. She smiled, thanked him, and said, "I spoke to my heavenly Father," and died.

THE miners in the gold fields of Australia, when they have gathered a large quantity of the precious dust, start for the city with their treasure. The mine is far in the interior; the country wild; the forest infested by robbers. The miners keep the road, and travel by daylight. They march in company, and close by the guard sent to protect them. They do not stray from the path into the woods, for they bear with them a treasure which they value highly, and with which they will run no risks. So every traveler through this world has something very precious in his custodythe most precious treasure ever created-his own soul. the world is full of enemies Safety only lies in keeping on the path where God's angels go for the defence of His children.

ALL THAT REMAINS OF GLORY.-After Saladin the Great had subdued Egypt, passed the Euphrates, and conquered cities without number; after he had retaken Jerusalem, and performed extraordinary exploits in those wars which superstition had stirred up, for the recovery of the Holy Land, he finished his life in the performance of an action which ought to be trans mitted to the latest posterity. A moment before he uttered his last sigh, he called the herald, who had carried his banners before him in all his battles; he commanded him to fasten to the top of a lance the shroud in which the dying prince was soon to be buried. Go," said he, "carry the lance, unfurl the banner; and, while you lift up this standard, proclaim-'This, this is all that remains of all the glory of Saladin the Great, the conqueror and king of the empire!'"

DISCOVERIES OF THE MICROSCOPE.-Lowenboeck tells us of an insect seen with the microscope, of which twenty-seven millions would only equal a mite. Insects of various kinds may be seen in the cavities of a common grain of sand. Mould is a forest of beautiful trees, with the branches, leaves, flowers and fruit. Butterflies are fully feathered. Hairs are hollow tubes. The surface of our bodies is covered with scales like fish; a single grain of sand would cover one hundred and fifty of these scales, and yet a single scale covers five hundred pores. Through these narrow openings the sweat forces itself out like water through a sieve. The mites make five hundred steps a second. Each drop of stagnant water contains a world of animated beings, swimming with as much liberty as whales in the sea. Each leaf has a colony of insects grazing on it, like oxen on a meadow.

At the last annual meetings of the Synod of the United States, and of the Synod of the Potomac, action was taken with a view of furnishing the Sunday-schools within their bounds with Lessons for every Sunday in the year. At a late meeting of the Board of Publication of the Reformed Book Concern in Philadelphia, in which these Synods as well as that of Pittsburg, have a joint interest, it was resolved to add a Sunday-school department to the Guardian. At least ten pages of each number shall hereafter be devoted to this cause. Although it will contain no more pages than heretofore, the difference of type, and of the arrangement of the matter will increase its contents about one-fourth. The Board has appointed W. K. Zieber, D.D., J. Beck, D.D., P. S. Davis, D.D. and Rev. F. K. Levan, to prepare a series of Sunday-school lessons for the coming year of 1875. These brethren are well known for their efficiency in the Sunday-school work, the result of whose labors will doubtless give general satisfaction. Along with the Lessons, there will be published a condensed comment on the Scripture verses, for the use of teachers, and a short lesson for Infant School Teachers. Four Lessons and the Comments will be published in each number of the GUARDIAN. The Lessons will be separately printed on Leaves for the use of the scholars every month. Four of these will be sent to the several schools using them. They will cost considerable less than the usual question book. Besides, they will fully accord with the doctrine and usages of the Reformed Church.

In addition to the Lessons, each number of the GUARDIAN will contain apt and instructive Sunday-school reading. Outside

of the Sunday-school Department it will be conducted as heretofore. This new feature will greatly enlarge the GUARDIAN'S sphere of usefulness. It will make it a Sunday-school Teacher's helper, a guide and teacher of the children and youth of the Church. Its mission will, hereafter, be more extensive and more important than ever. We earnestly ask all Sunday-school workers:

1. To furnish us with short, åpt articles, and with anything out of their experience that might be of interest and profit to the readers of this department.

2. To render us their vigorous assistance in introducing the GUARDIAN among the teachers, and the Lesson Leaves among the scholars.

3. We invite all persons who are in cordial sympathy with the young, and possess a talent to write for their entertainment and instruction, to aid us with their pen.

4. As a rule, we prefer short articles. Few should fill more than three or four pages. Articles from half a column to two pages will be received with most favor.

The January number will be issued before Christmas. The subscription price for the GUARDIAN will be as heretofore, $1.50. The Club-rates for Sunday-school teachers, and the terms for the Lesson Leaves, as arranged by the publishers, are as follows: For 5 copies to one address, for one year, $7.00.

66 10 66

66

66

13.00.

25.00.

36.00..

In each case the money must accompany the orders.

The Lesson Papers will be sold separately at 75 cents for 100 copies. For any less number, one cent will be charged for each

copy.

A SCRAP OF THE GUARDIAN'S HISTORY.

BY THE EDITOR.

The GUARDIAN was started on January 1st, 1850. It is now twenty-five years old. Its father and founder is the sainted Harbaugh. He was then yet young in the ministry, pastor of the Reformed Church at Lewisburg, Pa. Full of enthusiasm and zeal for the cause of Christ, he wished to do good beyond the bounds of his own flock. In the introduction to the first number of the GUARDIAN, he says:

"It has long been our conviction that there is an actual want of something of this kind. It is a comparatively new thing to publish a Magazine in the country. The cities send them forth in abundance, devoted to different objects. We know, however, of none that meets the want we expect the