DRIFTING OVER THE FALLS.

BY THE EDITOR.

On May 28, at 31 P. M., a party of four men entered a boat about two miles above the Falls of Niagara, to cross the river. After they had rowed out into the stream, the downward current became perceptibly stronger. Still the strong man at the oars could have stemmed the downward tide, had not the wind blown. off his hat. In his efforts to catch his hat, he dropped both oars, which fell into the river, and, in a moment drifted beyond his reach. Although the downward current was not very strong, the four strong men without oars, had nothing to work with, and were compelled to see their boat carry them towards the fatal Falls. Ere long they reached the trembling torrent, dashing them downward with fearful speed. About five hundred yards from the Falls the boat was upset, and two of the men fell out of it, and in a few moments were swept over the horseshoe falls. The other two, by some means, clung to the boat, with a death grip. They were carried within five feet of Street's Island, where a number of persons were in waiting, if possible to save them. In spite of their most energetic efforts, they passed by, almost within arm's length of the shore. Almost saved, was no better than out in midriver. They too, were plunged into the fearful abyss. Who these men were, we are not told. It is supposed that they were strangers here, ignorant of the strength of the current in this part of the river.

The sad occurrence has a moral. "There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof, are the ways of death." Many a one launches his boat on a stream full of invisible danger. He begins the use of strong drink. Of course he feels himself perfectly safe. Does he not use it with moderation? Is he not man enough to master his appetite? He enters the boat of a dangerous pleasure. Perhaps he has his misgivings, but his associates put him on. Some of these are church members. Surely, in such company he is safe. He lets them steer the boat; lead off in their sports. The church members drop their oars; cease attending to their church duties, neglect their prayers, and are no longer found at the Lord's table. Once cut loose from all devotional and sacramental restraints, they are rapidly borne down the current of vice. For, a man that tears loose from his Saviour,

discards his vows, and all his ordinances is stripped of all power to resist temptation-is borne down the deadly current to ruin, as helplessly as the oarless boat on the Niagara.

Ône sinner destroyeth much good. If the rower drops his oars, his blunder will destroy all that are with him in the boat. Every species of sin, the excesses of gaiety, giddy fashion, sinful amusements of every sort, gambling, drunkenness-all these, and many more, begin under the guise of harmless pleasure. As he goes out into the stream, the downward current strengthens. Usually, in nine cases out of ten, the oars are dropped. The hat is blown off, the head is burned, false notions about sin are imbibed, which give an innocent coloring to vice. Prayer, sermons, sacraments, become tasteless and tedious after the exhilarations of the ball room, and the excesses of midnight revelries, and are no longer used. Thus many that begin in the spirit, end in the flesh.

A young man in one of our large cities, prevailed on some lady friends to take a sail on an adjoining river, on a pleasant Sunday morning. He was a member of the Church, and usually pretty active. This time he yielded to the temptation, and had many things to justify his course, as he thought. The ladies were led, or rather misled, by him. Still, unwillingly his mind reverted to his pastor in the pulpit, and his parents in their pew, and felt ill at ease in being absent. By some unaccountable reason, the boat capsized, the young man escaped, but the ladies perished in the river. The poor youth was well nigh distracted. For he not only broke the Sabbath, in spite of his protesting conscience, but led his friends to a watery grave. He charged himself with being the cause of their death. And it all arose from his dropping his spiritual oars from discarding the Lord's day and the privileges of the sanctuary. Hold on to your oars, young friends, hold on to

your oars.

Once I had an athletic boatman to take me to a fish-basket, near the breast of the dam, in the Susquehanna, at Safe Harbor. In rowing me away he came near dropping one of his oars. While he nervously blundered, the torrent swept the boat within a few paces of the edge of the dam. The river was very high, tumbling into a boiling abyss below. The brave boatman laid to his oars, till they apparently creaked in every fibre. The boat seemed to be poised on the verge of the grave, as I looked down into the foaming waters in which I thought my poor life was now to end. They were long moments. The boatman battled the torrent like a Titan. As I saw him gradually gaining on it, I felt like one plucked out of the jaws of death by the hand of a merciful providence. With a light heart he sped his boat shoreward, and how thankful mine was, God only fully knows. God helped him to

rescue our lives. What the oars are to the boat in a storm, the sacraments, Sabbath days, and ordinances of the Church are to the believer. Learn to use them regularly and faithfully, and beware that they fall not out of your hands and you are safe. If you drop or neglect them, you are at the mercy of the waves of sin; you are borne helplessly down to destruction. Lay to your oars, kind reader; lay to your oars. Row for your life, for you are by nature launched on an adverse stream, whose tide tends to the doom of the lost; but if stemmed and controlled by grace, will bear you to "the evergreen shore" of the Canaan above.

IK MARVEL AND OLD "CORINTH."

Last evening, as we were walking leisurely along, the music of the choirs in three churches came floating out in the darkness around us, and they were all new and strange tunes but one. And that one-it was not sung as we have heard it, but it awakened a train of long-buried memories that rose to us even as they were before the cemetery of the soul had a tomb in it.

It was sweet old Corinth they were singing-strains we have seldom heard since the rose color of life was blanched; and we were in a moment back again to the village church, and it was a summer afternoon, and the yellow sunbeams were streaming through the west windows, and the silver-hair of the old deacon who sat in the pulpit, was turned to gold in its light; and the minister who we used to think could never die, so good was he, had concluded "application," " exhortation," and the village choir were singing the last hymn, and the tune was—Corinth.

It is years we dare not think how many-since then, and "the prayers of David, the son of Jesse, are ended," and the choir are scattered and gone. The girl with blue eyes that sang alto, and the girl with black eyes that sang air--the eyes of the one were like a clear June heaven at night, and those of the other like the same heaven at noon. They both became wives, and both mothers, and they both died. Who shall say that they are not singing Corinth still, where Sundays never wane, and congregations never break up? There they sat Sunday after Sunday, by the square column at the right of the "leader," and to our young eyes, they were passing beautiful, and to our young ears their tones were the very "soul of music." That column bears still their pencilled names, as they wrote them in those days in life's June, 183-, before dreams of change had overcome their spirits, like a summer's cloud.

MISCELLANEOUS ITEMS.

"NEXT, let me say a word or two to the people. It is a remarkable fact, that ministers of the gospel are not able to live on much less than other people. They cannot make a shilling go as far as other people can make a sovereign. Some of them try very hard, but they do not succeed. A member once said to a minister, who wanted a little more salary, as his family increased: 'I did not know that you preached for money.' 'No, I don't,' said the minister. I thought you preached for souls.' So I do, but I could not live on souls-and if I could, it would take a good many the size of yours to make a meal.”—Rev. C. H. Spurgeon.

THE MATTER OF-FACT WOMAN.-An editor describes a clergyman's wife who never forgot herself in any momentary fit of enthusiasm. She would count the strokes of the clock amid his kisses, and look to see whether the pot was boiling with her eyes full of tears, which he had wrung from them by a moving story. While he was listening in rapture to her singing, she would break off in the middle of a verse to ask him what she should cook for supper; and he would never forgive her having once interrupted him while she was listening with deep emotion to his very best sermon, to tell him not to put on his left stocking the next morning till she had mended it.

WHEN the bugle sounded the recall for the regiment of dragoon guards (Prussian), on the evening following the battle of Metz, 602 riderless horses answered the familiar signal of their own accord. Some of them came dashing gayly up; others again, came up at a weary walk; and yet others pressed forward, halting painfully on three feet, or covered with blood and wounds, but they all took their wonted places in the ranks of the regiment, and as they ranged themselves into the line, the empty saddles upon their backs were sad reminders of the probable fate of their absent masters.

SOME MINDS seem to be governed by a sort of evil fate, which makes them energetic in whatever concerns worldly business, but backward in religious work. How common are the complaints: "I havn't time;" and, "I am not adapted to this work!" made, too, by men who never lack either time or talent for trade, for political meetings, for study, for any kind of secular work which their hearts are set on.

THE GUARDIAN.

Vol. XXII.-SEPTEMBER, 1871.-No. 9.

MAGDALENA LENZ, OR A MOTHER'S FAITHFULNESS.

From the German, published anonymously by the Rauhe Haus.

TRANSLATED BY R. H. S.

I.

Death in the house at the joyous Christmas tide! How sharp and painful is the contrast between the sadness of the present, and the pleasure of the years gone by! how overwhelming to the heart the sense of its desolation! Thus was it in the house of Jacob Lenz, whose spirit departed, just as the early bell of the distant Steinthaler church pealed forth its summons to morning worship. A few minutes before, he had opened his fast-glazing eyes, and with a slight motion of his lips, summoned his wife closer to his side. She leaned over him, and heard him whisper, faintly:

"I forgive her, Anna! may God also forgive me!"

"Oh my dear love! my life! if you were but restored to health, my whole life should show how I thank you for those precious words! God in Heaven bless you for them! You suffer less now, dear husband-perhaps-Oh, God!"

While she spoke, he was dead.

Twenty-two years had they been man and wife, and for nineteen of those years, their married life had been most happy and peaceful. The husband had been to his wife, the medium of the will of God; to him, she had looked for guidance, and she would have almost counted it a sin against the reverence due him, had she ventured only to think him too severe; yet, as certainly as he was just and upright, so certainly was he also hard, stern, and inexorble. And for the last three sad years, her heart had risen against