GLEANINGS.

TRUE AND FALSE WORSHIP.-We would willingly have all religion reduced to externals. This is our natural practice, and we would pay all in this coin as cheaper and easier by far, and would compound for the spiritual part rather to add and give more external performance and ceremony. Hence the natural complacency in Popery, which is all for this service of the flesh and bodily servicessprinklings, and washings, and anointings, and incense. But whither tends all this? Is it not a great mistaking of God to think Him thus pleased? Or is it not a direct affront, knowing that He is not pleased with these, but desires another thing-to thrust that upon Him which He cares not for, and refuse Him what He calls for?-that single heart-worship and walking with Him; that purity of spirit and conscience which only He prizes, no outward service being acceptable, but only for these and as they tend to this end and attain it. Give me, saith He, nothing if you give not this. Oh, saith the carnal mind, anything but this; thou shalt have as many washings and offerings as thou wilt, "thousands of rams and ten thousand rivers of oil," yea, rather than fail, "let the fruit of my body go for the sin of my soul." Know you not that many have made shipwreck on the very Rock of Salvation; that many who were baptized as well as you, and as constant attendants on all the ordinances of God as you, yet have remained without Christ and died in their sins, and are now past recovery? Oh that you would be warned!-Leighton.

LET me then be refuted and convinced by the testimony of the Scriptures, or by the clearest arguments; otherwise I cannot and will not recant; for it is neither safe nor expedient to act against conscience. Here I take my stand.-Luther.

THE new dogma of Infallibility is awakening in the minds of thoughtful Romanists a spirit of earnest religious inquiry. In reference to the invocation of saints-a doctrine unknown until the fourth century—it is asked, " Can any finite and created being know the hearts of millions of worshippers, and at one and the same moment attend to all their prayers, offered up in all parts of the earth?" It is written, "GOD only knoweth the hearts of all the children of men " (1 Kings, viii. 39). He ONLY is the " Hearer of prayer;" for He only is Omniscient and Omnipresent.

To do our "Father's business " here,

In humble reverence and fear;

Meekly upon his will to wait,

In little things as well as great;

Contented in our lot to rest,

'Tis thus the Christian serves Him best,- Monsell,

OU cannot whistle Jowler from his post, or coax him off, or drive him away.

"That charge is mine," he seems to say; "touch Willie, if you dare."

Jowler is an almost constant companion of the little fellow. He watches him when asleep; he plays with

him when awake; he walks with him when Willie takes a walk, and if Willie wants to go where Jowler does not think it safe for him to go, Jowler sidles up to him, and gently pushes him back with his big honest nose; and Willie minds, for he loves Jowler.

One day a boy tried to tempt the dog off with a great bone full of meat. Of course it was a great temptation. Jowler sniffed at the bone; he looked wistfully after it; he licked his chops in delightful anticipation; but not a step would Jowler go to take it.

"My post of duty is here," said Jowler by his conduct, " and I do not leave it for any consideration."

"I wish," said his master one day, "I was as faithful to my duty as my poor dog is to his :" and since the Bible often points us to the dumb creatures for instruction, it is not beneath us to take a lesson from our faithful and affectionate household companion.

HINTS FOR THE HOUSEHOLD.

OVER-FATIGUE IN NURSING.

No medical practitioner can fail to have been most painfully impressed with the frequency with which broken health in women of the middle classes dates from protracted attendance on sick friends; and this not from want of means, but for lack simply of persons with whom to share the burden. Like other things which are not understood, nursing is supposed to be a thing which everyone understands, and, accordingly, when illness comes, utterly untrained women apply themselves to it, with a zeal stimulated by affection, to a pitch alike disastrous to the patient and themselves. How can over-weariness, which is fatal to efficiency in all other things, leave efficiency in nursing unimpaired? It is only ignorance an ignorance fatal to innumerable lives in England now -that fancies the reckless energies of unskilled affection are more available in the sick room than in the other exigencies of life. Instead of diminishing disease, unwise attentions to the sick multiply it.

UNHEALTHY HOMES.

Mr. G. W. Hastings, the founder of the Social Science Association, speaking of some of the homes of the working classes,

remarks:-"I was taken into a room inhabited by a labouring man, his wife, and their child, which was utterly unfit for the habitation of a human family. It was beneath the floor, without ventilation, and foetid in its atmosphere. The only wonder was how human beings could exist in such circumstances. I asked whether the cause was poverty; and I found, on the contrary, that the man was earning six or seven shillings a day, and he was paying a shilling a week for house accommodation! Where did the money go? It went on all occasions to the DRINK SHOP. I do believe most earnestly and entirely that the best and most immediate way of getting rid of a number of these evils is to get at the women. I believe, if those who are endeavouring to get a more healthy public opinion, and to induce people to refuse to live in these dog holes, if they would only go to the wives instead of talking to the husbands, they would produce more effect."

WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN DONE
WITH THE MONEY?

Dr. S. Smiles states, that in one year, 656,155 barrels of beer were consumed in Liverpool, which, at 4d. per quart, amounts to £1,400,000. This self-imposed tax is England's bane.

BOOKS RECEIVED.

The Mothers' Almanac.-The Children's Treasury (Book Society).Parental Influence. By Dr. LANDELS.-Childs' Own Magazine (Sunday School Union).-Canadian Homes for London Wanderers (Morgan & Chase).-Old Jonathan's Almanac (Colingridge).—Golden Grain Almanac (Yapp & Hawkins).-The Children's Almanac (Christian Knowledge Society.)

*

** THE MOTHERS' TREASURY VOLUME FOR 1870, IS NOW READY, AND MAY BE ORDERED OF ANY BOOKSELLER.