HINTS FOR THE HOUSEHOLD. THE SICK ROOM. If you are so fortunate as to have a choice of rooms, do not put your patient into one which is dark and gloomy; but let it be light and cheerful, and with a fireplace, if possible. If the illness be fever, something wrong with the eyes or brain, or other sickness requiring quiet, a back room away from the family will answer best; the patient will not care to look at anything or to speak much, and quietness is necessary. But if he be suffering from an accident, let him be near the rest of the family where you can speak to him. This will help to keep him contented and cheerful. Never have the window so fastened that you cannot open it. Be careful not to have much furniture in the room, particularly if the disease be infectious. Bear in mind that woollen articles hold smells much longer than cotton or linen, therefore do not have woollen curtains. It is better to have no curtains at all; but if you think the room looks bare and cheerless, use light muslin or something which will easily wash. Have no woollen-covered sofa or chairs; cane-bottomed or plain wood is preferable; and a clean boarded floor, kept sweet by scrubbing and elbow-grease, is infinitely better without any carpet, excepting, perhaps, a narrow strip for you to walk upon just to prevent noise. In case of accident, the bed may be placed where the patient feels most comfortable; only it should be where there is a good light to see and dress the wound; but in fever and small-pox let it be between the door and the fireplace. The reason for this is, that as the fire cannot burn without air there must be a draught to feed it; and as this becomes heated and rushes up the chimney, it is replaced by a fresh supply drawn in through the door and window. In this way the chimney acts as a ventilating shaft, carrying away the impurities of the room, and so helps to prevent the disease spreading. It is clear, therefore, that if a person stands between the bed and the fireplace, he must get the air after it has been contaminated by passing over the patient; whereas, on the other side-that is, between the bed and the door-he breathes the air pure. If from the form of the room the bed cannot be placed in this position, let there always be sufficient space left between the window and the bed to stand in. The best As to the bed itself. is no doubt a hair-mattress; but as this is so expensive, I shall merely say, if you have one, use it; but, unless you are obliged, do_not use one made of feathers.-From "Till the Doctor comes. BOOKS RECEIVED. Our Duty to Animals. By Mrs. BRAY (Partridge & Co.).-Home Religion. By W. B. MACKENZIE, M.A. (Cassell & Co.)- Heart to Heart (Macintosh).-Friendly Visitor (Seeley).—Children's Treasury-Our Mothers (Book Society).-The Cottager (Religious Tract Society).Old Jonathan (Collingridge).-Sunday-School Times (Clarke & Co.). A FEW days ago a meeting of a very interesting character was held in one of our midland towns. The mayor, a Christian man, whose wife feels an interest in mothers' meetings, invited all the members of those societies to tea. In response to this invitation, about nineteen hundred mothers and their husbands met together (many of them, of course, bringing their babies with them), and seemed greatly to enjoy the good things set before them, as well as the convenient opportunity thus afforded for a little friendly gossip with one another. After the tea, these mothers, belonging to all denominations, were addressed by the different ministers of the town, who, whatever they were, clergymen of the Church of England, Congregationalists, Baptists, Wesleyans, or anything else, seemed glad of the occasion, and well pleased to say a few kindly and earnest words to so important a meeting. It was a very pleasant holiday for a mass of hard-working people, and many a mayor might do a worse thing than have such a teaparty; but after all it was not that gathering, but what it represented, that was the important part of the business. It was not so much this large mothers' meeting as the small ones (which being held every week, must, if they are at all well attended, do VOL, VIII. No. 6. [JUNE, 1871. great good), to which the thoughts of all thinking persons turned. It seems, on such an evening, in spite of babies who persist in singing at wrong times, to be rather a pleasant thing to be a mother. But there is, as every woman knows, another side to the picture, and that other side reveals the fact that to be a mother is an awfully solemn thing too. It means a great deal more than merely nursing the pretty little things and taking them out to teaparties. Poor women, who have little time for reflection, feel this great responsibility at times most profoundly. They know that they hold in their arms little creatures who, if God spares the fragile precious lives, will be a power in the world; and as they look in their faces, many a mother wishes she were better fitted for her trust, and more able to teach them how to think and feel and act. There is no doubt that this spirit of earnestness is fostered by mothers' meetings, and that many helpful words are spoken to very eager ears upon the subject. It is a strange thing, but true, that many women who makes no pretensions to Christianity themselves, are yet in their secret hearts very wishful that their children should be spiritually richer. "I hope my girl will be a better woman than her mother," is the unspoken thought of many a loving heart regretting its own unworthiness. And these women do what they can to place their children under religious influences. They send them to Sunday-school, and ask "good people" to talk to them, although they, whose words would sink the most deeply into the hearts of the little ones, never venture to say anything themselves upon solemn subjects. But one thing which should be done, and probably is done at these meetings, is to make them understand that to bring their children to Jesus is the mothers' duty, as it would be their highest joy. Another want which is felt by mothers, and met by these meetings, is instruction in the management of children. Many are very young, not much more than children themselves, when the highest duties are laid upon them. And they feel their own inefficiency deeply. Of course they would learn wisdom by first making mistakes, as many do; but it is a grave thing to make mistakes with regard to children; for as soon as you have found out your error, they are children no longer, and the time is too late. At the mothers' meetings hints may be given, aud valuable knowledge gained, which will prevent many an error. It is a good thing for the mothers to talk together about their children. Of course, the first things to settle are what to do in case of teething, measles, whooping-cough, and similar difficulties ; but then come other subjects, such as what it is best to do with children smitten with the diseases of passion, sullenness, obstinacy, and disobedience. And a vast amount of good is accomplished when mothers go home to their charge strong in the knowledge of the best way to meet such emergencies. In a few years' time, if the New Education Act does all that is required of it, girls will perhaps be taught common sense and needlework. But at present, meetings of some kind are very necessary, in order that poor women-who have probably spent all the years of their girlhood in factories-may learn how to make and cut out their children's clothes. And so, while the school boards are meeting and discussing and making up their minds, we wish all speed to mothers' meetings, where in the mean time earnest women are pushing on the good work.-Marianne Farningham, in "Christian World." LOVE TO GOD'S WORD. POOR woman, whose eyesight had so nearly failed that she was unable to read even by the aid of glasses, pined daily for the comfort and guidance she had, during a long life, been accustomed to derive from God's holy Word. After various unsuccessful efforts to get some one to read to her, she agreed with another poor woman to pay her sevenpence a week if she would come to her every evening, when the labours of the day were over, and read to her a single chapter. This service was at first undertaken solely for gain, for the reader was a poor widow with several helpless little ones depending on her labour for bread; and even these few pence a week became an object worth securing. But when she found that to pay even this small sum the blind woman was obliged to do without her morsel of soup-meat, and eat dry bread one day in the week, she was led to consider her own neglect of the sacred volume. Before that, she had excused herself on the ground that she had to work very hard, and was too tired, when the day's labours were over, to read, or even to seek God's blessing before retiring with her children to rest. But the evident delight with which her blind neighbour listened while she read the evening chapter, and the proof she gave that the truths of that holy book were more to her than even necessary food, made a deep impression on her heart, and resulted ultimately in her saving conversion. Thus did this poor blind woman, by her love of the blessed book of God and the self-denial she practised in order to hear its sacred truths, secure not only a rich blessing to her own soul, but was made the instrument, in God's hands, of saving another, whom perhaps no one else could have reached. When they had become sharers together of the like precious faith and hope, the reader would no longer consent to be paid for a service that had been so richly blessed to her own soul. So, after a while, these two poor women determined to unite their humble homes in one; and there, every morning and evening, a portion of the sacred volume was read, and their prayers offered up together to the throne of the heavenly grace. By this means the blind woman had two readings instead of one, while she paid back more than she received in the benefits of her example and experience to the new convert; and the little children of the latter were brought into a moral atmosphere of purity and piety, that caused them, as they grew up, to bless the day that gave them a home under the roof of the poor blind woman. Truly in keeping God's commands there is great reward; and faithful is He who has said, "Blessed is he that heareth my words and keepeth them." F. R. F. THE SUICIDE SAVED. LADY relates an incident occurring in her immediate neighbourhood which illustrates the wonderful providence of God in the preservation of human life. "Our maid," she says, " was busy hanging clothes on the line, when, chancing to raise her eyes, she saw a female form suspended from one of the windows of a house, so situated that it could not easily be seen from any of the adjoining houses. In an instant the alarm was given, and the poor woman, who, in a moment of delirium, sought to destroy her life, was released from her perilous position. Only a little hook had held her clothes, and prevented her death." The man who forged that hook, and he who set it in its place, little thought of the importance of their work; but God saw it all the time. Had the hook been slighted in the making, or had it been fastened carelessly, and insecurely, it might have cost a life. But the hook was strong and firm, and right side up, and it saved a soul from death. God uses many hooks, not only putting them in the jaws of the ungodly to turn them back, but also to pluck his tempted saints out of many dangerous nets. A word, a deed, a smile, a prayer, a tear, may prove the salvation of some bewildered soul. Be faithful then. Learn that all your work is done for God. Slight nothing. Have the same evidence of your salvation that the little servant girl had, who, when asked how she knew she was converted, said, "Because I sweeps under the mats.' Walk, then, as before the Lord, remembering that nothing can be trifling which attracts the notice of His eye. O that in word, in spirit, and in deed, |