THE FIRESIDE.-THE PENNY POST BOX.

The Fireside.

TRUTHFULNESS.

Of all happy households, that is the happiest where falsehood is never thought of. All peace is broken up when once it appears there is a liar in the house. All comfort has gone when suspicion has once enteredwhen there must be reserve in talk and reservation in belief. Anxious parents, who are aware of the pains of suspicion, will place general confidence in their children, and receive what they say freely, unless there is strong reason to distrust the truth of any one. If such an occasion should unhappily arise, they must keep the suspicion from spreading as long as possible, and avoid disgracing their poor child while there is a chance of its cure by their confidential assistance. He should have their pity and assiduous help, as if he were suffering under some bodily disorder. If he can be cured, he will become duly grateful for the treatment. If the endeavour fail, means must of course be taken to prevent his example from doing harm; and then, as I said, the family peace is broken up, because the family confidence is gone. I fear that, from some cause or another, there are but few large families where every member is altogether truthful. But where all are so organized and so trained as to be wholly reliable in act and word, they are a light to all eyes and a joy to all hearts. They are public benefits, for they are a point of general reliance; and they are privately blesssed within and without. Without, their life is made easy by universal trust; and within their home and their hearts they have the security of rectitude and the gladness of innocence.-Harriet Martineau.

The Penny Post Box.

THE MINUTES.

We often think and speak of "making good use of our time," meaning our days, and weeks, and months, and years; forgetting that all these are made up of seconds and minutes. If we waste all the minutes, we waste all the years.

The French have a proverb, "God works by minutes." His great plans are not wrought out by years, but move on through all time, while we are sleeping or trifling as well as learning, working; and thus ought we ever to do.

Some people are always complaining that they have not time to read, or study, or think, even while they are wasting years by casting away the golden minutes as they are given from heaven.

FACTS, HINTS, GEMS, AND POETRY.

Red Jacket once heard a wise man say, "I have not time enough!" Looking at him in surprise, the Indian exclaimed, "You have all the time there is, haven't you?"

Yes, we have all the time there is. God has given us time to work for ourselves and to bless the world; let us catch it, minute by minute, and make such use of it as we wish each moment to record in heaven.

Facts, Hints, Gems, and Poetry.

Facts.

The ruin of most men dates from some idle hour.

Occupation is an

Teach nothing but the truth of God, because nothing but that will save souls.

There is no real use in riches, except it be in the distribution; the rest is but conceit.

The fanatic is unyielding in his course; but they who are filled with the Spirit submit themselves one to another in the Lord.

ABOUT WAR.-It is stated as a sin-armour to the soul. gular fact that there has not been a The best penance we can do for ensingle year of entire peace since this vying another's merit is to endeavour century began. In the first fifteen to surpass it. years there was war all over Europe, extending to America. In the next ten years Mexico, Central and South America were involved. In the next twenty-five years the great European powers carried on wars in Africa and Asia, followed by the Crimean war and other wars in various countries in Europe. Since 1800 England has waged forty-nine wars, France thirtysix, Russia twenty-one, Austria twelve, and Prussia seven. All this does not include the revolutionary movements and intestine struggles in both hemispheres or our own Indian wars and civil war, all of which caused great misery and loss of life. We may boast of our civilization and brag loudly of the moral progress of the nineteenth century, but the facts above stated show all such boasts and brags to be brags and boasts only.

Hints.

Titles debase those who act not up to them.

Some bad people would be less dangerous if they had not some goodness. A man's own good breeding is the best security against other people's ill manners.

There is not a more repulsive spectacle than an old man who will not forsake the world which has already forsaken him.

Gems.

falling, but rising every time we fall. Our greatest glory is not in never -Confucius.

merits by their qualifications, but by We ought not to judge of men's the use they make of them.-Charron.

Trust him little who praises all, him less who censures all, and him least who is indifferent about all.-Lavater.

Perfect valour consists in doing without witnesses all we should be capable of doing before the world.Rochefoucault.

Many people labour to make the narrow way wider. They may dig a

POETIC SELECTIONS. THE CHILDRENS' CORNER.

The Childrens' Corner.

THE INFANT'S ANSWER.

Ar a missionary station among the Hottentots, the question was proposed, "Do we possess anything that we have not received of God?" A little girl of five years old immediately answered, "Yes, sir—sin.”

BROACHING A MINE.

AMONG the many dangers the Cornish miners have to battle against, one of the greatest arises from accidentally carrying the excavations too close to some disused old pit, that perhaps many years since has been boarded and earthed over, and in course of time forgotten. When miners have reason to suspect that such is the casea suspicion generally caused by a greater exudation of water than is usual-they at once proceed to what is technically termed "hole it;" and the following description of the holing or emptying a pit of water may best be given in the words of an old Cornish miner, one of the principal actors in the undertaking:

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Well, you see, sir, we were working two hundred fathoms down, running a level due north, and to our surprise the further we went the more moist the earth became, till, on going to work one morning, we found the whole end of the wall covered with drops of dew. Seeing this, it struck all of us at once that there must be a pit at no great distance, and (as they almost allus are) full of water. Fancy this, sir; a body of water reaching many fathoms above you, and the narrow space in which you are working only separated from it by a thin crust of clay, putting you in the momentary fear of this giving way and the water crashing in upon you. However, there it was, and must be got rid of, and this, too, by driving or holing right into it; for if left, we never should be safe, or tell when we might come unawares across one of the many levels or shafts which run in such numerous ways and depths. When the captain of the mine learned of its existence, an offer was soon made on tolerably generous terms to any who chose to empty it; which offer six of us accepting, we at once proceeded with our dangerous task. The first thing we did was to put up a strong frame-work with doors attached, opening inward toward the old pit, so that the instant the mine was holed, by running and closing the door in passing, the mass of water would be kept back for a time-long enough, at all events, for us to reach the ladders. After placing three of these safety-valves, as we call them, along the level at short distances apart, we proceeded slowly and cautiously with the more dangerous part of our work. Bit by bit we got nearer to the old mine, at every blow with the sledge on the borer expecting the rush of water to follow, often and often fearing to strike more than one blow before running for our lives, till the

BROACHING A MINE.

constant dread which we were all of us in so worked upon the nerves of the bravest that even a falling stone would be sufficient to put every one of us to flight. Never shall I forget the morning when at last we did get through; and I can almost fancy seeing one of my mates as he then stood with the borer held up ready for another to strike, the rest of us watching for the blow to fall, and preparing to run if necessary. At last, when every eye was fixed upon them, the steel hammer rang on the borer, which in another instant was sent whizzing far away down the level, as with a horrible roar the water came tearing and crushing through. It was a run then for life, sir; and in a far shorter time than I can tell it, we were through the first doorway and in the act of swinging to the next, when the first was dashed against it; but, thank God, this for a time resisted the pressure of the water, or I should not be here telling of it. On we sped, our only hope of safety lying in gaining the ladders before the last door gave way; and what a distance they seemed, when even a few moments gained might rescue us from death! Breathless, at last we reached them, and had but ascended a few rounds when, with a bang-whirl-crash—the water was upon us, and, like some horrid monster, it glided up, step for step with us. Even now a shuddering feeling creeps over me as I call to mind the fierce struggle it was to climb faster than the water rose. Faint and weary, we still hurried upwards, for to rest only a few moments would to a certainty have been death. Up, up, with our dread enemy gaining on our flagging footsteps ; now with the cold water gliding to our knees, yet still with renewed desperation struggling on. Thank heaven, the adit was at last reached and we were saved. Dragging our exhausted limbs a few feet higher, we watched the dread torrent rushing through this outlet. Then it was that, giving a glance toward my comrades, I found there were but two left. Yes, sir, six of us went down; three only came up. Whether they were overtaken in the level or washed from the ladders none could tell, for death was too closely following us at the time to allow us to bestow a thought on our poor mates. However, we thought a deal more about them on reaching the mouth of the pit, where stood their pale-faced anxious wives, scanning us on coming to grass, and asking us, with a frightened cry, 'Where are our husbands?'

"We could only point down to the roaring gulf, for our hearts were too full to utter even the simple word-dead.'