Editor's Drawer.

TWO FOOLISH FRIENDS -In the depth of a forest there lived two foxes who never had a cross word with each other. One of them said, one day, in the politest fox language, "Let's quarrel." "Very well," said the other, as you please, dear friend. But how shall we set about it?" "Oh! it cannot be difficult," said fox number one; "two-legged people fall out; why should not we?" So they tried all sorts of ways, but it could not be done, because each one would give way. At last, number one fetched two stones. "There!" said he, "you say they're yours, and I'll say they're mine, and we will quarrel, and fight, and scratch. Now, I'll begin. Those stones are mine!" "Very well," answered the other, gently, "you are welcome to them." "But we shall never quarrel at this rate! cried the other, jumping up and licking his face. You old simpleton, don't you know that it takes two to make a quarrel, any day?" So they gave it up as a bad job, and never tried to play at this silly game again. I often think of this fable when feel more inclined to be sulky than sweet. -Children's Hour.

THE POET WHITTIER CONFUSED.-An amusing story is told of the Poet Whittier, who is as modest as he is gifted. He was in the city not long since, and went to hear Rev. E. H. Chapin speak a lecture, somewhere uptown. The clergyman was eloquent, as usual; his discourse, interlarded with highly wrought passages of rhetoric, closing with a stirring poetical quotation, so well delivered that the Quaker bard applauded with the rest. Some one sitting next him inquired, "Do you know, Mr. Whittier, who is the author of that extract?" "No; I do not. It sounds familiar, and I like the sentiment." 66 Why, the lines are yours, Mr. Whittier. You must remember them. They are from your famous anti-slavery odes." "So they are," said Whittier, after a little reflection, and blushing like a schoolgirl caught reading her first love-letter. "I really did not recall them. Indeed, they sounded so much better than they ever sounded before it is not strange that I failed to recognize them." The poet, thoroughly sincere, did not recover for some time from the embarrassment of outwardly acclaiming his own composition; but has now come to regard it as so good a joke that he tells it of himself.-New York Letter to Chicago Tribune.

CALLING A BOY IN THE MORNING.-The Connecticut editor who wrote the following, evidently knew what he was talking about: Calling a boy up in the morning can hardly be classed under the head of "pastimes," especially if the boy is fond of exercise the day before. And it is a little singular that the next hardest thing to getting a boy out of bed is getting him into it. There is rarely a mother who is a success at rousing a boy. All mothers know this, so do their boys. And yet the mother seems to go at it in the right way. She opens the stair door and insinuatingly observes: Johnny." There is no response. "Johnny." Still no response. Then there is a short, sharp "John," followed a moment later by a long and emphatic "John Henry." A grunt from the upper regions signifies that an impression has been made, and the mother encouraged, adds, "You'd better be getting down here to your breakfast, young man, before I

come up there and give you something you'll feel." This so startles the young man that he immediately goes to sleep again. And the operation has to be repeated several times. A father knows nothing about the trouble. He merely opens his mouth as a soda bottle ejects its cork, and the "John Henry" that cleaves the air of that stairway goes into that boy like electricity, and pierces the deepest recesses of his nature. And he pops out of that bed and into his clothes, and down the stairs, with a promptness that is commendable. It is rarely a boy allows himself to disregard the paternal summons. About once a year is believed to be as often as is consistent with the rules of Health. He saves his father a great many steps by his thoughtfulness.

MR. GLADSTONE'S Life of Whitefield is a work of real merit, executed with literary taste and skill. He gives many illustrations of Whitefield's extraordinary oratorical power, among which is the following: He was preaching before the seamen of New York, when suddenly assuming a nautical air and manner that were irresistible, he thus abruptly broke in with "Well, my boys, we have a clear sky, and are making fine headway over a smooth sea before a light breeze, and we shall soon lose sight of land. But, what means this sudden lowering of the heavens, and that dark cloud arising from beneath the western horizon? Hark! Don't you hear distant thunder? Don't you see those flashes of lightning? There is a storm gathering! Every man to his duty! How the waves rise and dash against the ship! The air is dark!-the tempest rages!-our masts are gone!-the ship is on her beam-ends! What next?" This appeal instantly brought the sailors to their feet, with a shout: "The long-boat!-take to the longboat!"

AN ADVERTISEMENT in an English paper of 1667 runs as follows: "An advertisement. We are, by His Majesty's command, to give notice, that by reason of the great heats which are growing on, there will be no further touching for the " King's evil" till Michaelmas next, and, accordingly, all persons concerned are to forbear their addresses till that time."

The following advertisement is also from an English paper:

"Wanted, to live in Scotland, an under laundry maid, who understands her business thoroughly, and is a good ironer. She must be a member of the Church of England, a good singer, and willing to take part in a church choir. Address, by letter, C. B.," &c.

GIVE not thy tongue too great liberty, lest it take thee prisoner. A word unspoken is, like the sword in the scabbard, thine. If vented, thy sword is in another's hand. If thou desire to be held wise, be so wise as to hold thy tongue. Quarles.

A CONCEITED man, who had built a small house in a sequestered part of his grounds for private study, showed it to a friend, remarking, "Here I sit reading from morning till night, and nobody a bit the wiser."

SCANDAL ought to be regarded, like piracy, as the common enemy of mankind. Truly polite ears will not listen to it, for it naturally belongs to that low life in which Mrs. Grundy's family originated.

THE following appeared some time ago upon the house of a colored man in Philadelphia: Peter Brown, porter and waiter.-N. B. Attends to funerals, dinner parties, and other practical occasions."

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A LADY asked her gardener why the weeds always outgrew and covered up the flowers. Madam," answered he, "the soil is mother of the weeds, but only step-mother of the flowers."

"I was born in the city of Stein, in the land of Krain. My pious mother, Gertrude, sang me Psalms and spiritual songs in childhood; and often, when I awoke in the night, I saw her still sitting patiently at her work by the stove, and heard her singing those hymns of heaven, or praying in the midnight darkness when her work was done. It was for me she prayed. Thus, from my earliest childhood, I breathed the breath of pious aspiration, Afterwards I went to Laybach, as a student of theology; and, after the usual course of study was ordained a priest. I went forth to the care of souls; my own soul filled with the faith that ere long all people would be united in one Church. Yet at times my heart was heavy, to behold how many nations there are who have not heard of Christ."-HYPERION.

Thus many a man of God remembers with tender affection, the moulding heart of a pious mother. And not only hers, but, like Timothy, those of godly foremothers. For, as some one justly says: our education begins with our forefathers; and the technical term "fathers," includes our foremothers. Indeed there are still many godly mothers, who, like Hannah and Elizabeth, dedicate their Samuels and Johns to God before they are born. And after birth, they daily call the holy angels around the babe in prayer, and breathe into the child their own pious longings. In due time the little boy will hear the Lord's voice, calling "Samuel." And he will answer: "Here am I. Speak, for thy servant heareth."

The office of the holy ministry is the highest official position attainable by mortal. To be an ambassador of Christ to a perishing world, to stand, speak and officiate in "Christ's stead," confers honors and powers, such as no office in the gift of earthly empires or monarchs can bestow. The well known advice of

President Jackson to a certain aspiring minister of the Gospel, who dishonored his cloth by his vain-glorious lusting after political position, was true in the fullest sense. Applying to him for a foreign appointment, as minister to some European court, "Old Hickory replied: "Sir, you have already a more honorable and remunerative commission as minister, than this or any other nation can bestow. You had better be faithful to the appointment the great Master has conferred upon you."

The brave old warrior had a more orthodox view of the holy office than is ordinarily held by men of his standing. For centuries, the popular estimation of an ecclesiastic in the Catholic church of Europe, was so high, that no family of wealth and rank would be content without having at least one son to represent it in the priesthood. Alas, in Protestant Churches, one rarely finds this holy zeal among the great ones of the earth, to give and train their sons to the service of representing the Lord Jesus Christ to the race of man. Were it not for the sons of the lowly, two-thirds of the churches in the land would be left without pastors in ten years' time. Nothing discloses the idolatry of Mammon, the love of money and of the world among wealthy Christian families, in such a sad form, as their unwillingness to give their sons to Christ, in the office of the ministry.

How are young men called to the ministry? Very often, as Samuel, John the Baptist, and Timothy were called, from their mother's womb. But their mothers were full of the Holy Ghost, and abounded in prayer. Had our present Israel more women like these ancient mothers, we would have more great prophets, of true grit and grand power. Not that we are without them. Many such noble mothers have I known and read of. Their sons from early boyhood live and serve in the House of God. Their chief joy is to be with God's people, and, in their own peculiar way, help to support his cause.

A certain gentleman once consulted me about his boy.

"I have a son who, I think, ought to study for the ministry. I should like to have your advice about it."

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"Very well," I replied, greatly pleased with the prospect of introducing another laborer into the vineyard of Christ. Why do you think he ought to study for the ministry?"

Well, the fact is, he has always been a delicate child, and will never be strong enough to work at a trade. I thought as ministers had no hard work to perform, he could suit himself better in this business than any other." The poor soul looked upon the ministry as a business.

What should I say to this man? My dear sir, the ministry is not an invalid corps, made up of people who are too sickly to be

of any use elsewhere. In the Old Testament, "no priest who had any bodily defect, could offer sacrifice, or enter the holy place to present the shew bread." In the New Testament Church some of the most useful ministers have been life-long invalids. Their sorrows kept them nearer the cross and gave to their ministrations a peculiar tenderness and power. Especially did their afflictions fit them to sympathize with the afflicted. It is possible for a strong intellect and a pure heart to dwell in a sickly body. And, after all, it is the mind and the heart power that the minister needs. There are diversities of gifts, of bodily gifts, too; and God needs them and can make use of them all.

But the question has another side. Does He need these gifts only in the ministry? He needs pious laymen, too. The people of God should see to it that the ministry is furnished with a sufficient number of healthy, able-bodied as well as able-minded men, without needing to call invalids into service:

It is true, Calvin was an invalid; and was not Calvin one of the great lights of the Church? He wrote whole books in bed, and lived on a fasting fare. And I believe that his angular, sharp stern system of theology is partly owing to his sickly body. And a greater than Calvin, Paul, seemed to have been an invalid; a man whose great soul dwelt in a frail, sickly tenement. Robert Hall, one of the greatest pulpit orators England has produced, was an invalid. Of whom his physician says: No man ever, probably, went through more physical suffering; he was a fine example of the triumph of the higher powers of mind, exalted by religion, over the infirmities of the body. For more than twenty years he was never able to pass an entire night in bed, and was often obliged, in a single night to take one thousand drops of laudanum.

In the face of all this I hold that my old friend was egregiously in error. It is wrong to burden the ministry with men, whose wrecked constitutions unfit them for any other pursuit. A young man who has inherited a disease, which, according to well-known laws of physiology, must ere long develop itself, and weaken his working powers, ought to seek another sphere of usefulness. How many young men pious, but bearing the seeds of disease in their system, has the Church educated, who died in the first years of their ministry, and some before they entered it. "O sirs, the good die first," was the sentimental wail around their bier. Good and true they were, and have very likely entered into rest, yet I hold that the Church should have spent its money for the training of healthy able-bodied men, instead of selecting those whom none of their friends expected to live long. We tenderly sympathize with the afflicted, but deem it highly unwise to spend the means which God gives us to so little purpose.