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RETURN OF A MISSIONARY SHIP.

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the natives had a triumphal arch, or rather a sort of tower, built of palm work, erected in honour of his arrival. He sent a description of it to his little grand-children, and you will see a picture of it, made on the spot, on the first page of this Messenger.

The thankfulness shown by these poor people for the teachers sent to them ought to encourage us to send them

more.

RETURN OF A MISSIONARY SHIP.

SHE cleaves the wave-her snowy sail
Is fluttering in the breeze,
And thousand voices gladly hail
The stranger of the seas;

From joyful hearts rings out the sound,
The ancient hills the shouts rebound.

Why, why this joy? From distant land,
With gold or diamonds stored,
Long-looked for, comes she to this strand,
To swell some merchant's hoard ?
No! richer freight that vessel brings,
Than aught that decks the pomp of kings.

She comes, a 'messenger of peace,'
With hearts that love the Lord,
To bid dark heathen worship cease,
To spread the Saviour's word;
For this the welcoming shout is given,
With gladness less of earth than heaven.

THE BLOSSOM.

"How could the All-Sufficient want my thanks ?" said Othniel to his master Simeon. "Not that He requireth them," answered the old man, "but thou."

"I myself in want of the thanks that I offer up to the Most High? What a contradiction!" said the youth. The old man answered: "Does not the Creator bid the plant bloom before it brings forth fruit ?"

"It is the perfection of the plant, said the youth. "Gratitude," answered the old man, "is the blossom of the heart."

After a while Othniel asked: "Why does the plant bloom so late and has not always flowers when it bears leaves ?"

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"The leaves," said the old man, are the beginning of its blooming. First the plant adorns the earth, from whose maternal bosom it sprang; then the light of heaven brings it to perfection."

seed ?" asked the youth.

"But the fruit and the

And Simeon answered and said:-"Both of these it gives back to the earth, from which it drew the sap, its nutriment. Thus it blooms, sows, and reaps without ceasing. Do thou likewise."-Krummacher's Parables.

THE JUVENILE REPORTER.

CHRISTMAS DAY is over; and the Reporter finds himself at the door of a new year,-and so are all his young readers. Perhaps they feel as young as ever they didwhich is more than he can say-and as far from the end of life. But it is not so. A new company of travellers have risen up behind you, treading almost on your heels, and they will soon be pushing you before them. Next year another company will be following the last, and another, and another, as years roll on, until some day, if spared, you

THE JUVENILE REPORTER.

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waken up to find yourself—(perhaps weary and worn) far on in the journey of life-much farther than you thought and crowds of travellers coming up behind, who started much later in life than you.

And you will soon find the years look shorter. A year appears to your father to be much shorter now, than it was when he was a boy like you. Amid the cares and anxieties and bustle of life, the weeks and months rush past as if they were days, each one seeming, as it speeds along, to bring a message from the mouth of Wisdom, saying, "This is not your rest." "Here we have no continuing city."

Many and great are the changes those rushing hours bring over us. Sometimes sad, sudden, and startling. Sickness and sorrow do not always send a notice beforehand, and death itself often comes with the speed and the darkness of a storm-cloud.

But there is no reason why we should mope and murmur about these changes; the great thing is to be ready for them when they come.

The Reporter feels this more and more the longer he lives, and he wishes all his young friends to do the same. But he is very grieved to say, that many of them don't do so. Tom has been idling away his time all the year, both at school and at home; he has been living as if he were to be always a boy, and never to die; neither doing good to himself nor to any one else. To give or collect anything for the "Juvenile Missionary Fund," is about the last thing he would think of; and as for writing an essay, or taking a prize, or being foremost in any good thing, the possibility of such a thing never once entered into his mind.

The Reporter fears there are far too many Toms of this sort among his readers. A dozen such would be too many, lut no doubt there are far more. He wishes very much

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LESSONS FOR THE SABBATH AND THE SCHOOL.

he could persuade them with the new year to begin a new life. This is their sowing time, and the Bible says, "As ye sow ye shall reap ;" but some will not be persuaded of this until the sowing time is past. He is very glad to think, however, that there are many of a very different sort he can rank amongst his friends, who would be an honour to any school or any church. Among these are some who have written Prize Essays, and others have been collecting for the Mission Fund, and some who neither could collect nor write, have been doing a great work in praying with earnest prayer and supplication, for blessings to descend on missionaries, collectors, and all.

A report on the Prize Essays will appear in next number. But the Reporter cannot leave off without saying, Lose no time in sending in the Collecting Cards. He sent out thousands, and Mr. Matheson has only received a few. What is the cause of this? He means to call at Lombard Street to inquire, and if he does not find there a heap of cards returned and lots of money, he will tell it to everybody and anybody in the next Juvenile Messenger.

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THE Chinese believe that every man has got three souls. When a person dies, these souls hover about; and when the corpse is buried, one of the souls takes up its abode with it in the grave. Another soul goes into the ancestral tablet-which has already been described in the Juvenile Messenger-where it remains and is then worshipped. They believe that the third soul is taken by the servants and angels of ten kings to their judgment seat in the world of spirits, where they pass sentence upon it. If the person thus judged was good, he transmigrates; that is, FEBRUARY, 1857.

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