LIGHT-HOLDERS. BY REV. THEODORE L CUYLER. LIGHT-HOLDERS. The last object on which our eyes rest when we are leaving home for Europe is the tall tower of Fire Island lighthouse. It is commonly the first object that greets our glad vision on our return. That lofty shaft sends out its bright beacon-blaze over twenty miles of watery waste and it guides towards the harbor of New York thousands of vessels every year. It does not create light; it only sheds it, and "giveth light to all the voyagers who come within its range. The lantern is not self illuminating; it has to be kindled by a hand from without itself. Christians are Christ's light-holders to their fellow-men, but they must first be kindled from above. Conversion by the Holy Spirit is the illumination of a heart hitherto darkened by sin. Sometimes suddenly, as in the case of Saul of Tarsus and the Philipian jailor, and thousands since their day. Sometimes there is at first only a feeble germ of light, like the little blue point of flame on a lamp-wick, and this germ gradually enlarges into a clear full blaze. Experiences vary, but commonly the beginning of the Christian life is in the first honest attempt to resist besetting sins and the first sincere endeavor to obey Jesus Christ. As soon as a soul is kindled by regenerating grace, that soul is bound to shine. This means more than the possession of divine grace; it is the reflection of Jesus Christ that makes the genuine burner. Our Lord's command, "let your light shine," is laid upon every Christian, whether he have ten talents or only a single one, and very small at that The fisherman's wife on the wild northern coast of Scotland who set her candle in the window in order to pilot her husband home, was a benefactor 235 of other mariners also who descried the welcome glimmer through the darkness; by-and-by the Government reared a lofty lighthouse on the same spot. So the humblest mechanic who begins his day with household worship, and serves his Master faithfully all day in his shop or at his workbench, is as truly a light-holder in his way as Spurgeon was when he flamed from his conspicuous London pulpit, or as Henry B. Smith and Charles Hodge were when they shed their radiance from a theological chair. In spiritual chemistry every light, great. or small, has the same properties, for Jesus Christ, who is the only source of the light, never changes. He condescends to the humblest candlestick. I sometimes visit a poor bed-ridden sufferer who keeps her dingy room so bright with her patient cheerfulness that 1 sometimes have felt like saying to her, "Give me of your oil; for you make me ashamed that I should ever complain." God, for the spread of His kingdom, creates magnificent electric burners-like Luther, Calvin, Knox, the Wesleys and David Livingstone, who send out the radiance of their teachings or example over the whole continents. Yet as the two hundred thousand homes and workshops of this city are lighted by the small burners in each room, so the illuminating power of Christianity depend chiefly on every Christian's becoming luminous. The lantern-bearers are often very humble in ranks and talents.. Thomas Dakin, a poor pensioner in Greenwich Hospital, distributed tens of thousands of tracts every year, and when a sudden death smote him down, his pockets were filled with a tract entitled "Are you prepared to die?" Last Sabbath two godly mechanics drove around this city, in what they called their "gospel wagon," and wherever they could collect a crowd. they sang hymns and delivered gospel exhortations. Would to God that the members of our churches, instead of criticising the methods of the "Salvation Army," would imitate their spirit and carry their lanterns into the heathenish darkness that prevails so frightfully in all our cities! If every Christian who trims his lamp and keeps the oil of grace up to its full supply is such a blessed benefactor to others, what a terrible thing it is for a Christian to let his light burn low or go out entirely, There is an incident with which many of my readers may be familiar, but it will bear to be repeated. A traveller who once visited a lighthouse in the British Channel said to the keeper, "But what if one of your lights should go out at night? "Never," said the keeper, "never-impossible! Sir yonder are ships sailing to all parts of the world. If to-night my burner were out, in a few days I might hear from France or Spain, or from Scotland or from America, that on such a night the lighthouse in the Channel gave no warning and some vessel had been wrecked. Ah, sir, I sometimes feel when I look at my lights, as if the whole world were fixed on me. Go out!-burn dim!—never, sir, never!" This incident comes home to us ministers, who are set to be faithful light-holders to warn immortal souls against the treacherous rocks and quicksands. In eternity let no lost soul upbraid us for letting the light of Calvary's cross burn dim! There are some households in which the lamp seems to be going out. The sons would not be seen so often in the theatre or the drinking-clubs, and the daughters would not be such giddy slaves of frivolity, if the home-torch shone brightly. There is a lamp of Christian profession in the house, but it does not shine. The oil has run out. "If the light that is in thee be darkness," how can thy children do other than stumble? What the Church of Jesus Christ needs to give it full power is a fresh trimming of its myriads of lamps. Every Christian, high or humble, should be a light-holder. "If once all the lamps were fresh lighted Wide over the land and the oceans, A NEW AND ASTONISING Whether vibrations of the ether, longer than those which affect us as light, may not be constantly at work around us, we have, until lately, never seriously inquired. But the researches of Lodge in England and of Hertz in Germany give us an almost infinite range of ethereal vibrations or electrical rays, from wave-lengths of thousands of miles down to a few feet. Here is unfolded to us a new and astonishing world-one which it is hard to conceive should contain no possibilities of transmitting and receiving intelligence. Rays of light will not pierce through a wall, nor, as we know only too well, through a London fog. But the electrical vibrations of a yard or more in wave-length of which I have spoken will easily pierce such mediums, which to them will be transparent. Here, then, is revealed the bewildering pos sibility of telegraphy without wires, posts, cables, or any of our present costly appliances. Granted a few reasonable postulates, the whole thing comes well within the realms of possible fulfilment. At the present time experimentalists are able to generate electrical waves of any desired wavelength from a few feet upwards, and to keep up a succession of such waves radiating into space in all directions. It is possible, too, with some of these rays, if not with all, to refract them WELSH-ENGLISH TRANSLATION. through suitably-shaped bodies acting as lenses, and so direct a sheaf of rays in any given direction; enormous lens-shaped masses of pitch and simimilar bodies have been used for this purpose. Also an experimentalist at a distance can receive some, if not all, of these rays on a properly-constituted instrument, and by concerted signals messages in the Morse code can thus pass from one operator to another. What, therefore, remains to be discovered is-firstly, simpler and more certain means of generating electrical rays of any desired wavelength, from the shortest, say of a few feet in length, which will easily pass through buildings and fogs, to those long waves whose lengths are measured by tens, hundreds, and thousands of miles; secondly, more delicate receivers which will respond to wave.lengths between certain defined limits and be silent to all others; thirdly, means of darting the sheaf of rays in any desired direction, whether by lenses or reflectors, by the help of which the sensitiveness of the receiver (apparently the most difficult of the problems to be solved) would not need to be so delicate as when the rays to be picked up are simple radiating into space in all directions, and fading away according to the law of inverse squares. Any two friends living within the radius of sensibility of their receiving instruments, having first decided on their special wave-length and attuned their respective instruments to mutual receptivity, could thus communicate as long and as often as they pleased by timing the impulses to produce long and short intervals on the ordinary Morse code.-Prof. William Crookes in the Fortnightly Review. A FRIEND exaggerates a man's virtues; an enemy in inflames his crime. -Addison. 237 WELSH-ENGLISH TRANSLATIONDYSGWYL Y JIWBILI. "Dysgwyl 'rwyf ar hyd yr hirnos," &c. PANTYCELYN.. In life's dreary night I'm watching, Yet, I'll calmly wait, believing Soon will come the radiant morning, When the clouds shall flee away; Mist and gloom my life enshrouding, Shall co-vanish 'fore that day; Yea, the moments, &c., Long expected are at hand! New York City. AP DANIEL. MY NATIVE LAND. Arouse with true emotion, And let your mind expand, Let feeling give expression, The toast is Native Land; Cambria, delightful Cambria, The soil that gave me birth, Those rural rocks of Gwalia, My home, my joy and mirth. My native land, Though far away from thee, Rude, rugged, and romantic, My native land, &c. My soul delights to wander On wings of thought divine, Who made that home of mine.. My native land, &c. [Cyflwynedig i John T. Griffiths, Ysw.' Wilkesbarre, Pa.] Hwn fu i mi yn gyfaill gwiw, "When days were dark and friends were few." 'Rwy'n myn'd yn mlaen yn iach fy mron, Myn'd, myn'd yr wyf heb rwgnach chwaith; Na pen fy nhaith un cam yn nes. Y dydd, y nos, yn myn'd yr wy" Wrth fyn'd yn mlaen mi af yn fwy, A lletach ä fy mynwes i; Myn'd wnaf yn mlaen wrth ddeddf yr Ior, A mynd a wnaf nes myn'd i'r mor; Heb fan i orphwys dim i mi, Fel i'r afon rho fy Nuw GEORGE CORONWAY (Goronwy). THE FARMER. The king may rule o'er land and sea, But this or that, whate'er befall, The writer thinks, the poet sings, But this or that, whate'er befall, The merchant he may buy and sell, The farmer's trade is one of worth; And men may rise, or men may fall, God bless the seeds his hands let fall, HOW TO PRAY. BY THE REV. LEWIS H. REID, D.D. Be Short. Jesus by words and example inculcated this. He described the Pharisees as those who "for a pretence made long prayers." Persons who sought His aid offered short petitions. Peter in the water, the publican in the temple and the thief on the cross made short prayers. When I was a young minister I received through the post office a slip cut from a newspaper containing a college commencement poem. The pew was addressing the pulpit. Four lines impressed me." "Sermons like wells, should small circumfer ence sweep,. Be short in their diameter, but deep; The last two lines were heavily marked about for my benefit. I nev 239 er knew who sent the slip, but I pinned it over my study table, and kept it there for ten years; and then I did not destroy it, but pasted it in my scrap-book, and have it now. Be Specific. Prayer that is indefinite does not avail. "My son," "my daughter," "my servant," "my sight" -that is the form of request; and the accompanying command is, “Bring him to Me." It was wonderful in a revival at college, how our prayers were answered for classmates in the order in which we prayed for them by name. Be importunate. The midnight prayer," Friend, lend me three loaves," was short, specific, and importunate. And it was answered not for friendship's sake but because of importunity. The wrestling Jacob and the importunate widow are types. Pray with a forgiving spirit. "When ye stand praying, forgive." I once attended an ecclesiastical convention, and was entertained in a refined, Christian household. A young lady in the family, in a conversation, remarked, "I never offer the Lord's Prayer." On my expressing surprise, shs added, "I don't dare to; I don't dare pray, 'Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors;' I am so afraid that I have not a forgiving spirit that I dare not ask God to forgive others." I asked, "What do you pray?" She replied, "I say, 'As we ought to for give others.'” We must do what we can to realise our own prayers. A little boy heard his father pray that God would feed the poor and when the prayer was over, he said: "Father, if you will give me the key to the granary door, I will answer your prayer myself." Frederick Douglass tells us that when he was a slave he prayed seven years for liberty,but received no answer; at length it occurred to him that he must endeavour to answer his own |