WORKMEN'S PREJUDICES.

By some strange but constant law of man's perverse fallen nature, improvements, whether mechanical or moral, have always to encounter and triumph over suspicion, prejudice, and aversion. This is especially the case among the

working classes in any mechanical changes.

The following was related by the Rev. T. Newsome, in a speech at a public meeting in Beverley.

In a certain village the people were accustomed to carry almost everything upon their heads; however, heavy the burden, they must have it on the head. A gentleman feeling alarmed for the people, introduced wheel-barrows amongst them, believing that to be a safer and easier mode of conveyance. One day a man having got his wheelbarrow well loaded, was wheeling it away, when lo! he suddenly fell out with the new scheme, and getting a man who was passing to help him, he lifted barrow and goods upon his head in the good old way, and then walked on, apparently perfectly satisfied.

On the construction of the only railway which has been made in the island of Jamaica, it is stated that the native labourers were supplied with barrows for the purpose of removing the earth. When these men began to work, they placed these vehicles, laden with earth, upon the top of their heads; and it was not without much expostulation that the English foremen were enabled to induce them to try the effect of placing the barrow on a plank, and wheeling instead of carrying the load.

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THE WORLD'S INGRATITUDE.

MANY of the world's greatest benefactors have had to complain of public ingratitude. Long years of service

were repaid with envy and hatred instead of thanks. Moses received nothing but abuse, murmurs, opposition, and unjust suspicion from the people for whom he had made the greatest sacrifices. Socrates, one of the wisest and noblest men of his time, after a long career of service in denouncing the wrongs of his age, and trying to improve the morals of the people, was condemned to death and obliged to drink poison. Dante, when Italy was torn by political factions, each ambitious of power, and all entirely unscrupulous as to the means employed to attain it, laboured with untiring zeal to bring about Italian unity, and yet his patriotism met no other reward than exile. "Florence for Italy, and Italy for the world," were his words when he heard his sentence of banishment. Columbus was sent home in irons from the country he had discovered. The last two years of his life present a picture of black ingratitude on the part of the crown to this distinguished benefactor of the kingdom, which it is truly painful to contemplate. He died, perhaps, the poorest man in the whole kingdom he had spent his lifetime to enrich.

Has it not fared thus also with the apostles of science and progress? History abounds with proofs of this.

Bruno, of Nola, for his advocacy of the Copernican system, was seized by the Inquisition and burnt alive at Rome in 1600, in the presence of an immense concourse. Scioppus, the Latinist, who was present at the execution, with a sarcastic allusion to one of Bruno's heresies, the infinity of worlds, wrote, "The flames carried him to those worlds

which he had imagined." Galileo was also sentenced by the Inquisition for having taught that the earth moves, and that the sun is stationary; and fearing the fate of Bruno, he recanted upon his knees. Condemned again in 1637, for reaffirming his convictions, he was thrown into the prisons of the Inquisition, whence he lost sight and hearing, and, dying, was refused burial in consecrated ground. The magnificent labours of Roger Bacon were repaid by fourteen years' imprisonment; and when he died his name was blasted as a magician.

THE INCONSISTENT WORSHIP.

THE service of God admits of no compromise; he must be either all in all, or nothing. It is recorded of Redwald, King of the East Angles, that he built a church, at one end of which was an altar for the mass, at the other an altar for sacrifice to the old British idols. And thus it is with those who are vainly striving to combine the service of God and the service of the world, offering to God what he will never accept-a divided heart.

WORSHIP AND WORK.

THREE words of Latin are written over a cottage-door in Germany-words of an ancient godly motto-"Ora et labora." "It just means," said a woman to a passing traveller,

"With this hand work, and with the other pray,

And God will bless them both from day to day."

We must work as well as pray.

When a ship was nearly

sinking on a certain occasion, one of the crew said to the

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shrewd old captain, "We are going down, had we not better pray God to have mercy upon us?" "Yes," said the captain; "pray as long as you like, but take hold of the handle and pump too."

The above reminds us of a ship at sea which had sprung a leak. She was manned by a pious captain and crew, with the exception of one wicked man who would not unite with them in religious exercises. On this occasion the commander ordered the men to work the pumps; but at length, he said that all hope was lost. As the crew were retiring below, this wicked tar said, "Where are you going?" "Going to the cabin to pray, because all hope is lost." "Why cannot you pump and pray too?" he replied.

Work and worship should ever be indissolubly united. Prayer, in midnight watchings or in lonely cells, unless combined with energetic, manly work, must generally be associated with humiliating failure. "The soul may long for sweet visions of Christ, it may wish to sit down by his side in some quiet hour, and hear the soft whispers of his love, and feel the hush of holy thoughts stealing upon it; but true devotion requires that we shall also be with him in the toilsome watch and stern battle of active service." We must not desire to remain continually upon the mount of communion in monastic seclusion, to the neglect of duty, but must come down among men, and mingle with them, and do them good. The mount of transfiguration must be left, even though Moses and Elias are there and the words of the Divine approval from heaven are falling upon them, because a demoniac boy and his despairing father needed Christ below. Prayer and contemplation must be united with labour and charity. There is little devotion of spirit where there is not perfect devotedness of life. Work and

worship must go together. These thoughts are beautifully illustrated by the following old Romish legend.

A pious monk, one day, when he had been unusually fervent in his devotions, found his darkened cell suddenly illuminated by an unearthly light, and there stood before him a vision of the Saviour, his countenance beaming with godlike love, his hand outstretched with a gesture of kind invitation. At that moment rang the convent bell, which called the monk in the regular course of his duty, to distribute alms to the poor at the gate. For an instant he hesitated; but the next instant found him, true to the vow of charity, on his way to the gate. The poor relieved, the work of love complete, he returned in sadness to his cell, doubting not that the heavenly vision had taken flight. But, to his surprise and joy, it was still there, and with a smile even more full than before of divine beauty and ineffable love; and these words fell on his ear-" Hadst thou staid, I had fled."

INFLUENCE OF THE YOUNG.

TRULY, they err who say that youth is necessarily weak, and that it is incapable of exerting an influence, and therefore has no responsibility. "Tell me what is the character of the young, and I'll tell you the character of the next generation," said an old statesman. The children are the embodiment of the opinions and principles which shall rule the next age. Luther's schoolmaster always used to make a profound bow to his pupils when he entered the class-room, and when asked why he did it, he said he bowed to the future statesmen, and philosophers, and poets, who should rise up from among them.

When one army drops, when the ranks of one host are