FACTS, HINTS, GEMS, AND POETRY.

What I want to do is this. I want to persuade all those who now take a copy of it to show one to any of their neighbours who do not yet take one. How do you know what good might come of your doing so? The Pioneer would talk, and teach, and preach, about all manner of good things.

Only one word more. I feel sure that if your female readers would take this matter in hand they would not only do great good, but four times as many would have to be printed next year. I very much wish they would. I am

A LOVER OF GOOD PEOPLE AND GOOD Books.

Facts, Hints, Gems, and Poetry.

Facts.

CHEAP POSTAGE.

THE Penny Post system, followed by other postal improvements, is, no doubt, one of the most beneficial reforms of the present century. It has now been in operation twenty-five years. At first it was feared it would not pay, but it has paid, and will pay. Indeed if it had not, would it not have been wiser and better to expend one hundred thousand pounds a year in carrying out such a universal benefit to our country, especially to the poorer classes? Far wiser and better, certainly, than in expending millions in fortifications and ironclads. Peace has its victories, and this is one of them. In 1864, the enormous number of six hundred and ninety-seven millions of letters were received and delivered through our wonderful post office management, conceived and conducted chiefly by ROWLAND HILL.

PRECIOUS TIME is about the only thing of which a man does right to be

covetous.

MISERY OR Joy produce strange opposites. Misery makes a minute seem an hour-Joy makes an hour seem a minute.

WHAT WE CALL TIME we divide into past and future. Eternity is neither past nor future; it is always Now.

HE WHO LOSES one hour of time in the morning may run hard after it all the day and never be able to overtake it.

MANY THINGS may be regained after we have lost them, like health, wealth, friendship, and reputation; but who can regain time when it has been once allowed to slip?

Gems.

NEVER ENTERTAIN hard or doubtful

thoughts of God. If you do it will be the death of your spiritual life. Cherish loving thoughts of him, and your soul will live.

THE GRACES of faith, hope, and joy, are given us by the Spirit, as so many feathers that we make us wings and fly to Christ.

THE CHILDREN'S CORNER.

GOD'S MOST GRACIOUS dealings with us here are only foretastes of more. They would not be so sweet if they did not promise to be more sweet.

THE GRACE OF GOD is always bestowed in proportion to our earnest desires to obtain it. We cannot expect to find, as if by chance, what we do not seek for.

ALL CREATURES thrive best in their own natural element, whether it be air, or earth, or water. And the christian thrives best in the company of those who love Christ.

IT IS A SOLEMN THOUGHT that every human being may be but a few steps from Everlastingness.

Poetic Selections.

DAYS GONE BY.

OFTEN memory's glance is ranging
Over scenes that cannot die;
Then I feel that all is changing,
Then I mourn the Days gone by.
Although Time has laid his finger
On them, yet, with tearful eye,
There are spots where I must linger,
Sacred to the Days gone by.
Though the days now fly with fleetness,
And we dread the changing sky,
There's a sad yet tender sweetness,

In the thought of Days gone by.

Cease, fond heart! has not Christ given
Hope of greater things on high;
Will not endless life in heaven,
Bring far more than Days gone by?

The Children's Corner.

FAMILY GIFTS AT CHRISTMAS.

WE are told that in Germany the following pleasing custom is observed:

The children make little presents to their parents, and to each other, and the parents to their children. For three or four months before Christmas the girls are all busy, and the boys save up their pocket money to buy these presents. What the present is to be is cautiously kept secret; and the girls have a world of contrivances to conceal it— such as working when they are out on visits, and getting up in the morning before daylight. Then, on the evening before Christmas-day, one of the parlours is lighted up by the children, into which the parents must not come; a great yew bough is fastened on the table, a number of little lights are fixed in the bough, and coloured papers hang and flutter from the twigs. Under this bough the children lay out in great order the presents they mean for their parents, still concealing in their pockets what they intend for each other. Then the parents are introduced, and each presents his little gift; they then bring out the remainder, one by one from their pockets, and present them with kisses and embraces. O, it was a delight to see them!

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WINKS AND SON, PRINTERS, LEICESTER.