That sermon, long since forgotten, baptized in tears, and hallowed with many a prayer!-Clouds and darkness were resting on his own heart, faith weak, yet pursuing-the fainting spirit reaching out to the Master, and seeking consolation from His promises. How eagerly he searched the record of love, with what solicitude he sought to cast his fearful burden of responsibility on Jesus, and really believe that a blessing would rest upon his labours. Ah, he remembers all, his struggles and his prayers! He remembers with what trembling anxiety he went through the duties of that Sabbath day. He saw no result of his labours then, he had not dared to hope or pray for any; he only prayed that his labour might not be in vain in the Lord.

According to his faith, God gave it unto him. That sermon was not lost. The chain which binds the hearts of God's children together, was touched with an electric spark, and, months after, the fire burned brightly on the altar in God's house, the farof, but sure result of that prayerful, tearful effort for God. He sees

ALL things are passing-wheresoe'er
Our wandering footsteps stray,
On each, on everything we read
The stern, cold word, decay.

All things are passing-earth's bright flowers

Bloom but for one brief day, Shedding sweet fragrance o'er our

it all now, and he counts up precious jewels-his jewels, which he had not dared to claim on earth.

The pastoral visit to the afflicted, those words of Christian counsel to the young disciple, he had forgotten them-they were but simple, daily duties; but O, how astonishing in the day of eternity appear the manifold fruits of those little labours! How insignificant seem all worldly emoluments, how worthless is earthly wealth, and honour, and fame, thus contrasted!

Imagine, if you can, the glorious moral beauty of a Christian pastor standing before the throne with the people of his charge, the souls he has won from sin during a whole lifetime. Such glory, such joy may be yours, if indeed the Master count you worthy. "Pray, therefore, the Lord of the harvest," that you may be sent forth as a labourer into His harvest; and if this be your allotted life-work, He will give you an answer of peace, and the still small voice will breathe into your soul the precious promise, "Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world." P. C.

Winning the trusting, guileless heart, Oft fadeth like a dream.

All things are passing-worldly joys,
Its hopes and fears untold,
With sun and moon, and twinkling
stars,

Must all alike wax old.

HINTS TO

READING should be of the right kind. You cannot read everything; you ought not to read everything. You must make a selection; and that selection should be judicious. Your aim should be to choose the good and reject the bad. Error and immorality are both propagated by the press, in books, papers, and pamphlets; and infidelity uses the press as well as clubs and societies, schools and the pulpit, addresses and lectures on various subjects, to diffuse itself through the community, and especially to ensnare the young, and lead them astray. Many lectures are little else than an ingenious method of recommending and propagating infidelity; and the same may be said of some grave books, of newspaper essays, and of much that passes under the name of light literature. Romanism is taught in novels and tales; Puseyism uses the same disguise to diffuse itself; and so do infidelity and licentiousness. Hence the need of caution as to what you read. Many a pretty book is but gilded poison. Many cheap books are but vehicles of immoral and infidel principles.

If we should be careful in the choice of our companions, we should be no less careful in the choice of books and papers, for they are companions which contribute powerfully to the formation of character. Reading is one way of taking fast hold of instruction; but not every kind of reading is to be indulged in. I might dwell on the evils of light reading, the expense, the waste of time, and the entire disqualification it induces for sober thought, and the every-day practical duties of life, as well as its corrupting influence; and it is to be remembered that familiarity with the low and vulgar language found in some of these works, corrupts the heart, degrades the thoughts, pollutes the imagination, and vulgarizes the

SCHOLARS.

language of their readers. Young people sometimes, even in parlours and drawing rooms, betray with what reading they have been familiar. For the sake of purity of thought, and correctness and delicacy of language, you should read only what is good, pure, correct and elevated. Remember, too, that indulgence in light reading, even when the sen timent and language are unexceptionable, unfits for profitable reading and for duty, for serious thought and the stern realities of life.

SPIRITUAL DARKNESS

ILLUSTRATED.

BY A CITY MISSIONARY.

-that

I was informed by Mrs. Ma young woman at - was very ill, for which information I expressed my obligations to her. I make particular requests of these people that they will always inform me immediately when any one is ill. In company with Mrs. M- I visited this young woman; her name is H-. She was lying on the floor, having no bedstead; an infant, six weeks old, on one side of her, and another, sixteen months old, on the other. She is only twenty-four years of age. The poor girl appeared to be in a rapid consumption, spitting up large quantities of purulent matter from her lungs. I inquired whether she had been in the habit of attending any place of worship whilst in health? She replied in the affirmative; and stated, that whilst residing with her father, at No. 7, Eagle-court, she had attended St. John's, Clerkenwell. I afterwards read to her the 3rd chapter of Johnone of the chapters in constant requisition with me-and then said, "Mrs. H- do you understand what being born again means?" She replied, very sedately, "Why,

2

Sir, I have always understood that being born again means being christened; and unless a child is christened it cannot go to heaven." Thus, while she thought the passage of Scripture applied to baptism outwardly, she was unaware that it applied to an inward renewal. How forcibly does this illustrate the necessity for more pastoral visitation ! The amount of ignorance prevailing would exceed the belief of those who do not spend much of their time in domiciliary visitation. This poor creature died shortly afterwards, and her youngest child also.

On inquiring of the parents upon my district what prayers they have taught their children, I have in general found they were taught none whatever. Some have said, "Oh! I teach them the 'Our Father,' and 'Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.'" The first prayer alluded to is, of course, the Lord's Prayer; the last is a Romish doggerel for saintly intercession

'Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, Bless the bed that I lay on." The class of persons to whom I have

alluded are, with scarcely an exception, unable either to read or write, and have in early youth received no school training whatever. I calculate that not more than one-third of the adults upon my district can read at all; and that not more than onesixth can read tolerably. On asking many who have said they could read, to read a portion of a tract, they have at once confessed their inability. The proportion who can write is, as may readily be imagined, much smaller than the proportion who can read.

Religious instruction, or, indeed, any instruction, to be made intelligible to such persons, must be clothed in the simplest language. At the period when the writer first devoted his energies to the evangelization of such persons, having received a good education, and mixed with parties well educated also, he spoke as in usual discourse, read a portion of a chapter, and so closed his visits, pleased, in many instances, with the apparent close attention

paid, the ready responses to the justice of his remarks, such as, "That's true, Sir;" "Oh yes, indeed;" "Certainly, your reverence;" 66 What a nice prayer," &c. After conducting visitations thus for some time, a circumstance arose which occasioned some suspicion, and led to a system of catechizing; and the result so affected the writer, that he had almost decided upon relinquishing his charge. Pursuing this system of inquiry, after reading a portion of a chapter in the New Testament, which would be listened to with the greatest attention, I would inquire, "Do you at all know what I have been reading about?" varying the interrogatory; and I found, in a great majority of instances, that no leading idea whatever was possessed of what had been read-no leading idea even of the subject. The reply would perhaps be, "About God," "About good," "Telling you to do your duty;" some mere guesses; no real intelligent attention whatever had been paid. Some pleaded that they had "such a poor head-piece," others that they were "no scholars." I found this to be a general result of my inquiries, and that I must pursue a widely different course. The mass of these wholly uneducated people did not possess the mental apprehension of a second-class scholar in our Ragged School. Missionaries, who have just entered the mission, and who have been sent to visit with me, have repeatedly been astonished. Visiting a sick man, with one new missionary, I requested him to read and instruct him, which he did, detailing to him our fallen condition, our need of salvation, and the redemption purchased for us, in a very correct manner; and then reading a portion of a chapter in the Gospels in proof of what he had said. The poor man listened with every appearance of attention; when my young friend said, "You know, Mr.

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66

or any other interrogatives, he repiled, Certainly, Sir," or "In course, Sir." My companion seemed pleased with the man's attention to instruction, and I thought it time to undeceive him. "Mr. -," said I,

I went one night to my father's house-
Went home to the dear ones all-
And softly I opened the garden gate,
And softly the door of the hall.
My mother came out to meet her son-
She kissed me, and then she sighed,
And her head fell on my neck, and she
wept

For the little boy that died.

I shall miss him when the flowers come,

In the garden where he played; I shall miss him more by the fire-side, When the flowers are all decayed. I shall see his toys and his empty chair, And the horse he used to ride, And they will speak with a silent speech

Of the little boy that died.

"They are knocking them away," said the father, "that the timbers may rest more firmly upon the stone piers which are now finished."

God often takes away our earthly props that we may rest more firmly upon Him. God sometimes takes away a man's health, that he may rest upon Him for his daily bread. Before his health failed, though he perhaps repeated daily the words, "Give us this day our daily bread," he looked to his own industry for that which he asked of God. That prop being taken away, he rests wholly upon God's bounty. When he receives his bread, he receives it as the gift of God.

God takes away our friends that we may look to Him for sympathy. When our affections were exercised upon objects around us, when we

CONVERSE.

SIR MATTHEW HALE says, "Converse not with a liar, or a swearer, or a man of obscene or wanton language; for either it will corrupt you, or at least it will hazard your reputation to be of the like making; and if it doth neither, yet it will fill your memory with such discourses that it will be troublesome to you in after time; and the returns of the remembrance of the passages which you have long since heard of this nature, will haunt you when your thoughts should be better employed."

EVIL THOUGHTS.

YOUNG people should have a particular care of evil thoughts. O, the mischief they have done in the world! Bad thoughts come first, bad words follow after, and bad deeds bring up the rear. Strive against them; watch against them; pray against them. They prepare the way for the Enemy.

"Bad thought is a thief! he acts his
part,
Creeps through the window of the
heart;

And if he once his way can win,
He lets a hundred others in."

ANECDOTE OF AN OYSTER.

SOME years ago the family of a fishmonger were alarmed by a great noise in the shop, and, suspecting that some persons had broken in, one of them went to the place, when, to his surprise, he found the disturber of his repose, not a twofooted, but a four-footed thief,