help her mother as she had been accustomed to do. For, in the Spring of 1855, just when her heart was beating high with hope, and all nature seemed to take part in her joy, as the happy future unfolded before her, a shadow fell on her young life.

Quite unexpectedly serious disease attacked her eyes, and that so severely, that in a little time the sight of the left was quite gone, and the sharp remedies used only served to undermine her constitution, which had never been strong. Her kind pastor now visited her assiduously, snd brought comfort and peace, as he sought to help her bear with patience the heavy cross which the Lord had laid upon her.

A visit to Karlsbad proved useless to restore her, but she was learning to resume her occupations and be helpful to others in spite of her afflictions, when, in the Autumn of 1857, a severe attack of typhus fever sapped her little remaining strength, and brought her to the verge of the grave.

The following Summer, when she had recovered a little, her parents sent her to Pastor Blumhardt's Institution at Bâsle, where she received a great spiritual blessing, which seems to have reacted in some measure on her bodily frame. On her way home through Switzerland, the friends whom she was visiting persuaded her to consult Gräfe, the famous Berlin oculist, who was then at Heiden.

On examining the eyes he found that an immediate operation was necessary to save the feeble remaining sight of the right eye. It was successful, but the visit to Switzerland was of course cut short, and she returned home much weakened in body but rejoicing in spirit. An interval of blindness, however, soon rendered another operation necessary, for which she had to spend five weeks in Gräfe's hospital at Berlin. But in other respects her health was so far improved as to allow her, not only to carry on the education of her brothers and sisters, but to teach a large class of children with them on Sunday out of God's word, besides visiting the sick and poor. Thus, while seeking to impart to others the blessing she had received, peacefully closed the year 1858, which she calls her year of blessing and sorrow.

In 1861, after another severe attack of illness, Christin went again to Switzerland to visit some dear friends, her family hoping that the change of air and scene would benefit her health. But she had miscalculated her strength, and had no sooner arrived in Bâsle than she was laid low by a fever brought on by the fatigue of the journey. Thus, far from home in a strange land, she again found herself near death, and when, after ten weeks' imprisonment, she was brought home by her mother, who had come to nurse her, it was with completely shattered health, and from that time she has never known an hour's freedom from pain.

More than once has the Angel of Death seemed to draw near, but only to pass by, leaving her feebler than before. Seasons of great mental depression accompanied this physical weakness, when she could neither think nor pray, and found no comfort even in God.

Then it seemed that the cross laid upon her was working harm and not blessing until she had learned that this, too, was part of the needed discipline; that the path of obedience lies through the Valley of Humiliation; and that when such seasons recurred, as they often did, she had only to wait patiently till the Lord should remove the burden and grant relief.

At this sad time, when she was entirely secluded from that happy family life, in which she had hitherto delighted to take her part, two of her greatest compensations were sent her.

One of these was the friendship of Augusta-the faithful

and devoted companion of her life; the friend and nurse who has never left her, and whom she calls her gift of God, her richest blessing from Heaven. The other was the visit of the little muse, who was first aroused to life by sympathy with the tender poety of Göethe, as it was read to her by her wise and sympathizing physician. Soon after this a neuralgic pain in the right eye, which was left behind by one of her frequent intervals of blindness, affected her head so much that the education of her beloved pupils, hitherto even in her illness her darling occupation, had to be entirely, though reluctantly, given up, and often reading aloud was more than she could bear; but in the intervals of suffering, general literature, both ancient and modern, had a great charm for her; and in the "Invalid Life," she describes, in her own sensible way, its healthy influence on the mind of a sufferer.

It seems to have been this literary taste, joined with the strong love of Nature, and, above all, the hearty human interest; first in the members of her own large family, and, next to them, in the ever-widening circle of those whom she affectionately calls her sisters in sufering, that has preserved Christine from that self-concentration which is felt to be the great danger of longcontinued illness.

It is this healthy tone of mind which gives its great value to the little sketch called "My Invalid Life," and which seems to have gradually conquered even physical depres sion, so that the bright sun of joy, which, through the mercy of God, arose for her, in the midst of deepest darkness, now shines so brightly that she can say, "Whatever may happen, it will never be quite dark for me again."

She was very happy in the ministry which, with the help of Augusta, she was enabled to carry on amongst the sick and suffering of Göttingen, and it was indeed a hard trial for her, when the link with them was broken by her removal to Heidelberg; but in this we can trace the providence of God, which had prepared for her a wider sphere of usefulness. For it was the yearning which filled her heart toward those distant friends from whom she was for ever parted, which first led her to print the little book as a Christmas surprise for them, by which she had since spoken to so many hearts.

There were bitter trials in store for her before she reached that calm retreat within sound of the rushing Neckar, where her quiet days are now passed. But though she is completely confined to that couch on which so many years have been spent, while each day still brings its share of pain, often terribly severe, yet her life is full of interests, and not without its joys. The song of the birds when Spring is near, the fragrance of the ferns and wild flowers from the wooded hills around her home, the cool, fresh breeze that fans her aching brow when, in Summer time, her couch can be brought out on the balcony, these have power to make her glad!

And more than these, the letters which every post brings from those dear sisters in suffering with whom her loving thoughts are ever busy, and the tokens and messages of affection that tell of tender hearts in distant lands that have been cheered by her sympathy. Amongst these she counts many English fellow-sufferers, who have a warm place in her heart; and we hope that those of them who read these little specimens of her songs, sung in the shadow, will accept a loving greeting from their German sister. Many of them will be ready to echo her words, written in the Spring of 1876: "Soon will the dear sun show his friendly face again, and we, poor suffering children, shall be cheered by it, while the Sun of God's mercy lights us all through the dark valley, comforts our hearts, and turns our weakness into strength."

THE TOWER OF BABEL.

niceties of detail which the mistress of the house has left herself no time to attend to this morning.

The meal over, she wished to wash and put away the china with the help of one of her daughters, but found that the cook had not yet heated the water which was usually waiting for them, as they arose from the table. The cook had adopted the family standard of a day of rest, and thought there was no use in being in a hurry about heating the water on Sunday. As the fire was dying out by this time, however, it had to be built up again before the water could be heated; so they had to choose between delaying to wash the china till after church time, or losing part of the church services. They chose to do the latter.

After they had finished washing the china, and attending to a few other little household matters, they dressed in a flurried and uncomfortable manner, in rooms not cleaned up; for their servants were necessarily as behindhand as themselves. They then started for church, reaching there in time to disturb the other members of the congregation in their devotions, and feeling too worried and flurried themselves to enter much into the spirit of the occasion. Amy, the oldest daughter, had an uncomfortable under-current of thought throughout the services, recollecting that her canary bird, to which she usually attended before breakfast, had been forgotten and neglected in the hurry attendant on the reversal of their ordinary household economy; whilst Bessie, the younger one, remembered with equal compunction that she I had omitted to give her customary morning greeting and little nosegay of flowers to a poor, bedridden old lady who lived near them. But after lingering two hours later than usual in bed, what more could have been expected? On the whole, their day of rest was a failure. It was rather a day of unrest, and on Monday they were glad to get into harness again, and to return to work, which was less fatiguing than the so-called rest they had taken.

A DAY OF REST.

BY MARY W. EARLY.

Ir was a charming morning in June, a morning that brought to mind what Bulwer says of the happiness of the early riser: "To whom each morning comes like a maiden's love, full of bloom, purity and freshness." The grass and flowers sparkled with dew, the birds sang joyously-all nature rejoiced in light, bloom and song. The scene, however, was ungraced by any human presence.

The members of the household to which we shall now introduce the reader were wont to enjoy the freshness of the morning hours, and to enter early upon the duties of the day. But a spell hung over them to-day, because it was the Sabbath, and they were resolved to make it a day of rest. So, long after they had slept sufficiently to recuperate both mind and body, they continued to lie in bed in a state of drowsy inertia, till the tension of their nerves became unhealthfully relaxed, and their muscular system weakened, as is always the case when one indulges in overlong lying in bed and sleeping. Finally, when the sun began to become oppressive, and the fresh, sparkling dew to dry up, they arose from bed, feeling strangely languid and inert. But, no matter, they imagined they were acting up to their privileges, and making it a real day of rest. They were so late in getting dressed that the customary morning prayers had to be hurried over in a way not quite consistent with the solemnity due to such exercises.

The servants following in the wake of their employers, a late and uncomfortable breakfast was then served, ungraced by the customary bouquet of dewy flowers and other little

The above is no overdrawn picture. In too many families it is the customary mode of observing the Sabbath. They seem to imagine there is some peculiar sanctity in upsetting all the ordinary household routine on the Sabbath-in having everything behindhand; which makes it really a day of unrest and confusion.

A striking contrast to the above given picture rises to my mind in the recollection of a Sabbath once passed at the house of a friend, where the day was spent so sweetly and so wisely that it was indeed a time of refreshing, both to body and mind-a real day of rest. In the home to which I now wish to introduce the reader, they all arose at their customary hour on Sunday morning; for the father of the household said he could see no good cause for changing the hour of rising on Sunday, except in the case of day-laborers and mechanics, who were exhausted by physical toil, and whose avocations compelled them to rise extremely early on week-day mornings.

"It is very well," said he, "for these classes to indulge themselves in a little more sleep and a little more folding of the hands on Sunday; but for myself, and others in my class, I see no good nor wisdom in it. The Sabbath was intended for the refreshing of both soul and body, and more especially for the vivifying and building up of the mind and better life-an object which is not furthered by our indulging in a sluggish torpor long after we have lain in bed and slept long enough for the purposes of healtha torpor which does not yield even physical good or pleas

In the dewy freshness of the morning we all met as usual, in the little sitting-room, through whose windows fell the amber light of the Spring morning, and was wafted the scent of Spring flowers in gusts of sweeter incense than were ever swung from a censer; while in the cedar trees that grew close by, the birds trilled those clear and joyous notes peculiar to the early hours of a Spring or Summer morning. The first impressions of a day are much the most potent, giving tone and color to all its succeeding hours; so I think we all carried about with us, during the remainder of the day, some of the peace and fragrance of that early morning hour, when, in the freshness and quiet of the opening day, we commended ourselves to the Lord of the Sabbath, and listened to the holy words that the father read aloud. These words, entering our minds before any lighter or lower impressions had time to lodge there and profane the holiness of the day of rest, sank more deeply into our hearts, and lingered with us, and helped to restrain and modify the surging tide of worldly thought and feeling that is so apt to rush in and overflow our minds on the Lord's day, if we are not closely and earnestly vigilant.

Breakfast was served in the usual neat and orderly manner, and immediately afterward the necessary household arrangements were completed; the wise and considerate mistress of the house dispatching these with more promptitude than usual on Sunday, that her servants might have the more leisure. Then we all spent a delightful hour or two, strolling about in the yard and garden, enjoying the freshness of the Spring air and the fragrance of the Spring blossoms.

The children played merrily around us, while every now and then the father took occasion to instill into their little minds (almost unconsciously to themselves, so gently and skillfully was it done) some beautiful and vital truth about the Lord and the Heavenly and Eternal World; making it intelligible to them by drawing his illustrations from the objects around him. In this he imitated the highest of teachers, who bade His disciples "Consider the lilies," and drew His illustrations from the harvest field, the vineyard, the fig-tree, and innumerable other objects in nature. It seemed peculiarly wise and appropriate to instill ideas of God's love and wisdom into these tender little minds by means of types drawn from the realm of nature, which, on a Spring morning, seems so redolent of life and joy.

As an instance of the father's mode of teaching the little ones to apprehend heavenly things by means of the types and symbols around them, he called their attention to the sun, with its vivifying warmth and glorious light, and sought to convey to them an idea of the Lord's divine love as being like the warmth, and His divine truth as being like the light of the sun, which caused the prophet to speak of Him as "the Sun of rightcousness, the psalmist to call Him "a sun and a shield."

At ten o'clock we all went to the Sundayschool-a work especially needed in this vicinity, there being an unusually large number of poor and ignorant children in the neighborhood. There were but few teachers in the VOL. IV. No. 4.-30.

task. Some of the neighbors assisted irregularly, sometimes not coming at all, and at other times coming when the services were half over. "I would like to help you," was a remark made by several ladies in the congregation, "but really I don't see how I can manage it. My family are so late about getting up and dressing Sunday morning, that I can't finish breakfast before ten o'clock." "The harvest was plenteous, but the laborers were few." "Works of mercy or necessity," whose performance enhances (instead of breaking) the holiness of the Sabbath day, cannot meet their full attention, in households where several additional hours are spent in bed on the Sabbath morning.

By the time the school was dismissed, the solemn church bells were ringing, sweet and clear, and high up in the air, like the voices of angels in heaven, calling us to "come up hither." The foregoing hours had brought us somewhat into accord with the spirit of the services of the Church, so we felt that "it was good for us to be there," on a mount, as it were a little uplifted, for a time, above the tumult and clamor of the lower plane of common, daily life.

The remainder of the day afforded us ample leisure for rest and suitable recreation, both mental and physical; for pleasant social intercourse; for the enjoyment of music and literature of an ennobling kind, as well as for open-air exercise; for my friends had no idea of making the day one of gloom, and laid no restriction on such innocent and suitable recreation as tended to conduce to their building up of a higher and a better life, whilst at the same time it recuperated and refreshed the natural life. This day, taken

THE STORY OF DAVID BOOTHBY. SEE PAGE 466.