God says, "Thou shalt not steal." It would hurt you to take a penny, as much as if you stole a bank-note. I beg of you do not go wrong in little matters because people may not notice it. Again,—

II. LITTLE THINGS ARE IMPORTANT BECAUSE THEY ARE REPEATED.

When God wants the fields which have been sown to be watered, He does not call for the rivers and the pools to overflow them. No! He calls for drops of rain. They fall quickly, patter, patter on the ground. One drop would not answer, but repeated drops do. They steal down through the soil till they come to the little grain of corn, and say, "Here we are: God sent us to moisten you." The grain drinks in the water, feels life, and shoots up a green blade.

Sometimes, in the South-Seas, the islands are shaken by volcanoes from below, and the solid ground stirs and sinks some feet beneath the sea. What is done then? God calls in the little coral insects, which swarm on the land that is sunken. Working away night and day like little stonemasons, and laying down their shells when they are dead, after long, long years they raise the ground once more above the sea. Round most of the islands there, the coral insect has made belts of ground which break the force of the sea, and make it a safe and pleasant place inside for ships to anchor. Look what the little coral insect is able to do by repetition! I read lately that a man had come upon a remarkable sight. He found a snake, above a foot long, fastened up in a spider's web, so that he could not wriggle out. The snake had been asleep or lazy, and the little spider had all the time been winding his web round him, one thread after another, until it had been too strong for the reptile. See! one thread from the web would have been of no use, but many little threads held the snake fast.

The chalk cliffs in the South of England are hundreds of feet high in some places; so high that if men should fall from them they would be dashed to pieces. What do you think they are made of? They are said to be made of the shells of millions of creatures. One of those shells would

never have been seen, but millions of them are enough to make high rocks.

Like the thin thread of a spider, like the small shells in the chalk, are many of the little things that you do. A spider's thread was a little thing, but the snake allowed one too many threads to be tied round him. You may think it a little thing to turn Jesus away, but 0! you may do it once too often, so that He may leave you. Again,

III. LITTLE THINGS ARE IMPORTANT BECAUSE THEY DRAW GREAT THINGS AFTER THEM.

Children, have your eyes on little things, you do not know what will follow them. In India there is a tree,-the sacred figtree, and no man who would take care of his house allows that tree to grow near a chink in the wall. Let there be ever so -small a crack in the wall, and the tree will put in one of its branches, and widen the hole until it breaks up the brickwork. I am afraid there are not many of you who have not some little chinks and holes about you. Look at your hearts now. Is there nothing dangerous creeping in? You opened a little hole when you let an ill-temper in, or when you thought a hard thing about God, or when you listened to something wicked. Let these things grow, and they will ruin you.

Do you know how men climb tall chimneys? They first fly a kite over them, and let the kite fall on the other side, leaving the string hanging from the chimney. To this string they tie a rope, and draw that up; and after the rope, a rope-ladder, by which they mount to the top.

it

A wicked thought seems a little thing. It does not hurt, you think; "it is not of any consequence," you say. I tell you does hurt; it is very serious. It is the little kite that you send up to some bad object. The thought passes off, and you believe it is done with. You are mistaken. See! there is a little thread fastening you to that wicked thing which you wanted to reach. Wish it again, and you will find yourself nearer to it. The thread has grown into a ladder, and by and by you will be drawn up, and do that sin which you thought you would like to do.

This is the way in which all the murderers, all the thieves, all the forgers, all the drunkards in the world, have been made. Sometimes men go into the gaol, and talk to the wretched men and women who are locked up, that they may do no more mischief. Will you believe it when I tell you that they have most of them been to Sunday-school? They once sat round their teachers as you do, and knelt at prayer, and rose up to sing. How did they go wrong? They began with a bad thought, a bad wish. One said, "I should like to do as Jones does-to stay out as late at night, and to go where he goes." Another said, "I wish I had as much money as Fred, I would not be particular how I spent it." The one became a low, loose wretch, and the other a bold thief. Beware, children, of sin; even of wishing to sin. Jesus can take all your sins away, and keep them away. Ask Him. Try Him.

One night there was a fire at a clergyman's house in the country. The mother, the father, and all the family but one had got out half-dressed, and stood outside. The flames were bursting from some of the windows, and it was thought that nothing else could be saved. Somebody looks round and says, "Where's John? he is

not here. O! he is in the house still. God spare him!" Two fellows run right under the house. One mounts the other's shoulders, and reaching a bed - room window, lifts down the little trembling boy. The father and mother, the brothers and sisters, would have been dreadfully distressed if Johnny had not been savedif they had found his body all blackened and burnt among the ruins. But no one else would have thought it very serious, or felt it very much for that particular little boy to have been burnt to death. Yet the little fellow was very valuable. He lived to preach thousands of times, and to convert thousands of men and women. He was John Wesley.

Children, we ought to be as anxious about you as Wesley's father and mother were about the boy in that burning house. It is not a little thing that you should stop in sin. I would cry "Danger." Sin scorches, consumes, withers up. It is not a little thing that you should be drawn out and saved. You might become great missionaries, great preachers, great writers, and save many others. Would that be a little thing? Say out of your hearts, "Jesus, pity me, forgive me, take me out of sin." Amen.

are told to do? To What does that mean?

"fear God." It is not the painful feeling of fright, not the dread of punishment which is brought by guilt, nor the kind of terror which cruelty brings to those who suffer from it. What, then, is it? It is the feeling of awe and reverence for God which leads us to fear offending Him; to worship Him with the heart, to listen to His Word, and to take heed that we fail not in doing what He commands. It was when Moses had said the words of the law, that he said, "Thou shalt fear God." If men fear Him not, they will not obey Him. The Bible says that "by the fear of the Lord, men depart from evil," and that "the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." How may we get this fear? Hear the words of God: "I will put My fear in their hearts." This, then, is the gift of God. To those that seek it, He will be gracious and will give it.

3. What fear will bring.-See now how this is spoken. "Thou shalt." This is a command, something which we must do if we would please God. How positive it is; "shalt" means must. Moses said this in God's stead. What if we fear not God? It is said of the wicked, that "there is no fear of God before their eyes." But the "mercy" of the Lord is " on them that fear Him." Many good and blessed things are promised to all such.

REVISION.-What is meant by the fear of God? What will the fear of God do for us? Who are those who have it not? How may this fear be got?

December 22.-The Kingdom of the

Heart.

LUKE xvii. 21: "Behold! the kingdom of God is within you."

1. An earthly kingdom.-When the Lord Jesus was upon earth, many of the Jews thought He had come to set up a new kingdom among them. They had read in the Prophets of the coming of the Lord. Some of them thought He would have power as kings of the earth had; that He would overcome their enemies, and make them once more a great nation among the kingdoms of the earth. When they heard the wisdom with which He spake, and saw the great power He had, and the wonderful miracles He wrought, they came to Him again and

again, and wished Him to set up this kingdom, and once they thought to "take Him by force and make Him a King." But Jesus had not come for this. He said, "My kingdom is not of this world." Yet, for a time, even His own disciples looked for a kingdom of earth, and some were so eager for a place of honour and power in it, that they even were at strife among themselves.

2. The kingdom of the heart.-The Pharisees, among others, asked the Lord "when the kingdom of God should come?" They were looking to the pomp and pride of a "kingdom of this world." But "He answered them and said,.. Behold! the kingdom of God is within you." Jesus meant that it was in the heart. But how can a kingdom be there? To know this, we must remember that the thoughts of the heart rule the life and its ways, as the laws of a King rule his subjects. When the thoughts are evil, Šatan rules the heart; but when the heart is made free from sin, and the thoughts are pure and good, Jesus reigns there; His kingdom is within; the thoughts and the life are ruled by Him.

December 29.-The Two Prayers. LUKE xviii. 10: "Two men went up into the temple to pray."

1. The Pharisee's prayer. One of these men was a Pharisee. Like all of his class, he trusted in himself that he was righteous, and despised others. In the temple he "stood and prayed." First he gave thanks to God that he was not so bad as other men, who committed sin, nor even so bad as the publican, who stood also in the temple. How could he know whether the

publican was worse or better than

himself? He then told the Lord what he did: of his fasting twice in the week, and of the tithes or money he gave for the service of the temple. His prayer

was all about himself, and how good he was. Not a word about his need of mercy for past sin; not a prayer for help in time of future danger. It seemed as though he thought that all he needed to do was to tell of his own goodness to God, and that that would be enough to bring God's blessing and favour upon him. How different this prayer

from those of Moses, Samuel, David, Solomon, and Isaiah.

2. The publican's prayer.-He "stood afar off." He was so full of a sense of how sinful and unworthy he was, that he thought himself unfit even to enter far into God's house. He "would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven." The "fear of God" was upon him, and he smote upon his breast, saying, "God be merciful to me a sinner." How different this prayer from the other! The one thought and prayed only of his goodness; the other of his sinfulness. Could such a prayer as the publican's reach heaven? Ages before this God had said, "To this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at My word." lican was just such a man.

This pub

NOTICES

Tiny Tales for the Little Ones. London: R. L. Allan. 1872.

Picture Stories for Children. London: R. L. Allan. 1872.

Ben and Kit. London: R. L. Allan. 1872.

THE first two of these little books are commendable and fairly successful efforts to convey "simple Gospel truth" to the minds of very young children. They would be still more effective if they contained less of direct preaching, if the stories were allowed, in the main, to enforce their own moral.

"Ben and Kit," by the same authoress, is a longer story, of the same character, written for older children. The tale is by no means uninteresting. Ben and Kit are real living, thinking, acting children; not mere puppets going through a show performance; but the story itself teaches nothing whatever. The religious teaching is inartistically tacked on to the narrative, instead of growing out of it. The pages which the authoress designs to inculcate piety, are inevitably doomed to be skipped by her juvenile readers. We suspect that this is her earliest effort of the kind, and suggest to her that, while children do not care for sermons, they are easily impressed by examples. That the authoress of "Ben and Kit" could write a capital narrative

3. The answer to prayer.-Jesus lest us know this: "I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other." So the publican got what he sought; but the Pharisee got no blessing. David once said, He "saveth such as be of a contrite spirit." The Lord says also why this was, "For every one that exalteth himself shall be abased;" this was true of the Pharisee. "And he that humbleth himself shall be exalted; this was true of the publican. Let this teach us how to pray. Do we feel how naughty our hearts are? This need not keep us away from God. Are we brought low" because of it? If the heart be contrite, God will not despise it, but will raise it with His blessing, but will send it away "justified.”

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free from these defects, is evident from the excellence of that tale.

Blind Olive; or, Dr. Greyvill's Infatuation. By SARSON. London: S. W. Partridge and Co. 1872.-A simple, touching story of noble love and heroic self-sacrifice. Making due allowance for the fact that "Blind Olive" is "Sarson's" first prose publication, it is highly creditable to her skill as a raconteur, and gives promise of future eminence as a writer of religious narratives. "Blind Olive " displays considerable power of interpreting and expressing emotion, and of analyzing and describing character. The moral tone of the book is thoroughly healthy; no parent need hesitate to place it in the the hands of a daughter. Its views of life are sober, rational, and Christian; while the interest of the story in no way suffers on this account. May we suggest to "Sarson," that the episode concerning Edith Greyvill and Walter Layburn is a mere excrescence, adding nothing to the charm of the volume, and seriously detracting from its excellence as a work of art? If the two stories must be told, they should at least be more closely interwoven with each other. To the type, paper, binding, and general "get-up " of the book a word of commendation is due.