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the way of all wise Christian work that it | new ones ; each discovery points onward thus grows, and lays hold of circumstances in other directions and through untried with a larger, firmer grasp. For a time, | paths. So is it with all good work. Whereobstacles may seem to be insuperable; | ever, with a hearty will and persevering what then ! shall we despair ? Rather let energy, the Christian man uses the opporus recognise them as stimulants to our tunities which God has given him, he will courage, as calling forth our patience and find his opportunities become greater. strength, bidding us work on where we Even though a larger sphere of labour be can, and wait till the time shall come to do not afforded him, he will find his work more. For, in time, to faithful, patient grow in importance. His influence will praying and working, all obstacles will be increase. His power of working will inremoved, and the opportunity long waited | crease. His field will increase in importance, for will grow beyond our highest expecta and he will find new work in it. He will tions. Necessity will be laid upon us. work with larger experience, and for larger More work, not rest, is the reward of faith results. It is the idle man who is always ful labour. The growth of all great wanting a sphere of labour.” The diliChristian enterprises proves this. A good gent will always have one-he will find it man pities the ragged, neglected, blas or make it,-and God will bless his work pheming children in the streets of his native by ever giving him larger opportunities and town. He gathers a few together, and greater results. begins to teach them. Out of that the It is hardly necessary to add, save as it whole system of Sunday-school instruction is suggested by the sequel of this narrative, has grown. Dr. Carey's is an old story, that we ought not to be discouraged if our but it tells the same iruth. Modern mis. opportunities of doing do not always result sionary enterprise began in his cobbler's in such and so rapid success as we desire. shop. Granville Sharp, as a young man, Be content if God so far rewards your became interested in a negro slave, who work as to give you more to do. Paul was had been brought to England, cruelly used, not very successful, after all, at Athens, ax and abandoned by his master to starve. He far as we can see. What in the summing took his case in hand. It grew in im | up of the ages may be seen to have been portance. The master re-claimed his slave, the result of his waiting there, what in: and it became a question of law. Step by fluence it has had upon all ages since, is step he was led on, faithfully working up beyond our highest thoughts. It will to every possible point, till it was estab. matter little when " he that soweth and he lished as a principle of English law that that reapeth rejoice together” who did no slave could live in England. Nor did this particular work, or to whose labour the work stop here. His zeal and pru. such and such results are to be attributed. dence rather his indefatigable working Perhaps, far less than we think, is any gathered helpers around him; and fighting, result to be attributed to individual work. step by step, as opportunity grew, slavery So many causes combine; God works 80 was abolished throughout the British wondrously and secretly in so many ways. Empire. The student of science ever finds Work, faithful, simple, unostentatious work, a larger field expanding before him. Each | is ours ; and it will not be in vain. Rest new investigation gives rise to a hundred | and results hereafter !

THE CROSS.
IF loving hearts were never lonely,

If all they wish might always be,
Accepting what they look for only,

They might be glad, but not in Thee.
We nood as much the Cross wo bear,

As air we breathe--as light we see;
It draws us to Thy side in prayer,

It binds us to our strength in Thee.

-A. L. Waring.

Tales and Sketches.

THE MODEL PRAYER-MEETING. I can count the clock-ticks, beseechingly It began punctually at the moment.

| implore some brother present to “ improve As the clock struck eight, the leader rose

the time"? As if the dreary dribble of and sounded the reveillé by giving out the

dulness that was forced out by such a pro

cess, was not a downright mis-improvement - inspiring lines

and murder of the sweet sacred hour of " Come, my soul, thy suit prépare,

devotion! It is no wonder that so many Jesus loves to answer prayer."

of us grew up with a loathing for the very - A sweet symphony was touched in one of

name, and, next to a taste of the birch that the crowded rooms, and then the words of grew behind the school-house, we dreaded the hymn were sent heavenward on a full

a sentence to “go to prayer.meeting.” Our tide of united and enthusiastic song. Every

only solace was a sound nap, until some one voice chimed in. Each verse was sung shook our eyes open, and, with an admoni. with more spirit than its predecessor, tory thump, informed us that “meetin's marking the outcome of the rising devo. | out; it is time to go home.”

tion; and like a strong “ off-shore" breeze But even a child of eight years old would - the opening chant of praise carried the have been interested in the enlivening ser

whole meeting out of harbour into the vice we are now sketching. Not a moment - larger liberty and deep waters of the open was lost; not a syllable of persuasion was

sea. Then the leader invoked the descent needed. One man rose and gave a touchof the Holy Ghost, the gift of utterance, ing account of the scene a few evenings

and the Pentecostal baptism. It was a before, when he had first set up a family 1 very short prayer, but very full. He altar in his once prayerless house. That

prayed for the gift of prayer upon all, for was his first audible prayer, and this was honesty of speech, for deliverance from his first speech. While he is speaking, the dead formalities, for sincerity in confession, tears stream down the cheek of his astonfor childlike familiarity of approach to God, ished and overjoyed wife. Then comes a for filial faith; and then closed by invit fervent prayer of thanksgiving to God from

ing Christ to " come in as through the some one present, and a petition that the : 'closed doors of the disciples' upper room family altar thus reared may never be de7. 'At Jerusalem, and speak, “ Peace be unto secrated or thrown down. After this a

youth arose, with a blue jacket, and an As soon as a fitting passage of the Word anchor embroidered on his broad collar. I had been read, each one present seemed He had been brought there by a tract visitor. ready to bear his part in giving life and The burden of his short, artless speech nterest to the occasion. Each one felt was—Come to Jesus. “Whosoever will,

This is not the leader's meeting, or the let him come,” said the sunburnt youth: : pastor's, but my meeting, with my own “ that means that everybody on board may

spiritual family, at the feet of my own come; from the captain to the cabin-bog. Saviour. Here I have a right to speak. We are bound for heaven. Christ is our Here I have a right to weep, and sing, and pilot. The anchor is sure and steadfast. melt in spirit, and flow out in social com Come aboard, friends, before eight bells munings with the brotherhood around me. strike and your time is up." No one felt If I am silent, then the meeting may prove like criticising this earnest lad, or objecting dumb; and if I freeze up, then my neigh to his simple vernacular of the sea. He pour may chill through until the place spake as the Spirit gave him utterance. becomes an ice-house. So there was no So did they all. One young man asked entreaty required on the part of the leader counsel in regard to the rightfulness of his to draw out” those present. He was discharging some prescribed duties in an obliged to use no turn-key. What is more office on Sabbath mornings. The leader pitiful than to see a poor embarrassed answered his question briefly, and a brodeacon sit before a petrified company, ther offered prayer that God would guide

after a long, awful pause, in which you / aright his perplexed child, would enable

you."

and after a

him to “ do right even if it cost him his 1 baptized with the spirit of the Master. daily bread, and would deliver the land There was nothing stiff, nothing forced, from Sabbath desecration."

nothing feigned ; not a faultless meeting, When his prayer was ended, a tremulous but as near to it as a service of sinful morstammering voice was heard in the farther tals well can be. During one brief hour, room for a moment, and then it stopped. at least, we were delivered from that allThere was a breathless pause. Every one pervading curse of life, cant! felt for the young beginner. Every one The language employed in the petitions wanted to help him out. He began again was mostly woven from the words of

-hesitated-stammered out a few words Seripture, yet it was exceedingly fresh and brokenly : at last he said, “ O Lord, thou unhackneyed. No man went through the knowest that I cannot tell what I want to stereotyped routine, beginning with the say; but thou hearest eren what I do not say. Apostasy and ending with the Apocalypse. Have mercy on my poor soul, for Christ's Nor did any one have occasion to circumsake. Amen." An audible sob broke out navigate the globe in search of objects to through the whole apartment. Then out pray for, taking in his way "the isles of spoke a grey-haired veteran, in tones' like the sea, " " thine ancient covenant people," old Andrew Peden's among the Covenan. and finishing up by sending all the idols? ters of the Highlands. The old man went “ to the moles and the bats.” The spirit into his prayer like Gideon into the battle that pervaded the meeting was too iniwith Midian. The sword of faith gleamed tensely earnest for phraseology as sapless in his right hand; the light shot forth as and dry as last year's corn-husks; and at from the shivered pitchers; and the whole the same time too reverential for affectahost of doubts, and sins, and fears, were tion and flippancy. We lingered about scattered like chaff at the breath of the the hallowed spot, loath to go away. But gale. How he took us all on eagles' wings | for the rigid rule that restricted the service heavenward! How he enthroned the glo to a single hour, we might have tarried rified Lamb! And the close of his rapturous until midnight, praying and singing praises outbreak was in a “seren-fold chorus of to God. And as we turned reluctantly hallelujahs and harping symphonies." homeward, more than one gratefully said,

When the old man's prayer was ended “Truly the LORD was in this place." (it was the seventh prayer offered during Why may not every church of Christ hare that one busy, blessed hour), the time had one or more just such model prayer arrived for closing the service. The leader meetings ? touched his bell, and read the doxology. We were all in the rery frame for that most celestial of strains — glorious Old Hundred--that magnificent battle-hymn

WHY BETSY WATERS WAS BORN. to which Luther marched against princi “And oh, sir, I have often wondered palities, and powers, and spiritual wicked-1 why I was born.” ness in high places. Immortal is that This was the conclusion of what Betsy strain, like him who gave it birth. There Waters said to the kind minister. Betsy is not a Christian's tomb in all our land was a girl of eighteen, with a deformed" where repose not the silent lips that once spine. À quiet resignation stamped her sang that matchless tune. If any of earth's face, save when the pain was almost too music shall be heard amid the "new great for endurance. She rested in a plain, songs" of Paradise, be assured that the narrow bed in an hospital ward. On all one surviving piece that shall outlive the sides were sights of human suffering-here Judgment, will be that “king' of sacred a fevered face, flushed to purple, there : airs, Old Hundred.”

distorted countenance, giving evidence that With this ancient song upon our lips, some cruel accident had marred all traces we closed our service; spent a few moments of humanity, making of a man a thing too in hand-shakings, in introducing strangers, | horrible to be seen. in cordial leart-greetings; and so ended a " How came you here, Betsy?" asked model prayer-meeting. A model alike in the minister ; " have you no friends ?" what it was, and what it was not; in what “Yes, sir, I have some friends, God it embraced, and what it avoided. From bless them, but they are too poor to take first to last, it was an artless, honest, affec. care of themselves, and much too poor to tionate reunion of a household of Jesus, I help me. So I gave them no rest till go

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them to put me into the hospital. It is a | seemed as if God didn't care for me. I very good place, sir, only the groans keep haven't been able to do any good for myme awake."

self or anybody else, and I am very dis“How did you come by this illness, couraged. I don't want to have dark, Betsy ?

wicked thoughts; I try not to, but they * When I was two years old, sir, my will come when I see people well, and rich, father's house took fire. There was no and happy.” other way to save me, so he threw me out * But if you will look to God, my poor of the window. It nearly broke my back. child, he will help you to bear this burden. I did not walk for a year. My father was When your father saw you in the midst of burned to death, sir. My mother was cara the flames, he thought there was no other ried to the hospital, she was so badly hurt; / way of escape, and followed the dictates of 80 my mother and I were left, sick, and a human judgment. But God knows that helpless, and alone. She was heart-broken, it is best for you to bear these afflictions. and lost her ambition. We began ped. He will give you inward mercies if you ask ling, matches and little penny articles.} of him, spiritual comfort if you will look Many a time when we've had no money to only to him; and if, like a little child, you pay for a lodging we've slept in the street. put your whole trust in him, he will com-Once one of her feet was frozen; and I 1 pensate you fully for all your cares and have been frozen in my hands and feet 80 troubles in the world to come. Do you ever? that there are black spots to this day-see, think of that?" sir. This hand is nearly useless. Then "I feel it sometimes," said the girl my mother died, and I believe she was brokenly. “ In the night I seem to be glad to die. I was six years old; but, sickly lifted by something when I think of God, and crooked as I was, I tried to do some and it appears as if there must be another thing after she was buried. Sometimes I and a better place. Oh! if I could only found friends, sometimes I was treated know !" !" cruelly. I had no chances to learn, though Pray the Lord to give you spiritualo Heaven knows it made my eyes hungry to ] sight, that you may look away from these see a little girl go by with books in her trials. Your suffering must be great! I, hands. I have known nothing but misery perhaps, strong man that I am I could md suffering, such as I couldn't possibly not bear them with your patience; but God cell you, or make you understand it was never forsakes those who trust in him. 30 terrible, and I hadn't any chance to help Yes, you will forget all this human woe in myself. I've cried till it seemed as if I'd be heaven!” blind, to think what & poor, wretched The minister had gone. The darknessorphan I was, and I knew that others had fell gradually over the long avenues.be peace and plenty. I've been in such pain, tween the beds—the dim lamps were lighted 100, working; working all the time, with the doctors and nurses had gone their lobody to give me a kind word or a smile rounds, and silence fell upon the desolate -just dying for something of the kind. scene. The young girl mused on what the Oh! sir,_and her voice rose to a wail, good man had said. “Make me resigned, ' what was I born for ?"

Lord Jesus," she softly prayed, the tears “My dear child, do you think that God brimming to her eyes. « Oh, help me to loes not care for you?" asked the man, have faith in thee, and never to doubt thy enderly.

loving mercy because I suffer." Her face, It was not long ago, sir, that a young' ( 80 white, grew more peaceful. In that ady, beautifully dressed, met me in the sombre place it took on a childlike expres-, treet. I was crying with cold, and hun sion that was touching to see. A few ** ter, and pain. She pitied me I knew by masses of fair hair curled over the pillow er face that she pitied me--and she spoke -one-thin hand pressed her pallid cheek ome with her soft voice, and asked me to -her eyes were upturned, or else closed in. ome to her house with her. There she thought. “God has taken away my pain," ** ave me some clothes and some food, and she whispered. - At that moment a strain old me of God. It did me good, and for of soft music stole dreamily over her bonses. ionths she helped me; but she took a It was very low; its intertwined harmonies ver and died, and I was sick again. Ever scarcely stirred the pulses of the air-and” ince then, sir, I have been friendless; yet she heard it distinctly, vibratory--en.'' very day I have been wretched, and it has trancing. ..to

Little by little the dimness struggled like ever found her asleep at this hour-rery a vapour with some strange bright glory | soundly, too;" and he nioved the lamp that gradually superseded it, and rested on | across her face. the bed, on the upturned face, while Betsy “It strikes me she has a singularly breathlessly gazed, lost in wonder- her, loyely expression. I never noticed it be whole being changed. Presently the lumi. fore; she must be dreaming something nous colour grew into an intensity of splen- | pleasant. Poor thing, I hope so ; her life dour too great for mortal eyes, but the sick has been sad enough, I warrant, and she is girl had strength to behold it. As the har | a very patient creature. But stop-look! mony increased, and the strangely brilliant why, what is this ?dyes melted the one into the other, in their I Still dreaming ; a low, exultant cry is. midst caine a form that seemed familiar. | suing from the smiling lips, the girl lifted She remembered now her mother's face herself gradually-lifted her face as in a the holy smile, the look of love-but she tranced triumph-lifted her clasped hands had never seen such garments on any one. -the whiteness and the pureness of some Of a lustre brighter than the sun, yet so angelic ministrant reflected in her features. soft and ethereal that it gave her no pain, Suddenly the whole form relaxed, and, the the appearance of this celestial visitant smile still inwrought with every line of her filled her soul with a new exultant rapture. countenance, she fell back upon the pillow. Sorrow, and the great sum of all her pri The doctor spoke but one wordvations, and the cruelties of the world to

“ Dead!” which she had so often been subjected, were But his lips trembled, and he knew that all forgotten. Such ineffable peace filled in some vision of glory she must have gone her soul, that she could only whisper, “ It home. is enough." Presently another form appeared, clad in garments as heavenly--but oh! the exceeding purity of that celestial countenance! She had not remembered

WHERE HE FOUND HIS SERMON. her father, but she did recollect how often "DOMINIE,” said a plain-spoken man to her mother had told her how good a man his pastor, “where did you get that good he was, and how he loved God and Jesus sermon last Sunday morning? We have Christ, and prayed for them-his wife and not had one with more juice in it for many his child-every day when he was alive. a day," She knew him now, and stretched forth her "Well,” replied the Dominie, “ that ser hands towards him, yearning for his em mon came from the same quarter that I got brace. . i .

!

the good things of my last donation visit. “Not yet!”.

Part of it came from your house, and part The words seemed to melt in, liquid. of it from neighbour Van B—'s, and a music on his lips. Then the glory blazed part of it from widow R 's; and one and deepened-playing with a sort of of the best hints in it came from your twinkling splendour upon wall and bed till smart boy, Frank. I picked up that sertheir whiteness was something heavenly mon in one day of pastoral visiting." until all outlines were lost, and forth from He was a wise pastor. "He had not ! the vast distance came beautiful forms clad i very large library, and his family increased in clear white robes that swept the air, and faster than his books. But the book of their faces were so filled with a living joy | human nature is never exhausted, and so that it fell over into her heart, and from he set out often, and went from house to those serene eyes she gathered strength and house studying his people, and by the tirehope, and a peace she had never dreamed sides of his flock he gathered up the sug; of. Feebly she murmured, “Shall I be gestive materials for his richest practica 80 ?" and the rich, deep chorus swelled up, discourses. If he was preparing a sermon “ As we are, so shall you be." , Then she ou “Trusting God in times of trial felt the bonds of earth loosen--her soul recalled all the cases of trouble and a lilioarose as from some dark crypt--she floated, tion that had come to his knowledge durante up toward them, and in a heavenly ecstacy the last day of pastoral visitation. People exclaimed, “Oh! I am glad that I was love to tell their troubles to their minus born!" ,

I and always will do so, if he is a coru " She is asleep," said the physician to an approachable man (as every pastor 3 attendant. “I don't know that I have so, in reviewing the various trials i

Nous trials in which

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