MISS STUCK-UP. —by word, and deed, and thought. Yet how does He still plead ? By His Spirit, convincing of sin (John xvi. 9); His Word, which is quick and powerful (Heb. iv. 19); His ministers, who plead with us (2 Cor. v. 20). Our sin, then, and punishment will be worse than the Israelites (Heb. xii. 25). 13 Israelites, in delaying to punish. Visiting iniquity: see how sin grows and spreads. What a lesson to all as to example they set. Keeping mercy (Ps. ciii. 11)— sin must be punished, but God delights in mercy. LESSONS.-Does God ever show His glory to us? Not in the same way; but who came to reveal God? (See Heb. i. 3; John xiv. 9.) We cannot see face of Jesus, but see His character. Is same now as ever effect has this had upon us? Find in Ex. xxxiv. 35, that Moses' face shone when came down Mount, reflected God's glory; people at first afraid to look at him. Is this so with us? We meet God in prayer, in his Word, in the sacred ordinances of His Church; what effect does it have on our conduct? Do we reflect God's glory? Does it make us more loving, gentle, merciful-more like God? II. GOD'S DEALINGS WITH MOSES.-(1) The vision (Read 12-23). Once more leave the people and turn to Moses. Where is he? The people see the-pitying, loving, merciful, long-suffering. What cloud, but see neither Moses nor God. What is Moses talking about? Is he asking for honours for himself? All his thoughts still about God's presence. Picture Moses in early morning-sun just risen, camp in silence, he alone. Begins to ascend Mount ---soon loses sight of tents, flocks, and herds (xxxiv. 3). At last reaches top of Mount; sees rocks and crags all around; grand scene! Where is he placed? Why in cleft of rock? Is to shut out all the world-to see nothing but glory of God. Why not see God's face? No eye of man could bear sight, therefore can only see God's glory--called Shechinar. (2) The meaning. (Read xxxiv. 4-9). What was Moses to learn about God? His name-Lord, meaning eternal one; God, the Creator, the all good; and His character-merciful; how had He shown this to the Israelites ? Long-suffering-how many chances were given to Pharaoh? How often had borne with Questions to be answered. 1. How did God show His displeasure to the Israelites ? 2. How did the people receive the tidings? 4. Describe the vision given to Moses. 6. How does God reveal Himself to us; and what effect should it have upon us? MISS STUCK-UP. OST people, I think, have the gift of I have quite a picture gallery in my mind, and in My father was squire of the village of Netherton, one of those tiny hamlets which are scattered all over Devonshire. Our house was an old-fashioned one, built of grey stone, with gabled roofs and battlemented walls that cast fantastic shadows on the smooth green lawn. A magnolia covered one side of the house, and in the summer the rich scent of its beautiful flowers stole in through the open windows, and the tendrils of flowering creepers often found their way through the casements, as if they wanted to see what was going on inside the walls they helped to beautify. The place had originally been a monastery, and though, of course, great renovations and alterations had been made, a grave quiet look seemed still to haunt it. I have a happy home of my own now, but it is in a large manufacturing city, and sometimes, when I grow weary of the din and bustle around me, I long to be able to lie still in my dear old room, and hear nothing but the wind rustling in the trees where the rooks used to build; or that I could walk through the fields where the cows lay blinking their sleepy brown eyes, down to the pond over which the dragon-flies hovered, looking like fairy meteors as they darted out of the shade of the overhanging trees. I long for these things now; but they were pleasures I thought little of when I was Winifred Tennant, and lived at Netherton Priory. My mother died soon after I was born and when my only brother was a little more than a year old. My father was perfectly "feckless" about children, and no maiden aunt made her appearance to fill our mother's place; but under the dragon-like watchfulness of an old nurse we grew and flourished. My education up to the time I was thirteen years old was of rather a masculine order, being identical with that of my brother Alick. Our tutor and general Mentor was the village schoolmaster; and I really think the old man enjoyed those lesson hours, in spite of occasional " scenes," when he would sit and look in despair at my tear-stained and Alick's stony countenance. We were neither cleverer nor more stupid than most children of our own age and class, but I fancy that the old man considered us prodigies of brightness. Perhaps we appeared so when compared with his other pupils. Mother Earth certainly does not sharpen the wits of those who devote themselves entirely to her service, and our village school was chiefly filled with agricultural labourers' children, whose uncouth manners and dull intellects must have been a sore trial to their gentle old master. In play as well as in work I was always my brother's companion, and he naturally moulded my tastes to his; so that, though dolls were unknown to me, I could throw a line or catch a cricket-ball, even to Alick's satisfaction. He was very good to me, and I was generally allowed to accompany him in all his rambles, and to assist in many an escapade; but now and then, when bent on the capture of some particularly wary rabbit, he would say, "Now, Freda, it's no good you coming with all those rustling petticoats. I shouldn't have a chance of getting the bunny." Then I would retire, to lament in secret over my sex, and the inconvenient garments it entailed. But if it had not been for Alick I should have been lonely indeed, for there was no one else with whom I could associate. In country villages there is generally a close intimacy between the squire's family and the clergyman's, but our rector, Mr. Leslie, had no children. The rectory and church were close together, just outside our park gates, and the one was as much held in awe by me as the other. Mr. Leslie was a man whose life had come to be bounded by a daily routine, in which the relative importance of duties and habits had lost their proportions; so that the scrupulous fulfilment of small matters, such as hanging his hat on one particular peg, and saving pieces of string, had become as important in his eyes (though perhaps not consciously so) as that his weekly round of district visiting should be accomplished. There was not much work to be done in our parish, or, at least, not much that obviously lay in his way, and his was not a nature to turn off the beaten track of the clerical highway in search of work in the byeways and hedges. Mrs. Leslie was short, and thin, and refined-indeed, so much refined that there was hardly anything of her left. Refinement was her creed; and she had all her life been gradually pruning and shaping her mind and manners nearer, as she thought, to perfection. This system involved the suppression of all visible emotions, whether of pleasure, surprise, or pain, as being vulgar excrescences. Her efforts had been so far successful that her character had acquired a perfectly smooth and even surface, overlaid by a neutral tint, which reflected neither light nor shade. It can be imagined what a trial I must have been to a nature of this kind. My manners, I confess, were at that time somewhat rough, and decidedly unfeminine, and no one was ever for her from possessing that reticence and RedIndian-like calmness which was exhibited in such perfection in Mrs. Leslie. Whatever mood I happened to be in, whether of joy or sorrow, naughtiness or repentance, swayed me entirely for the time, and engrossed all my energies. As I grew older, therefore, my visits to the rectory were made at longer and longer intervals. I felt that I was a foreign element in the house. I was an interruption to Mr. Leslie's daily programme; and with Mrs. Leslie I was, and felt myself, so brusque and awkward, that it was a relief to both of us to part, each inwardly congratulating ourselves on being so unlike the other. A lonely childhood, however, is not necessarily an unhappy one, and I was well contented, more so than many children I have known who have been surrounded by loving care and friends. Time passed on, until I was thirteen, and Alick fourteen, when a revolution in our manner of life took place. Since my mother's death my father had become entirely engrossed in studies, in the pursuit of which he had at first tried to drown the ever-present sense of something wanting." I did not know in those days what gems dug from the mines of learning were sent forth into the busy world by the solitary miner who sat in the gloomy little abode that we called “papa's room," but I did notice that when he emerged from that room into the commonplace world he seemed like one distraught. In the summer he rarely saw us, for, early and late, we were out of doors; but in the long winter evenings he would sometimes wander into the drawing-room, and find Alick, the dogs, and myself, curled up on the hearth-rug in front of the fire, when a little conversation would pass between us, chiefly consisting of questions from him, and shy answers from us; but these moments of paternal attention we rather dreaded than otherwise. However, one day, early in the eventful year I have referred to, there came a letter from an aunt, whom I had never seen, saying that she was coming to pay a visit at Netherton Priory; and it was to aunt Delia that I was chiefly indebted for the changes that followed. She was naturally horrified at finding that her niece's chief ambition was to imitate and follow as closely as possible the sayings and doings of her nephew; and she was not only horrified, but despairing, when one afternoon, after a long lecture on the elegant manners and varied accomplishments of her young lady friends, I said to her, "Well, aunt Delia, it is quite too late for me to be turned into anything like that; but I think I should make rather a nice boy, so suppose you tell me what the boys you know do." That night she got hold of my father, and, after representing to him my utter want of all that it behoved a young lady to know, she obtained from him a sanction to whatever | spectacles to the portrait of the aged and tyrannical remedies she might choose to adopt; more, I believe, individual who figured as the governess. for the sake of quietness than from any clear idea he had formed of the state of affairs. New, aunt Delia was one of those people with whom talking is a necessary preliminary to acting, and next day she trotted down to the rectory to have a "quiet chat" with Mrs. Leslie, the subject of which chat I was perfectly sure would be the shortcomings and misdemeanours of my unfortunate self. This visit happened "quite providentially,” aunt Delia said, to coincide with the arrival of a letter to Mr. Leslie, requesting him to receive as a ward a girl a few years older than myself, the daughter of a distant cousin. In the course of the next few days all was arranged, and aunt Delia unfolded her plans to my father with all the triumph of a successful manager. "You see, my dear William, Miss Helen Brisbane is coming to live at the rectory, and is to have a first-rate finishing governess, and I have arranged that Freda shall do lessons with her." "Well," said my father, "be it so; and I will write to Dr. Heath about taking Alick at Christmas." And so it was settled. In one of my "states of mind" I rushed off to tell Alick the news. Much to my disappointment he received it quite coolly, merely remarking, "I suppose it's all right." "Oh yes!" I said, in a very injured tone, "I have no doubt it is all right for you, and of course that is all you care about. You never think of me, left at home with a horrid stuck-up girl and a strict old governess." One Sunday morning, towards the end of October, I was sitting in our square red-cushioned pew in the church, with my eyes, as usual, fixed on an old family monument on the wall opposite to me. This monument always gave me an idea of there having been a wholesale slaughter and destruction of the tenants of those days, for it represented a whole family, from the straight-featured severe - looking father and mother, to a tightly-swaddled chrysalis of a baby. The father and mother knelt opposite each other, and their family was dutifully kneeling in a row behind them; the boys on one side behind the father, the girls behind the mother. The whole party were in ruffs (the baby excepted), and from the melancholy expression of their countenances, one might conclude that they had found life a failure. I was gazing at this symbol of the glories of our ancestors, and Alick was trying to squeeze himself as much as possible into the corner of the pew, when he suddenly called my attention to a small procession, which was coming up the church. "Freda," he whispered, "here's Miss Stuck-up at last." The sexton had been creaking about, hustling the poor people, and cringing before the well-to-do, and he now threw open the door of the rectory pew with a vigour that must have tried its poor old hinges. Mrs. Leslie, and a tall elderly lady whom I knew must be the governess, came first, and behind them, You don't know that the girl will be stuck-up," and almost hidden by them, was Helen Brisbane. said Alick. "I tell you she is sure to be," said I. 'Well, you might just as well think that she won't be till you find out she is," he replied. "Very likely you will be tremendous friends, and I shall get some chums, too, at school, and then we can be cums all round, and won't that be nice?" I No, no, Al.," I cried, throwing my arms round his neck, "that is just the nastiest part of it all. know I shall never have you all to myself again; and I never mean to love anybody but you all my life, Alick." This burst of affection was hardly appreciated by the object of it, for he only said, “Oh, bother! Freda, don't cry on to my collar, or I shall have to go and change it. A fellow can't stay poking at ne all his life; and I dare say you and Miss Stuck-up will get on capitally." This being by no means the kind of answer I had expected, I dried my eyes, and retired in a dignified | way, intended to show that my feelings had be n wounded. The real Helen Brisbane did not arrive until the autumn; and in the meantime the imaginary one had grown more and more distasteful to me; and my fancy had added the charms of a wig and blue My first thought was, "Why does she not walk faster?" But I looked again, and saw that the slow and evidently painful steps were only made with the help of a crutch. I shall never forget the feeling with which I turned away, and hid my face in my hands. To think of the girl whom I had fancied so well described by our silly nickname being a cripple! I had caught a glimpse, too, of a pale face, whose wonderful sweetness had thrilled me, rough untrained child as I was, with new and strange feelings. Mrs. Leslie must have seen my startled look and suddenly-averted face; anyhow, she evidently did not wish my first introduction to Helen to take place before the curious eyes of the villagers, for she allowed me to make my way out of church unnoticed. And, indeed, though strangely attracted by the bright brown eyes, whose glance I had met once or twice in the course of a mutual examination, I was in no hurry to meet Helen Brisbane. My ideas had been so thoroughly turned upside down, that I wanted a little time to re-adjust them; and I had that guilty feeling, which I think the sight of anybody one has wronged, by word or deed, always brings. In fact, instead of disliking Helen, I was now afraid of her. Next day, however, a note came from Mrs. Leslie, | l'amour sans ailes," and the friendship begun on that asking me to go to the rectory. Willingly or not, I October afternoon is, I think, never likely to take to was obliged to obey the summons. I was shown into itself wings. the library, where, said the servant, "Miss Brisbane and Miss Thorpe is doing their lessons." When I entered the room I found Miss Thorpe reading aloud in a sonorous voice; but Helen, who was sitting in an arm-chair in the bay-window, seemed to be taking much more interest in a fat thrush, who was bolting worms on the lawn, than in the ponderous volume that was being read for her edification. I think people in general have a notion that to talk or laugh in natural tones, or to look cheerful in the presence of bodily affliction, shows a certain amount of heartlessness; and I instinctively toned my face and voice down to what might be considered suitable lugubriousness; but before we parted that afternoon I had forgotten Helen's crutch and the sober manner I had thought due to it in my delight and enthusiasm over my new friend. On comparing notes, I found that she, like myself, had an adored brother a little older than she was; and the comparative merits of Cecil Brisbane and Alick were eagerly discussed by their respective champions. Then she was so utterly unlike any one I had ever met before. My idea of fun and happiness was inseparable from activity, or, in other words, "a good romp" of some kind or other; and yet here was a girl who never moved out of her chair without pain, who, nevertheless, was full of fun, which found its vent in comical little speeches and ways, and who was as happy as most people; certainly quite as happy as I was. She brought the thing that I most wanted, the element of gentleness, into my life. " People are sometimes called gentle" whose characters flabby" would more truly describe, but Helen's gentleness was not of this type. It did not teach her to give up her own opinions, and think and act as others bade her; but it taught her that the duty of respecting other people's feelings and opinions is only second to the duty of forming and acting upon one's own. It was some time before I could make up my mind to tell Helen about "Miss Stuck-up" and how she laughed at the way in which I mentally lashed myself for my stupidity! "As if you could have told what I should be like, Freda! Very likely I might have been a Miss Stuck-up; indeed, I am not sure that I'm not one." Upon which I dared her to say another word about it. Cecil Brisbane spent his holidays at the rectory with his sister; and he and my brother soon became fast friends; so that we were, as Alick had prophesied, "chums all round." I do not mean to imply that after Helen's arrival at Netherton I became at once a changed creature, and that my life ran smoothly on without my having to take any trouble to make it do so. Our governess, Miss Thorpe, though minus the wig and blue spectacles, was quite as particular as I had imagined she would be; and I found her rule, which was strict even to pettiness, a trying contrast to the freeand-easy lessons with my dear old master. But it was after Miss Thorpe had, as she expressed it, "finished us, and had departed, and left us to our own devices, that the influence of the bright loving nature of "the little cripple lady," as the villagers called her, began to be most felt. Somehow or other she laughed Mr. Leslie out of his fidgets, and stirred him up to a more active and worthy life. Mrs. Leslie learned from her that true refinement lies in exhibiting refined feeling, not in suppressing all feelings whatever. Alick submitted to her scoldings and quaint lectures with a much better grace than to my attempts at reproof, and by insisting on going to my father instead of to the bailiff about all her pet schemes for the benefit of the village, she gradually induced him to take an interest in the world outside his study, an interest which made his books all the better. And as to myself, what has she not done? what is she not doing for me? My name is not Tennant now, and I often say to my husband, "Cecil, we are not nearly such perfect people as Miss Stuck-up's brother and sister ought to be." M. B. W. "THE QUIVER" BIBLE CLASS. 1. When Joab sent a message to David to tell him of the death of his son Absalom, what good man ran before to break the news gently to the king? 2. Where do we find a special form of confession used at the offering of sacrifice to God? 3. Quote some words which show the high estimation in which St. Paul was held by his Galatian converts. 4. What city is mentioned as having been sown with salt to mark its utter destruction ? 5. What school of philosophy is mentioned as being at Ephesus? 6. What is mentioned as the price of a horse in the days of king Solomon? 7. Quote some words from which we may infer that the Jews supposed the Messiah would come in some sudden and mysterious manner among men. 8. What punishment was put upon Miriam for There is a pretty French saying, "l'amitie est joining in a sedition against her brother Moses ? |