From all that would our Saviour's glory dim,
And turn our anxious hearts from faith in Him;
From all prescriptions man has proudly given,
By which the guilty strive to purchase heaven,

Good Lord, deliver us!

O God! in Thee alone will we confide;

Thy truth shall be our pure and perfect guide;
And when dark tempests o'er our world shall sweep,
In holy confidence Thy children keep :

Good Lord, deliver us!

H. M. W.

JESUS ONLY.

"They saw no man any more, save Jesus only."-Mark ix. 8.

JESUS alone was there,

When came the wondrous word;
And the glorified had passed away,
Ere that solemn voice was heard.

The saints of old, who came
In heavenly lustre bright,

Who stood but now by the Saviour's side,
Had vanished from the sight.

Perchance o'er Peter's soul

A moment's thought had come,

That those glorious ones had power to aid
Man to his heavenly home.

And hence, perchance, his wish

For tabernacles here,

That the sinner might present his prayer,

And find a helper near.

But the awful voice of God

Proclaimed his only Son;

And all prayer is vain and powerless,
Except through Him alone.

G

And if such it be with saints,

Whom we know to be in heaven,
How vain the dream by saintly aid
To have our sins forgiven.

Jesus, our blessed Lord!

Our griefs, our weakness see,
And teach us in the hour of prayer,

To seek but only Thee."

A. E.

THE COUNSELLINGS OF WINTER.

So thou art here again, grey winter! with thy rough-tongued torrents, and thy madly rushing winds; -torrents driving away the sand-drifts, and winds stripping the leafage from the strong oak, and shewing us the bare heart of things.

What dost thou here, with thy mantle of crimping frost and thy bright night of stars? What meanest thou by the harsh thunders of thy hoarse voice, and the searching intensity of thy breath? Why so wrathfully dost thou tear the green robe of summer, and scatter its fragments? Hast thou no word to whisper to the weary ?—no God's word for the strong? Art thou a Boanerges, with preachings of thunder for the false doer? Or, art thou a boasting blusterer, wallowing in thine own pomposities?

Brothers, this same winter has come again as of yore: we will keep company with him a little;-question him, if haply he hath any word of wisdom for us. There are everywhere mystic-written, mystic-spoken lessons of Truth; spoken and written, as never man spake or wrote, in the things that are by a Divine emplanting. Is the rush of the storm no more to us than a confusion of noise? Gazing on the leafless oak do we see nothing more than the bare tree?

Let

us unstop our ears and remove the scales from our eyes; that we may hear with our ears, and see with Let us step aside from the dust and noise of the traffickers, and stand awhile with our own true self, face to face, with this grim winter.

our eyes.

Well then, mark how yonder forest, which the summer had dressed in such gay covering of leaves, is now bare; nothing visible but naked trunks and boughs:- -a fit home for the howling winds. But this is not all; the foundation of the thing is made manifest; it is the day of trial-the searching of whatever is firm at base.

Brothers, there is a winter for us all, for all our work; an unpitying, keen-eyed penetration to the very core of all that we say or do. There is a strong wind which will blow on us and strip us of all that is mere verbiage, and expose the real heart of us, whether oak or otherwise.

This day has been to the men of the past, or is yet in store for them. It came to him of wild words-Byron. It scattered the rich foliage of his musical words. We seek the real foundation of him.

Modern echo of the cry of him who wrote on all earthly experiences, "This also is vanity," what question dost thou answer for us in the mysteries of life? What truth-message hast thou for us? "Flowers, flowers."—Yes, yes; very good as the nestling-place of summer breezes. But give us something which will outlive the stern winter-some real oak that will outstand the day of trial that is coming on every one.

Thou art weighed in the balance, O Poet of heartbitterness and strife. And the sentence of the thoughtful upon thee is, "Thou art wanting;-wanting in all that will enable us nobly to weather the storm and outlive vicissitudes. The saying of a wise man about thee is, "Young man, put down thy Byron."

But look you, brothers, to that sturdy and sound souled man, Milton. Stronger is he, for the blast that

uproots his fellows. This man has some royal and true oak in him. Winds high and mighty may rage; winter, with many purifying processes, may encompass him. But there is no mere leafage around this man. No sand drift is he. But wholly real and true, without show, without vanity; rooted in, and standing on the eternal Rock of Truth.

Let us build no Babel of Confusion; heaping strange speculations of the brain on dazzling flights of imagination; and thereby supposing we can reach the heavens. Let us build, slowly and surely upon a solid foundation, and that foundation the Rock of Ages; raising daily honest work, true and noble feelings, strong aspirations of a forgiven heart that loveth much. And thus, with Hope for our measuring-rod and Truth for our plummet, we will build our way to the great throne of God; mighty through Christ, which strengtheneth us by his Spirit in the inner man.

But look again, brothers. In the west is the sun struggling with the shadows of night. How wildly his blood-red hair is tossed on the winds. Note you that floating pillow cloud, catching the irradiations of his light, as on the diver's limbs glisten the pearls of the wave. Also the golden mist from the valley goes up as the breath of his nostrils where the sun strives with the night. But the strife is over; and the sun, with his vengeful looks, has sunk. No such strife in summer; when the sun sinks then, he sinks quiet as a child to rest.

Ah, my brothers! a hard struggle is there for us; many hard struggles, if we will live rightly and justly. It is better to sink into obscurity than live in unrighteous fame. Often with a small band shall we have to face him that cometh with thousands. Let us prefer manful death to unmanful life. And we may not consider that to be life which is filled with hypocrisy and dishonesty; nor call that death which is lowly, if it dwell with truth, and say to honesty, Thou art my sister.

Another word has Winter. That old and rotten trunk, with its lively and green covering of ivy, is a lesson for us.-Teaching us that around the most dilapidated, worn-out yesterday of things the activity of to-day may throw the garniture of seeming life.

How will it become us to look to the centre ;-to know what everything stands upon. Let no shows deceive us, nor words to which there are only leaves, and no real sound oak at core. "Rationalism, and other like words-let us see if they be not rotten. Let us strip off the veneer, and scrutinize if there be anything endurable beneath.

Winter has many other lessons for us, but we must learn, each one for himself. We must lay hold of him with a firm hand, and wrestle; and refuse to let him go until he speak some word of real meaning. And then we shall find that, notwithstanding his grisly beard and hard lined countenance, he is an angel of comfort. Bearsted.

S. G. D.

THE FLOWER-WOMAN'S EXPEDIENT.

BY THE AUTHORESS OF HOME LIFE."

[We can vouch for the substantial accuracy of this interesting narrative. It illustrates one of the phases of London labour amongst the poor, and shows that the heroism of doing right may be often met with in "the common walk of life."-ED.]

It was a fine summer morning, as Margaret Duncan, with her well-filled basket, went slowly along some of the quiet streets which are to be found in the outskirts of London. She was a pale thin-looking woman, tidily, but shabbily dressed, and her burden consisted of several fine plants, nearly in full flower, ranged in scarlet-coloured pots. Day after day Margaret might be seen, bent on the same fragrant but wearisome errand, that of disposing of her thriving roots. Sometimes she was very successful, and parted with most of her stock, and sometimes she