embraced him. His mother fainted; there was no more "spirit in her." What a happy evening they all, parents and children, spent! They did not want the mourning. The father could say with Jacob, "It is enough; my son is yet alive."

But what do you think will be the rejoicing in heaven, when those who were in danger of being lost for ever arrive safely on that happy shore. How will the angels rejoice, and the family of heaven be glad! Perhaps when some of you will hereafter go to heaven, your fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, will welcome you and say, "I am delighted to see you safe." Welcome! welcome! You will not go there like the boy with a cap and clothes of which he was ashamed, but in garments of salvation, white as snow, with crowns of glory that fade not away. And what must you do to be ready to enter heaven when you die? Think what it is; and then do it.

you

But remember the great multitude of heathen children, who have never heard a word about heaven, and who do not know that there is any Saviour for lost men. Suppose you had seen that Liverpool boy carried out to sea by the tide. How would you have pitied him! Then suppose had seen the water full of boys, all drifting out beyond the reach of human help. How would your spirit have died within you? When you should have turned away and gone home, how sad you would have felt! No "pleasant bread" could you have eaten that night. But all the children in heathen lands are drifting hopelessly onward-can you tell whither?—The Dayspring.

VARIETIES.

WOMAN IN AFFLICTION.

I have very often had occasion to remark the fortitude with which women sustain the most overwhelming reverses of fortune. Those disasters which break down the spirit of man, and prostrate him in the dust, seem to call forth all the energies of the softer sex, and give such intrepidity and elevation to their character, that at times

it approaches to sublimity. Nothing can be more touching than to behold a soft and tender female, who has been all weakness and dependence, and alive to every trivial annoyance while treading the prosperous paths of life, suddenly rising in mental force to be the comforter and support of her husband under misfortune, and abiding with unshrinking firmness the bitterest blast of adversity. As the vine, which has twined its graceful foliage around the oak, and has been lifted by it in the sunshine, will, when the hardy tree is rifted by the thunderbolt, cling round it with its caressing tendrils, and bind up his shattered boughs, so it is beautifully ordained by Providence that woman, who is the mere dependent and ornament of man in his happier hours, should be his stay and solace when smitten with sudden calamity, winding herself into the rugged recesses of his nature, tenderly supporting the drooping head, and binding up the broken heart.-Washington Irving.

THE BEAUTIFUL MYSTERY OF INFANCY.

There is no sentiment more natural to thoughtful minds than that of reverence for childhood. Many sources both of mystery and love meet in the infant life. A being so fresh from non-existence seems to promise us some tidings of the origin of souls; a being so visibly pressing forward into the future makes us think of their tendency. While we look on the "child as the father of the man," yet | cannot tell of what kind of man, all the possible varieties of character and fate appear for the moment to be collected into that diminutive consciousness; that which may be the germ of any if felt as though it were the germ of all; the thread of life, which from our hand that holds it, runs here through passages where poverty crawls, there to the fields where glory has its race; here to the midnight lake where meditation floats between two heavens, there to the arid sands where passion pants and dies. Infancy is so naturally suggestive, it is the representative of such various possibilities, that it would be strange did we not regard it with a feeling of wonder.

APPRECIATION OF THE LIVING.

Let us not forget, that if honour be for the dead, gratitude can only be expressed to the living. He who has once stood beside the grave, to look back upon the companionship which has been for ever closed, feeling how impotent, there, are the wild love, and the keen sorrow, to give one instant's pleasure to the pulseless heart, or atone in the lowest measure to the departed spirit for the hour of unkindness, will scarcely for the future incur that debt to the heart which can only be discharged to the dust. But the lesson which men receive as individuals, they do not learn as nations. Again and again they have seen their noblest descend into the grave, and have thought it enough to garland the tombstone when they had not crowned the brow; and to pay the honour to the ashes which they had denied to the spirit. Let it not displease them that they are bidden, amidst the tumult and the dazzle of their busy life, to listen for the few voices, and watch for the few lamps, which God has toned and lighted to charm and to guide them, that they may not learn their sweetness by their silence, nor their light by their decay.-John Ruskin.

SLEEPING IN CHURCH.

Some persons, who are accustomed to enjoy comfortable naps in church, would have fared badly had they lived in the days of Queen Elizabeth of England. Drowsy hearers did not come off so easily as they do now. On the contrary, every person who went to sleep during divine service, was required on the Sunday following, immediately after the reading of the Gospel, to stand up in the "middle alley," and with a loud voice read a formal confession. As record was made of such cases, we find the following confession to have been made by John Apsland, of Witcham, who, it seems, was one of those sleepy-heads of his day:-"Good neighbours, I acknowledge and confess I have offended Almighty God, and by my evil example you all; that I used to sleep in the church, for which I am most heartily sorry; and I ask God and you

all, most heartily, forgiveness for the same, promising with God's help, never to offend hereafter in the like again." The church officers afterwards certified that John had "done his penance," but whether he kept awake afterwards the historian does not relate.

ADVERTISEMENT OF A LOST DAY.
Lost! lost! lost!

A gem of countless price,
Cut from the living rock,

And graved in Paradise;
Set round with three times eight
Large diamonds, clear and bright,
And each with sixty smaller ones,
All changeful as the light.
Lost!-where the thoughtless throng
In fashion's mazes wind,
Where thrilleth folly's song,
Leaving a sting behind;
Yet to my hand 'twas given

A golden harp to buy,

Such as the white-robed choir attune
To deathless minstrelsy.

I feel all search is vain;
That gem of countless cost

Can ne'er be mine again.

I offer no reward,

For till these heart-strings sever,
I know that heaven-entrusted gift
Is reft away for ever.

But when the sea and land

Like burning scroll have fled,
I'll see it in His hand

Who judgeth quick and dead.
And when of scathe and loss

That man can ne'er repair,
The dread inquiry meets my soul,

What shall it answer there?

THE YOUTH THAT WAS HUNG.

The sheriff took out his watch, and said, "If you have anything to say, speak now, for you have only five minutes to live." The young man burst into tears, and said, "I have to die. I had only one little brother: he had beautiful blue eyes, and flaxen hair, and I loved him; but one day I got drunk, for the first time in my life, and, coming home, I found my little brother gathering strawberries in the garden, and I became angry without a cause, and killed him at one blow with a rake. I did not know anything about it until the next morning, when I awoke from sleep and found myself tied and guarded, and was told that, when my little brother was found, his hair was clotted with blood and brains, and he was dead. Whiskey has done it. It has ruined me. I never was drunk but once. I have only one word more to say, and then I am going to my final Judge. I say it to young people, Never-never-nevertouch anything that can intoxicate!" As he pronounced these words, he sprang from the box, and was launched into an endless eternity.

HONESTY.

A little boy in America, whose sister was sick, and the family in want, found a wallet containing fifty dollars. The temptation was great to use the money; but he resolved to try to find the owner, and his mother strengthened him in the resolution. When the owner found it, and learned the circumstances, he gave the fifty dollars for the comfort of the family, and took the boy to live with him. That boy is now a prosperous merchant in Ohio.

WORDS AND THE HEART.

God hears the heart without words, but he never hears the words without the heart.

MACAULAY ON THE DESERTED VILLAGE."

A poet may easily be pardoned for reasoning ill; but he cannot be pardoned for describing ill, for observing the world in which he lives so carelessly that his portraits bear no resemblance to the originals, for exhibiting as copies from