THE PROMPT GIRL.

And so my little reader God calls you away from all that is wrong, and sinful, and dangerous; and all that is sinful is dangerous. He does not say "Mind and take care that sin does not hurt you," but he says, "Come away from it-Come unto me and I will save you from all the danger of sin." And you should do as he bids you; for if you do you will be safe. R. E. G.

THE PROMPT GIRL.

THE prompt girl rises with the lark in the morning. When the grey dawn steals in at her window, she springs from her bed, and in a very few minutes she is dressed, and prepared to make her appearance in the family, to assist her mother if necessary; and if not needed there, to her study. She has done perhaps in fifteen or twenty minutes what a dilatory girl would be an hour and a half in doing, and did it equally as well. She never keeps the table waiting, and never comes after the blessing. She is never late at prayers; never late at school; never late at worship. And yet, she is never in a hurry. She redeems so much time by her promptness that she has as much as she needs to do everything well and in time. She saves all the time the dilatory girl spends in sauntering and considering what to do next, in reading frivolous matters out of the proper time for reading, and gazing idly at vacancy.

This good habit, our young readers will perceive, must be of great advantage to every one who possesses it as long as she lives. It is, however, within the reach of all. Only carry out the idea we have given of promptness one day, and then repeat it every day, and in a little time the habit is established.

THE DYING BOY.

I REMEMBER a little boy who used to come and sit on a form at the Sunday school, but now he is there no longer. He was taken ill, and he died in three days. He loved Jesus. While he was lying on his bed in great pain, he began to sing, "Jesus said, Suffer the little children to come unto me.' His mother, who was close by, said, "George, you should not sing that, it is scripture." "O yes I may,” the little boy replied, "teacher tells me so.' Soon after, he said, "Mother, I am going to join William;" alluding to a little brother of his who had died before; and soon after he too died, but his soul, no doubt, went to that happy land where there shall be no more death. R. E. G.

LITTLE CHILD'S MORNING HYMN.

THE morning bright,

With rosy light,

Has waked me from my sleep;

Father, I own

Thy love alone

Thy little one doth keep.

All through the day,

I humbly pray,

Be thou my guard and guide;

My sins forgive,

And let me live,

Blest Jesus, near thy side.

O make thy rest

Within my breast,

Great Spirit of all grace;

Make me like thee,

Then I shall be

Prepared to see thy face!

THE HERMITS.

You have read the account we have given in former pages of the "First Crusade to the Holy Land," which was got up by the zeal of Peter the French Hermit. These hermits were men who in those dark ages pretended to great piety and devotion. They would leave their home and friends and go and dwell in some cave of a rock far away from all the world, living on roots, and fruits, and water, and sleeping on the bare ground. By so doing, and by their prayers and sufferings they foolishly hoped to purchase favour of God. Not knowing, or wilfully forgetting, that the Word of God had said, bodily exercise profiteth nothing, and, that by the deeds of the law shall no flesh living be justified. Jesus Christ suffered for us, the just for the unjust to bring us unto God. The Lord hath laid, (or heaped together) upon him the iniquities of us all. By his stripes we are healed. This is enough. All that all the men upon earth could suffer would not make amends for one sin. But the blood of Jesus Christ his son cleanseth us from all sin. What a good thing it is, my young friends, that we know all this.

Sometimes these hermits, in their solitary cells, would fancy they heard voices and saw visions: sometimes they dreamed that some departed saint came and told them to go and do some strange thing. Peter was under some such delusion as this; and so was another of these men, who lived about 400 years after Peter, named Ignatius Loyola, the son of a Spanish nobleman, born in 1491. At sixteen years of age, being a fine looking youth, he was sent to the court of the king and queen of Spain, Ferdinand and Isabella. He afterwards became a soldier, and at the siege of Pampeluna distinguished himself by his courage and boldness in defending the place. He was wounded, a cannon ball having broken one leg, and a splinter of a stone having struck the other.

As soon as he could be removed with safety, he was carried to the castle of Loyola, at a short distance from Pampeluna. His surgeons were now persuaded that it was necessary to break the bones anew, in order to replace them into their natural position, having been badly set, or jolted out of place by the movement of the journey. Ignatius submitted to the operation without a groan. The result was nearly fatal. A violent fever ensued: he was given over by his medical attendants.

Not content with this evidence of courage, he suffered with the same heroism the sawing off of a bony substance, which had formed below the knee; and when the right leg threatened to become too short, he submitted to the painful operation of having his limb stretched by a machine of iron.

In order to relieve his weary hours while confined to his bed, he asked for a book. He wanted a romance-some work of chivalry. There was none at hand. They brought him the Life of Christ and the Lives of the Saints instead. The latter, very naturally, fixed his attention, so full of adventure and strange achievements. He read, and pondered as he read, and then his musing struck off a bright idea. "What if I were to do what St. Francis did? What St. Dominic achieved ?"

This man also imagined that some apparition appeared to him, bidding him give himself up to a life of religious devotion. His relations observed with alarm the change which these books produced in his mind; and vainly endeavoured to divert him from the thoughts they awakened. His resolution, however, was firm; and as soon as the state of his leg. permitted, he set out on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. The money he obtained from his eldest brother for the journey, he bestowed on the poor, and was obliged in consequence to proceed on foot to the city of Barcelona. On his way thither he took the vow of everlasting chastity, in the chapel of our lady of Mont

THE HERMITS.

serrat, (a Benedictine monastery not far from Barcelona) "in order to render himself agreeable to the virgin before whom he was about to appear," and "to ratify the grace which he had received in the apparition." He visited the monastery at Barcelona, confessed to the priest, and next morning at daybreak hung up his sword and dagger on a pillar near the virgin's altar, and proceeded onward to Manreza. He travelled from village to village, dependent on the alms of others, until he arrived at his destination, where he went to lodge at the hospital, feeling an excess of satisfaction at seeing himself in the number of beggars, its inmates. To conform himself to their manner of life, he begged his bread from door to door; and that no one might be able to discover his quality by a certain air, which persons well-born preserve even in rags, he studied the gross manners of those with whom he lived at the hospital, and forced himself not only to imitate them, but even to improve upon what he had remarked most loathsome in them. He succeeded in this attempt admirably. His filthy hair hung in disorder, and concealed one half of his face; his beard as long, as much neglected, and as filthy as his hair, covered the other half; this with his nails, which he suffered to grow to a frightful length, so much disguised him, that he had rather the appearance of a bear, than a human creature. He was, indeed, so frightful, and so ridiculous at the same time, that when he appeared, the children would point him out to each other, and follow him through the streets with loud outcries; the women, of whom he asked charity, took flight, scared at his horrible figure; the gay made him their jest, and the grave were of opinion that he ought to be sent to the mad-house. He suffered all their insults with marvellous patience, and even affected to be more stupid than he really was, that he might excite more wonder, and have more occasions of mortifying those emotions of pride