"Bro. II, if you are willing to ring the bell, we will continue to hold the school, as before, let us sing Onward Go," -everything seemed glorified and our hearts were full of love and praise. We felt a renewed desire to be among His people "as one that serveth." To be faithful in just whatever came to our hands to do.

And as the rollicking baby crept up on one of the desks and into his father's arms, taking strong hold of the book and singing lustily though hardly in tune, we thought of what had been said upon our way: "When my boy is old enough to go to Sunday school, I will take him by the hand and go with him." Like Cap'n

Cuttle "I made a note o' that," and thought if all fathers and mothers felt the same way our Sunday schools would be crowded.

Young men and maidens, remember there are plenty such places as this where little ones are already enrolled as "King's Soldiers." They are willing to learn, willing to serve, but the cause languishes. for want of a little helpful encouragement, such as was given the A-school that day, for want of an electric presence that will stir the people to feel a growing need of their faithful attendance at Sabbath school. Is not that a call for you? "Blessed forever that ye answer Him."

"In this pent sphere of being incomplete-
The imperfect fragment of a beauteous whole-
For yon rare regions where the perfect meet,
Sighs the lone soul-

Sighs for the perfect! Fair and far it lies:
It hath no half-fed friendships perishing fleet,
No partial insight, no averted eyes,
No loves unmeet."

WE

are

E never see daisies by the dusty roadside soiled and stained and switched .agged by passing vehicles without thinking how many human lives there are, white in their opening years as the leaves of the snowy blossom, but, alas, soon soiled and stained by things from which they cannot escape, until they trampled under foot as an unlovely thing; and we never think of these things without lifting the voice of thanksgiving and praise to God who reserves to himself the right to judge his creatures and who will judge them aright. For we are constrained to believe that he would look upon the ragged flower and see no stain and that upon many a one, blighted and soiled by the influences of early life, there would fall only his glance of loving pity and encouragement as he said, "Neither do I condemn thee."

We have a story to tell, one of ordinary, everyday life, neither all dark nor all bright.

Across our northern borders, in Her Majesty's domains, some years ago there lived a little family of four, the father and mother, a son and daughter. There are men whose energy and love of order so predominate in their natures as to

There

give them a manner of austerity. are men who, all their lives have, by this very energy, been leaders and commanders among men and more has been seen of the strength and ruggedness of their natures than of the gentleness and tenderness that yet may have been there. And there are men, even in their years of old age, who have all their lives been undisciplined in many things, whose lives have never yielded the best of which they were capable as harps whose richest. strings have seldom been touched, whose sweetest strains have seldom been heard.

Such was the father of this family, a man who by his industry and economy had made good provision for his family and laid by well in store for the days of age, a man who, while he loved his children, let them feel oftener the restraint of his authority than his loving interest in them, a man who, years before, had turned from the narrow religious creed of his fathers, but had taken none in its stead, satisfied to live well this life and leave the future to care for itself. To live well means different things in different communities and with different people. We mourn for a child who comes up in a home where he is taught to hope for no more than this life holds, to fear no law higher than that of man, whose only guide is his conscience and the precepts handed to him by his parents.

It was in this way that the boy George West grew up, a boy of activity and in

telligence, of merry heart and pleasant face, a boy whose love of fun often led him into ways dangerous for the young feet to travel, whose boyish escapades sometimes brought upon him the displeasure of his father and the earnest reproof of his mother.

Yet what more could be expected of him? True his home was quiet, well regulated, and orderly, all things were provided with neatness and care, but when he stepped over the threshold what did he take with him to guide him in his choice of pleasure, to keep words of truth on his tongue and purity of life before his eyes?

Had he been a dull boy, slow of comprehension, had he been deformed or of inferior appearance, many a temptation might have passed him by, but our bright, quick boys, our impulsive, generoushearted boys, often more sensitive than their happy-go-lucky ways would indicate, how many pitfalls lurk for their heedless feet, how many allurements dazzle their young eyes!

One thing he did take with him out into the world and to the end of his life, the memory of a good mother, the vision of a face that came to him, the sound of a loving voice saying to him, "My son, remember your good resolutions;" a mother, who in her earnest solicitude taught him the best things she knew, but how truthfully might that boy have said to her, how truthfully might many a child say to its parents, not in bitter tones, but in pity and regret for lost opportunities, for the lack of wise direction, of proper counsel, and correct teaching, "Your childhood was much like mine, I suppose. So much the worse for both of

To be more plainly understood we may say that her paternal ancestors had been among those men who for freedom of conscience and liberty of worship had endured the vicissitudes of the French Reformation, for liberty and peaceful enjoyment of their right to follow the dictates of reason they had left their own sunny land and made themselves new homes in the land of freedom, and down through the years had descended to this daughter as an inheritance from her forefathers the virtues developed and cultivated in their battles with pioneer life, the patient endurance, the steady courage,

the peace-loving disposition, while time and the modifying influences of surroundings and intermarriage with those of other races and religions had cooled the Huguenot enthusiasm until in her childhood there was left for her a simple faith in God and a reverence for the traditions of her fathers.

She had endeavored to do for her children the part of a dutiful mother, but alas, too often had she learned that the indifference of her husband to religious matters weakened her instructions which, at best, were based upon a very imperfect understanding of God's law.

The boy, George, went astray. There came a time when the hot young blood rose against the father's austerity and he went out from the home into the wide world, away from the restraining motherlove, without the fear of God in his heart, at the mercy of his own inexperience and indiscretion.

"Think of the feet that fall by misdirection, Of noblest souls to loss and ruin brought, Because

Of what? Because in the early days when the heart was pure and fresh, the law of God was not written in it, and the young mind, that eager, restless thing, yearning and striving to know, to learn, to struggle out into the sunlight of truth, was not fed with food convenient for it, with the sincere milk of the word. God only knows how to pity when they fall an easy prey to the snares of the enemy of men's souls, when they are led captive by the bright glitter of false pleasures and whirled away with the gay throng that dance away time to strains of entrancing music, that fill their hours with the excess of things wherein is sin, that spend their money for that which is not bread and their labor for that which satisfieth not.

God only knows how to pity them, for many a strict-going Pharisee of modern days veils as much selfishness and impurity of life under his cloak of religion as do those upon whom he looks as "sinners," whom he would not welcome to his home, to whom he would not extend his friendship until they were willing to be obedient to what his mind conceived to be the law. The same envy and malice and jealousy that lurk under the smiles and blushes and soft words of the ballroom split many a church into factions

and set one member at variance with another; and many a glad, happy young life finds its way among the mazes of worldly pleasure because it sees nothing attractive in the chill formality and dull monotony of so-called religious life, because it wants life and animation and beauty, because it hears often the voice. of prayer from those who "do not the will" of Him they profess to serve, because it sees selfishness where should be liberality, and narrow creed where should be broad charity.

Interesting no doubt as it would be to follow the young man as he grappled with the experiences that met him as he went forth with only his vigorous young arm and his quick brain to depend upon, we may not notice his vicissitudes of fortune until we find him in a little sleepy village clinging to the foot of a pinecovered bluff on the shores of one of our northern lakes.

The young have naturally in them a love for the novel, the romantic, and it was something of the kind that stirred in the breast of our young prodigal and took him to the place we have mentioned, a lumbering village of Northern Michigan.

In one of the large cities to which the schooners ran that carried the lumber to its depot, he had made the acquaintance of a young man about his own age whose father had been sent by the firm engaged in that business to take charge of the lumbering interests in the village named, and in the mutual exchange of confidence, the young stranger had talked freely of home, and at times had read to him portions of home letters and had shown to him when it came, the picture of a sister, next younger than himself, a girl of nineteen, and that pictured face it was that took him to S

Through the influence of his young friend, he obtained employment in the mill, necessarily doing at first the "laboring work" as it was called by those whose understanding of the industry had advanced them to higher work and better pay.

How his face burned and the flush mounted from his cheeks to his forehead when, one day, soon after his arrival, a group of ladies passed about the yards. and through the mill and, glancing up for just a moment as they approached, he saw the one who, all unconsciously to

herself, had already been an influence in. his life and who was to bring to him and receive from him, deepest pleasure and deepest pain.

They paused slightly beside him and he felt that her eyes rested upon his face that had crimsoned over his menial position as thought sped back to his father's house and contrasted the station of a son with the one he occupied now.

Just a pause and they passed on, but how truly it is said that we are a part of all we meet. Some there are, indeed, whose influence for good or its opposite we may hardly be sensible of, and some there are whose influence has been great in lifting us up to a life higher and truer than we could have known without them, while others have laid upon us the detaining hand that would prevent our rising to the heights that had no attraction for them. Webster says: "I thank God, that, if I am gifted with little of the spirit which is able to raise mortals to the skies, I have yet none, as I trust, of that other spirit, which would drag angels down."

But we must leave Webster and the thoughts of his matured mind and come back to our narrative, and we return to the thread of the story, feeling with sadness that for many, "Youth is a blunder; manhood a struggle; old age a regret."

George had blundered often, more frequently in the year that had passed since he left home, in ways that reproved him when he thought of that home. And does anyone think that thoughts of home did not come to him often, that no yearning for its rest and peace came into his soul? Does anyone think he was always satisfied

"Midst the crowd, the hum, the shock of men, To hear, to see, to feel, and to possess, And roam along, the world's tired denizen, With none who blessed him, none whom he could bless."

There's many a boy, wandering about in this wide world who has not the eloquence of the poet to tell, who perhaps. could hardly tell himself in homely words. the meaning of that lonely feeling that comes over him at times, the feeling that he is friendless, that no one would care if he dropped out of the great, busy, careless crowd, that no one would miss him. If they only knew the great tender heart of the Father above, if they only knew

his loving pity, so many might not grow hardened and desperate and lost to the finer feelings and impulses, and more of them would know of him, more of them could understand his love, if more of the same spirit dwelt in human breasts, if more of us could remember that to step aside is human; for "more helpful than all wisdom is one draught of human pity that will not forsake us."

But our story, to be true, will not have it so. The country society of the village of S gathered of all the classes represented in it into its little circle, and so it was that in all social gatherings, at church and in her home, George and the young girl met and were conscious each that the presence of the other was added pleasure, but pleasure that was hardly known until pain came swiftly in its footsteps.

How inconsistent is the heart! Is this young man of whom we write the only one who has ever seen and approved the better but followed the worse? Were those who sat in judgment upon him the only ones who have ever forgotten to be merciful with others because they forgot their own infirmities?

"In life it is difficult to say who do the most mischief, enemies with the worst intentions, or friends with the best," and it is difficult sometimes for man to know just how far it is right to interfere or to interpose barriers between two that love each other.

On first acquaintance George was received into the home heartily, but evasive answers regarding his past called forth suspicion from some and the little blaze was quickly fanned into a greater one by the jealousy of some with whom he worked and who saw in him one not made to stand in the rear, but the only sad thing to tell is that the folly that leads many a young man astray, the foolish fear of ridicule led him when in the company of the rude and unrefined to do such things as they did, and when his employer began to speak to him gruffly and to frown upon his visits to the home, it stirred up in him the unlovely traits of his nature.

And yet who can tell what might have been if some kind, true man with a fatherly heart had stood beside him to counsel him just then, to help him to be patient? As it was he endured much for the sake of the one to whose grave eyes he could hardly lift his own when

she told him how disappointed and sad she was to hear the rumors that came to her ears, some of which he did not attempt to deny or excuse, when she said to him, "I want to help you to grow as beautiful as God meant you to be when he thought of you first."

If all had been as patient with him, it might have been fruitful of good, but all had not in their hearts the love of which such patience was born, and things only grew more gloomy and dreary until he thought she, too, had turned away, and, unable to bear the thought in patience, The wounded the one true heart that loved him and went away.

No one heard a cry of pain, no one heard a word of complaint, but quietly she went about her duties and suppressed the pain that would come, pain not so much over the separation, but pain because she could not, dared not close her eyes to the fact that he was far below the standard of true manhood.

"Tho' the heart of woman loveth oft
A thing she doth unwillingly despise.
It is a pitiful, imperfect love that hath not
For its corner stone the rock of Faith."

And yet this love lived on through years, not love that was satisfied with the imperfections of its object, but love that hoped, love that looked and prayed for the time when that imperfect character should become purified and educated by the experience of life until it should be worthy of perfect love.

The poet says that "affection never was wasted, that if it enrich not the heart of another, its waters returning back to their springs, like the rain, shall fill them full of refreshment." Life is not to be wasted; and dark as the cloud may be that obscures the brightness of its morning, we have no right to fold our hands in idle melancholy.

The fruitful branch is pruned that it may bear more fruit, and it seems that some hearts are deprived of the things they might idolize in order that their affections may so go out to those about them that many may be blessed instead of few.

No trial that is placed upon us, no evil with which we come in contact, can work injury to us if we are willing to hold ourselves in submission to the will of God and to accept his providence with meekness, and we believe that the heart of the