country. But though Lucy soon lost her roses and her buoyant step, yet she found in the city wilderness a new treasure-a living well of water-which made amends for all. Yes; she had been led to the knowledge of Him of whom she had often dimly read in the law and the prophets; but whom she had never till now beheld as the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world."

It was wonderful to mark how rapidly she, henceforth, grew in the knowledge of God's word. Having found Jesus, she had found the one master-key which unlocks the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. One by one these hidden stores poured forth their riches into the bosom of the young disciple; and her retentive memory easily treasured up what her simple faith received. Ah! she little knew how soon the time would come when the lessons of faith must be put into practice, and when she would be called to take up her heavy cross and bear it after Jesus. Lucy knew well that her own cross could never work atonement for sin, or bring her near to God. There is but one cross of atonement, and this is Christ's. There is but one way of access unto God, and this is Jesus. But she found that, while patiently bearing her appointed cross, and stedfastly looking unto his, her own became wonderfully light, and his wonderfully precious.

But it is time to return to the night scene.

"Are you asleep, young woman ?" asked Barbara of her fellow invalid.

"What, then, makes you able to lie so quiet?"

"I was thinking about those dear women in the Gospel, who loved Jesus. Two of the evangelists say that they stood afar off,' watching their dying Lord. But St. John says that they stood by the cross of Jesus,' so close that they could hear what he said, and could talk with him. Now we are sure that both accounts are quite true-every word. And so I have been thinking that, at first, they stood at a distance, because, perhaps, they were afraid of the cruel mockers and murderers; and partly, perhaps. because they could hardly bear to look upon the agonies of the blessed Master whom they so loved. (One of them was his mother, you know.) But true love always is for drawing near; and so I think they grew less and less fearful, and more and more loving; and got nearer-nearer -nearer to Jesus, till at last they stood close by the cross,

and heard his dying words. And I was thinking that both you and I should try to draw near and nearer to the dying Saviour-near and nearer to the blood of sprinkling. We can't do so just in the same way as those holy women, who could see him with their eyes and hear him with their ears; but we can draw nigh to him with our hearts, and speak to him in our prayers, and hear him speak to us in his word and by his Spirit; and we can look in faith upon the precious blood, and ask the Lord to sprinkle it upon our hearts. You cannot think, till you try, how light all our crosses become in the shadow of the cross of Christ."

"I can't draw nigh. I don't know how to go," said Barbara, with the expression of quite a new anxiety on her troubled countenance.

"Then we will ask him to draw nigh to us," said Lucy. "You know" (she continued) "that the same Jesus who suffered death on the cross, is the risen Lord of life, at the Father's right hand, pleading for you and for me.”

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"For me?"

Lucy Fletcher did not leave the hospital "a helpless cripple," as the doctors had predicted; but a glorified, disembodied, ecstatic spirit, swelling the song of the redeemed around the throne of God.

The one woman was taken, and the other left.

Barbara was restored to health, and obtained a situation in a well-ordered Christian family.

She has never forgotten the night scene in the infirmary; and is now one of those who, in the face of many difficulties from within, and some trials from without, steadily endeavour to live nearer and nearer to the cross of Christ.

THE CORNISH SAILOR-BOY.

A PLEASANT sight it is to see the long green waves come in straight from the Atlantic, and break in silvery foam upon the dark rocks of Cornwall. A grand thing to hear them rumbling and roaring under one's feet, in some polished cavern of serpentine, more like a crypt of man's making than anything water-worn. And then to see those great waves come out again all vexed and fretted, with dash and foam, and return again to the deep, as if they heard, but tried to break the almighty law, which said, "Hitherto

shalt thou come, and no further; and here shall thy proud waves be stayed." How exactly, too, the psalmist's words are here set forth, "Thou stillest the noise of the waves,

and the tumult of the people!"

Close to one of the boldest points of that rocky shore, lived an elderly woman, who had learned to look up and to see the Creator's work in the true light. She was a simple, humble disciple; loving much, and knowing very little beyond that "better part" which Mary sat at Jesus' feet to learn. But she had a sad trial-one unsteady son, a wild, bad lad, whom nothing could tame or control. It was in the days of birch rule, too. The village schoolmaster never spared the rod to spoil the child; rather he spoiled many a child by the unsparing abuse of the rod. Young James, in his father's time, came in for double duty in this line; but it did him no good, but harm. Be sure, dear friends, who are tried by rebellious children, it will do no good to try to beat them into obedience. That remedy, unless used in fullest subservience to the law of love, only goes skin-deep; or, at most, only reaches the bodily nerves, while the mind is set the harder against the rule of brute force.

This poor widow knew of a mightier power-the strength of patience, and love, and prayer. She wisely gave tether to her troublesome boy. His heart was set upon the sea, and to sea she let him go.

"Ah! but it was a sad thing," she said, "to see him go, when his father had gone to sea before him, and never came back again; but there was no help for it. He would go; and I prayed that, please God, he might be took up by them big waters, and tossed, like, into a better mind and sure enough he was!"

"Do tell me how it happened."

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Why, he never was used to hardship. I always had his pasty for him, and his dry clothes when he came in from bal; and he wasn't a strong lad, neither; so he took badly to them wettings and blowings out to sea, and when they big waves I used to watch after he was gone com'd over that deck, his poor mother was not there to give him a dry coat. So, ma'am-well, he took cold, and had the rheumatics dreadful bad."

"Poor fellow! he must have wished for home then." "Ay; he did that-swinging like a baby in a ham

*The mine.

mock, and groaning with pain. He never read his Bible till then, that I put into his box, but it com'd out when there was nothing else for him to do, and he read it, poor chap; and here it is. He cried over it, you see, ma'am. Perhaps it was better for him that his mother was not there. She'd have gone to comfort him up, like, too soon; and he was forced to go to the dear Saviour at once.'

"He would remember what you had taught him when he was a little child, I dare say.'

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Yes, ma'am, he did; and the bits of Scripture, and some hymns, too. They put him ashore when the ship came to land. He had to be carried like a child. He was so changed, none but his mother knew him-and the big sheep-dog. He knew him, though his brothers and sisters didn't. Them be queer, knowing things-them dogs. I wish I was as true and loving as they be, when once they've set their heart upon their master."

"I hope your poor lad recovered under your kind care?" "No, ma'am. 'Twas not God's will he should. He knowed he would be better off and safer up there than here with me; so he took him."

"Was it a happy end?"

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Very. The rheumatics all went away; but a bad cough came, and a waste, and 'twere no manner of use to give him the nicest things. I could not nourish him; for you know, ma'am, without God blesses our food, it does us no good-nothing will. He fancied seald-cream at first; and thought there was nothing would do him so much good as some of the cream from the old Guernsey cow, he used to fetch home from the croft for his mother to milk. He thought of that when he was out at sea, and had nought to make use of but salt beef and biscuit as hard as them bits of granite. Howsoever, nothing could save him. He suffered powers of pain; but he always used to say, 'God knows exactly what I can bear, and he won't send me a single pain more than he sees I need: God's way is the best way.' He used to pray and praise by nights when he couldn't sleep. He went home at last; and I know I shall meet my boy there, some day."

"And your other children?"

"Thank God, they're all doing well.

The only one I

couldn't manage he took out of my hands. I know it was his doing, and so did my poor boy."

This cheerful, trusting mother was thus able to rejoice

in sorrow. She had a very pleasant countenance, as of one who was often wont with joy to draw water out of the wells of salvation." In her story we find an encouraging example to pray, where we cannot help ourselves; to trust, where we do not see; to be thankful, even when the blessing comes with an attendant trial.

If she had followed an opposite course, and had used severity instead of prayerful love, how different might have been the result. He would have carried with him no tender thoughts of home; the Bible would have been hateful to him, because connected with thoughts of hard usage. Above all, who ever trusted in the Hearer of prayer, and did not meet with an answer of blessing? for it is written, "He shall doubtless come again rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.”

I know few particulars of the son's sea life. The cold and roughness told on one already delicate and unused to hardship, though he led at home the simplest, plainest life. He was brought up on the heathy hills, and the surfacemine work was his employ-breaking up and parting the ore from its attendant rubbish. If he came home wet, he always found a change of clothes, dried by the turf fire in the wide chimney corner; and a comfortable bed, though it was helped out under the thin straw mattrass by a layer of sweet elastic heather. He seldom tasted meat. Pilchard and potatoes, or cakes baked under a kettle on the hearth, or a nice cold potatoe pasty, taken in a bag to the mine (bâl, they call it), were his meals. He had no excuse for disobedience; but when a restless spirit enters a young man, there is no saying how far, or how foolishly it will carry him away.

How much wisdom is there in the saying, Each one is called to do his duty in that station of life to which it has pleased God to call him. And still more clear is another, which comes from a higher source than man's best summing up, "Godliness with contentment is great gain." We may be sure that each position has its trials and its blessings; and He who sets the bounds of our habitations, best knows where and how to place us.

Young men, strive to fulfil your appointed duties cheerfully, in your appointed places-not breaking out, nor going beyond; lest the chastisement come upon you, as it did on poor James, of the Point.

His soul, we trust, reached its haven in peace, through