All our over-much love of being admired, or being amused, comes under the head of "vain pomp and glory," or, as it is called in the Catechism, "pomps and vanity of this wicked world ;" and many young people are ruined by these. Remember that verse of the 119th Psalm, "O turn away mine eyes, lest they behold vanity; and quicken Thou me in Thy way." Trust me, Ann, you will find abundant cause to remember that prayer, and to repeat it fervently.

A. I will learn it by heart, if you like.

R. Yes, do. You have also promised to renounce "all covetous desires," such as servants indulge by making the most of every little advantage in the way of money; and sometimes they excuse themselves from helping those who are in real want-even their own relations,-by saying they have to work for their living. However, as far as I have known of servants, I do not think want of charity is such a common fault with them as that we come to next-that of selfindulgence. You have renounced "all the carnal desires of the flesh." Be careful that you do not exceed in eating and drinking, just because it is at your master's expense; and if you get into a comfortable place, do not think too much of your comforts.

A. I learnt some texts, when I was at school, about all the different parts of the

baptismal vow; about what we renounce, what we are to believe, and what we are to do. But I am afraid I have forgotten them

now.

R. I can find you a collection of texts on these subjects: it is in Hele's "Offices of Devotion," for Monday noon. You sometimes write in your copybook of an evening to keep up your writing; you may copy out these texts.

A. I shall like to do it. I hope always to find time-on Sundays at least to read books which give an account of all the duties we have to do. How happy I shall be a few years hence, if I can find I have done all I ought, Sunday duties as well as workingday duties!

R. I am quite sure you will not find you have done all. In fact, the more people get on in the way of improvement, the more they find how much they have left undone. I believe the best Christians feel most deeply what they say in the confession, "we have left undone those things which we ought to have done."

A. So, after all, we never can be easy about ourselves.

R. We never could, without the thought of God's mercy through Christ. We never can be quite easy in this world, I should think. But if we find we are getting more

unworldly, more humble, that we love God more, and look more and more to the help of His Holy Spirit,-is not this happiness enough in this world; and to have the hope of perfect happiness in another, when this is past? But, dear Ann, even if you were to do all your duties more exactly than most people

A. I know what you are going to say; what I was told at school. All depends on the spirit in which you do them, the end you have in doing them, that was what Miss Seymour said.-O, Rachel! look at the clock. I ought to have been putting the dinner on the table. I forgot myself.

R. Never mind; it is all right. I saw Ellen go into the other room, and I knew that she was gone to set the dinner-things; and I was not sorry to see you changing places-you sitting still, and she doing the work.

A. To say the truth, I was glad to sit still; for I did not tell you how I carried the baby a part of the way home. The godmother seemed tired; and I am sure its mother was not fit to carry it. So I offered to take it, and they said it was a great help to them.

Ann. Will you come out in the garden with me, Rachel? It is quite a fine evening,

though it is February; the birds are singing too, and it is snug and pleasant under the old nut-tree hedge. We can finish our morning's talk,-I mean about remembering our baptismal vow.

Rachel. We have also to remember what was done for us--what we were made in baptism.

A. You mean the second answer in the Catechism: " My baptism, in which I was made a member of Christ, a child of God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven." R. There is enough in that answer to think of all our lives.

A. But they are thoughts that seem, as it were, above our heads. The very first beginning, being made members of Christ,-I never seemed to understand that thoroughly.

R. I suppose no Christians do understand that thoroughly, unless it may be the blessed saints who are "with Christ" our Lord: only I know that I have always found it open upon me more and more every year; and so I hope it may go on growing upon me, and that if I live better, I may understand it better. But it is a blessing to think what depth of mystery there is in those words-which we can say so quickly, which children say before they can speak plain, but which tell of the very life of our souls. And the deeper are the thoughts belonging

to this, the more must one dread to go wrong after baptism.

A. I wish you would say more to me about this.

R. You remember by what likenesses our being members of Christ is expressed in the Bible?

A. Yes; I had to write that out once from a catechism which was too difficult for me then. [She stands still and repeats.] "The visible Church has been compared

To a flock, of which Christ is the good Shepherd.

To the branches of a vine, which Vine is Christ.

To a bride, of whom Christ is the Bridegroom.

To a building, of which Christ is the chief Corner-stone.

To a body, of which Christ is the Head."

R. These teach us how nearly we belong to Him. Our Lord took upon Him our nature, that He might make us His; that He might pay the ransom for our sins, and then form to Himself "a peculiar people;" He intercedes for us, He offers up our prayers, He obtains pardon for our infirmities, He makes our services acceptable to our heavenly Father. We know all this; and, knowing it, and thinking of it-dwelling on the thought of it, though it is beyond us,—