Christian who had long been praying for his conversion and to whom he repaired after the meeting for sympathy and guidance, "I am lost! I am lost!” "I am glad to hear you say so," replied he, "for it was the lost that Jesus came to save. I have hope for you now, Robert, since you have no hope in yourself." The result of the interview was that Robert laid hold of Christ as freely offered to sinners in the gospel. His subsequent life demonstrated the reality of his conversion. Next day he openly and boldly confessed Christ amongst his fellow workmen, and from day to day onward throughout his future career he maintained a good confession, with life and conversation corresponding. Honestly, consistently, faithfully and zealously, he served God while he was in health, and patiently, yea, cheerfully, did he submit to the will of his heavenly Father during the long and lingering illness which preceded his decease. His latter end was peace. It was a pleasure to visit him during the time he was confined to the sick chamber, and never did I feel heaven so near as on the occasion of my last visit to him on the day before his death. Perceiving that his end was near, and wishing to carry his last message to the members of the Young Men's Christian Association, I told him I was to preach to them on the following Sabbath, and asked him if there was anything he would like to say to them before he departed. Drawing every breath with difficulty, he replied, "Be faithful to them; they are in a prosperous state in so far as numbers go; but I fear they are not prospering, of late, in the true sense of the word. It is called a Christian Association; that means that the members should all be converted; but this is not the case. They let the dead in amongst them and they affect the living and make the living very cold. Oh, be faithful with them; don't mince matters; they will thank you for it when they come so near eternity as I am now; nothing but being born again will be of any use to them on a death-bed. Tell them to be in earnest. It is an awful thing to be indifferent about the great realities of eternity. Oh, that they knew the love of God and the preciousness of Jesus!" A few hours after this interview, Robert "fell asleep." He had the full possession of his mental faculties up till the very last. And as his intellect experienced no eclipse, so neither did his faith. His sun went down in an unclouded sky; while standing at his bedside it was impossible to feel as if one were in the Valley of the Shadow of Death; it seemed rather as if one were with Bunyan's pilgrim on the hill Beulah, or standing with Moses on Pisgah within sight of the Promised Land. In his last hours he found great comfort from the hymns which he had been accustomed to sing in the days of his health, and he may be said to have passed through the gate of death into the realms of life with songs of praise upon his lips. "George," said he to the same friend already mentioned, and who was now sitting up all night with him, watching by his dying bed, "sing 'My Jesus, I love Thee; I know Thou art mine.'" And on coming to the third verse,— "I will love Thee in life, I will love Thee in death, And praise Thee as long as Thou lendest me breath; And say, when the death-dew lies cold on my brow, If ever I love Thee, my Jesus, 'tis now," he remarked, wiping the perspiration from his face as he spoke, "With all my heart I can sing this verse now; it just suits me." Making a supreme effort, he joined his companion in singing it to the end, and in a few minutes afterwards he was absent from the body and present with the Lord, employed, as we may well be permitted to imagine, in completing the hymn which the singing of had been for a moment interrupted by death: "In mansions of glory and endless delight And sing, with the glittering crown on my brow, Sabbath Thoughts. STRENGTH IN WEAKNESS. "Our sufficiency is of God."-2 Cor. iii. 5. MAN'S weakness, God's strength; man's foolishness, God's wisdom; man's poverty, God's riches. These are very often the themes of the apostle, but always in connection with the thought of God working in man. This thought humbles the pride of nature, and yet elevates the believing soul, for that which nature cannot do, divine grace is ever ready and able to do, and to grace be all the glory. In the passage here given, it is with regard to the apostle's ministry that he feels and owns his insufficiency even "to think anything as of ourselves;" and, if such was the case with an apostle, how much more is it ours? But the humbling confession does not for a moment discourage, it rather animates Paul in his work; "our sufficiency is of God; Who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament." He knew how strong was the power that worked in him and by him, and this knowledge enabled him to go on with all boldness in doing that work. It is not only the preacher and the teacher who have to learn this lesson, but every one whe, even in the humblest line, would do any work for Christ. Too often the humbling truth of our own insufficiency has to be brought home by painful experience of failure; self-conceit and self-esteem are unwilling to own the weakness of the creature, while unbelief is as unwilling to confess that in the Lord dwells all fulness of strength and of grace. And yet it is strange that any who have once laid their sins on Jesus, and looked to His Cross, can so far forget their own utterly lost estate by nature, and the work which He wrought out to rescue them, as to think that they can ever, without Him, think even a single good thought! "Without me ye can do nothing," is His own warning word. "By the grace of God I am what I am," is the answer of the believer. THE KNITTED JERSEY. Pages for the young. THE KNITTED JERSEY. CHAPTER I. Jenny wrung her dishcloth tight and took no notice. "I'm going, Jenny; do you hear me, woman, dear?" 143 for it, they loved God also, and tried to keep his commandments. Sometimes they failed grievously, as the most of us do too often; but still their faces were turned heavenward, and their hearts were loyal to their Heavenly King. Both Tom and Jenny had an infirmity of temper which sometimes interfered sadly with their happiness, and drove them to make each other miserable while the fit lasted. Tom's temper was hasty, soon on and soon off, as people say. But ELL, Jenny, I'm off to then, when it was on, he was apt to give utterance to very town." disagreeable things, and to be much rougher in his speech than at other times. He often told Jenny that she ought not to mind anything he said when in a passion, because he never really meant it. But Jenny always did mind it very much. Her temper was not hasty so much as sulky, or rather, what in a different rank of life would have been called sensitive, She had been the personal attendant of Mr. Ash's daughter, who had always treated her with great consideration, and from whom she had never heard an unkind word. When she found that her husband was less gentle with her than they had been, or than he had been himself before their marriage, she was grieved and disappointed; and when he spoke roughly to her, instead of giving him a soft answer or turning it off with a laugh, she allowed it to rankle, and went about with heavy eyes and downcast looks, not pleasant to see, and very different from her usual blithe countenance. That she heard him was evident enough, from her flushed and clouded countenance, but she kept her back turned to her husband, so that he could not see the tears dimming her eyes; and again she made no reply. Tom Hatton stood twirling his cap in his hand, uncertain what to do; not liking to leave his wife in the sulks, and yet too proud to bring her out of them, by acknowledging himself wrong in some hasty words he had spoken the previous night. When she continued her work in sullen silence, he stooped and kissed his little girl, who was seated on the floor supping porridge out of a tin. "Good-bye, Tina," he said, "You would not be cross with poor dad, and let him go away to Ballagh without saying good-bye." When two people of such tempers come together it needs God's grace to keep the root of bitterness from springing up between them; and strange to say, though Tom and Jenny both prayed regularly, they had never thought of asking God to cure their tempers. Besides being a good housewife, Jenny was very handy with her needle, and a clever knitter as well. She knitted socks for Tina immediately threw down the tin, and leaping up, put Tom and the children, and for other people also who paid her her plump little arms round his neck, saying"Good-bye, dad, dear dad; come home soon." And when the baby, who was also supping porridge, heard her, it began chopping with its spoon on the ground, shouting in vigorous imitation of Tina, "Dood-bye dad; deah dad, tum home toon." Tom took it up in his arms and kissed it also, while it drummed with the spoon on his head. Then with another glance at his wife's back, which was all she permitted him to see, he turned and left the house. No sooner did Jenny hear the door close behind him than she felt as if she would give all she had in the world to have him bid her good-bye as he had done the children. She knew she had only to go to the door and speak one word, to bring him back and make all right between them, and yet, foolish woman that she was, she allowed him to go without it. The tears, no longer kept by force of will in her eyes, rolled down her cheeks, but she brushed them away, and went on with her work of clearing the kitchen. Her heart was very heavy, but that did not hinder the deftness of her hands; fortunately, perhaps, for herself she had not much leisure for brooding over trouble, especially of her own making, which is the hardest of any to bear. Tom and Jenny were a young couple of the peasant class. They were steady and industrious, fond of reading, and more refined in many ways than the generality of those in their own station. Till their marriage they had both been servants of Mr. Ash, a gentleman farmer, who studied the welfare of his dependents in every way. Tom still worked for him as a day labourer, and they lived in one of his cottages, which they had been able to furnish with their united savings. They had very little to live upon, and what they had they were obliged to work hard for; but by thrift and good management they did live comfortably though poorly, and were richer than many whose daily income was greater than theirs was yearly, for they owed no man anything, and they loved one another. But better even than this, and accounting in a great measure for them. Her last piece of work had been to knit a jersey for Tom to keep him warm during the winter, as he could not afford to buy a new overcoat, and his old one was too shabby to wear at church or any place except in the fields. She had knitted it in her spare time, unknown to him, intending it for a pleasant surprise on his birthday, which was on Saturdaythe day on which he went to Ballagh. On Friday evening there were still a good many rows to do, and she put the children early to bed, that she might be able to give her undivided attention to it. Tom had an errand to go for his master after he left off work, so she would have time to finish before he came home. Just as the last stitch was cast off, there was a step outside; it was not her husband, however, but Mary Brown, who lived under the roof-next door it would be called in town-with the Hattons-a gossipping, meddling woman, with whom Tom did not care for his wife associating more than was absolutely necessary. Generally Jenny did not encourage her visits, but to-night she was glad to see anyone to whom to display her handiwork, which really deserved all the admiration Mrs. Brown bestowed upon it. "I'm thinking Tom will be proud of it. I'm sure my Bill would if I could do anything half as fine for him. It must have cost you a mint for yarn." 66 It cost me nothing. The mistress gave me the yarn, and I dyed it myself," Jenny answered, rolling up the jersey, with a satisfied smile on her face, after the other had examined it from every point of view. "My, but you are clever! Here is Tom." "And is supper not ready," exclaimed Jenny, hastily thrusting the jersey out of sight, as she did not wish him to see it till the morning. In the excitement, first of finishing her work, and then displaying it, she had forgotten all about the supper, and had allowed the fire to go almost out. When Tom came in the prospect was not cheerful, and unfortunately he was both cold and hungry. He was provoked, too, to find Mrs. Brown there. "Well, this is a nice place for a man to come home to after a hard day's work!" he exclaimed angrily, and his tone was much rougher than the words themselves. "Highty, tighty! why didn't you come home sooner, then?" asked Mrs. Brown. "Because I had Bill's work to do after my own. You tell him, the next time he leaves the calves for me to feed when I have any place to go to, I'll speak to the master about it." "Bill couldn't do it, because he couldn't find the lantern, and there was no use in looking for the calves in the dark." "I had to feed them in the dark; he had left the lantern in the shed last night, I suppose, as he always does, no matter what I can say to him." Jenny, glad to have her husband's attention distracted from herself, was endeavouring to make the fire burn brightly, when he turned angrily to her. "I don't see anything else you have been doing. As there's nothing for me to eat, I may as well go to bed. A nice wife you are, I must say !" He flung himself into the little bedroom as he spoke, and slammed the door after him, leaving poor Jenny very much hurt by his unkind way of speaking. "There's a man for you!" exclaimed Mrs. Brown, as soon as he was gone; "anybody would think you were a dog, to hear him at you, and I'm sure you give him no call; for the way you slave for him and them childher is over anything; and its proud he ought to be of you, instead of talking about going home to his mother." Jenny had felt humiliated enough at being scolded in her neighbour's presence, and now to have her sympathising with her was worse still. She knew, however, that she was partly to blame, because she ought not to have allowed anything to hinder her from having Tom's supper ready. She made haste to atone for her neglect, and, having got rid of her unwelcome visitor, soon had both porridge and tea prepared-the latter a luxury only indulged in on Sundays and special occasions. When all was ready, she went into the bedroom where she found Tom lying down, apparently asleep. She had resolved not to let him see that she resented his crossness, so called him gently. "Tom, dear, your supper is waiting, and I have made you a nice cup of tea, as you are tired." "You may drink it then, for I'll take nothing to-night," he growled. Jenny cried herself to sleep that night, and rose next morning feeling ill both in body and mind. Tom woke refreshed though hungry, and had almost forgotten what had passed, till Jenny's gloomy face reminded him of it. If he had known how she was longing for a kind word, he would have spoken it; but when she turned her back upon him, as soon as he entered the kitchen, he thought she was sulky, and took his breakfast in silence. The strange thing was that they both wanted to make up their quarrel, that both knew they ought to make the first advance, and yet that neither of them would do it. When at last Tom did speak to say good-bye, Jenny's evil temper was so roused that she would not answer him. Tina soon saw that something was wrong with her mother, and concluded in her wise little head that the best thing she could do would be to keep the baby out of the way. So, after her father had gone, she took it to the bedroom, and amused it there, as no one knew better how to do, till dinner-time. Their dinner of potatoes and buttermilk having been despatched, and her mother still looking gloomy, Tina thought she would take the baby out for a walk. It was cold, although the sun was shining, and looking about for something to wrap round her charge, Tina found the jersey where her mother had hid it the night before. 66 You may," Jenny answered, the frown deepening on her face at sight of the unfortunate garment. Tina was too much delighted with the permission to mind how it was given, for she liked nothing better than arraying baby in everything useful and ornamental she could lay her hands on. Baby was delighted also, and crowed, as she swaddled it in the jacket, and enveloped its neck in the sleeves till it looked like a little mummy. Then Tina took it in her arms, and. staggering under the weight, carried it along the lane leading to their cottage; baby prattling all the time in an unknow tongue that it would have puzzled any one but his little nurse to understand. The lane ran down to the road, but Tina turned off it before she had gone far, and took another byway leading to a large green field-her favourite playground. In this field there was a shed, where Mr. Ash's young cattle usually stayed at night. Here, when it was too cold to stay outside, Tina and the baby would amuse themselves for hours, rolling about among the hay which was kept in one end of the shed, and building houses with blocks of wood, and furnishing them with bits of crockery and pebbles picked up in the ploughed fields. The baby, indeed, enjoyed knocking the houses down much more than building them up, but this did not at all interfere with Tina's enjoyment. When they tired of their games, baby had his walking-lesson; Tina placing him against the wall, while she stood a little way off, holding out her arms for him to toddle into. To-day, the jersey being found in the way, it was taken off and thrown upon the hay, where it was of course forgotten. Baby had accomplished the feat of reaching Tina's arms six times without one stumble, when he suddenly began to cry and would not be pacified. In vain she soothed him with many endearing epithets; he only hid his face in her breast, and cried the harder, "What ails my baby? What is the matter with my wee sonny?" the little woman asked. "Daak, daak,” he cried, in the tongue which Tina understood quite as well as English. "Dark-so it is dark, baby, I wonder I didn't notice it sooner," exclaimed Tina, looking out by the doorway of the shed, seeing neither sun nor sky-nothing but a universal dimness, as if the evening had suddenly descended on the earth, two hours before its time. "Home, home," wailed the baby; and Tina, now frightened herself, caught him up in her arms and staggered homeward, without taking time to remember anything about the jacket in which she had so carefully swathed him when she brought him out. She found her mother standing, watching for them at the door. "I'm glad you're in, daughter," she said, taking the baby out of her arms, "I was afraid you'd be caught in the storm." Is it the storm coming that makes it so dark, mammy?" "Yes, dear: it is going to be a bad one I'm thinking; I wish dad was home." 66 SCRIPTURE ENIGMA. NO. VII. 1. The mother of King Manasseh. 2. The agency to which we are indebted for the Holy Scriptures. 3. The original name of the most northern city of the land of Israel. 4. The name used in Scripture for Arabia-Deserta. 5. The glorious hope which Christ "brought to light through the gospel." 6. The "faithful martyr" of Pergamo3. 7. The Syrian captain who murdered his sovereign and reigned in his stead. The initials give the discoverer of a Divine gift which had been hidden for eight hundred years. shoulders, when he went on errands. His happiest | gaily-coloured flags floating idly on the soft western days were those when he had a little money to lay out in oranges, or sweetmeats, or other small marketable stock, which promised him a quick return, and a good profit on his outlay. Then Dot rode triumphantly on his hired wheel-barrow, keeping him merry with her little ways, and the chatter he loved to listen to. But he often found that she could not go with him when he was bound for any distance or was engaged for a few hours' work, and then, with sore misgivings of heart, and countless terrors, while he was away, he was compelled to leave her in the charge of some lodging-house keeper, or, still oftener, under the chance care of some apple-stall woman, near his place of work, whose stall might happen to be in an archway, or any other sheltered spot. The women were very good to little Dot, but it caused him many a pang of anxiety, and many a sharp sense of gladness, first to leave her, and then to come back and find her safe and happy. The wandering life they lived was very pleasant to him, and Dot throve well upon it. They scarcely ever spent a week in the same lodging-house, or even in the same street; though Don kept cautiously to the East End, and the neighbourhood of the Docks, where he could almost always find some work to do. In his eagerness to be earning money for Dot and her wants, he pitted himself against fullgrown men, and thrust himself forward for tasks too heavy for him. He could not get rid of his dread of the child being forcibly taken away from him, if there was anything miserable and neglected about her appearance. To ask any person for help or advice in any way would subject him to questions he could not easily and truthfully answer. If he found any of the people with whom he was thrown into company at all desirous to know his history, it was a sufficient hint to him to change his quarters; and any kindly inquiry from the women who took care of Dot for him, filled him with deep anxiety. Amid all his ignorance he knew he must not tell a lie; and he could not bring himself to break the law of the God of whom he had so faint a knowledge, even when facing the danger of losing little Dot. If he could only say she was his sister, that would be a sufficient answer to every inquiry, but Don could not. To speak the truth always, and to teach Dot to do the same, was what God required of him, and he must do it. As a further precaution against being tracked and discovered by Dot's enemies, the police and parish authorities of Chelsea, who were bent upon imprisoning her in the workhouse, he dropped the name of Don, which he knew by this time to be too odd and singular to escape notice; and called himself John. He tried hard to call Dot "Haggar," which he believed was her real name, as old Lister had once said she was christened after the mother who had forsaken her. But he seldom succeeded in remembering her new name, except when anybody asked him what to call her. Still, having taken these cautious measures, he felt he had raised yet another barrier against the chance of her detection by her West End foes. The summer was very welcome to Don, and the long, light warm evenings were full of pleasure to him. Then, after the day's hard work was done, he could carry Dot down to the side of the river, and watch the ships passing up and down, with their wind, and he would wonder with the quiet wondering of ignorance where they were going to and where they came from. He had seen them sailing with all their canvas spread on the open sea, looking even more beautiful and stra je than on the river, and the sight of them brought back those pleasant days when he was growing slowly better from the fever, and was treasuring up stories to talk over with Mrs. Clack. The ships, with their tall masts and the white sails, recalled to him some of the lessons he had learned about God, and Jesus Christ, and Heaven-names which were little more than mere words to him, yet which had a power over him no other words possessed. They were like good seed buried deep in the good ground of his faithful heart, promising to bring forth a hundred fold at some future harvest-tide. Don was growing very tall during these lightsome summer days; but he grew thinner and weaker as if he was out-growing his strength. He was always hungry, and hunger is a costly comrade to poor folks. It had to be tricked, and put off, and mastered, instead of being satisfied. What gave him more real concern was that he had quite outgrown his clothes, and was no longer decent-looking enough to be entrusted with errands. He grudged buying anything for himself which Dot could not share, or as long as there was any want of hers not supplied. Dot did not look as if she had any want; and he loved to see her pretty face look rosy and smiling. She never cried softly now, as if afraid of being heard; it was seldom that she cried at all, but if she did it was quite openly, and noisily enough to frighten Don. He would not let her suffer from hunger and cold, and the fresh air from the river made her strong and active, and gave her a ravenous appetite, which Don satisfied, whilst he put off his own sharp-set cravings. It was quite necessary to live on short commons, if he had to provide himself with larger clothes. It was a proud day to him when he had saved enough to buy a new jacket and trousers second- | hand in Rag Fair. He had had his eye upon them for some days past, and every time his work took him that way, he had run through the market to see if they were still hanging up for sale. They had even had the price reduced by sixpence, which enabled him to buy them a day sooner. He drove a hard bargain for them, giving his old ones as part of the price, and changing them before he left the place. The salesman told him it was a man's suit, and that he stood up like a man in it; though Don's tall thin frame, and his long pale face looked very little like a man in his strength. "Little Dot," he said fondly, as he took the child's small hand into his own, and led her away from the noisy market, "to-morrow's Sunday, and now I've got some new clothes, you and me 'll go into one of the big churches, into the very biggest of 'em, Dot, where we've never been before. God is sure to be in the biggest of 'em; and I'm goin' to thank Him for my new clothes, and everythink. We can't never see Him, you know, but He'll be there, and you and me 'll both say, Thank you, won't we, Dot?" "I'll say sank 'ou, old Don," answered Dot, " and p'raps He'll give me some new clothes, and buns, and pies, and a pritty lady doll." |