He was in the arms of his fond father when a man, a stout and stalwart follower of a family, came up to pay his respects. After looking at him for some time in silent admiration, he said, 'Sir, this child will one day be the greatest of his race; but neither you nor I will live to see it.'

The last words, alas! have been too truly verified. That proud and happy father, to whom the 'sweet miniature of life' he held in his arms was such a source of never-tiring delight, can look on his darling no more. Life and health danced in his eye and bloomed on his manly cheek when those words were uttered, and the speaker was vigorous and strong as he to whom he spoke: both are now numbered with the dead.

Besides the interest afforded by these eastern and scriptural associations when thus met with in common life, the vein of natural religion which pervades the Irish peasantry is such as often to awake a salutary train of feeling in the better instructed Christian who bears its expressions. Their habitual sense of the presence and protection of God, their almost instinctive recognition of his hand in all his works, are very touching. How often are they a silent rebuke to those who enjoy far superior spiritual advantages.

I remember once being put to the blush by a poor old woman, who was giving their first meal of curds and chopped nettle leaves to some little chickens which had just broken the shells. The soft downy little fairies were all in her lap as she sat on the ground, and she took up one and put it into my

hands, that I might see it closer. 'How pretty it is!'

R 2

I said, and my thoughts went not beyond the tiny chirping thing I held.

'Aye, that it is,' was the reply; ' and here's another beauty; and that weeny yellow one with the brown spots. Ah then didn't He make them well, glory be to his holy name!'

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There is no cant or affectation in any of these expressions. They appear to come direct from the heart, and are uttered with earnest and touching simplicity. The crops are coming on finely this year, the Lord be praised!'-' He is as honest a man as ever God put breath into.'—' Never woman had a better head (husband) than she had, but the Lord took him from her.' These, and similar sayings, evince the constant reference to him in whom we live and move and have our being.

Let us not scorn to take a lesson even from such humble instructors. Every-day religion is what we want. Oh if we were more imbued with it, how far happier should we be. How many anxieties and regrets, and discontented repinings, would be suppressed, did we feel an abiding conviction that the good hand of our God' directed every minute event of our lives. It is because we forget this divine hand, and look to second causes alone, that we ever do murmur: we should not dare to do so otherwise. The children of Israel would not doubtless have ventured to rebel as they did in the wilderness of Sin, had they not in like manner forgotten God, and rested in second causes. They cried out against Moses and Aaron; but Moses said, "the Lord heareth your murmurings which ye murmur against him; and what are we? Your murmurings are not against us, but against the Lord."

What an awful thought! The accidents, events, and disappointments against which we fret and chafe, might take up the same language and say to us, “What are we? Your murmurings are against the Lord." Blind creatures that we are, it is only when we shall view from eternity the earthly path through which he has guided us that we shall have any idea of our enormous obligations to the long suffering of God. Even now we can often look back and bless him for withholding from us our heart's desire-that once earnestly coveted good which, if granted, would, as succeeding events have proved, have made us miserable.

When Balaam's eyes were opened, and he saw the angel of the Lord standing in the way with his sword drawn in his hand, how must he have repented of his anger against the poor ass, even though she had "crushed his foot against the wall." The untoward events which kindle our anger, and impede us in some path along which we are blindly rushing to destruction, are to us what the faithful animal was to her inhuman master. They wound us for our profit. the foot is crushed, the life is saved.

Oh what themes there will be for endless praise when at last our eyes are opened, and that we shall no longer see through a glass darkly, but face to face! M. F. D.

OUR FATHER'S FAREWELL.

SAY who are they that kneel and weep
By yon poor sufferer's dying bed?
A mother and her children keep
Sad vigils round his hoary head ;
While in extremity of ill
Calmly he lies, resign'd and still.

;

A scene of trial just gone by Has left him very faint and weak But life again beams in his eye, And colour on his wasted cheek: And on that prostrate group he gazes, Whose hopeless prayers are turned to praises.

Another aged form is there!

Whose eye is dim, whose locks are hoary; He is a holy man of prayer,

One deeply learned in gospel story :

His errand! Jesu's love to tell,
Then bid his dying friend farewell!

He prays-in tones the prayer began
That reached the heart, but not the ear;
Long ere it closed, dear holy man,

His voice was strong, and deep, and clear:

And all intently as he listened,

The sufferer's eye with pleasure glisten'd.

In humble, penitential strain,

Pleading no merits of their own,

Pardon and peace he sought to gain,
Through Jesus Christ, and him alone:
Devoted was that faithful pastor
To his exalted Lord and Master.

Hush'd was the prayer-then prayer began,
'Twas simple, fervent, loud and long;
God's love through Christ to fallen man
Form'd the chief subject of his song:
Blessed be God, that aged pair
Such commune held in praise and prayer.

Hand join'd in hand, and deeply griev'd,
Their farewell they essay'd to speak;
And touching questions then received
Responses earnest, contrite, meek:
For both most deeply seem'd to feel,
That Christ alone their sins could heal!

They parted:-one amid the bands
Of saints and angels finds his home;
On Jordan's bank the other stands,
Waiting till Christ shall bid him come:
Ere long will both be near his throne,
My husband's father, and my own.

LETITIA BENSLEY.