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the just is blessed; but the name of the wicked shall rot." How infamous are the deeds and names of Ahab and Jezebel ! To this day the example and name of Naboth are esteemed by good men over all the earth. In eternity this will more and more appear.

The Dew.

HIS hot and dusty summer's day, will my readers step with me into the pretty village school of Egerton, and listen to the lesson Mr. Stanley, the young minister, is to give this afternoon? His

lessons are looked forward to by the children as the pleasantest hours of the week, and more than one mother and grandmother and eldest sister come in to enjoy it with them.

To-day his subject is "the dew," used as an illustration of what God wishes His children both to be and to do. He directs the children to open their Bibles, and find out their verses on the dew. They did so, and read, "I will be as the dew unto Israel."1 The next class read, "The remnant of Jacob shall be in the midst of many people as a dew from the Lord."

" 2

The third verse read was, "My doctrine shall drop as the rain, my speech shall distil as the dew."

Here then, dear children, we have three different comparisons made by God Himself of the little dew-drops. He says He will be to Israel, His people, what the lovely dewdrops are to the grass and the flowers. Then, in the next verse, He says that His people are to be to those around them what the dew is after a hot and dusty day, and the third verse compares God's Word to the dew. Three beautiful promises; but it is of the second I want to speak most to you to-day : that God's own people shall be like “a dew from the Lord."

What is the blessed work of the little dew-drops? As I

1 Hos. xiv. 5.

2 Mic. v. 7.

3 Deut. xxxii. 2.

passed the little gardens in front of your houses yesterday almost every flower was drooping. They looked parched

and dusty; and even the roses and mignonette, whose sweet smell comes generally to meet one, like a welcome, were almost scentless. I passed again early this morning, and such a change! Instead of dust, every leaf and blossom glistened with sparking dew-drops. More diamonds and rubies were there than ever shone on the brow of a crowned queen; and as to the perfume, it reached me long before the flowers were in sight. Such is the work of the dew-to refresh, to cheer, to cleanse. A blessed work. Which of my children are like a dew from the Lord? Are any of them cheering the sorrowful, helping the weak, giving kind words and bright smiles to every one? That is what God means us to be when He compares His children to the dew. But our first verse, "I will be a dew," comes in here; and you and I must know God as a dew to our souls before we can really be as a dew to others. He must have given us His Holy Spirit, to bring us to the Lord Jesus, that our sins may all be washed away. He must refresh us day by day, and strengthen us to serve Him; He must, in a word, make us in some degree like Himself, good, and loving, and kind, and patient, or we cannot be a blessing like the dew. So if any one of you want to be a little dew-drop, seek continually to have the Holy Spirit in your own hearts. Say, from the very depth of your heart, "O God, for Christ's sake, give me Thy Holy Spirit, to make me a dew from Thee." Our next lesson from the dew shall be from the way it does its work of blessing: gently, softly, tenderly, it makes no bustle and fuss, as if to say, "See how busy I am, and how much good I can do." It comes so gently that no one ever heard it. I have seen people sometimes in a sickroom, and very kind people too, but not like the dew, for their voice was loud, and their steps heavy, and they were always knocking against something. I always wish such a nurse a long way off.

A soft voice, and a gentle step, and a tender, soothing

touch are what will make a little girl like a dew-drop in a sick-room. Then when boys and girls rush home, forgetting baby is asleep, or father taking a doze after his day's work, they are not a bit like the dew.

Then another lesson our dew may teach us, is that our work of blessing is to be done in the very place where God has put us-in our homes, in our school, in our place of work, whether that be the field, or the workshop, or the mill. Some people, big as well as little, think they could do so much good if only they were somebody else, or somewhere else. Now the little dew-drop does good to the leaf and blossom next it; and it shines as brightly, and sparkles as gladly, when God sends it to refresh the little daisy in the hedgerow as when He places it on the lovely rose or lily.

One thing more about its work. God has arranged so beautifully that the dew comes where and when it is most needed. In countries where the sun is hottest, there the dew is most plentiful. In our own country we find no dew when the day has been wet or cool; it is after a day when sultry heat has parched the earth that God sends the gentle, lovely dew, in its countless myriads of drops, to cool and refresh it.

Besides, if we open our eyes to observe, we shall see the hard rock quite dry, not one drop of dew on it; while the little flower or moss in the tiny crevice is covered with its sparkles; though so small, "not one of them is forgotten before God."

So he who wishes to be like the dew will be kind and good to all; but his gentlest words, his kindest actions, will be for the sick, and the weak, and the sorrowful. Is there a sick child in our own or a neighbour's house? he shall have the first primrose from the wood, the first rose from the garden. Is there an orphan or a stranger in the school, he shall have a smile of welcome, a good place, a helping hand; and so shall you not only be like the dew, but like the God who gives it. For He loves the strangers; the fatherless

and the widow are His special care, and He comforts those

who mourn.

One more last lesson from our dew-drops.

They teach us how much good may be done by very little things. They are very small and very short-lived, only here for a few hours at the most, yet wherever they come that place is the better and the sweeter, and the more beautiful because they are there. So will our homes be if we are "a dew from the Lord." I have known peace and love brought into a house by a little living, loving dew-drop.

We ought to say something, before our long talk on the dew is quite over, of our third verse, "My doctrine shall drop as the rain, my speech shall distil as the dew," and it shall be this: Often the very best way of being like the dew-that is, of bringing blessing, and comfort, and hope, and rest to those who are weary and sad-is to bring some of those other dew-drops to them, even God's own precious words. I shall close with just four of those dew-drops that have refreshed and comforted many, very many, in this dark and sad life. Now, all find out in your Bibles, and read, as with one voice, 1 Timothy i. 15.

They read: "This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners."

A precious dew-drop for those who mourn for sin. The next shall be for the weary. Find Matthew xi. 28.

They read: "Come unto Me, all ye that are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”

Now one for little children. It is in Mark x. 14.

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They read: Suffer the little children to come unto Me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God." Now, for our last, we must find a dew-drop that will be full of comfort and blessing for us all: if we can indeed, by the grace of God, heartily say it, in sickness and in health, in life or in death, let us hold it fast. You will find it in Psa. xxiii. I. "The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want."

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HO first called Jacob Grimshaw "Old Sunshine" I do not know. The first time I heard him spoken of by that name, everybody but myself-for I had only just gone to Crauford-plainly understood who was meant. But a better title could not have been given; for it described the man exactly. A more

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