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ALAND, LUCY, AND SKYE.

would return soon, he was off among the trees again.

Poor Lucy was in great pain, yet she waited without fear. She could trust Skye as perfectly as any friend she had. And she knew as well as if he had said it in words, that he would come back, and bring her father with him. And so she lay in the shadow with quiet, closed eyes, trying to forget her pain by saying softly to herself all the sweet words she knew of God's love and care. For Lucy knew how all love is the gift of God's greater love; and all other care but part of His tender, overshadowing care.

She said some tender lines of Keble, which he wrote about the fair world round;

"Tis now a fane where love can find Christ everywhere embalmed and shrined; Aye gathering up memorials sweet, Where'er she sets her duteous feet.' Lucy scarcely felt how beautiful they were; yet she liked to say them over. And she said them again and again, while the soft wind was whispering among the branches of the old oak over-head; and the sun, in scattered flecks of light, fell on her tired hands.

And then she said her favourite hymn, once over. This is it, perhaps you know it.

'Hark, hark my soul, angelic songs are dwelling O'er earth's green fields and ocean's wavebeat shore; [telling How sweet the truth these blessed strains are Of that new life when sin shall be no more. Angels of Jesus, Angels of light, Singing to welcome the pilgrims of the night.' 'Far, far away like bells at evening pealing,

The voice of Jesus sounds o'er land and sea; And laden souls by thousands meekly stealing, Kind Shepherd, turn their weary steps to Thee.' 'Angels, sing on! your faithful watches keeping;

Sing us sweet fragments of the songs above; Till morning's joy shall end the night of weeping, And life's long shadows break in cloudless love.

But Lucy already heard Skye's bark returning through the wood-and then Maud's familiar voice calling her own name. And then her head was on her mother's breast, and her mother's soft hand was

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soothing her with a tender touch-and Lucy's tears came at last.

'Mamma, I am quite well.'

For Lucy felt she was well, while her face nestled in its own place-and she must contradict the tears which came against her will.

And her father carried her home, through the narrow, tangled wood-paths, and laid her on a couch in the sunny window where she could see the flowers.

'Thank you, papa,' said Lucy, and let me thank Skye.'

And Skye all the weary days that followed nestled on Lucy's couch, faithful as ever in his love, and seeming to know why Lucy spoke so often and so fondly to him. And she said to Aland, who was sitting beside her, one bright, breezy morning :

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Aland, I do not wish now that Skye could learn music.'

'Why?' asked Aland.

It is better to be good as he is, than to know everything in the world. Don't you wish you were as good as he is? I do, Aland.'

You are,' said Aland.

For Lucy's patient eyes were very gentle with love. Skye was good, thought Aland, but Lucy was certainly better. Lucy had grown dearer to her while she lay on her weary couch, than when she used to play with her among the honey-suckle and the oaks.

'No,' said Lucy looking down, and blushing a little with the effort to say, even to her sister Aland, 'I have been thinking about it while I have been lying here, and couldn't read or work. Skye doesn't know what is right or wrong, and yet he is so good. And I do know what is right, and you do too, and yet it is so difficult, even when we want to do it. But Aland, I am going to try, and whenever I think any hard unkind thought of any one, and I see Skye jumping up about me, I think it will make me ashamed; and if I am lazy and don't want to help any one, Skye will make me ashamed more. You know Skye only wants to please us, but we have God to please.' Lucy dropped her voice very low

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6

JUSTIFICATION.

and reverently, It is all for love we must do it, because God first loved us, and we can do so little to show how much we love Him.'

Aland said nothing; she listened with bent eyes.

But later when Lucy, through her sleep, moved restlessly as if in pain, Aland sang this little low snatch of a song, that perhaps it might soothe the sleeper:

'A Fairy hid

In a rose's heart;
Sang, very low,

To herself apart.

'I caught the song,
For I lay in the grass;
And I heard the voice
Of the fairy pass.
'Whatever be

In the folded hours;
Summer comes back
For all happy flowers.
"The Fairy sang,

To myself I told ;--
Life too has its summer
Of certain gold.

'Whatever be

In the past of wrong,
The future cometh
To fill with song.'

Aland looked at Lucy. She lay very quietly asleep, with the smile of a happy dream upon her lips-her cheek laid softly on her hand.

But Skye had come to the closed door. He was knocking upon it with his two paws, and Aland rose quickly, and carried him to the garden-seat, and told him all that was in her heart;-as she never told any one,-not even Lucy.

H. W. H. W.

HOME LESSONS FOR THE LORD'S DAY. JUSTIFICATION.

IT T is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? That was the text, mamma,' said little Maggie, when she and her brothers and sister had taken their seats around the table for their Bible lesson.

'And do you know the meaning of that text, dear?

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"O yes, mamma, I know what it means, for Mr told us. He said that when a man was brought before the judge and blamed for having stolen or done some other wicked thing, the judge enquired all about it, and if he found out that the man had not done the bad thing, he justified him and set him free, but if he saw that he was guilty, he condemned him to be punished.'

That is the way in which men are justified or condemned when accused of crimes against human laws, but the text speaks of God justifying sinners, and you know that He cannot do so by pronouncing them innocent. How then does God justify?'

'God justifies sinners because Jesus died for them,' Katie replied. "There is a passage in Rom. 3, which Mr read to us:Being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. that He might be just and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.'

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That is the answer to the all important question, How should man be just with God, Willie? What is Justification? Let me hear you repeat the Catechism answer to the question, What is Justification?'

Justification is an act of God's free grace, wherein He pardoneth all our sins and accepteth us as righteous in His sight, only for the righteousness of Christ imputed to us and received by faith alone.

'Do you know why justification is called an act, not a work?"

'Our teacher told us that an act meant something that is done all at once,' Willie replied.

That is it. The sinner is justified all at once. The moment he receives Jesus, all his sins are pardoned, and God accepts him as righteous for His sake. In Zech. 3, we are shewn a picture of how God justifies the sinner. Read verses 3-5.'

And Katie read, 'Now Joshua was clothed with filthy garments, and stood before the angel. And he answered and spake unto those that stood before him, saying, Take away the filthy garments from him. And unto him he said, Behold I have caused thine iniquity to pass from thee, and

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I will clothe thee with change of raiment. And I said, Let them set a fair mitre upon his head. So they set a fair mitre upon his head, and clothed him with garments. And the angel of the Lord stood by.'

'Willie, you can tell me what Joshua's filthy garments represent.'

"The filthy garments are our sins which God takes away, and the change of raiment is the robe of Christ's righteousness, with which God clothes us.'

'Yes, Joshua was the. high priest, a faithful servant of God, and yet all his services could not justify him before God, for we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags. Joshua the high priest could only be accepted for the righteousness of Christ imputed to him.'

'Mamma, when the younger son in the parable came home, the father said to his servants, Bring forth the best robe and put it on him. Does that mean the same as clothing Joshua with garments?'

'The very same. The most holy man on earth, and the greatest sinner alike, need the righteousness of Christ imputed to them.'

But what is imputed, mamma?' asked Katie. Imputed means accounted to us. What Jesus did for us, God counts the same as if we had done it ourselves. God imputed our sins to Jesus when He bore them in His own body, and He imputes Christ's obedience to us whenever we receive Him by faith. I think you can tell me now why justification is called an act of God's free grace?

'Grace means something that we do not deserve, and free is without money and without price.'

"The greatest of all blessings, the pardon of sin, flows from free grace and dying love, and it becomes ours by faith alone. Not of works lest any man should boast. Little Maggie knows a text about forgiveness of sin.'

'This is it, mamma, "I write unto you, little children, because your sins are forgiven you for His name's sake." Does that mean little children like Harry and me?'

It means all who truly love the Lord;

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Just as I am, without one plea,
But that Thy blood was shed for me,
And that thou bidd'st me come to Thee,
O Lamb of God, I come.

But, mamma, I have read of people seeking salvation for a long, long time, before they found it,' added Willie.

That is because sinners are very slow to believe that God is willing to receive them just as they are, full of sin; and they often wait long thinking to make themselves better. They do not take God at His word, and at once receive His offered forgiveness.'

I once read a story which will help you to understand this. An ignorant negro and his master, a well informed white man, were both convinced of their need of a Saviour, while attending the same prayer meeting. The negro very soon found peace in believing, but the white man's anxiety continued for a long time. At length he resolved to have a conversation with the happy negro. When he met with him, the white man asked the negro, 'Can you tell me this, How is it that you, who had very little Scripture knowledge before, found peace so soon, while I, who have known the Bible all my life, only seem to grow worse and worse?'

O yes, massa,' replied the negro, 'me tell you that. A rich man offer you a new

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IN that very lovely country where the Blane and the Endrick flow, where the Lennox hills make fine pictures of linn and rock and glen, where the Highlanders used to come down in their swift, wild raids from the mountains, and show the gleam of their tartan, and the glitter of their fierce dirks, and levy the 'black mail' of which you may have heard, there stood, some fifty years ago, a little thatched-roofed house.

One little thatch-roofed house there would be plenty no doubt you are thinking,

and you are thinking rightly. But this one little house on the banks of the pleasant Blane was different from any other, although it did not seem to be so.

It was very old and famous, and people

I.

came from far to look at it-at the rude stones, and the moss-for it was a great man's birth-place -the birth-place of George Buchanan.

It was in the early spring-time of 1506, on the old farm of the Moss, in this beautiful parish of Kilearn-when John Knox, on the banks of the Gifford Burn, was aged one year-that the renowned George Buchanan first opened his baby eyes.

When he was big enough, like other boys, he went to school, to Kilearn, and then to Dumbarton. But although George Buchanan has written his own life, he tells us nothing about these years.

But he had an uncle, James Herriot, who began to find out very soon that George

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