FAITHFUL MERCIES. Bible behind. What was she to do? Go on and leave that precious book, from which she had learned that all her prayers to gods of wood and stone would avail her nothing, but that 'God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life?' No! she must rescue her Bible! Quickly she retraces her steps, enters her little hut, seizes her treasure, and again hastens to the mountains. But the flood is rising, rising, rising! and now her only hope of safety is to climb a tree. She does so, and in the morning, when the waters were abated, she was seen clinging to a solitary tree, and to her Bible. My dear children, do you value your Bible? Is it a light unto your feet, and a lamp unto your path? WH SMALL TEMPTATIONS. M. T. HEN Dr. Marsh was a little boy he was known as Billy Marsh. Having been in a fault one day, he was locked in a place by himself by way of punishment. Strange to say, the place of his temporary imprisonment was the pantry; and stranger still, the person that had locked him in forgot to let him out. The boy got very hungry, and there he was with food on one side of him, and oranges on the other. It was a great temptation to him, but he resisted the temptation. The hungrier he grew the oranges got more tempting; still he continued to resist. At length when the door was opened, there he was, wiping his eyes with his pinafore; and half sobbing, half saying, Billy musn't touch, Bill must not touch; not Billy's own.' To take things they have not been permitted to take, is a very common temptation among children. When resisted, it makes a boy brave and true and strong. When it is not resisted, it often leads to deceit and untruthfulness. From The Power of Littles,' a New Year Address by Rev. A. G. Fleming, Paisley NEW-YEAR HYMN FAITHFUL MERCIES. Isa. xli. 10. STANDING at the portal Onward, then, and fear not, 2 I, the Lord, am with thee, I will help and strengthen, With My own Right Hand; 3 For the year before us, Shall His grace abound; 4 He will never fail us, He will not forsake; He will never break! What have we to fear? Frances Ridley Havergal. The tune for this beautiful hymn will be found in No. 90 of 'Hymns Old and New.' I. HE name is well known and honoured THE much in a certain part of Scottish history. This Melville was the uncle of the statesman of the same name, who carried messages between the two queens, Elizabeth and Mary, and tried to do his best for both, and has left those picturesque memoirs which keep for us so many things pleasant to know of his own people and times. Andrew, the uncle of James, was a man less gentle than he, as you will learn from his story, which John Howie tells briefly. Andrew Melville was born at Baldovie, which lies in that fair strath, at the point where the beautiful South Esk touches the parish of Montrose. He was born on an August day of 1545, while the French and English were wooing the child-queen. He was but a few months old at the time of George Wishart's death, and grew up on that quiet river-side while the people's wrath was gathering round the priests, while they were talking low at first of oppressions not to be borne, and more boldly as the years went on, and they felt their own strength. When he was old enough he went to the grammar-school of Montrose. The town was very ancient, but the grammar-school was new. It was founded but ten years earlier by the good, famous laird of Dun, who brought masters from the colleges of France, to teach here the Scottish youth. Andrew studied with all his heart, and before he was fourteen, astonished the Professors of St. Andrews with the learning he carried to their University. In the University of St. Andrews, he studied four years longer, and left it with the proud fame of being the best philo sopher, poet, and Grecian of any young master in the land.' Then he studied at Paris for other two years. And before he was twenty-one, he was chosen Regent of the College of St. Marceon, Pottiers.' A few years more, and again he changed his abode, and became a Professor in Geneva, which was then the centre of Protestantism. There was at this time great disquiet in Scotland. For the country was passing from the Catholic to the Reformed faithand many would retain the bishops, and more would have them none. And Andrew Melville was necessary, or some one such as he learned and bold and ardent, to meet the troubles of the time. The ministers of Scotland called him, and he went home laden with honours— great men writing from foreign lands, how they could show no better their love to Melville's native country, than by allowing him to leave them in the hour of her need. Beza wrote thus in a letter to the General Assembly of the Church :— "The greatest token of affection the kirk of Geneva could show to Scotland was, that they had suffered themselves to be spoiled of Mr Andrew Melville.' But every one was not so glad when Mr Andrew Melville came home. The Regent Morton was especially afraid he would not now have his will, and he wished to bribe Melville to help him and be his friend. Almost immediately after his return, he was made Principal of Glasgow University, and the Regent offered to add to this the rich and pretty parsonage of Govan, if he would not oppose the bishops. But Melville would not be bound by a promise to what he thought was wrong, and so he refused Govan that he might be free to act and speak. And the speech of Mr Andrew Melville was no faint-hearted thing. Once when he had been pleading against the wrongs that were, the Regent rose up hotly : "There will never be peace in this country,' said he, till half a dozen of you are dead or banished.' 'Tush, man,' answered the uncourtly Andrew Melville, threaten your courtiers so; it is the same to me when I die, and I have lived out of your country as well as in it. Let God be praised. You can neither kill nor exile His truth.' No wonder the Regent liked him little. But the power of this Regent Morton was not to last long. And then there was the young king James himself to contend with. In 1584 Melville preached before the General Assembly, a sermon so bold as none would have ventured but he. The Assembly approved the sermon, and drew up a petition to the king, praying him to remedy some of the abuses it named. But the Earl of Arran was angry that in anything they should blame the king, and he cried out haughtily: 'Is there any here will dare to sign this?' 'We dare,' answered Melville, going forward and first lifting the pen, ‘we dare, and will render our lives in this cause.' Two years after this he was summoned before the king, for another sermon preached at St. Andrews, which had given offence at court. Andrew Melville appeared, but protested that the king had no power to judge him,-that if he had preached false doctrine, he would answer to the General Assembly, but not to the king's majesty, who had no authority over the Church. He The king was very angry, and the Earl of Arran, his Chancellor, and they upbraided and threatened Melville. But Melville answered them fearlessly. did not defend himself, but turned on the angry, young king-and suddenly became accuser, speaking such stern words as: You are too bold in a constituted Christian kirk, to pass by the pastors, and take upon you to judge the doctrine, and control the messengers of a Greater than any present. That you may see your rashness in taking upon you that which you neither ought nor can do;' and Melville took a little Hebrew Bible from his breast, and laid it down before them, 'there are my instructions and warrant, see if any of you can control me, that I have passed my injunctions.' GRASS. 'Sire,' said the Chancellor Arran, opening the book and putting it into the king's hand, he scorneth your majesty, and the council.' 'Nay,' answered Andrew Melville, 'I scorn not, but I am in good earnest.' Very long the conference lasted. Melville was sent from the king's presence, and recalled,-sent from it and recalled again. More accusations were raised against him, and there were plenty to prove whatever the king wished. And at last he was sentenced to imprisonment in Blackness 9 Castle, which he was commanded to enter within twenty-four hours. Blackness, a strong castle-as old as the Romans-overhangs the sea. It was at that time held by a vassal of the Earl of Arran. Melville was a brave man, as no one needs to be told. But he could not brook an idle life within those dark castle walls. And wher the Chancellor's horsemen came to meet him at the West Port, he was far among the green hills, flying over the Scottish Border. H. W. H. W. sense indeed, grass is the emblem of all fertility, and the green earth, clothed with verdure, is a sight which at all times delights the eye. There are many different plants in the Natural Order of The Grasses, from the tall Bamboo, which attains a height of 50 or 60 feet, to the reeds and rushes of the lake and river, and the lowly grasses of our meadows. They are an order of plants useful alike to man and beast, and it would take a whole volume of the Dayspring to go over the useful products which they furnish. Suffice it to say that the corn supply of the world is furnished by them-our tea and coffee are sweetened by their sugar-the fisherman and the musician are alike supplied with the means of pursuing their craft, and the weaver with his reed. Then again, how beautiful are the different kinds of grasses. To say nothing of the Pampas grass with its 'plume of silvery feathers,' or the tall tissue of the Falkland Isles, what an endless variety is there in the Fescues, poas, and other grasses of our meadow lands. Of the grasses cultivated in Great Britain, there are no less than 22 kinds, and of these there are 115 varieties. It is of the common grasses suitable for pasture that Holy Scripture principally speaks. As we read the sacred narrative it is often impressed upon us how important to that shepherd people were their pasture lands. When the lad Joseph sought his brethren, he found that they had left their old pasture land and had gone to Dothan. Abraham and Lot separated and went to different parts of the land that there might be no strife between their herdsmen. The flocks of Jacob were at one time separated by three days journey from the flocks of Laban. David, the Shepherd King of Israel, sings, in words familiar from our childhood, of the flocks being led by the still waters to the green pastures. The bride in the Song of Songs says: Tell me, O thou whom my soul lovest, where thou feedest, where thou makest thy flock to rest at noon. And to this day the wandering tribes of the east are guided in their choice of a dwelling by the abundance of pasture. The want of grass, too, is spoken of in various passages of Scripture as the emblem of desolation; in none more impressive than where King Ahab is represented as leaving his throne and searching the land with his faithful counsellor, if peradventure they might find grass to save the horses and mules alive. The fertility of grass, which springs up almost unbidden, is used in Scripture as an emblem of the growth of grace in the heart of man. 'My doctrine shall drop as the rain, and distil as the dew, as the small rain upon the tender herb, and as the showers upon the grass.' May He who causeth grass to grow for the cattle, and herb for the service of man, make grace in the heart of our little ones to spring up like the tender grass by clear shining after rain. We must not forget that the time of growth for all of us is short, and that we are told in passage after passage of the Bible that the life of man is even as the grass which groweth up in the morning, and at even is cut down and withereth. Yet, even as it dies, the grass is sweet, and its fragrant hay preserves, long after the period of growth, the nutritive qualities of the grass. And so the life which, through God's grace is made green and happy, whether it be short or lonely, leaves behind it a sweet fragrance to benefit and bless others. For if it be true that all flesh is as grass, and the glory of man as the flower of grass, there is a higher truth, that the word of the Lord endureth for ever, and this is the word which, in God's gospel, is preached to even the youngest among us. A GOOD BEGINNING. To begin the year with God, is to take the very earliest opportunity of lifting your heart to Him in prayer, thanking Him for the mercies of the year that is gone, making humble confessions of its sins, and seeking, for the year that has come, renewed pardon, and renewed strength and grace. To begin the year for God, is to determine that with the help of His Holy Spirit, you will live for His service. |