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hood, and neither Hester nor anybody else supposed any change to be near when a change came very suddenly and sadly. It was in August-the weather very hot, but the evening dews so heavy that my sister and I were always afraid to let my mother go, as she liked to do, to have a last look at the stars from our little lawn. One step on to the grass would soak her slippers quite through, and for several evenings we had persuaded her that Orion could be seen just as well from the doorstep. As it happened, we had talked a good deal about these dews, though we never thought what mischief they were to do. For a whole week the hot weather continued without a break. Sunday came hot as the days before it-and my sister and I said to each other, how disagreeable the walk to and from Church would be along the dusty road with no trees but pollard willows to shade it.

I was rather inclined to envy my mother, who would stay in our cool parlour, but of course I could not say so; and we were just starting out in very good time when we saw a little girl come up to the gate and open it. She held it for us very civilly, with a pretty curtsey; and my sister asked her who she was, and if she was going to the house for anything?

"For Hester Wade, if you please, miss;" she said, "I've a message for her, to ask her to come to see Mrs. Strong ?"

"Mrs. Strong?" my sister repeated. the matter?"

"Is anything

"If you please, miss, it's Richard;" the child answered, "he's awful bad-crying out with the pain, he is; and, he says, I'm not to tell Hester that, only that he can't come to-day."

We sent the child into the house and went on to Church, but we could not help thinking about Hester, and how glad she would be if the child had made some mistake, or exaggerated. Certainly Richard was not in Church, and after the service was over, we decided to stop and ask Mrs. Aston, the vicar's wife, who would be very likely to know something about him, especially as he and his mother lived close to the Vicarage; and Mrs. Aston told us that it was quite true that he was very ill-taken suddenly ill, she understood, with a violent attack of rheumatism. The organist had told the vicar just before service, and Mr. Aston was going himself to see whether anything could be done for him.

Hester was not much comforted by what we had to tell her. She had questioned the little girl, and got a great deal more out of her than we had; so she was able to tell us that Richard, who was a drayman in the service of a brewer, had been out all Saturday morning, starting away to Boston at four o'clock, and only

getting back at two in the afternoon. The heat must have been dreadful, and when he came home and had seen to his horses he was so tired that he lay down on the grass and fell asleep. Hester said his mother must have supposed he had gone away cricketting, as he often did on Saturdays, when his work was done. At any rate, it was quite dark before she began to wonder where he was; and it was nine o'clock when he woke up, chilled to the bone and soaked in dew, and came home. All this the child had told, and Hester pretended to be very cross.

"Rheumatics!" she said, "I should think he had got rheumatics! Serve him right, for being such an oaf. Not but I'm sorry, poor fellow ;" and she did look as if there were some tears not far away.

She went into the village as early as she could that afternoon, and we arranged that she should stay if she liked, and only come back at the time when she usually came in from Church. But a little before that, I thought I heard the gate shut, and presently I went into the kitchen to see if she were come. She was sitting at the end of the table, her arms resting on it, and her face hidden in them, and she was sobbing so that she did not hear my step. When I spoke she started up and I saw her face all wet with tears. It was not a pretty face at all, rather square and strong featured, but so good and bright generally that one was glad to look at it, and when I saw the trouble in it I could hardly keep from crying myself.

"Is he worse?" I asked her when I was close beside her.

"Miss Ellen," she said, "he does not know me!" and then she put her head down again and cried in a sort of agony.

Of course it was rheumatic fever Richard had taken, and for a good many days he knew nobody, and no one could tell whether he would live or die. Hester went every day to see him, but as he did not recognise her, and as he had a good nurse-for Mr. Aston had lately got one to come and live in the parish-she did not speak of going to stay with his mother, as we had been afraid she might do. And after a while, when he began to come to himself and be glad to see her, we all thought it was only to wait a month or two and then he would be coming and going as usual.

I cannot remember exactly when we began to suspect that his comings and goings would never be again. Hester was the last to believe it, or to acknowledge that she believed it--but it was true. He got over the fever and the delirium, and even the terrible pain that had made him cry out in spite of all his courage, but there the cure stopped. Nothing, the doctor said, no time, no patience, no nursing, would ever make him

anything but a helpless burden again. He had partial use of his hands, though they were crippled and deformed; but from his arms downwards his body might have been of wood, for any power his will had over it. It was a terrible fate at twenty-five to be cut off from life in that way-to be more dependent than a baby on those he had meant should depend upon him. It would have been terrible for one of our class with books and all sorts of interests to come in as a kind of consolation; but for Richard Strong, who had no notion of any literature, except the Bible and a newspaper-no means of getting away from his own thoughts and the sight of those he loved suffering with him-it must have been almost too much to bear.

Hester went every day to see him, and the change in her was very curious to us. At first she used to have alternate fits of being very miserable and very cheerful. This lasted till he began to recognise her.

Then I suppose she used up all her cheerfulness during

her visit to him, for she began to look so worn, and to go about the house with such a dull spiritless manner that it made us all wretched to see her. And then when she knew that he was to live the rest of his life, which might be a long one, perfectly helpless, another and a very strange change came over her. She recovered her cheerfulness and her bright looks, and began to get through her work in the most amazing way, as if she had the strength and energy of two persons. All day long she managed our affairs as usual, and every evening she walked away to the village and spent an hour or two with the Strongs, coming back to sleep, and being up and about her work again almost at daybreak. She said very little about Richard to any of us, and we wondered at her without venturing to ask her any questions. My sister and I often talked over the state of things, and I remember one day my sister expressed her opinion distinctly.

"Of course it is all over," she said, "neither Hester nor anybody else could persist in an engagement to a perfectly helpless cripple-the idea is monstrous. She will go on being kind to him, no doubt, because she is such a good creature, but we need not trouble ourselves about parting with her till another sweetheart turns up."

My sister was older than me, so naturally I thought she was right, and yet it did seem rather hard to me that because Richard had lost everything else in the world he must lose all the love too-only that fancy of mine implied that he and Hester were what we called "sentimental," which my sister never would have admitted, and therefore I kept it to myself.

It was like the bursting of a bombshell among us, therefore, when one evening, at the time when she

usually went out, Hester walked into our sitting-room, looking very composed and resolute, and said to my poor mother:

"If you please, ma'am, I am going to be married." I think there were three little shrieks, for we were not accustomed to hear such things spoken of so very abruptly, and then we could not understand how Hester could be going to be married.

"What do you mean, Hester?" my mother asked, and I am sure her voice trembled.

"Ma'am," Hester said, "if he had been well and strong, as he used to be, I should have married him, and he'd have been good to me, as he's been good to every mortal creature all his life; and now he's helpless, and going to be so: and I am going to marry him and be good to him, please God, all my life. That's what I mean, if you would be kind enough to suit yourself.” And then she stopped suddenly and rushed out of the room, and I heard her sobbing in the wildest way, as she ran out of the house and started for the village.

It was all her own doing, it appeared. Richard had told her she must not go on coming-she must not think herself bound to him any more; and that had nearly broken her heart at first. But then she found out what it meant that he was making a grand effort to release her just when he wanted her most, and then her spirit rose. If that was all, she said, it was her business to decide, and she meant to keep her word.

"What!" she said to his mother, "Take him when any girl in the parish would have been glad to have him and give him up now? Not I! I meant to take him for worse as well as for better, and I will.”

The replacing of Hester in our little household was a difficult affair, and lingered on for some weeks. She was very good about it, serving us with more zeal and affection than ever, and making us quite wretched at the thought of parting with her.

But at last we really did engage a maid, and the moment that was done Hester's wedding-day was fixed. I suppose that she and Richard might have been married in the house, but they had no idea of anything of the kind, and it was she who devised and almost carried out the plan by which the helpless bridegroom was to be got to the Church. It was to lift him on to a sort of rough couch, consisting of a long tray on wheels, and so to draw him to the Church-door. There the vehicle would have to be lifted up a step or twoluckily there were no more-and again wheeled up to the chancel, The day was fixed, but up to the last moment might have been altered, as of course fine weather was absolutely essential for the invalid.

I wonder if there ever was a stranger wedding seen. There was quite a large congrega; and Mrs. Aston

sister and myself,

We were quietly

and her daughter, my mother, and were all among the bridal party. seated when a sound of wheels was heard on the stone porch, and presently the curious couch on which poor Richard lay was slowly wheeled up the aisle by two young men, who had been his fellow workmen. By the side of it Hester walked alone. She had neither father nor brother, and I hardly think she thought of or missed them that day. She had just her ordinary Sunday dress on-not so much as a new white ribbon --and she looked very grave. But there was such a steadfastness about her, and peacefulness, that of all the brides I have seen since, I do not think any one looked really happier.

They came up slowly to where Mr. Aston stood waiting, and then the Marriage Service began. Richard's voice trembled, and his look at Hester was very anxious, almost wistful; but she said the words clearly and softly, as if she had well calculated what she was doing and was satisfied. And then they went away together -old Mrs. Strong laughing and crying as she followed them and the Church emptied, and it was all over.

And whether Hester did right or wrong I never could decide. Many people thought she did wrong -but then, are love and faith to count for nothing in the world? And I am quite sure that she has not been an unhappy woman.

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Sermon.

BY THE REV. A. A. CAMPBELL, Minister of Cruthie, and Domestic Chaplain to Her Majesty in Scotland,

PSALM 1v. 6-"Oh. that I had wings like a dove! for then would I fly away, and be at rest."

IT

T does not surprise us to find the Hebrew king pouring forth his soul in these words of deep and passionate longing. In few lives has the storm, both of outward annoyance and inward trouble, prevailed more completely than in the life of King David. Now he is the victim of the hate and vengeance of his open and avowed enemies now of the ingratitude and treachery of those who were, or at least ought to have been, his nearest and dearest friends; now he has to battle with the doubts and difficulties which at some time or other are sure to beset all earnest souls; now he has to maintain the sharp and sometimes doubtful conflict, with his own personal weaknesses and sins. Life was indeed to him a 66 sea of troubles," in which deep was ever calling unto deep, and the waves and billows going over him. In this same Psalm how earnest is the cry which he pours forth unto the ear of the Eternal, and from what a depth does it come! "Give ear unto my prayer, O God, and hide not Thyself from my supplication. My heart is sore pained within me, and the terrors of death are fallen upon me. Fearfulness and trembling are come upon me, and horror hath overwhelmed me." We wonder not that his next cry should be for rest, that his deepest longing should be to be out of it all. Whither he should go he hardly cared if only he could be where these distracting troubles were not. The wilderness itself would satisfy him, for though its peacefulness might be as the peacefulness of death, still it would be peace. The prophet had cried, "Oh that I had in the wilderness a lodging-place of wayfaring men: that I might leave my people and go from them! for they be all an assembly of treacherous men;" and so here the Psalmist, "Oh, that I had wings like a dove! for then would I fly away and be at rest. So then would I wander far off and remain in the wilderness. I would hasten my escape from the windy storm and tempest.” But while the longing which finds its expression in these words is the natural, and perhaps the inevitable accompaniment of such experiences as those of the Psalmist, it is a longing to which no one, be his

experiences what they may, is altogether a stranger. Even in the life that is least troubled-least restless, whether outwardly or inwardly, there is to be found a want of full contentment with the present-a craving after something, the possession of which is expected to afford more perfect satisfaction and enjoyment. "Man," it has been said, "lives in futurity; the pleasurable feeling of the moment forms but a small part of his happiness. It is not the reality of to-day which interests his heart; it is the vision of to-morrow." Where is the life that knows not something of the uneasiness which forbids an absolute resting in the present, and excites in us a longing for some far-off good? The lip may not utter it; the thought may scarce shape it into definite form; yet the heart's silent cry ever is, "Oh that I had wings like a dove, for then would I fly away and be at rest."

Rest-how sweetly does the word fall on many an ear! Is there not something soothing even in the sound of it? Of all the longings of our nature there is none deeper than the longing for rest. There are times indeed, when men hardly care in what form it will come to them, provided only it will come in some shape. The Psalmist here would have been satisfied with the rest of the wilderness. True, it would have been but the rest of loneliness and desolation; still it would have been rest, and, as such, welcome to his weary, storm-tossed spirit. And are there not times in the life of many when the very thought of the grave itself brings a soothing, because there "the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest." Have we never, in some quiet, country churchyard, or beautiful city cemetery, when the sunlight was falling gently and kindly upon the graves, and the grass and flowers were springing so freshly and brightly around, and the birds overhead were singing their requiem; have we never thought half-enviously of those who were sleeping so quietly beneath, and looked forward, not so regretfully after all, to the time when we too should be resting like them? The grave no doubt has its terrors, but are there not times when these are almost forgotten in the thought of its rest?

And if we turn to certain human beliefs how strange are the proofs which they furnish of the depth of man's longing for rest! More than three and twenty centuries ago there appeared a prophet among the Hindoos, preaching a strange new gospel. The central idea of his teaching was this, that man's truest happiness and highest good consisted in his ceasing to be. His doctrine to all intents and purposes was one of annihilation. "Man dies," such was his gospel, dies, and there is an end! He dies, and in the quiet regions of non-existence, he finds an escape from the

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strife and turmoil of life!" So much, indeed, did he regard this ceasing to be, as the highest good, that he promised it as a special reward only to those who had lived the true life while on earth. Yet, strange and dreary as this gospel sounds, men were attracted by it. They gathered round this prophet of Buddhism, and hailed him as saviour; and to this day the faith which he taught is the faith of a large portion of the human race. One thing, at least, he promised to the struggling myriads among whom he appeared, and that was rest! In the thought of the eternal sleep and nothingness, which was to follow life's weariness and discord, they found relief. It was not much of a heaven, perhaps, yet, failing a better, they could accept it, and even find comfort in the thought of it. The peace promised might indeed be the peace of unconsciousness, but still it was peace. The hope of it gave at least some answer to the longing-as much one of the Hindoo as of the Hebrew, of the savage as of the civilised, of the black man as of the white-"Oh! that I had wings like a dove! for, then would I fly away, and be at rest."

But if the thought of rest is welcome, even with such tremendous drawbacks-if men have readily consented to the idea of non-existence, or at least of eternal unconsciousness, in order to secure it-how blessed a thing would it be if without such a terrible sacrifice we could secure the priceless boon! Is it so to be secured? Is. there anywhere in God's universe a voice that will tell. us of rest without demanding, like the Buddhist, that we shall cease to be in order to secure it? Such a voice there is, and your own thoughts, I doubt not, have anticipated me when I say that it is the voice of Christ. Your own hearts have already turned to His own wonderful words-"Come unto me and I will give you rest."

But how, let us inquire, does Christ answer man's longing for rest? First of all, perhaps, we should ask, what are the causes of his unrest? To name them all might be difficult, but we touch, I think, upon the chief among them when we name these

I. The circumstances and conditions of his earthly lot;
II. Intellectual doubts and difficulties; and,
III. Moral evil.

There is little, I think, if any, of the world's unrest but may be traced to one or other of these sources.

First of all, we have the circumstances and conditions of man's life. It would be almost waste of time to stop to prove what a fruitful cause of restlessness we have here. Whatever God's purpose in arranging the universe was, it was certainly not that things might be made smooth and easy for men. There are times, indeed, when it would almost seem as if things were so ordered as to thwart and bafus at every turn.

Now we are called upon to contend with nature in one of her more ungenial moods, and to snatch our subsistence as best we may from her niggard and unwilling hand. Now we are smitten with bodily suffering, and oh, how many are the avenues through which pain can reach these frail bodies of ours! Now our spirits are touched to the quick by the faithlessness, or ingratitude, or ill-doing of some one whom we had loved and trusted. Now we are separated by a stroke from the desire of our hearts and the light of our eyes. As one wave passes only to be succeeded by another so, in life, does one cause of disquiet follow upon another and long for it as we may, in vain do we look for rest!

How, we now ask, does Christ give rest to those thus unsettled and tempest-tossed? He does not necessarily do it by bidding all the winds of trouble, at least of outward trouble, cease. Rest of this kind is, after all, not the truest rest. He does it rather by filling the heart with his own deep peace, and so making us proof against the ills and annoyances of life, even if they should remain. That this is so is no mere question of philosophy and speculation. It is a matter of simple fact and experience. The early disciples, and they are but the type of very many, were not men whose lives were all brightness and smoothness. Few, indeed, were better acquainted with life's rougher side than they. Yet, such was their restfulness, amidst all this outward disturbance and dispeace, that they could receive with calmness the shock of life's worst ills, and, because of the peace which reigned in their hearts, so rise above them as even to glory in tribulation.

The rest promised by the prophet of Buddhism was, at best, but as the rest of the corpse that heeds not the storm because it feels it not. The rest promised by Christ is as the rest of Him, who, facing the storm and bearing the full brunt of it is yet unmoved by it, because of the existence of an inward peace, which no storm can reach nor ruffle. Troubles may rise and terrors frown, and days of darkness fall to our lot, but deeper than all, undisturbed by them all, is this sweet spiritual rest of the soul.

But another cause of unrest, as we have said, is to be found in intellectual doubts and difficulties. When we begin to look round upon life and try to grapple with its enigmas, how many are the difficulties which present themselves on every side. The deeper our search the deeper often seems the mystery. It is not difficult then to see, I think, how this must be to man a very real cause of unrest. And has Christ no answer for man's needs in this respect? Most truly he has. Not all the answer peps we would wish, for He never

us.

undertook to make all mysteries plain, yet answer sufficient to afford to the troubled mind a haven of rest. There is no doubt that in the life and work and teaching of Christ we have an intelligible answer given to many of our minds' most anxious questionings—a light thrown upon many a point which otherwise would have remained enveloped in darkness. Take, for example, the question of a life to come, over which the human mind has so often and so anxiously puzzled. Only from Christ have we received an intelligible answer to it. Only in Him is the eternal future made clear to Science cannot speak to us to any purpose of a life to come. Its teachings make a future for man more than doubtful. It has been said that were the most advanced scientific men of our time to meet in council, as did the early Church, and draw up a Creed, one of the articles of that Creed would be that "there is no immortality?" They could not certainly deny its possibility but they could not say that, in all their researches, they found anything pointing with certainty or even with probability to it. How comforting then to hear a voice, as from the unseen, assuring us that there is a life to come. What science has not been able to do by research, Christ has done by declaration; and if we can but accept the word which He utters, and rest by faith in Him who speaks it, we need no more to solve our difficulties and set our doubts at rest.

Or, take that other question, as to the existence of a personal Being, above and beyond all the laws by which the universe is governed. There is, perhaps, no question more debated at this moment. Is law everything -or, is there a God behind it? Is force the only thing in the universe with which we have to do? Or, amidst the mighty forces that are at play around us, is there not somewhere to be found a loving heart! Christ tells us that there is. He reveals to us a Father and speaks to us of a Father's love. He teaches us that the heaven we look up to is no brazen heaven after all. That behind the laws which keep the stars in their courses, and the earth in its place, there is a living Being, who is infinitely more to us than any cold, hard law could be-Who stands in a personal relation to us-Who watches over us, and cares for us, and loves us from Whom we at first received our being, and to Whom we shall again return! What restfulness in such a revelation as this to those who can receive it! and shall we not hail Him, through Whom such a revelation has come to us, as a true Refuge in perplexity a true giver of rest to the mind that has grown weary in the attempt to unravel the mysteries of life?

But, once more, in moral evil we have a most fruitful

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