THE CHRISTIAN BEACON.

5

Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and you shall find rest unto your souls, for my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.'

Mary was quite calm when the children came in; their Uncle Edward was with them; they had all waited till the Sunday School broke up, for the children were scholars, and Uncle Edward was a teacher.

"I have

Mary looked often towards the door, but as often as she did so, she felt that she was looking in vain. Her husband came not. At a late hour, when all her children were asleep, and she was sitting alone, and watching for his return, Jared knocked at the door; his very knock was different from what it used to be. There was a forced smile upon his face. "Oh, the Bible," he said, as he threw himself on the chair which his wife had placed for him near the fire-" always the Bible"-Mary made no remark upon his words-but she asked with a gentle, but earnest voice, and she looked him full in the face as she did so," My husband, have you really joined the Socialists?" Jared snatched the candle-and turned away-"I must be up early, he cried, and can't stay to talk to night." "Have you or have you not, Jared?" "Well," he replied, joined them, and they are the right sort of people, I am at last a happy man." "Jared, dear Jared," she said,-" do hear me, do come back, and talk this matter over." Jared stood still-but made no reply. Mary laid her hand upon the Bible, for she was about to close it, thinking within herself of the passage upon which she had been meditating, and which then met her eye, where the wife is so sweetly admonished to endeavour to 66 win without the word."* He only saw that her hand was on the Bible, and he met her soft and pleading look with a bitter sneer, and turned away. She had never before seen such a sneer, one so full of cold, heartless contempt upon his face. She said not another word, for "the iron had entered into her soul."

Some evenings after Ruth was reading aloud to her mother, "the wisdom which is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy." When Ruth came to the end of this passage of God's blessed word, her mother said to her, "Wait a little, dear child, and do not close the book till you have read those two verses to me again. I hope and pray that God the Spirit may write those words in our hearts. I want wisdom. Oh, how I want wisdom! but it is this wisdom, pure in its spring, and peaceable in its flow. How

See 1 Peter iii. 1.

true indeed it is that such wisdom is from above! The human heart, though miserable without it, has no such spring of wisdom in its depths. But, Ruth, I believe that God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, can command the pure fresh waters of life to spring out of the heart of stone. There is not any thing too hard for the Lord. When Moses smote the rock in the wilderness the waters gushed out; and are we not encouraged by our Lord Jesus Christ himself to believe that He will give unto us living waters, and that they shall be in us a well of water springing up into everlasting life.' Thus you see, the pure spring though not of us may be in us--though not of nature in the heart may of grace be in the heart.

"Those lovely words 'First pure, then peaceable,' Ruth, bring before me a sweet spot near the home of my childhood, which I have not seen for many years, and shall never see again, but I dare say the place is now just what it was when I was a girl, and if ever you go to the Vale of Meivod, when I am dead and gone, mind you, go to David's Well. You will now love the spot for my sake, but let it bring to your remembrance the blessed words, 'first pure, then peaceable,' and that will be far better.

"I have often told you of my father's little cottage-farm on the borders of Wales. The people used to say that David's Well was called after David the Patron Saint, as he is called, of Wales; but our good old minister thought the Well was named by some one who saw there the quiet spot which the Psalmist has so sweetly described in the twentythird Psalm: yes, I can see before me now the little valley among the hills, a sloping plain of greensward fenced in by steep rocks, so sheltered that the mountain sheep loved to seek it in rough weather; and in the first sunshiny days of spring you were sure to see a little company of young lambs lying here and there upon the soft grass, or frisking about like children in a playground. The Well at the upper end of the valley was so pure that it looked almost like a deep hollow in the rock filled up with nothing but the clear air, only you saw it was water by one little dimpling motion just in the middle, and by the full streamlet which stole away over its bed of shining sand between the banks of fine grass, grass which was covered over at that sweet season of the year with the mountain pansy, and many other lovely flowers.

"Often and often have I sat down under the old birch trees there with my Bible on my lap, and my knitting in my hands, and learnt a chapter by heart to say to our good minister, or his daughters."

"And Mrs. Grant," said Ruth to her mother, "was one of your minister's daughters."

"Yes, she was Miss Anne," said Mary, "and she took great pains with me to teach me to read, and to work, and to get into neat and diligent habits. When my father and mother were both dead and gone, I went to live at the Vicarage; and when Miss Anne married, and came away out of that country with her husband, she brought me with her."

Here Mary paused, for the clock struck.

"Eleven o'clock," she said after counting the chimes," and your father is not yet come-I hope nothing has happened to him." It was long after twelve before Jared Holden made his appearance; and when he came the door was pushed open with some force, and he stumbled, and almost fell, as he entered the room. He came in laughing and swearing at himself for his clumsiness, and his pious wife sighed, for she had not heard an oath pass his lips for many many years. He flung himself into a chair, and began to loosen his neckcloth and to unbutton the knees of his breeches, and then he stared about him opening his eyes wildly.

"Put the Bible on the shelf, dear child," said Mary in a low voice," and then go up to bed."

"Holloa, madam, who are you?" cried Jared. "Come here. What do you stand in the dark for? Let me see your face if you are not ashamed to shew it."

Ruth was a great favourite of her father's, and she came forward at once.

"Here am I, dear father," she said meekly, but halffrightened at his altered look and manner.

"Why, child," he said as he pulled her rather roughly towards him, "what are you up for at this late hour? I'm ashamed of you. Why, mistress," he added, turning to his wife, "what's this for? what's this for? why do you let the girl sit up to this late hour?"

"We ought all to have been in bed two hours ago," replied Mary, "but we waited up till you came home; and I felt so very weak and ill that poor Ruth there did not like to leave me. She sat up to make my gruel, and to read a chapter of the Bible to me, and we were hoping every moment that dear father would come in. And now, Ruth, kiss your father, and go to bed."

Ruth kissed her father's cheek, but he scarcely noticed her. She could not go, for her father had been all the time grasping her fast by the arm.

"I'm very dry. Is there not a drop of fresh drink in the house?"

No, Jared, you know there is not; we are all water drinkers."

"Do you tell me that there is not a drop of wine in the cupboard?"

66 There is the little bottle of wine which Mrs. Grant brought," said Ruth, "because the doctor told her that mother was to take a spoonful of wine in her gruel."

"Well, I thought so; and I do'nt care if I taste it."

66 Oh, father!" said Ruth, "you would not take that." "Nonsense," he cried, rising up, and going straight to the corner cupboard.

"Jared," said the wife, and he turned his head and looked round with a foolish smile as he stood before the cupboard, "Jared, your Temperance Card is in that cupboard. Have you forgotten your pledge?"

"I'll look for it, mistress," he said, "I came to the cupboard to look for my card;" and he flung open the door with a chuckling laugh. "Where's the card, I wonder? perhaps it's under this bottle-perhaps it's inside the bottle."

He raised the bottle of wine to his mouth, and drank the whole-drank rather all that he did not spill, for a portion of the red wine, as he held the bottle with his unsteady hand, streamed down his neck, and left its stain upon his shirt collar.

“Now, I suppose, I shall catch it," he said, as he staggered back to his seat. 66 Eh, Ruth, Ruth, Ruth, I say ;" and he raised his voice, and laughed aloud.

"Ruth is gone to bed;" said his wife.

He sat in silence a little while, and then he drew his chair nearer to his wife.

"Come, old woman," he cried out, "give us your hand; there is no great harm in drinking up that drop of wine. Come, come, answer me."

"You are welcome to any thing that will do you good, Jared; and as for that wine I did not wish to have it in the house, or any wine, but the doctor ordered it as medicine, and I was over persuaded partly by yourself to take it."

"To be sure you were; and what's more, you shall have a good comfortable glass with me to-night. I have money in my pocket; and if money can buy it we will have as good wine as Mrs. Grant's. Here Ruth, Ruth! Where are you, girl? Take your poor mother's bottle, and get it filled with the best wine. Are you coming, girl?"

"Ruth is gone to bed," said the mother, "and it is too late, to send out to-night. Ruth cannot come down. I cannot have the child sent out into the streets on such an errand."

"You cannot, can't you!" he replied, with a look of sneering defiance, "and pray who are you? You, poor sickly thing! what are you fit for?"

Poor Mary felt the cruelty and unkindness of her husband very keenly, but she said nothing in reply. She saw that he was not himself, and she did not wish to provoke him; but she found he was determined to send out her daughter for wine, and she was obliged to oppose him. He became very angry, and declared that he would go up and bring the girl down by force. He rose up, and Mary came forward to assist him, for she saw that he could not support himself in walking He pushed her away, and endeavoured to rush up the stairs, but his foot slipped before he had gone up many steps, and he fell with his whole weight

Mary's shriek brought Ruth down to her assistance, and she found her father in a more sobered state, with his head bleeding from the violent blow which he had received.

The next morning Jared awoke ill and penitent, He lay in bed, and when his wife brought him up his breakfast, he began to bewail bimself for having broken his Temperance Pledge. He begged her to tell him all that he had done the night before; and when he heard of his intemperate and unmanly violence he seemed thoroughly ashamed, and very sorry, "but it is all owing," he said, "to my breaking my pledge.

"This is not the time to say any thing which may seem like a reproach to you," said Mary, "but I may tell you, Jared, that, sorry as I was for what took place last night, I ought to have expected nothing else. Your pledge has been almost in the place of God to you. The mere circumstance that you had made a resolution to leave off a bad habit, and signed a paper to declare that you were pledged to do so, seemed to fill you with pride and self-confidence. But that Socialism, Jared, that ungodly, brute-like, Socialism, has taken' away the only solid foundation on which a good resolution can stand. You will listen to me now, for you are kind and gentle like your former self this morning, and therefore I entreat you, as if I were a dying woman, to quit those Owenites: if you do not quit them at once, and for ever, you are lost. It is written of them, and such as them, as all who join them will find to their cost, 'While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption.""

ANGEL WORSHIP AND POPERY.

I was paying a pastoral visit to an old man, whose health was fast breaking up. I expected to find him confined to his bed,