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Oh, was there ever a prize offered so cheap as pardon and heaven are offered to you? "Without money and without price." No money to pay. No journey to take. No penance to suffer. Only just one decisive action of the soul: "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved,"

KNOCKING AWAY THE PROPS.

EE, father," said a lad who was walking with his father, "they are knocking away the props from under the bridge. What are they doing that for? Won't the bridge fall?"

"They are knocking them away," said the father, "that the struc

ture may rest more firmly on the stone piers, which are now finished."

Arches always require props while they are being built. A temporary wooden structure is first prepared, over which the real arch of brick or stone is laid. But though the arch may be finished, and the keystone set in its place, yet it will never become strong and solid as it should be, until the props are all knocked away, the wooden arch removed, and the different stones left to feel their own weight, and bind themselves by their own pressure between the massive piers from which the arch is sprung.

And in like manner God permits His children in their infancy and weakness to have various props and supports

Again, men trust in friends, and covet human sympathy, and receive honour one of another, until the Lord knocks away the props they rest on, permits friends to become foes, and teaches them that His sympathy and love are worth far more than all that men can give or do.

And when earthly hopes are blasted, and earthly joys withered away, the Lord appears to us as an unchanging Friend, the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. His peace no man taketh away. His love is an everlasting love. His compassions fail not. His mercies are from everlasting to everlasting. His Word endureth for ever. And when every earthly

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on which to lean, giving crutches to the lame and sight to those who fear to walk by faith; but when at last He would bring us forth to stand in strength and beauty, resting on His Word alone, He knocks away prop after prop, till we only rely on God and wholly trust Him.

Sometimes a man trusts in health, and God weakens his strength in the way, and shortens his days, that he may learn to lay hold on eternal life when this life is passing from his grasp. Another trusts in his wealth, and thinks himself secure from the approach of want; till God removes that prop, and teaches him how to pray, "Give us this day our daily bread," and trust in the Lord's providence till he receives it.

Rom. v. 1.

prop be gone, if only God sustain our fainting souls it is surely enough. Storm and sunshine, war and peace, sorrow and joy, darkness and light, all are alike to us while "He abideth faithful," and is with us always, even to the end of the world.

PARADISE
COURT.*

HE population of Paradise Court consisted of three hundred and eighty-six adult persons, with more than double that number of children. Only nine Bibles could be found in the place, and upon the morning of the Lord's day only two persons left it to worship God. The people had become familiar with the pocket Bible, and cast glances at it as the

reader held it in his hand, as though they had some mysterious interest in its contents. But this was all.

A sudden break out of scarlet and typhoid fever brought distress into fourteen families, residing in Paradise Court, but in the end they resulted in much. good to the inhabitants. The parish doctor had ordered the removal of a woman to the infirmary, and two old workhouse men came with a covered stretcher for that purpose. The lodgers had noticed spots upon the patient, and raised a report of black fever. They were in a state of panic, and no person but a widow

From The Man with the Book. London City Mission.

would approach the room. She found the city missionary, who was visiting in other houses, and told him that she had prepared the poor woman for her removal, but that the old men were not strong enough to carry her, and none of the neighbours would assist them. Upon this he followed her to the room, and taking the poor fever-stricken creature in his arms, carried her down and laid her gently on the stretcher. The people stood afar off; but, as their visitor left by the side of the stretcher, he caught a murmur of thankfulness.

Upon his return from the workhouse he was received with a demonstration of gratitude; and seizing the opportunity, he said, "Tell the men that I want to speak to them, and that they will do me a kindness by being here this evening at seven o'clock. I

want them to help me turn the fever out: not a man must be absent."

When at the appointed time the missionary turned the corner, he was surprised to see the place crowded. It was evident that the men had rallied in their strength, and they began to cheer. The visitor sprang on to a costermonger's barrow, and waving his hand, exclaimed, "Many of our neighbours are ill, and we must, for their sakes, poor things, be quiet. I thank you for mustering so strong; it shows that you have a good feeling toward me; and as I have a good feeling toward you, why, we are friends. Now, as a true friend, I am going to speak to you plainly, as we can't turn out the fever unless we work together. I expected this fever to come; and this is why. You have not enough air and water down here, and you don't make the best use of what you have. If a man drinks poison he is killed by it, and if he breathes poisoned air he is killed in a slower way by getting weak, or having illnesses like the fever.

As a true friend, I am

Many of you sleep six or ten in a room, and always keep the windows shut. This poisons the air. And now about the water. To-morrow morning every

butt must be cleansed; and let each person, when the flow is on, throw a pailful down their yard and another into the court. Mind, two pailfuls for each person. And then you must wash yourselves more frequently. There are sensible women here who wash their children every day; there are others that do not. Now let the sensible women do a kind thing: let them give the dirty children a good scrubbing on the sly. And mind, all the rooms and stairs must be scrubbed. That's for the women: now for the men. You must whitewash your rooms.

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going to speak to you.

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"And then," the speaker continued, we must keep sober. The fever is fond of drunkards, with their horrid breath and weak bodies, and lays hold

of them first. Now,

to turn the fever out, you must promise me three things: Good use of air and water; every room to be whitewashed; and a sober Saturday night." The speaker repeated the last sentence in a tone of firm command: "A sober Saturday night!" and received a shout of "Yes, yes, yes!"

Then, taking the Bible from his pocket, he held it up, and in a subdued voice continued, "There is a

great Father up there, who loves us all; but you don't pray Him to take care of you and your children. On Sunday morning you hear the bells ring; but none of you go to a place of worship. This is wrong of you. Remember He has had it written down in His holy Book that the curse of the Lord is in the house (the room) of the wicked: but He blesseth the habitation of the just.'" There was a solemn pause, and the speaker sprang from his uncomfortable and and passed out at the short end of the place.

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SERMONS IN STONES.

A WALK ROUND THE TOWER.

CRATCHED and carved upon the ancient walls of the Tower,that monument of times and customs long passed away,are inscriptions of strange device, many of which are expressive of earthly wisdom, and others of heavenly hope. The tedium of long imprisonment was often relieved by cutting signs and words upon the stones of adamant hardness,-records which have defied the wear of ages to erase them. That monogram upon the entrance, or Byward Tower, date 1617, in which three letters, "R P X," are so ingeniously wrought as to contain the full alphabet, tells of the long arrest, perhaps of a military prisoner, who was privileged to promenade the terrace, and, judging from the style of chiselling, made this strange use of his sword-point. The inscriptions, however, in that State prison, the Beauchamp Tower, tell many a tale of misery in close and cruel confinement, relieved by conscious innocence; or the anticipation of torture, and even death, calmly endured, in hope of the happy issue out of present suffering into the heavenly rest. As we enter the basement of the building, the first inscription meets the eye: "WALTER PASLEW. My hope is in Christ. 1569. 1570."

The gloomy upper storey of the tower, with its small circular room, surrounded with recesses which once were cells, is, however, the richest in inscriptions. On the right of the second recess the following is deeply cut: "O Lord, whic art of heaven, King, grawnt gras and life everlasting to thingn servant in Prison, along with. Even the loopholes, by which the thickness of the walls was made visible to the unhappy prisoners, bear inscriptions of interest, as the following. It consists of a shield, surrounded by a circle; above the circle the name, "T. SALMON"; a crest, formed of three salmon, and the date 1622; underneath the circle the motto, in Latin, "Neither rashly nor with fear." Also a star, containing the abbreviation of Christ, in Greek, surrounded by the sentence, "So live, that thou mayest live." In the opposite corner are the words, "And die, that thou mayest die not." Surrounding a representation of death's head, above the device thus described, is the enumeration of the months, weeks, days, and hours of his confinement. Thus: "Close prisoner 8 monthes, 32 wekes, 224 days, 5376 hovres." And near this inscription is another of sweet consolation: "THOMAS ROOPER. 1570. By the painful passage let us pass to the pleasant port."

The stones of the grim fortress thus give expression to that "blessed hope" which, as a sunbeam, brings light into the darkest recesses of suffering, misery, and want. Yes; and there are now such abodes round the Tower; habitations of the poor, where pestilence

and hunger lay many upon hay and straw beds in sickness and weakness, prisoners most of them without hope. Then again there are hospitals, into which thousands of the afflicted are yearly admitted for treatment, and in which many spend weary weeks and months in languishing pain and sorrow. Others,

where sufferers from burning fever or contagiousdisease are alone admitted, who in those lazar houses are shut away from every friend, while startled by the frequent approach of the king of terrors to the sufferers around them. Surely in no places are the feet of those who bring glad tidings more blessed than in those haunts of misery and prison houses of the diseased. And there are holy men and women who count not their lives dear unto them in the effort to cheer these sufferers who sit in darkness with the light of life.

During a recent formidable outbreak of small-pox, a volunteer was required for service in that grand old three-decker, the Dreadnought. To passengers upon. the Thames she for many years had an interest next to the Tower itself, because she was always manned by fearless sailors, and as a part of Nelson's fleet brought fame to the admiral, and honour and safety to Old England. After earning her wreaths of victory, she did better service still as a "hospital for seamen of all nations." At the commencement of the epidemic, her friendly fighting-decks and cabins were set apart for seamen thus afflicted. Her hammocks and beds were soon filled with sufferers, and request was made for a Christian visitor to console them and to point to Him whose "name salvation is." When the request was made known to a brave regiment in the mighty army of our Lord, and the question asked, "Who will go?" a ready response was made by oneof the missionaries,-"Here am I: send me." For quite four months he almost lived on board, but was graciously preserved. graciously preserved. "I am," he wrote, "called to witness most trying scenes, and the nausea to which I am exposed frequently produces sickness. Before leaving the ship I always change my clothes, as I have a particular dress for this work.

"One beautiful summer morning in June I visited its worst part, and there found a poor man at the point of death, a mass of corruption. I made known to him that message of salvation with which I was entrusted, but before I had concluded a short prayer he was in the presence of his God. I then hastened to inhale the passing breeze from the open porthole, and was glad to stand there to suppress my rising emotion. Oh, the contrast between the outside and the in! Within all seemed misery and suffering; without all was calm, joyous, and beautiful. A Sabbath rest was on the river, and while the bells of the neighbouring churches were harmoniously chiming I was for the moment rivetted to the scene; the brilliant sunbeams and the gentle zephyrs were playing on the ripples of old Father Thames, and tinting them with rainbow hues. But I turned away to speak to another sufferer, who accosted me with the words, "Those Sabbath.

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bells how they remind me of home, when as a boy I used to attend the house of God!' I spoke to him and to others words of faithfulness and mercy, and I felt at the moment that if I had refused the embassy then, the very planks of the old battle ship would have cried out against me, and that her 120 guns, long since removed, would have raised their thunderous booms in angry protest against my lack of sympathy with its present inmates. The Dreadnought man-ofwar at once became a Bethel to me, and I gladly spent the rest of the day there, ministering spiritual consolation to the suffering and the dying.'

ARE YOU HAPPY?

You may have been brought up in the knowledge of Jesus, and have the Bible in your hands; but for all that you also may not be happy. You may be living in the indulgence of sin; you may have put off for the present giving yourself to Christ, and think it will be time by-and-by. Then I am sure you are not happy. You have secret fears as to what will become of your soul. Your conscience is not at peace, and you cannot look on God as your Friend. You cannot be happy. "There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked." Now is the time to become happy. Now is the time to turn unto the Lord with all your heart; to acquaint yourself with Him and be at peace. For if you are not happy while you are in health and strength, and have the sound of the Gospel in your ears, how will it be when you come to die?

For "If thou hast run with the footmen, and they have wearied thee, then how canst thou contend with horses? and if in the land of peace, wherein thou trustedst, they wearied thee, then how wilt thou do in the swelling of Jordan?" In other words, if in the

days of health and strength your soul is not at rest, how will it be in the dark hours of pain, and suffering, and coming death?

THE SAILOR AND THE CATECHIST. Na small town in the north of Scotland, there lived a venerable-looking man, who was catechist of the parish, and esteemed by most as a rare Christian. A young sailor belonging to the same town, who came home on a visit to his parents, had been converted to God in Aberdeen. It was soon noised abroad that a great change for the better had come over the young mariner, and this was very manifeet in all his ways.

Not long after, the old catechist and the converted sailor met at a house, where they, along with many others, had come to sympathize with the bereaved family over the loss of their friend. The night was spent in devotional exercises, according to the custom. of the country.

• From Round the Tower. Published by the London City Mission.

During the evening, the young tar was requested to take the Bible and conduct worship. After reading, he thought he might venture to speak a few words to the people, and, in his simplicity, he thought the surest way to benefit the company on this solemn occasion was to tell them what the Lord had done for his soul; and so he let them know how God had awakened him, and for Christ's sake had freely pardoned all his sins.

Just as he had finished, the old catechist inquired if he had understood him to mean that his sins were forgiven. forgiven. "Oh yes," replied the youth, "I know that God for Christ's sake has pardoned all my sins."

"Well, well," said the old man, trembling with emotion and indignation; "I have been more than twenty years following after righteousness, and I would not presume to say that yet."

The youth, not discouraged by this, which was meant to strike at the root of his supposed presumption, replied, "Dear friend, it is quite reasonable that I should obtain forgiveness, and not you." "How is that?" said the old professor. "You know, sir, I was a scholar in your school; you could manage the whole school easier than you could me. I was thoughtless and wicked. I had no goodness nor righteousness. But," continued he, "I came to God through the righteousness and death of Christ; you came through your own twenty years' righteousness; now tell me, which will God look atHis own Son's finished work, or your twenty years' righteousness?"

What the Apostle Paul wrote of the Israelites might be truly applied to the old man :-"They being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God."

M

SIMPLE JOHN.

RS. EVANS!" and the lady's voice was sweet and soft as she spoke, "I have come to talk to you about John-will you spare him for an hour each evening? I have been finding out that he wants to learn, and I wish to teach him."

The grandmother laughed incredulously. "It's kindly meant, ma'am, and I thank you for it; but John's not made for a scholar. He's silly, that he is-not got the sense of a child of seven. You'd do no good teaching him."

"But I might try," said Miss Lec. "If you have no objection, I should like to do a little for him.". After much talking Mrs. Evans agreed, but poor John had a hard time of it for the rest of the evening. Silly as she said he was, she still found the lad so useful that she grudged him every moment which was not spent for her own benefit, and thus he grew into a half-foolish, untaught lad, who scarcely knew God's name, who could neither read nor write, and who was ridiculed by the whole village.

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