years of folly and adventure led him to return to the externally religious habits in which he had been trained, and to observe the ordinances of public worship. In the esteem of many he was now a good Christian, but his own confession is, that he felt no remorse in daily doing many things which he could not think of in after life without shuddering.

He was only a Pharisee. Yet by degrees he cut off many sins which were as dear to him as a right hand or a right eye. His struggles with his love of gambling were protracted and painful. First he vowed-and that very solemnly-that he would devote only a certain time to cards, and no more; but this resolution failing, he vowed to play only for a certain sum, and never to exceed it. When that would not do, he vowed still more resolutely to play only for recreation. But all proved ineffectual. The more he resolved, the stronger grew the sin.

One Lord's day, when he was to take his place at the table of the Lord, his conscience so condemned him that he tried in vain to pacify it by a renewal of his vows. "There is an Achan in the camp," said conscience; "approach the table of the Lord if you

Scared by these monitions, and yet unwilling to part with his darling lust, he became like one possessed. Restless and uneasy, he fled to the fields to vent his misery under the wide canopy of heaven. Thoughts of future judgment filled him with indignation against the "accursed thing" which was corrupting and tormenting his soul, and, crying to God for help, he knelt down under a hedge, and taking heaven and earth to witness, wrote on a piece of paper with his pencil a solemn vow that he would never play at cards on any pretence whatsoever, so long as he lived. This was no sooner done than his burden was gone and he was at peace. But, alas! the reformation was all on the surface. While endeavouring to heal his soul in one place, ere he was aware, sin broke out in another.

After holding his commission in the Marines for some two years, the restoration of peace reduced him to half-pay, and circumstances took him to France, where he plunged again into all manner of wickedness. It was by slow degrees, and after hardmany fought battles with his conscience, that he succeeded in persuading himself that his vow to abstain from card-playing was rash, and need not be kept. The bondage of sin in which he was now held was strengthened by the inroads of scepticism. On his way home he spent six weeks in Paris, and indulged without remorse in every forbidden pleasure which that city could present.

After an absence of six years, Andrew Burn found himself once more in England-not a proud Pharisee as when he left it, but a proud sceptic. He was not a little self-complacent that he had shaken off the prejudices of education, and could look down with pity on well-meaning people who knew no better.

Soon after his return to England, the sudden death of a beloved brother made him feel the worthlessness

of those notions to which he had clung for years. They now stood dressed in their proper colours, and loudly proclaimed their diabolical origin. A strong and restless desire to be savingly united to God and His people drove them from their place in his heart, and evidently prevailed in their room. "I saw," he says, "the absolute necessity there was of such a Saviour as Jesus Christ, and was convinced there was no possibility of being saved any other way than by Him."

While in this state of mind he dreamed a dream, which produced results that made him regard it ever after as the principal means of his conversion. From the day of that dream, he began to live a life as different from that which went before as any two opposites can be. "Old things were now done away, and all things became new. Not," he says, "that I obtained a complete victory over my domineering sins all at once, or renounced all my false opinions in one day; but a bitter and eternal war was instantly declared against the one, and as God made the discovery to me, I let go the other. My mind was gradually enlightened to comprehend the glorious and important truths of the everlasting Gospel, and the eyes of my understanding were so opened to discern spiritual things that I now read my Bible with wonder and astonishment." And as he read he grew in grace and in the knowledge of God.

"Surely nothing less than Divine power," he wrote many years afterwards, "could in the space of a few months have thus effectually overthrown the massive bulwarks of infidelity which Satan had been continually strengthening for the space of six years in my corrupt heart, or have bent my vicious and stubborn will to embrace the self-abasing doctrines of the Gospel. That such a change has been wrought, I am as certain as of my own existence; so likewise am I confident that it was not in the smallest degree attributable to any inherent strength of my own. God alone must have been the Author of it; to Him therefore be all the glory." At the time of his conversion, Andrew Burn was twenty-six years of age, and his future life was one both of exemplary virtue and of enlightened piety. "Forty-three years," to use the words engraved on his tomb, "he served his God as a faithful soldier of Jesus Christ."

A SERMON IN A CHANDLER'S SHOP. N a letter written by the celebrated essayist, John Foster, while under the tutorship of the Rev. Joseph Hughes, he thus describes his labours : "I have been rather busy most of the time since I came hither. Many evenings I have spent in interesting company. I have preached several Sabbaths, and made a journey of perhaps forty miles in the country to preach to heathens, at one place, in a sort of coal-hole; and to plain good saints at another, in a little shop. I stood behind the counter, and some of the candles hanging above touched my wig. I should extremely like to preach in this style every evening in the week. This was not a casual adventure of my own; there has been for some time past a regular plan, which they call a mission, in which a considerable number of preachers are employed to go round the country to obscure places, where the Gospel scarcely ever went before, to endeavour to establish a kind of religious posts. For two weeks I have been engaged, and shall remain so for some time, in another

piece of business, of which I had no expectation when I left you. The Company who made some time since an establishment at Sierra Leone in Africa, have brought to England twenty black boys to receive European improvements, in order to be sent back when they are come to be men, to attempt enlightening the heathen nations of Africa; and I have agreed to take the care of them for a few months. You may then fancy me sitting in a master's chair, with a look of consequence, encircled with twentyone black visages, pronouncing commands, asking questions, and graciously administering instructions. Most of them have been several years instructed in a school at Sierra Leone before they came, and consequently speak English perfectly well. Their ages are chiefly from nine or ten to fifteen or sixteen. domestic manager is an aged black woman, with her daughter. The elder is a singularly pious and happy woman. She has been in different parts of the world, has undergone severe trials, but professes to have felt, and evidently now feels, a degree of devout resignation most rarely to be met with."

The

T

THORNY GROUND HEARERS.

HOSE were trae words that the minister spoke," said a poor woman, the hard-working mother of a large family, as she slowly went down the hill. "It is a world of sorrow, sure enough; and troubles seem to come thicker every year. I wonder if poor folk can find the comfort in religion that some of the gentry do. There's Betsy's teacher, now, when she comes and talks to her about her Sunday-school, how cheerful and happy she looks; and yet, if people speak the truth, it is not for want of troubles at home. 'Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.' Those are beautiful words. I'll look for them in Betsy's Testament when

I get home; and, may be, if I pray to Him, the Lord will help me to bear my burden, for it cannot be made lighter in this world, I fear."

And then her thoughts went to her care-stricken home, to her sickly baby, her improvident husband, her boys growing up selfwilled and unruly; her pale, weakly daughters, knowing little from their infancy but poverty and privation. She tried to recall more of what the minister had said. She felt that the "rest" he spoke of was just what she needed; and she

little row of houses, came to meet her with a troubled look upon her face.

"Has anything gone wrong?" cried poor Mrs. Holcroft, eagerly. "Anything the matter with the baby?" "No," said her neighbour, "it's not the baby, and it might have been a worse thing that has happened: but your Ned went sliding on the pond instead of going to school, and fell down and hurt himself—a bad sprain it seems like; well he did not break a limb, the naughty lad!"

The poor mother clasped her hands in distress. "And he was to have gone to his new place to-morrow! and my husband out of work ever since the frost ! Oh! neighbour, my troubles are more than I can bear!"

"Pray the Almighty to help you through them,"

resolved that, come what would, this year should see her a different woman: she would think more of her soul's concerns, and, since this world was worth so little to her, she would begin to prepare for another and a better life to come.

Full of these good intentions, Mrs. Holcroft turned the corner of the lane, and came in sight of her own cottage. Betsy, who had stayed at home to mind the baby while her mother went to church, was looking anxiously out at the door, and at the first glimpse of her grey shawl and black bonnet darted quickly back into the house. The mother instinctively felt that something was amiss, and was hurrying along, when a neighbour, who had also been looking out from the

returned the other, with that habitual reference to God which, amongst the poor, sometimes means SO much, and sometimes so little. But Mrs. Holcroft said nothing in reply. She thought to herself that it was hard to have this trial, just as she had resolved to lead a more religious life. The sinful, unsubmissive heart within, blinded by ignorance of God and of itself, itself, whispered that her promised amendment deserved

some

mark of Divine favour, rather than the weight of an added trial.

And therefore

when she entered her comfortless dwelling, and saw her husband's gloomy looks, and heard the moans of her disobedient boy, the holy thoughts of the previous hour faded from her mind and left no trace for future recollection. The seed had fallen among thorns; and the cares of this world choked the Word, and she became unfruitful.

Perhaps there may be among my readers some who have troubles of the same kind as Mrs. Holcroft; and they may reasonably inquire, "How could she help taking such things to heart? And why was it wrong to do so? Does religion forbid a poor person to care for her family, or to grieve when misfortune comes upon those whom she loves best?"

Christ says to us, and His righteous

Dear reader, the answer is short. "Seek first the kingdom of God, ness." When Mrs. Holeroft went back to her home, and found a new trouble there, she should have again remembered His promise to the weary and heavy laden. She should have held fast the good seed of the Word in her soul. A thought of the pitying Saviour, a silent prayer to Him for help, would have brought down. grace and strength from the Holy Spirit; and so the affliction, instead of putting her farther from God, would have drawn her nearer to Him. Will you try for yourself, to find out what I mean? Will you take your troubles to God in prayer, tell Him of all your griefs and hindrances, and ask Him to show you how He may be sought, even by those who are most oppressed by a load of earthly care?

WHY STAND ALL THE DAY IDLE?

HY stand ye thus all day?

The time for patient toil is almost past; The golden hours of light are waning fast; Why squander thus their last remaining ray In indolent delay?

Since dawn the vineyard gate

Hath stood wide open to each waiting one;
Many have entered, and their work begun,
Who rich rewards at set of sun await :

It is not yet too late.

It is the Master's call

That now would rouse you with its earnest word:
Sorrow and wonder in its tones are heard,
That proffer of heaven's joys and treasures all
On heedless ears should fall.

Hark! what a pleading cry

Comes from the dark-browed hosts of India's land,
Comes from the dwellers upon Afric's sand,
Comes from the climes where martyrs' ashes lie-
A low, despairing sigh.

Nor yet from these alone,

But from our crowded cities' lanes and haunts,
Where crouches poverty, where folly flaunts,
Where every hideous vice is broadly shown,
And virtue shrinks unknown.

Yet, side by side with these,

A thousand churches in their beauty rise;
A thousand spires stand pointing to the skies,
And from their bells, on every Sabbath breeze,
Ring out "good will and peace."

Ah, what a mournful cry!

"No man hath cared for us-none bid us come; None told us of Christ's mercy, or heaven's home; None taught us how to live or how to die ;

None pointed us on high."

Christian, no longer wait;

Out to the street and lane and thronging mart:
Echo your Master's words from heart to heart;
Call every lingering one to bear his part;
Short is the time, and the reward is great:
It is not yet too late.

A GREAT DELIVERANCE.

HE following incident, narrated in the American Messenger, occurred on Lake Erie, North America, nearly forty years ago.

The principal personage in the narrative was a Christian sailor, employed as first mate in a ship. Determined to lead the navigation of the season, the ship left Buffalo immediately after the harbour was cleared of ice, supposing, what was a quite usual occurrence, that the wind would carry the ice up the lake, break it up, and so disperse it that they would have no further trouble with it; but, to their great surprise, as they neared the upper end of the lake, they found themselves moving between two immense fields of ice-that on the right extending, apparently, to the Canadian shore, that on the left moving before the wind, slowly, but surely, down upon them.

The ship was not prepared for an Arctic encounter like this, and how to escape from their perilous position was, of course, an anxious question. But two courses presented themselves, and whether either of these was practicable remained to be seen. The first was to cross the ice, and so make their way to the Canadian shore. Our hero volunteered the attempt to reach the land. It was, of course, fraught with fearful hazard; but he succeeded in making the exploration and in returning safely to the ship, but only to report that the ice was entirely detached from the shore, and that escape in this direction was impossible.

The second method was to reach the open water through the channel between the ice-fields in the ship's boats; but this idea was soon abandoned, for, at the rate the ice was moving before the wind, it was very certain the two fields would meet long before the boats could reach open water, and, if caught, they would be crushed like egg-shells. What was to be done? Officers, sailors, passengers looked in silence and with pallid cheeks upon the approaching foe. In front, as far as could be seen, there was nothing but that narrow channel, and no wind to carry them through to the open water.

Under these circumstances the captain called the passengers and as many of the crew as could be spared from the deck into the cabin, made a plain statement of their danger, and of his entire want of power to afford them relief. Though not a professing Christian he said, "We are in the hands of God; if He does not interpose for us there is no help, no hope. If any of you know how to pray, I wish you would do so."

There sat that despairing company with bowed heads in dead silence, so still you could hear your heart beat. In that terrible moment the pious mate raised his head, and just in a whisper said, "Let us pray."

Officers, passengers, sailors at once quietly went down upon their knees, and naught was heard except now and then a deep-drawn sigh or a half-suppressed 30b. Then the converted sailor, in simple, child-like

language, told, in the ears of Him who holds the winds and the sea in the hollow of His hand, their exposure and danger, the interest they each had in their own lives and the lives and happiness of others, fathers, mothers, wives, children, and friends; humbly confessing their sins and just exposure to pain and penalty; and then, with tearful penitence, and loving trustfulness, supplicating mercy and deliverance through the crucified and exalted Redeemer.

After the prayer the captain and mate went on deck, and who can tell what were their thoughts when they saw that, during the solemn moment of penitent prayer, the wind had changed, and now, instead of blowing the crushing ice-field upon them, it was blowing the ship slowly through that open channel!

The mate looking aloft at the nearly naked yards, said, "Shall I put some more canvas on her, captain ?” "No," said the captain, "don't touch her; some one else is managing the ship."

And so the unseen Hand did lead them to the open water, and to their desired haven in safety.

The incident, of the truth of which the reader can rest assured, shall be left to bear uninterpreted its own. testimony to the truth that God hears and answers prayer. And therefore it is written that "men ought always to pray, and not to faint."

A WORD IN SEASON.

TRAIN stopped at a lonely station 'on the edge of a forest clearing in America. Two young ladies were helped out, two trunks tossed upon the platform, and the train moved on, leaving the girls stranded, as it were, upon an inhospitable-looking shore. There was but one tiny, log-house in sight, and far on towards the horizon stretched the bleak, barren prairie. The travellers, however, were familiar with the spot, for they were teachers in a school, thirty miles distant, reached by a branch line forming here a junction with a great central route, and were returning to their labours after the winter holidays. A man had appeared as the train stopped, who first examined the trunks, and then entered the solitary room of the station and replenished the fire.

"Oh, this is a terrible glum-looking place," said the elder of the two as he left the room. "That man looks surly and ill-natured, and I don't wonder."

"Do you think so?" answered her companion. "I thought he looked troubled, and was questioning whether it would do to speak to him."

"Nonsense, Clara! The man is cross, like enough, because he has to keep sober in this out-of-the-way den; and it isn't a very proper thing to be making free with people with whom we have so little in common."

"Only that Christ died for them as well as for us— we are at least bound together by the need of the same salvation."

There was no reply to this, for just then the man came in again to hang up a lantern, and as he stooped to brush up some ashes about the stove, Clara heard a low sigh, and she was convinced that she ought to speak to him.

"You must find it very lonely here, sir," she said, after an instant's hesitation.

The man looked up surprised, as if he thought, "And what does anybody care if it is?" then he answered, "Yes, miss, awful lonesome I call it; especially "-and his voice faltered-"since my wife died."

"Your wife died-and here!"

"Yes, miss, and we had to bury her there, just within the woods. Lucy-she's my oldest-likes it, because there's an evergreen climbing round that big tree, and she said it would be cheerful like when everything else was withered. But it seems so bleak and hard" -and the man shuddered-" to think of her lying there."

"Was your wife a Christian?" asked the teacher. "Oh yes, miss, indeed she was."

"Then you must not think of her there, but in a home far more beautiful than we can imagine. Don't you believe in her Saviour?"

You see,

"Well, miss, there it is; I don't know. I had to come here; I couldn't get anything better to do, and there's no one for a body to speak to, and it isn't much I can teach my two girls; and somehow I feel out of the way, as if God didn't care for me here, and sometimes I think I'd be more in the way of being a Christian somewhere else."

"Did you ever read in the Bible the story of blind Bartimeus?"

66

Yes, miss; the children like that."

"Have you never thought that all that poor man could do was to beg, and so begging became his duty, and as he sat in the way of his duty, Jesus passed by? If Christ is to be found in one place more readily than another, it will be in the place in life to which God has appointed us. Wherever we are, the opportunity for repentance is always ours, and through the blood. of Jesus, which cleanses from all sin, God has written now is the time for pardon and salvation."

"Do you really think it means all of us?"

"Yes, all. Give up everything but belief in God's willingness and Christ's power. willingness and Christ's power. He is waiting for you, yearning to receive you, if you will only come."

"Bless your kind heart, miss!" said the man, with tearful eyes, as the expected train arrived. "With all the people coming and going, nobody has said a word to me like that."

A month or two after, Clara received a letter in an unknown hand, and one evidently not used to correspondence. It contained simply these words:

"God bless you again, miss! It is not lonesome here now. I've found Him-Jesus has passed by."