I haven't believed in any God for years: if I had I shouldn't be as I am now! And I never did beat little Nellie, drunk or sober! Haven't I gone hungry myself many a time with little Nellie's halfpenny loaf safe in my pocket?"

Presently he reached the house where his daughter had found a good home as a servant. The master of the house answered his wavering knock at the door, and looked very sternly and doubtfully at the wet draggled figure seeking admission to his clean home: but the emergency was allowed to overcome all scruples; and he informed Peter that he would find his daughter and a nurse at the top of the house. The nurse laid her finger on her lip as he entered, and motioned him to a chair close to the bedside. Laying his shoes aside and removing his wet coat, he sat down and looked attentively at his sick daughter. As he looked upon her, a dull, faint heart-sinking within him told him that hope was over- that his darling was passing away. A low, wild cry that he could not repress broke from him; and then his face was covered by his hands, as he sank upon his knees by the bedside.

The sound roused the dying girl; she looked wildly and unconsciously around until her eyes met the shrinking figure by the bedside. Then thought and the old love returned to her; she gently raised the bowed head until it rested upon her hot labouring bosom; and his arms were flung around her with an intensity that said he knew not how to let her go.

"Leave me alone with father a little while, nurse, dear," said Nellie; "I have something I must say to him before I go." The woman left the room silently; and they were alone.

"Father! darling father!" she said, her arms clinging lovingly round his neck, I am dying, and I want you to pray to our Father in heaven for me!"

A low groan, that seemed wrung from the depth of a breaking heart, was the only reply he was able to give. "I want you to think of our old home, father, where you used to twine my hair round your fingers as I climbed upon your knee, and so remember how you always loved Nellie! I wish such times may come again, though I shall not be with you and so I ask you to pray for me, and for yourself too."

"I cannot, I dare not, Nellie," he said; "I would if I could-if only because you ask me but I cannot; and it would be useless! I have sinned beyond forgiveness; He would not hear me."

"No, no, father!" she replied; "Jesus is able to save to the uttermost,' and He came to do it; and He can and will save you. If you have been a great sinner, the greater honour to Him in saving you. Pray, father; pray for yourself and for me! I shall soon be in heaven, but I want you to come there too. Father! darling father! Nellie is dying! but before I go, I want to hear you pray! Only a few words, father! Don't refuse such a thing to your darling Nellie! It is the last thing she will ever ask on earth of you!"

With an outburst of sobs and tears, that shook the dying girl as a leaf in the autumn wind, her father for

the first time in a long life uttered words of earnest prayer to God. He gasped forth, "God in heaven,

have mercy upon my darling and upon me!" The barriers once broken down, the pent-up deluge burst forth. With his daughter's arms round him, her hot breath upon his tear-stained cheek, there the poor drunkard pleaded earnestly for mercy; and though the words were laboured and interrupted, they were earnest and heartfelt-and they were heard.

"Amen!" responded Nellie, and then continued, "I am going to be with Jesus,-one of His servants, doing His will, and seeing Him always; and I want you to promise to love and serve Him too, and so come to me again when you die!"

"I will, Nellie," he said; "indeed I will! if He will have a poor broken-down wretch like me!"

"Let me pray now, father," ," she said; and with her last strength she poured forth humble, earnest entreaties into the listening ear of Eternal Love for her father, and her mother and the other children. Then still clinging closely round his neck, she faltered, "Father, one more promise: don't ever drink any more!

"I won't, Nellie !" he gasped; "I never will, God helping me: I will die and come to you, if He will let me, but I will never touch strong drink again." A glad, peaceful smile lit up her face as the promise fell upon her ear; and then she faintly murmured, “I am going father, pray!"

He complied, and the words fell solemnly upon the air. Then the loving arms unclasped, the head fell back, and Nellie "was not; for God had taken her to the land of which it is written, "There shall be no night there!"

A few days, and poor Peter had to return to daily tempting torture, without his darling Nellie. Oftentimes his life appeared one long continuance of awful craving-a terrible yearning that seemed as if it must have its way. Yet his strong resolve never once wavered-he would die, or even go mad, if so it must be; but he would be able to look into Nellie's spiriteyes and declare that he had faithfully kept the last promise he had given.

It was well for him then that he had to strive hard for honest means of living. He went to an old employer, saying, "My daughter Nellie is dead! Before she died she made me promise never to drink any more; and if I die for it, I will keep my word. Now, if you will kindly employ me, and lend me money to redeem my tools, I will work steadily for you till all is repaid." "Lift up your head and let me have a fair look at your face," replied the employer.

Peter quietly obeyed the request; and the master fixed a keen scrutinising glance upon him,-replying at length, "All right, Peter, I'll trust you willingly." So Peter fought the hard strife, and conquered; clinging to his work, to Nellie's Bible, and to prayer. Among the vilest he went on his way, speaking of Jesus, of Nellie, and of hope; himself a living gospel to the drunkard, a breathing proof of the infinite willingness of the Son of God to rescue and to save.

HEZEKIAH'S LETTER.

HERE is always a certain excitement when the postman's knock is heard at the house door. Sometimes the letter he leaves brings sorrow, sometimes joy; sometimes it tells of money lost, sometimes of money gained, and more often it deals with common, every day things.

Over two thousand five hundred years have passed since Hezekiah, king of Judah, received a very important letter. It reached him by no common hand, it was sent by special messengers. It was not a pleasant letter to receive, for it told him that the great and mighty king of Assyria intended to make war against him.

Hezekiah read his letter; perhaps he trembled as he mastered its contents, but only for the moment : for he remembered he was not alone, he had a greater for him than against him. He carried the letter straight up to the house of the Lord, and spread it out before the King of kings. Then he prayed earnestly. He knew perfectly well that he could not fight the king of Assyria unless his God helped him. (Read the thirty-seventh chapter of Isaiah.)

The Lord heard and answered this prayer of faith, and said, by the mouth of His prophet Isaiah, "I will defend this city (Jerusalem) to save it for Mine own sake, and for My servant David's sake." And it is written, "The angel of the Lord went forth, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians a hundred and fourscore and five thousand."

Hezekiah in his sore need trusted in God, and God helped him. That same God is ready to-day to help any of His children who cry after Him. How many letters we receive and answer without taking counsel of God, and yet we know Him in a closer relation than even Hezekiah did, for Jesus came to reveal to us God as "Our Father." We should have fewer anxious cares in this world of ours if we took everything to Him in prayer.

Let us follow Hezekiah's example, and in the great as well as small matters of this every-day life, cast all our cares on God, whose "hand is not shortened that it cannot save, neither His ear heavy that it cannot hear."

It was not long before the elder of the two was known by the name of "The Dumb Witch." And on the rare occasions of her venturing beyond her own cottagegate, a group of very rude urchins followed her, shouting, hooting, and uttering every hideous noise they could invent.

That the poor old creature was dumb accounted for her inarticulate cries of mingled anger and fear. The lads used to declare she was cursing them when she raised her thin hands waving them back from pursuing her; but they still took delight in persecuting her, harmless though she was. When a large and beautiful

black cat was discovered to belong to the cottage, it became quite a favourite pastime to lurk about, on the chance of hitting it with pebbles, this being a sure means of bringing out the so-called witch with her stout ash stick, with which she threatened the offenders, who were, however, too active and fleet to fall into the old woman's power.

Thus it came about that warfare reigned between the villagers, both old and young, and the inmates of the lonely cottage, for the children invented stories of the rage with which they were menaced and pursued, and the parents, without inquiring into the matter, took the children's part.

As summer melted into autumn, a good many young visitors were attracted to the place by the heavilyladen apple trees, which grew in the "dumb witch's"

garden, finer and more fruitful trees, they seemed, than any others round about.

"Let's make up a party of six or seven," said one stout strong lad, "and demand apples as the price of letting her come outside her gate." And the thoughtless fellow found plenty of his comrades ready for the fun, as they called it.

So one day when the younger woman had been seen to go in the direction of the town a few miles distant, a party of boys went up to the little cottage just as the "witch" was closing the door behind her. "I say, old lady, give us some apples," said Jenkins, the ringleader. Before the words were off his lips she had pushed him aside and made her escape through the gate, followed by the whole party laughing, shouting and dancing round her like so many monkeys. When, however, she stood still and laid about her with her stout ash stick, a battle began in earnest, for the angry boys threw sticks and stones, and every missile which came to hand, and some serious disaster must have been the end of the affray, had not one of the Hilton men come by and put a stop to it.

Next day there was a strange revulsion of feeling, for news came about that the old woman of the cottage was dead or dying. In the night the village surgeon had been sent for, and found her lying motionless on the

floor, her strange murmurings low and faint, and her daughter unable to tell what had befallen her. Jenkins, the head of the band whose joke had probably hastened the old woman's end, was the first to gain the cottage. "I never meant to hurt her; it was all a joke at the beginning till we got angry," he explained to the young woman who answered his knock. "She was not injured, only frightened."

Silently she beckoned him to follow, and to his last day he never forgot that night. The low trestle bed was in the corner, upon which lay a form so still that no life could be in it, even the form of the poor old "dumb witch" whose face looked very peaceful, whose

eyes would never unclose again in this world. "She's better off," said the daughter, quietly wiping away a starting tear, "for she was fit to die. Many a time when you lads had been worrying her, I've caught her looking up to heaven and praying, as I've thought, for patience; for by nature she had a fiery temper, which would ill brook being laughed at. She'd learned to write a bit two years ago; and see here what she put down just before she was struck with death last night."

On the slate which had been kept for her use there was an ill-done scrawl, but plain enough for the boy to read it. "Father, forgive them, and forgive me!" she had said, and then laid down to die. Can I tell you the sorrow of those boys, who, though assured that she had died from some natural cause, always felt as if they had hastened her end? But it taught them that "only a joke" may have a serious ending; it taught them, too, that those whom their fellow-creatures ridicule and despise may be very dear to God.

All Hilton turned out to see the funeral of the "dumb witch," and many a tear was shed over her to whom in life they had shown no kindness; and years after, when the children of the village had grown to manhood and womanhood, they would tell the story, and how in her own poor way the woman had left behind her the evidence that she forgave for Christ's sake, even as she trusted in Him for pardon when she had to appear before Him as her judge. Only a joke! Ah, many such things have ended very sorrowfully; so let us cultivate the spirit of kindness which was taught by the example and words of our Saviour, let us take His dealings with men as a model for our own, and then we shall be indeed the children of Him whose name is love, and who bids us love our neighbours as ourselves.

particular; and told to each other by what means they had been afflicted, and how they were borne up under his assaults. They also discoursed of their own wretchedness of heart, and of their unbelief; and did contemn, slight, and abhor their own righteousness, as filthy and insufficient to do them any good.

"And methought," he continues, "they spake as if joy did make them speak; they spake with such pleasantness of Scripture language, and with such appearance of in all they said, that they were to grace me as if they had found a new world; as if they were 'people that dwelt alone, and were not to be reckoned among their neighbours.'

"At this I felt my own heart began to shake, and mistrust my condition to be nought; for I saw that in all my thoughts about religion and salvation, the new birth did never enter into my mind; neither knew I the comfort of the word and promise, nor the deceitfulness and treachery of my own wicked heart. As for secret thoughts, I took no notice of them; neither did I understand what Satan's temptations were, nor how they were to be withstood and resisted.

"Thus, therefore, when I had heard and considered what they said, I left them, and went about my employment again. But their talk and discourse went with me; also my heart would tarry with them, for I was greatly affected with their words, both because by them I was convinced that I wanted the true tokens of a truly godly man, and also, because by them I was convinced of the happy and blessed condition of him that was such a one."

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One day, as he was passing into a field, these words fell upon his soul, "Thy righteousness is in heaven." "that it was not my good "I saw, moreover," he frame of heart that made my righteousness better, nor my bad frame that made my righteousness worse, for my righteousness was Jesus Christ Himself, the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever." He was now loosed from his bondage; his temptations fled away; and he went home rejoicing for the grace and love of God. The words, "Thy righteousness is in heaven," were not to be found in the Bible, but then there were these, "He of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteous-. ness, and sanctification, and redemption."

This blessed truth was his peace with God. He was complete in Christ Jesus.

THE REFUGE IN TROUBLE.

"God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble."-Ps. xlvi. 1.

OD's people in every age of the world have their troubles. Indeed, we must all through much tribulation enter the kingdom; but we have a sanctuary to which to flee. "God is our refuge and our strength;" that is, by His grace He enables us to bear the trouble-by His power He carries us through it. We sometimes think, how shall we bear this or that

trouble when it comes upon us? We do not know what we can bear till the trouble comes. We do not know what strength God can give us, or what a strong God He can be to us.

Observe that God is not only our refuge and our strength, but our help also help to support under trouble-help to comfort us while trouble lasts, till we are helped quite over it-quite through it.

And see what a help He is-" a very present help." It cannot be said of our God, "Perhaps He is asleep, or talking, or gone a journey." No; "He that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep." "Therefore," says David, "will we not fear." And the believer may say, "Of whom shall I be afraid? What shall I fear? Shall I fear that my God will leave me, when He says, 'I will never leave thee?' Shall I fear that my God will not succour me?" No, says David, "though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea; though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof," I shall not fear. "The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge."

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But would know how is the strength that supports and comforts the believer conveyed to him? "There is a Well, this is explained in the psalm. river," said David, "the streams whereof make glad the city of God." If by this river we understand the covenant of grace, then the promises of God are the streams that flow from it; and none but the believer knows how glad the heart is made by the promises.

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Since, then, there is a river, the streams whereof make glad the city of God-since God is our refugesince God is our strength-since God is our help--since God is a 66 very present help in trouble," blessed be God, we shall not fear. Nay, though the king of terrors himself should come against us, we shall not be afraid. "Yea," says David, "though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil."

Oh, what a blessed thing it is that we have this to comfort us when under any trouble; that we have a refuge to which to flee, and strength to enable us to flee there, and keep us safe when we shall have reached it!

"God is our refuge and strength," says the psalmist. Now, upon our being able to appropriate this word "our" depends everything. All the promises of the Gospel, all that is said of God and of Christ, can do us no good, except that God and Christ be ours-not only whether He be so in a general sense, but that He is our God in particular. He has said of His people in general, "A new heart will I give them." "I will put My laws in their mind, and write them in their hearts." But all this is comparatively good for nothing to us unless He has said at the same time of us, "I will be their God, and they shall be My people." It is everything to be able to say our God," our strength," our refuge."

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Now, if we call God "our God," we shall endeavour to be like God, that is, "whether we eat or drink, or