DECREASE OF LAW-STAZE

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The once spurned Book now found a place, not only in his house, but its truths were received into his heart, and controlled his life.

DECREASE OF LAW-SUITS.

LIEUTENANT-COLONEL PHIPPS relates the following pleasing narrative:-I was travelling in a remote district in Bengal, and I came to the house of a gentleman belonging to Portugal I found him reading the Scriptures in the Bengali to seventy or eighty people of that countrymen, women, and children-who were all very attentive. This gentleman told me that he had been led to employ some of his leisure moments in this way. "And to-morrow," said he, "as you pass my farm, mention my name, and they will make you welcome, and you will then see the effects of reading the Scriptures." The next day I called at his estate, where I saw one hundred men, women, and children, who had all become converts to Christianity within three or four years. I inquired how they found themselves: they appeared delighted, and thought it a happy thing for them that Europeans had translated the Scriptures, that they might read

44

CONVERSION OF AUGUSTINE.

in their own tongue the wonderful works of God. I had some intercourse, also, with an official person in that district, and I mention it because some persons tell you that nothing is done by the missionaries. I asked the magistrate what was the conduct of these Christians; and he said, “There is something in them that does excite astonishment. The inhabitants of this district are particularly known as being so litigious and troublesome, that they have scarcely any matter but what they bring into the courts of justice; but during three or four years past not one of these people has brought a cause against any one, nor any one against them." I mention this to show that Christianity will produce, in all countries, peace and happiness, to those who know the truth as it is in Jesus.

CONVERSION OF AUGUSTINE.

IN the spring of the year 372, a young man in the thirty-first year of his age, in evident distress of mind, entered into his garden near Milan. The sins of his youth-a youth spent in sensuality and impiety-weighed heavily on his soul. Lying under a fig-tree, moaning and

CONVERSION OF AUGUSTINE.

45

pouring out abundant tears, he heard, from a neighbouring house, a young voice saying, and repeating in rapid succession, "Tolle, lege! tolle, lege!" (Take and read! take and read!) Receiving this as a divine admonition, he returned to the place where he had left his friend Alypius, to procure the roll of St. Paul's Epistles which he had, a short time before, left with him. "I seized the roll," says he, in describing this scene. "I opened it, and read in silence the chapter on which my eyes first alighted." It was the thirteenth of Romans: "Let us walk honestly, as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying. But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof." All was decided by a word. "I did not want to read any more," said he; 'nor was there any need; every doubt was banished." The morning star had risen in his heart. In the language of Gaussen: "Jesus had conquered; and the grand career of Augustine, the holiest of the Fathers, then commenced. A passage of God's Word had kindled that glorious luminary, which was to enlighten the Church for ten centuries, and whose beams gladden her even to this present day. After thirty-one

46

THE SPARED LEAF.

years of revolt, of combats, of falls, of misery,faith, life, eternal peace came to this erring soul; a new day—an eternal day came upon it."

THE SPARED LEAF.

IN a certain town in Rhode Island there lived two young men, who were intimately acquainted. The one was truly pious; but the other, a shopman, paid no regard to divine things. On one occasion the shopman took up a leaf of the Bible, and was about to tear it in pieces, and use it for packing up some small parcel in the shop, when the other said, "Do not tear that; it contains the word of eternal life." The young man, though he did not relish the reproof of his kind and pious friend, folded up the leaf and put it in his pocket. Shortly after this, he said within himself, "Now, I will see what kind of life it is of which this leaf speaks." On unfolding the leaf, the first words that caught his eye were the last in the Book of Daniel: "But go thou thy way till the end be: for thou shalt rest, and stand in thy lot at the end of the days." He began immediately to inquire what his lot

ld be at the end of the days, and the train

of thought thus awakened led to the formation of a religious character. By means so various are the purposes of divine grace accomplished.

THE SIXPENCE.

SOME time in the later part of the last century, says the Rev. Mr. Grinnell, a missionary, from one of the New England Societies, was labouring in the interior of the state of New York, where the settlements were very few and far between. This missionary was much devoted to his work, meek and affable, and possessed of a remarkable faculty for introducing the subject of religion to every individual with whom he came in contact. On a hot summer day, while his horse was drinking from a small brook through which he rode, there came along a poorly dressed, bareheaded, bare-footed boy, about seven years old, and stood looking at the missionary from the bridge just above him.

My son," said the missionary, “have you any parents?"

"Yes, sir; they live in that house," pointing to a cabin near by.

"Do your parents pray?"