were now spent there, especially if she could coax Agnes to be her companion. seen her look, and following her, he reopened the door, entering without being observed. 'Dora,' he said, after pausing a few moments, what are you angry about?' Dora threw her pinafore over her face, but made no reply, though her sobs were perfectly audible. 'Tom says, I'm Dora Dull,' sobbed Dora, still keeping the pinafore over her face. Surely that would not make you angry,' he remarked. 'No-o, no-o,' answered Dora, 'not if he loved me; but he does not now-no, he does not love me now.' Tom, who was perfectly innocent of having grieved Dora, would occasionally wonder at her seeming indifference; but he was so absorbed with his shipbuilding and Madge, that he seldom thought of it many minutes together, and certainly not long enough to lead him to question 'Dora, my child, get up,' said her uncle, helpher on the subject. Madge was also rathering to raise her from the floor. What is the afraid of the reserved little girl, with the large matter?' eyes, sometimes blue, and sometimes all but black, so dark were they in colour, and could talk much better and more freely with any of the other children; so that she made no overtures of friendship, but rather shunned Dora's society. Dora could scarcely tell whether she was pleased or sorry when the Christmas holidays were over; she was pleased that Madge had returned to school on her own account, but she was sorry for all the rest of the family, for she saw how much they all liked her. It most decidedly had not been a pleasant three weeks to her, whatever it had been to her cousins; and she knew it was entirely her own fault, which made her anything but happy in her mind, and she felt she wanted her own dear mamma very badly to set her right. But the setting right soon came in a way and manner Dora did not expect. Tom had got out his books, and begun his exercise the evening after Madge went back to school, when he observed: 'How I do miss my robin! Oh dear me !' "Your robin?' said Constance, looking up from her book. Dora also looked up, and her heart beat fast as Tom replied: "Why, Madge to be sure; she's just like a robin redbreast, so bright and cheerful.' I'll tell her so to-morrow,' said Constance, laughing. 'You'd better not, Conny,' remarked Tom, growing very red in the face. Girls are always so stupid; they can't hear nothing but they will go and talk about it.' 'If they don't hear nothing, they cannot talk about it, Mr. Tom; so you are out there,' observed Constance, very provokingly. 'Nonsense, Dora, that's a whim of yours. Tom is as fond of you as ever, no doubt, my child.' 'No, he is not-that he is not, he loves Madge best; he says so,' and Dora gave a deep sigh, which seemed to come from the bottom of her heart. 'Dora, my darling, you must not talk and feel like that, it is naughty of you,' said Mr. Harley, kindly. 'Yes, I know it is,' sobbed Dora. 'I'm very naughty bad, uncle-'tis just here, uncle;' and Dora dropped her pinafore, and laid her hand on her breast. "Yes, I know it is, my dear,' replied her uncle. 'Let me tell you what is the matter with you, that you may ask God to cure you of it;' and he sat down, taking her on his knee. 'As pretty as Madge, uncle,' she managed to Why, my dear?' said her uncle. 'Well, tell if you like; she is the nicest, pret-reply. tiest little girl I ever saw, and that's the real truth. She's just like a robin redbreast, and no mistake. What do you think, Dora?' he inquired. Dora managed to mumble out something about she did not know,' which rather piqued Tom, who immediately replied: 'Then you ought to know; and I shall call you Dora Dull, if you do not keep your eyes open for the future.' This remark was too much for Dora, whose heart and eyes were, alas! too open, and, with a look of mingled passion and sorrow, she sprang up and darted out of the room, never stopping until she had reached her own, when, shutting to the door, she flumped down on the floor with her face to the wall, and burst out crying. It so happened that, just as Dora was rushing out of the schoolroom, her uncle was coming up the lower flight of stairs, and saw her dash up the upper ones, looking angrier than he had ever 'Because because Tom would love me best; and I want him to, ever so much more than Madge; indeed, I do,' she whispered. 'Dora, my darling,' said Mr. Harley, 'do you know what sin it is called, when we desire wrongly what another person possesses, and cannot be happy without it ?' Dora was silent; but she gazed earnestly through her tears at her uncle. 'It is called envy, my darling; and dreadful things it leads to, if indulged in. And when we envy beauty, or anything else of another's, for the sake of taking their place, and being thought more of than they, it is jealousy. And oh! my precious child, it was envy and jealousy which caused Cain to kill his brother Abel. Strive therefore against it, as you would fly from the very gates of hell, for it is the devil's bait to lure you to destruction.' Dora clung closer to her uncle, and wept faster and louder, as he showed her what was passing in her heart, and what it might lead to; and she begged him to tell her what to do that she might not grow so wicked, so very wicked. You must watch and pray against it now, my darling, whilst the seed is very small, ere it take deep root in your heart; for already you have proved that it has a root of bitterness.' 'Yes, oh yes!' she murmured; 'oh dear! oh dear! Just then the conversation was interrupted by Tom's coming in search of Dora, having waited a long time expecting her to return, and finding she did not, he had come to see whether she was really angry with him, for he had not failed to notice the look she gave him as she left the room; but his father waved his hand for him to go away, and then kissing Dora, he bade her pray to God to teach her the good and the right way, and left her to see after Tom. Tom was astounded when Mr. Harley told him that he feared he had not been as kind to Dora as he ought to have been, and promised that she should never have to complain of him again, for that he did love her, and would not vex her for all the world. And when he parted from his father, he went up to Dora, and putting his arms round her neck, whispered in her ear, Why, you're a downright silly Dora! Madge is my dear friend; but you are my little cousin sister Dora, and you always will be sister Dora.' Dora wiped away her tears, and descended to the schoolroom smiling and happy with Tom. The seedling root of bitterness had been wrenched out from her heart by prayer and love, as it ever will be, if we use the weapons provided for us by the Captain of our salvation, Jesus the Lord. (To be continued.) SALVATION AS A FREE GIFT. I ONCE found myself in company with a party of friends in the gallery of a small village church, listening to a discourse from a coloured minister, or rather exhorter. After some preliminary exercises, a grey-headed man, evidently quite a patriarchal personage, arose, and announced as his subject, The History of Dives and Lazarus,' which he proceeded to explain and enforce. One illustration he used was so full of quaint simplicity, and at the same time so adapted to express the idea he meant to convey, that it struck me forcibly. He was trying to show how a sinner should accept the gospel offers of sal vation. 'Suppose,' said he,' any of you wanted a coat, and should go to a white gentleman to purchase one. Well, he has one that exactly fits you, and in all respects is just what you need. You ask the price; but, when told, find you have not enough money, and shake your head. "No, massa, I am too poor, must go without," and turn away. But he says, "I know you cannot pay me, and I have concluded to give it to you: will you have it?" 'What would you do in that case ?-stop to hem and haw, and say, Oh, he's just laughing at me; he don't mean it?" No such thing. There is not one of you who would not take the coat, and say— 6.66 Yes, massa, and thank you too." 'Now, my dear friends, God's salvation is offered you as freely as that; why won't you take it as freely? You are lost, undone sinners, and feel that you need a covering from his wrath. If you would keep his holy law blameless, you might purchase it by good works; but ah! you are all full of sin, and that continually. Prayer and tears are worthless. You are poor indeed; and if this is all your dependence, I don't wonder that you are turning off in despair. But stoplook here-God speaks now, and offers you the perfect robe of Christian righteousness, that will cover all your sins, and fit all your wants, and say that you may have it "without money and without price." Oh, brethren, my dear brethren, do take God's word for it, and thankfully accept his free gift.' What impression the words had on the old man's coloured auditors, I cannot tell; but as our group left the church, one of the ladies remarked to another: 'What a strange idea that was about the coat!' 'My dear friend,' was the reply, 'it suited my state of mind, rough and unpolished as it was, better than all Dr. -'s elaborate and eloquent arguments this morning. I am so glad that I came here. This is the way I have been despairingly seeking for years. How simple! How plain! Free grace alone! Yes, I will take God at his word. "Nothing in my hands I bring, The Wave of Life. Miscellaneous. 'WHITHER, thou turbid wave? -From the German of Tiedge. The Prayer. - A young lady was taking a pleasant walk one summer day in a deeply shaded woodland, and, being weary, sat down to rest on a secluded mossy bank, near the summit of a hill. Presently she heard a voice, as of one engaged in earnest conversation; and, on advancing a step or two, she saw good Mr. Mcoming leisurely up the hill, the reins hanging loosely over his horse's neck. What can he be talking about so earnestly to himself?' she thought; but directly she heard the voice of prayer; and the words which God's providence caused to be especially impressed upon her mind were these: O Lord, have mercy upon the dear youth of this place.' The good old man rode on; but the voice of prayer was heard, after he had disappeared from her view, in the leafy depths of the forest. The young lady was struck with the thought: 'Is this the way Christians go about the town, and mingle with the world? Do they pray thus for our souls? I have hardly ever prayed for my own.' From that day she began to pray, and became the first-fruits of a glorious revival. Parental Discipline.-A recent writer, alluding to the prevalence of crime among boys, very properly asserts that one of the main causes of the decline of morality, is the decay of parental discipline. The family circle, the domestic hearth, is the true fountain of purity or corruption to public morals. Most people become what they are made at home. They go forth into the world, to act out the character they have formed in the first fourteen years of their lives. The Opera.-When I think that music too is condemned to be mad, and to burn herself upon such a funeral-pile, your celestial opera - house grows dark and infernal to me. Behind its glitter stalks the shadow of eternal death. Through it, too, I look not up into the divine eye, as Richter has it, but down into the bottomless eye-socket; not upward towards God, heaven, and the home of truth, but too truly downward, towards falsity, vanity, and the dwelling-place of everlasting despair. Carlyle. Wealth.-Wealth is given to Christians, not to be expended in costly raiment, extravagant equipage, and luxurious living, but to be employed freely in the service of the Master. 'Freely ye have received, freely give.' The Soul. The mind hath no horizon. It looks beyond the eye, and seeks for mind In all it sees, or all it sees o'erruling. -J. Montgomery. The Over-sanguine. And yet I do bethink me of the proverb, Wonders of Creation.-The cheese-mite is an animal of middling size in existence; in other words, there are creatures as much smaller than it as there are larger. This is not strictly correct. The largest animal known is the Rorqual (Balanoptera boops), which is about 100 feet in length. The smallest is the Twilight Monad above mentioned, whose dimensions are Tooth of an inch! It is evident that the middle term between these extremes is one-third of an inch, which is about the length of the common house-fly-which may be therefore considered as an animal of medium size in creation. Naked come, Naked go.-Alexander the when he was carried forth to his grave, his hands Great, being upon his deathbed, commanded that, should not be wrapped, as was usual, in the cerecloths, but should be left outside the bier, that all men might see them, and see that they were empty The World's Friendships.-One morning I found him quite alone. He bade me remark this. 'Formerly,' he said, when I was young, scarcely any one passed my door, men or women, without calling to see me. To-day, from that window, I observe them all go by, as formerly, but they enter no more.'-Guizot on Lord Holland. Be Consistent.-Oh the inconsistencies of professing Christians! Cards at eight, family worship at ten! A ball one night, a prayer-meeting the next! A psalm or hymn one hour, some silly song of folly the next! This week the theatre or opera, next week the communion table! When will those who name the name of Christ learn to avoid even the appearance of evil, as well as to depart from all iniquity? The Cost of Experience.-Experience is a blessed thing, but it is one of the dearest of all commodities. It is only to be purchased by time, and toil, and failure, and sorrow, and anxiety, and strength. Perhaps the last is one of the costliest of all the items. Suppose you have got the experience of thirty years, your strength to make use of that experience is not what it was. Experience comes in, but strength goes out. Yes, experience is good, but very costly. Trust and Distrust.-When I rise from my knees, uncertain as to whether God will hear my cries, then I am blaspheming the name of Him who is merciful and gracious; when I rise from my knees confident of an answer (not because of what I am, but of what He is), then I am glorifying his name. Orators.-Those orators who give us much noise and many words, but little argument and less wit, and who are most loud where they are the least lucid, should take a lesson from the great volume of nature. She often gives us the lightning, even without the thunder, but never the thunder without the lightning. Conscience.-Conscience, be it ever so little a worm while we live, grows suddenly to a serpent on the deathbed.-Anon. Mords in Season. BIBLE THOUGHTS. BY THE EDITOR. LUKE VI. 19. JESUS is here the centre of a great crowd from all parts of Palestine. They have heard of Him, and they flock to Him. His words and deeds attract them. He has what they want; so they gather round Him. The scene teaches us such lessons as the following: I. There is health in Jesus.-He came from heaven with all the health of heaven in Him; health, like sunshine, flowing out irrepressibly; health of every kind; health without measure; health inexhaustible. The balm of the mountains of Gilead might wither down and die out; this heavenly balm could not. It was like the leaves of the tree of life, never falling, ever growing, and ever green. The physicians of Gilead died, till none was left; this Physician dies not. He is the ever-living Christ, the Son of God. All health, and skill, and kindness are to be found in Him; for not only is He perfect man, but very God; nay, and the fulness of the healing Spirit, without measure, dwells in Him. II. There is sickness in us. We are sick, nigh unto death; sick in body, sick in soul; 'the whole head sick, the whole heart faint;' our wound incurable by man; our hurt grievous. It is sickness pervading our whole system; sickness accompanied with pain and weakness, with sorrow, and sadness, and heaviness of spirit. It prostrates the body and clouds the mind. We may cover it over, but it is still there. We may soothe with anodynes, and administer sleeping-draughts, but the disease is unremoved. We may deaden or drown the pain in worldliness, or business, or vanity, or lust; but the mortal malady is still working in every part. O deadly disease of sin! what a world hast thou made here!-what an hospital, a lazar-house, a city of the plague! O pains of earth! not temporary or occasional, but constant and abiding; forerunners of the eternal pain, the eternal sickness, the eternal agony and woe. III. Contact with Jesus heals.-The medicine must be taken; the Physician's hand must touch us; we must, in some way or other, come within the circle where the divine virtue is flowing out. It is indeed the Holy Spirit that applies the remedy; but He does so by bringing us within this healing circle, by making us touch Him who is the divine treasure-house of health. There was no healing for Israel without looking at the brazen serpent; so there is no healing for us without the look, the touch that brings us into contact with Jesus. It is not a clasping or embracing, but a touching; a touching even the hem of his garment; a coming within his shadow, as in the case of Peter. Such is the resistless efficacy, the irrepressible virtue that is lodged in Him! And as we are healed by touching, so our health is continued by our continuing to touch. It is to be a constant touching, a lifetime's Thus is our contact; nay, an eternal contact. new health begun and prolonged. Does this seem a hard thing? A hard thing to be always in communication with Jesus; to be always under the shadow of the tree of life; to be always on the brink of the crystal river of the New Jerusalem! If some think it hard, they show that all is yet wrong with them, and that it is sheer necessity and force that is bringing them to entertain the thought of contact with Jesus at all. Should we call it a hard thing to be daily obliged to breathe the fresh air and bask in the glorious sunshine? Is it a hard thing to be obliged to eat, that we may be fed; or to sleep, that we may be refreshed? Is it a hard thing for the friend to be in company with the friend, or the parent with the child? Is there not among multitudes, who call Jesus Saviour, a feeling that they would rather only use Him in times of great necessity, but at other times have the fellowship of every one in preference to Him? But the disease that brings us to Him, keeps us at his side. There is no health away from Him, neither is there joy. We came for the cure of our pain, but we find this only a small part of what we obtain from Him. We find all in Him, and so we hold Him fast, and will not let Him go. It is our very life, our very joy, to remain in contact with Him. | IV. This health and this contact are free to us.There is no fence around Him to keep us off, no guard to forbid or warn us away. Any one, every one may come at once and be healed. It is the sick, not the whole, that He invites. It is the leper, the palsied, the fevered, the blind, the lame, the deaf, the devil-possessed, that He bids welcome to. On every side we may approach Him. At any time and in any way we may come. Whatever be the length or the deadliness of our disease, we may come. The Physician is divinely skilful, the medicine is free, the cure is certain. Health for sick humanity! medicine for a diseased world! a Physician for a dying race!-such are the messages which we bring; all of them overflowing with God's great love to sinners-to sinners simply as such. The depths of divine compassion are infinite, so are its heights. God's pitying love takes in the worst sinner that ever breathed the air of earth. Wide as earth, wide as the bounds of sin, wide as the evil of human hearts, wide as heaven, wide as his own infinite heart,— such is the pitying love of God. Wilt thou, then, be made whole? This is the question which the Lord puts to us, and puts with all earnestness and compassion. Dying sinner! the God who made thee pities thee, yearns over thee. The Saviour, who, when here, went about curing all manner of sicknesses, is still working the works which He wrought on earth. His hands are full of health, and He stretches them out to thee! What are thy diseases, then, however deadly, when He undertakes to deal with them? One touch of his makes them vanish away. Touch, and be healed! W HAT 'fulness is this? It needs an explanation. There is a divine fulness, a fulness of Godhead, which dwells originally, inherently, eternally in the glorious, blessed God. It is a fulness of power, wisdom, goodness, righteousness, life, and light. This is the fountain of all that exists; it has filled the universe with goodly, holy, happy creatures; and it is still fulness, unwearied, unexhausted, as at the first. We know not all that it has done; we know not all that it will yet do. This fulness belongs to Christ equally with the Father and the Spirit. In the next chapter we are told of this: For in Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.' In this chapter we find Him exercising this divine fulness, as Creator and Preserver of all: For by Him were all things created that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers; all things were created by Him, and for Him: and He is before all things, and by Him all things consist.' We should think more of this: it would strengthen our faith; it would make us rise from nature, not merely up to nature's God, but up to our dear Redeemer and elder Brother; it would help us to realize the greatness of the sacrifice which He made, and the greatness of the love He must have felt for us, when He left this fulness of divine power and all-sufficiency, and descended to a state of creaturehood and dependence. But it needed another fulness than this in order to redeem and save fallen man. Christ's original divine fulness could make man in God's image, and crown him with glory and honour; but, after he had sinned, Christ, simply as God, could only have carried into execution the sentence of the broken law, and said, 'Depart, ye cursed, into everlasting fire.' In order to save us from this, He had to work out and acquire for himself a new kind of fulness, which is called the mediatorial fulness, because it fills up the breach between God and man; it satisfies the claims of offended God, and supplies the wants of ruined man; it brings them together again 23.-41. | in perfect and everlasting peace and friendship. For this purpose, though He was the great God, He humbled himself, made himself of no reputation, was born of a woman, made under the law. He wrought righteousness, glorified God on earth, endured the sharpness of death, and rose again to glory. By this work of perfect obedience, even unto death, Christ brought in and acquired a new kind of fulness, unknown in the universe before. It is a fulness of atonement, of righteousness, forgiveness, peace, life, light, and grace. In virtue of this fulness, which Christ, as his righteous Servant, has introduced, the holy God can now righteously quicken dead souls, give them repentance, justify them, make them accepted in the Beloved, sanctify them, make them fruitful, guide them and keep them through life, bring them to glory, raise them from the grave, and make them perfectly blessed for ever. This is the fulness which is here spoken of. It is called 'all the fulness,' because it contains all that is connected with salvation, all the grace that the individual sinner needs, and all the grace which the whole family, the whole body requires. It is the beginning, the progress, and the perfection of the new creation. This fulness dwells in Christ. It is this that gives Him the pre-eminence among his fellows, his brethren. All godly saved men have grace according to their measure; but in them it is never fulness; it is always imperfect; it is changeable; they cannot impart or communicate it to others. The best must say, 'Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect; I am only pressing on.' The best are, at some time or other, found faulty and lacking, even in the good things in which they seem most to excel. The best cannot supply the wants of their fellows; they must say to their nearest and dearest, Not so, lest there be not enough for us and for you.' But in Christ there is fulness, always fulness; it is never exhausted, diminished, or wearied. It dwells in Him; it is ever ready, morning, noon, and night-'a very present help in time of trouble.' He gives it freely, abundantly, unceasingly, to all that ask, however many they are, and however great and |