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Jesus," there will be no fixing of our eyes on second causes, even though our trials come through the unkindness, the wrong-doing of our fellow-men; when we lift up our eyes we shall see no man save Jesus only," and every care and sorrow will lose its bitterness, when we see in it His own direct and loving discipline.

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3. Does our earthly sphere seem narrow? are our earthly interests limited ? "Looking unto Jesus," our true life has a boundless range. It is recorded of an old German philo

sopher that on being asked why he confined his daily walk to the narrow limits of his little garden, he answered: "The space here is truly very narrow, and very short too, but" (and he looked up to heaven as he spoke) "it is infinitely high." So may they truly say whose soul's eyes are lifted up to Jesus.

4. What deep comfort is there in this looking unto Jesus in the trial of separation from those we love! separation of any kind, but more especially that which is caused by His taking such loved ones to Himself. Since neither life nor death can separate us from the love of Christ, most surely nothing can separate from each other those who are united in His love. Every passage in God's Word which tells of the union of believers in Jesus tells us that for such there never can be real parting. "Ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God." How can the fact that one, a little while sooner than another, lays aside this body of our humiliation touch our real union and communion with each other in Christ, who is our life? Dear reader, are you mourning the death of some dear one "fallen asleep in Jesus"? Consider for your comfort that since both of you are "looking unto Jesus," you are continually in spirit together; a little while, and the outward semblance of separation will be no more. Dwell on such words as these: 66 I pray that they all may be one as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in us."1 "As the body is one, and hath many members, and all the 1 John xvii. 21.

members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ."1 "Ye are all one in Christ Jesus."2 "There is one body and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; . . . one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all."3 "Will there be in heaven recognition of parted friends ?" is a question sometimes asked, and oh, how anxiously asked by the bereaved! God's answer of unspeakable comfort seems to be, "Friends in Jesus cannot really be parted at all; it makes no difference that some of His members are still on earth in the body. Oneness of heart in 'looking unto Jesus' is an everlasting bond."

5. Yet we are waiting for the perfect manifestation of the sons of God, and so in our looking unto Jesus is involved a looking forward. While "our conversation is in heaven" even now in eternal reality, yet from thence ". we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ."4 Well has it been said, "Nothing doth so establish the mind amidst the rolling and turbulence of present things as both a look above them and a look beyond them; above them to the steady and good Hand by which they are ruled, and beyond them to the sweet and beautiful end to which by that Hand they shall be brought."

Well may we, then, who believe in Jesus, go on our way in fearless confidence and joyful expectation, looking unto Him, looking for Him; day by day, hour by hour, we are drawing nearer to the place He is preparing for us, to the everlasting companionship of those to whom He has united us in Himself; to the unfading joys of our heavenly home; to His visible presence, whom, not having seen, we love; meanwhile, in whom, though now we see Him with faith's far-seeing eye alone, yet we rejoice with joy unspeakable, and full of glory. A. J. T.

1 I Cor. xii. 12.

2 Gal. iii. 28.

* Phil. iii. 20.

Eph. iv. 4, 6.

B

EAUTIFUL Spring! we hail thee now,

With pale green robe and hope-wreathed brow;
Coming o'er meadow, moorland and hill,

The hand of Dame Nature with plenty to fill:
Health in the breezes borne on thy wings,
Joy in the chords of thy musical strings,
Mirth in thy voice, and a smile in thine eye,
Ah! myriads await thy descent from on high:
Beautiful goddess! all nature will sing,
"Hail to thee! hail to thee! beautiful Spring!"

Swiftly, yet surely, thou'rt nearing our clime,
And the songsters of air ever greet thee with chime,
As in concert they warble, or trill their sweet lays,
So grateful to heaven for warm sunshiny days:
While the hedgerow, ashamed of twigs leafless and bare,
Decks herself in green buds with such delicate care;
Then waits thy warm breath ere her full dress she weaves,
And nestles young birds 'mong her beautiful leaves.
Ah! sweet are thy gifts, gentle child of the wing,
Hail to thee! hail to thee! beautiful Spring!

Lavishly scatt'ring thy bounties around,
Peerless in beauty thy gifts are e'er found;

And where o'er the sward thy light footsteps have tròd,
Crocus and daisy spring up from the sod:

But when through the woodlands thou wendest thy way,
All nature proclaims thee the bright Queen of May,

As in light verdant tints e'er so lovely to see,
Thou clothest with grace every high-arching tree.

Ah! thy chaplet of flowers round our hearts fondly cling,
Hail to thee! hail to thee! beautiful Spring!

Thou cheerest the suffering daughters of pain,
And breathest in sick-room thy fragrance again;
Through violet, primrose, or sweet sunny ray,
Thou gildest the gloom of a wearisome day,
And pointest with finger to beauty above,
Where all is enduring perfection and love;
Where, stainless and free from this body of earth,
The soul shall inhabit the home of its birth.
Ah! sweet is the rest of the ransomed, who sing—
"All hail to thee, Saviour, the Life-giving Spring!"

H. D. I.

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The Timothy Trust.

LD Soper and his wife would be glad of a few words with you, sir, if you can spare the time."

Mr. Barret could always spare time to listen to the "few words" of his people, if a long outpour of grievances or wants could be so termed; and the present

call upon his patience, as well as time, proved no exception to the general demand.

"Well, my friends; no fresh trouble, I hope?" he said, advancing towards the aged couple, with a hand outstretched to each.

Both Soper and his wife were too eager to explain their errand, so merely stammered out (their words stumbling over one another, like chestnuts emptied from a bag)— "The Timothy Trust, sir ?"

"And what of the Timothy Trust ?"

Mr. Barret half smiled; for he thought the aged applicants were tired of the subject, and altogether hopeless of getting into favour with the said Trust.

"What of it, sir! Oh, it's real now; old Giles is dead! been dead a week, and we didn't know it!"

"And you would step into a dead man's shoes?"

"Nay, sir, but that is the way of the world! Where only one can have at a time, the one who's got is always reckoned one too many!"

"And you are willing to become this one too many?" said Mr. Barret, looking at the anxious couple with pitying interest.

But Soper, misunderstanding the drift of this speech, merely replied, with a gloomy shake of his fine old head,

"There's only this here Trust 'twixt us and the work'us; it's been my hope many a long day. And when I heard as how old Giles was really gone-says I to Mary, 'Don't let no grass grow under our feet, but let us hobble up to the dear good master at once.'

"I don't want any buttering," smiled the minister. "Tisn't butter, sir, it's true! the Mint!" earnestly put in the

True as gold as has passed old wife.

Mr. Barret nodded, as a full stop to compliments, and then proceeded to business, but in a very different form from that which might have been expected by the two eager candidates for assistance from the Timothy Trust.

Having seated the old lady in an arm-chair, and placed

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