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another for her husband, Mr. Barret, with an expression of happy importance, sat down in a third, and then drawing a scroll of paper from his desk, he read as follows:

"THE TIMOTHY TRUST.

"REVEREND SIR,—A vacancy having occurred in this Charity, by the death, last week, of Giles Carpenter, I have the honour to inform you that the names of Jacob and Mary Soper stand next in the list. Awaiting further instructions, they being your nominees,—I remain, Reverend Sir,

"Your obedient servant,

"WILLIAM CLARKSON,

"Clerk to the Trustees."

A dead silence ensued, during which Mr. Barret had ample time to read the faces of his aged friends as they paled and flushed, quivered and stared by turns. At last old Jacob broke out :

"I've heard as how the angel of the Lord went down and troubled them Assyrians by night, all in the quiet; and sure enough He must have sent down His angel to settle this here business in the night, whilst we were asleep, knowing naught about what was a-doing for us! Sure now, when the Lord works, hosts of troubles don't stand in His way!"

Here, fairly overcome, Jacob, like his namesake of old, bowed on the top of his staff, and another moment of serious silence ensued.

“Sir, a bit of a prayer may quiet us down like. I'm all of a tremble," said Mary, almost inaudibly.

“Eh, sir, a word of praise on the back of prayer will be just the right word now; then p'r'aps you'll tell us all about it, how you did it all so private and confounding," added Jacob; and, nothing loth to comply with their request, Mr. Barret knelt down and poured out a few words of earnest thanksgiving, which he doubted not mounted to heaven on the back of prayer, as old Jacob quaintly expressed himself.

"But, my friend," said Mr. Barret, on arising from his knees, "I do not quite like your idea of this pleasant surprise being prepared for you whilst you slept; think again, is there no other time more likely ?”

It needed but a glance from eye to eye to show that this question was understood. A bright smile danced in old Jacob's eyes, as turning to his wife he said:

"Didn't I tell you so, now, wife ?"

Wife nodded, for if a smile danced in her husband's eyes, tears danced in hers.

"Tell her what?" asked Mr. Barret of Jacob.

"Why, sir, that may be whilst we was praying the Lord was working! So who knows but when Mary and I knelt down together last week, and told Him that this here Timothy's Trust was the only way we saw to keep us out of the house, that He took the hint, and put it into your heart to look into the matter for us? Oh, sir, the Lord do work by human folk, if He don't by angels."

"Ah, I felt the Lord was wide-awake for us! Only yesterday, when we didn't so much as know Giles was ill, much more lying dead, I says to Jacob-Jacob, what did I say? You tell the master, for my throat is uncommon choking to-day," put in the old woman.

1

"She says to me, 'Jacob, some trust in chariots, and some in Timothy Trusts, but we will remember the name of the Lord;'1 and remembering it just means trusting it. And so, sir, we made up our minds that if we got into Timothy Trust, it should be by trusting in the name of the Lord."

"And you know who the Name of the Lord is?" asked Mr. Barret.

"Blessed be God, we do! We knows, both of us—don't we, Polly?—that the Lord Jesus Christ is that Name; and we have to trust to it for our soul's salvation as well as for our poor bodies' temporal good."

Mr. Barret could not but regard the aged speaker with affectionate respect, which was heightened by finding the

1 Psa. xx. 7.

previous excitement visible in both of his parishioners arose not from mistrust, but the very reverse; they believed in the for-ever providence of God as truly as in His yesterday and to-day providence, which had helped them hitherto. And their simple minds having grasped the idea that the future help was to come through this Timothy's Legacy, they were elated beyond themselves at the possibility of its being so

near.

“Well, my friends, what are we to do? What is our next step?"

"Sir, we don't wish to be in any unmannerly haste, but it seems to us that there isn't nothing next to do but to take the benefit which the good Lord has brought to our very doors !"

"And we never knew it!" sobbed poor old Mary.

"Ah, my dear friends, isn't that just the way with God's great gift to us? The grace of God that bringeth salvation' through Christ is near us, so very near that we have only to put out our hands and take it; and yet we do not heed it, though, alas, too many poor sinners know that it is so-but not with that saving knowledge which is as life from the dead to the burdened soul."

"Truly I can say 'Amen' to that, sir! For years I groped in the dark for something or someone that would bring me happiness, when all of a sudden I found that it was close to me in the adorable person of Jesus, but that I needed the Holy Spirit to open my poor blind eyes before I could see Him, and unloose my tongue before I could hail Him as my Lord and Saviour; but when the blessed Spirit lightened up my candle, and made the blind to see, then, ah, then, sir! you can guess the rest-power to cry for pardon seemed to come with the power of sight. And just as 'tis with this here Timothy Trust, I found that it was all done for me, I had only to go in and take. Ah, if poor selftrusting sinners could only see things as the Lord has prepared them for 'em, there would be a sight more happiness!"

1 Titus ii. II.

Old Jacob was right. The happiness he and his dear old wife experienced on finding that their pastor had been at work for them in this Timothy's Trust, is nothing to the happiness that you, my reader, may experience in regard to an interest in the Heavenly Trust! For you may know at once, to your endless comfort, that Jesus is working for you, pleading for you, preparing for you, and only waiting to make you a partaker of all the rich blessings which He purchased for you by His death upon the cross: blessings for soul and body, in the redemption of one from the power of the grave, and the salvation of the other from the second death.

In the grand concern of everlasting life, Christ is not only our Intercessor, but also our Saviour.

:

The Heavenly Trust is in the bestowing of One who is more ready to give than you are to ask. That One is God, who for Jesus' sake gives eternal life to all who seek it through the leading and teaching of the Holy Spirit. Seek it at once; no interloper can creep in and deprive you of it, or set the great Giver up "against you," as the worldly saying is but death-death may come between your intentions and God's appointments! Another New Year may dawn upon your neighbours, but will it upon you? Christ, in His twofold character of Saviour and Intercessor, is ready to do all for you to-day that will ensure you a glorious partaking in the benefits of this Heavenly Trust; but to-morrow-ah, whoever saw a to-morrow to tell you upon what basis you may found any hope from its promises, or its power to help?

Let me beg you to seek an interest in this Heavenly Trust. It is free to all seekers; none are too poor, none are too young, none are too old, and, oh, mark this well, none are too sinful, for

"Not the righteous, Sinners Jesus came to call."

X. Y. Z.

Never Despair!

EVER despair! never despair!

NE

Is the word of Jehovah everywhere.
It comes in the beams of morning light;
It comes in the hush of stilly night;

It comes on the pale star's flickering ray;
It comes in the blaze of bright noonday;
It comes when the shadows of evening fall
In the gloom of the midnight's darkest pall;
In the trees aspiring heavenward;
In the lowly daisy-sprinkled sward;
'Tis borne in the flowers' perfume along;
It sounds in the glad birds' evensong;
It comes in the cool, refreshing rain,
In the rustling ears of the golden grain;
It cometh from out the misty cloud;
'Tis heard in the shrill wind piping loud;
It sounds in the summer zephyr's breath,
And sparkles bright in the snowdrift's wreath;
It cometh along with the gentle breeze,
With the storm that lashes the angry seas;
'Tis seen in the bright and golden sky;
In the storm that rages wrathfully;

When the dark'ning cloud o'ershades the land,
'Tis seen in the flash of the levin brand;
When the rolling thunder rends the air
And shakes the earth, 'tis uttered there;
'Tis written clear in life's history's page,
From infant hours to hoary age;
In every page of life's chequered scene,
In joy and sorrow the work is seen;
And in the leaves of that volume old
'Tis writ in letters of burnished gold;

From creation's dawn down the course of time, It stands in characters sublime.

'Twas heard from the lips of angels when

They burst on the gaze of those watching men ; 'Twas heard in that last sad bitter cry That came from suffering Calvary.

Never despair! never despair!

From earth and ocean, and sky and air;
From the flowery breast of nature fair;
From her rocky bosom cold and bare.

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