now, is the day of salvation." Why should we tarry to make preparations for our Master's coming? The faithful servant will be living as on the borders of eternity, dead to the world, and looking for his Master's coming; with a look of desire and a look of hope; his Master and his home will engage his thoughts and affections, and he will put on the whole armour of God, that he may be found ready. O poor sinner, "Why tarriest thou," to bring thy guilt to Jesus? Now Jesus waits to be gracious, and to receive you; tomorrow it be too late! This habit of "tarrying " is the may most crafty net of Satan. But listen to the Word of God: "Seek ye the Lord while He may be found, call ye upon Him while He is near," and the Good Physician waits to heal your sin-sick soul, and calls you to Him. Let not the things of time prevent you from "Seeking first the kingdom of God and His righteousness." Let nothing keep you back from coming to Jesus. If sin is a sore trouble to you, “a bruised reed will He not break;" for "He came to seek and to save that which was lost."

66

And let us not delay working for Jesus, and seeking to bring others to know and love our Saviour. Work, while it is called to-day; the night cometh, when no man can work." "And blessed is that servant, whom his Lord when He cometh shall find so doing."

Make haste! the time is short;

The Master's at the door :

Oh, count all earthly things but nought;

And serve Him evermore !

A. L.

M

Rob, the Coal-Porter.

first acquaintance with Rob, the coal-porter, began about the year 1870, when I called at his dark home to read with his poor wife. She was then a drunkard; and her house was a cellar under the road. It was winter, and the ice was in the streets. She was squatted upon the floor before the fire-place, blowing with her mouth at a few chips and bits of paper under a handful of hard cinders, vainly endeavouring to make a fire. She said she was as cold as a stone, and she really looked So. I spoke a few gentle words to her of the Friend of sinners, promised to see her again, and departed, grieved at the sorrowful sight.

After this I frequently called to read the Scriptures with her, as she could not read herself. Rob was sometimes present, and would listen to the reading with earnestness. Though living only a few yards from the house of the Lord, they never attended a place of worship. They were very ignorant of the Holy Scriptures-very. I have often read whole chapters in their hearing, which they confessed they knew nothing about, and had never heard before. At this period of their lives they were beyond sixty years of age. One afternoon I read to them the account, as recorded in the fifth chapter of the Gospel of St. John, of the poor impotent man who lay by the pool in Jerusalem, near the sheep-market, who was so miraculously cured by our blessed Saviour. Rob was blowing the fire at the time with a miserable pair of bellows, listening intently to what I was reading; and, when I had finished, he exclaimed, "Dear

me! dear me! Now there!" By these expressions it was evident that he had but small knowledge of this wonderful fact. His wife sat on the opposite side of the grate, wrapped in a few rags. She was unable to walk now without the aid of crutches. The tears came out upon her face, which she wiped away with her dirty hands. again," said she, as I left the cellar-door.

"Come

Soon after this Rob was taken seriously ill, and I was requested to see him. He was moaning with pain, and crying for the Lord to have mercy upon him. His wife sat, in a thin, dirty shawl, trembling by the cheerless grate, in which glimmered a fire no bigger than a child's hand. I conversed with them of the Saviour, read a portion of Scripture, and ventured to speak of their going into the Union; when the poor shivering woman replied that she would rather die in her chair.

Rob grew worse, and was sent by his friends to a neighbouring infirmary, from which he was dismissed incurable. I again called at his home, and often found them hungry and cold, grateful for the smallest kindness. True, the woman had wilfully wasted in strong drink that which should have procured family comforts; yet when I have sat amid their misery, and heard their wail of sorrow, I have often asked myself, "What would my Saviour do? Would He frown upon these poor sufferers, and pass them by ?" No! surely no! Several times I procured a loaf of bread for them from our soup kitchen, which the sick man has taken from my hand, and begun eating it at the moment. He called our little son an angel, because he had sent him his own orange and a penny.

Often have we sat together, conversing of Jesus and the way to heaven; and I have felt it a comfort and a privilege, in that smoke-black apartment, to be the feeble messenger of hope to poor erring Rob. The minister in the pulpit knew him not, and the busy merchant and the man of business heard not his cry for mercy. "Oh," said he, “I want you to come every day." Soon he was unable to sit

on his chair, and had to go back to his wife's dirty bed, and then to retire into his own sleeping-room, which was dark and miserable, without window or fire. Here he groaned in anguish of mind and agony of body, so that his cries were sometimes heard in the street. I read and prayed in his gloomy cell; and am quite inclined to believe that Rob found his Lord and Saviour. At times he praised Him, and spoke of his trust in Jesus and let us hope that the poor coal-porter, in his windowless abode, was visited by the King of Glory, who is no respecter of persons.

On my last visit to his underground cellar his speech. had left him, and he was evidently sinking fast; yet he got up on his poor bed to hear me read. He pointed to his crippled wife, and said, "I do not know what I shall do to leave her." When reminded that the Lord would provide for her, if she turned to Him, he was quieted. When midnight came, he whispered to the solitary watcher beside him that Christ had taken away all fear, and that he was going to be with his Saviour. These were his last words; and poor Rob, the coal-porter, surely passed from poverty and pain to the palace of endless rest.

Reader, Christ Jesus offers you a full, a free, and a present salvation. The Saviour of poor Rob is the Saviour of all mankind. Repent, and believe the Gospel, without which no one can be saved. Call upon Him in your heart, and faith shall be given you to win the prize. "For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek: for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon Him. For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved." 1

1 Rom. x. 12, 13.

A few Lessons picked up in a Hop Garden.

WAS lately walking through a hop garden, and there I found many lessons to learn. It was in a lovely part of the country, and all around seemed so peaceful and happy; but the peace was broken by discordant sounds, either of riotous mirth, which Solomon describes as like "the crackling of thorns under a pot"-a bright blaze, certainly, but which soon burns itself out, and is gone; or still worse, by jarring tones of quarrelling, or of bad language and taking God's name in vain. Alas, that amid the beauty of God's earth, and the bounties He showers upon us with such a lavish hand, we should see so much of the ugliness of poor human nature; so much ingratitude to the loving Father who gives us life and breath and all things, who daily loads us with benefits, whose compassions fail not, but are new every morning, whose kind regards are over