The Refuge Found.

RNEST MUSGRAVE stood for a moment outside the office door, lazily buttoning up his coat.

"That's a lucky fellow just gone out," said a voice within. "Why, if he's not getting a good tidy income as it is, and I shouldn't wonder if they make

him junior partner soon. Depend upon it, Musgrave will be a rich man before he dies."

Ernest heard the remark, and smiled to himself as he turned away. He knew even better than the speaker how good his future position was likely to be, and his thoughts naturally reverted to the period, not so many years before, when first he had left the quiet shelter of a widowed mother's home to seek his fortune in the mighty city. Certainly, he had succeeded far beyond his boyish hopes, and a well-satisfied expression rushed for a minute on the frank, manly face. Soon, however, it passed away. The words had flashed across his mind: "What shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul and in the light of that searching question Ernest Musgrave was inclined to reckon his temporal gains at much less value than before.

For the last few months, indeed, a deep restlessness had taken possession of his mind. A fatal accident suddenly occurring to an intimate friend had effectually disturbed his former careless ease, and, amid the sober thoughts that followed, the recollection of a mother's loving Christian counsel came home to his heart with tenfold power. He knew how grievously it had been forgotten through those past few years, and, with an unusual thoroughness of purpose, he set himself to atone for the past neglect. Not a flaw could now be discovered in his outward life; yet still his mind was ill at ease, and as the days went by he seemed no nearer finding the wished-for peace. It was a new experience, and he felt baffled and perplexed. What more could he do that he had not done, and why, then, should he fail to gain the joy that was the pcrtion, so he understood, of eyery Christian man? But no answer came to meet the oft-repeated question, and gradually his self-confidence melted he away; distrustful of his own earnest efforts, grew and longed for some friendly guide to show him the way into the kingdom of heaven.

He had not proceeded far that afternoon when a boy

came whistling merrily along the road; he paused at sight of Ernest's face, and respectfully touched his cap.

"Don't you know me, sir?" said he, looking up with a glad surprise.

"Can't say I do," responded Ernest, smiling back into the eager face.

"But don't you remember Jack; the one who used to sweep the crossing near the church? You used to give me a penny sometimes, and I haven't forgotten it, sir."

Ernest could remember a poor ragged lad answering to that description; but it was hard to reconcile his former miserable appearance with the comfortable, cleanly look of the boy beside him.

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"But surely you are not the same!" he exclaimed. Why, what good fortune has come to you of late ?"

"Oh, I've got in here," said the boy simply, and pointing up to a building on their right. "I was as bad off as bad could be, and so they took me in, and mighty good it is!" "But how did you manage it, then ?" asked Ernest, beginning to feel interested in the lad. "Who got you your votes ?”

"Oh, there weren't any votes to get," answered the boy. "Just you look there, sir, and see what it says. I can't read much yet, but I know it's something about taking us poor fellows in."

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He pointed as he spoke to the board at the side of the gate: No destitute lad ever refused admittance." : Ernest had often seen the words before, but until now had never given them a second thought.

"I wouldn't believe it at first," went on the boy. ""Twas one very cold day last winter; I'd slept out under an arch the night before; I'd got no money nor nothing, and I'd never been so bad off before. And a woman I know, she says to me, 'If you'll go up to the Home, they'll take you in sure enough.' I asked her what there was to pay they used to make us give threepence a night at the lodginghouse but she said there was nothing at all; I'd only got

to make the happlication. Well, sir, I just thought she was hoaxing me at first, but I was awful cold and hungry, so at last I made up my mind to try, and it was all true. They took me before the gentleman; he asked me a lot of questions, but when I told him how poor and friendless I was, he just sent off for some clothes and food, and set me down in front of a rare good fire. My! I think I'll never forget that night. It was so cosy-like after being out in the cold and wet, and I'd never had no mother nor father to look after me, not since I can remember.”

Jack paused for breath after his rapid speech.

"Poor little fellow!" said Ernest pityingly; "but at least you are in comfortable quarters now."

"Oh, yes, sir,” said the boy, "I never shall be hungry any more. And the queer part of it all is, I'd often passed this way before, and I couldn't read the writing you made out so easy, and I used to look at the place and think it was a kind of prison. Some other boys once told me that, and I was rare and foolish to believe 'em. And once, when I was going by, the gentleman came to the gate, and I thought he was looking after me, so I just run off as hard as I could. You see, I didn't know him then, but don't I like him now!"

Ernest smiled. "As you seem so happy here," said he, "do you think they would receive me in as well?"

"No, no, sir," said

Jack, laughing and running his eye over the gentleman's well-dressed figure; "it's only for I'd come to my wit's end, I had, and

those as poor as me. so they took me in. There's a lady in there that we call 'Mother,' and I asked her one day what it all meant. And she just said, it's what Jesus does, and they're all trying to be like Him. I couldn't make that out neither, but I s'pose He's got a good big Home somewhere, and

The rest of the sentence was lost on Ernest's ear, but when a minute later Jack turned to run indoors, he shook the boy warmly by the hand.

"Jack, my lad," said he, "I shall know you again next

time we meet. And, if I'm not mistaken, you've helped me more than all the religious books I ever read."

And what were the thoughts that with such sudden power had burst in upon his troubled mind? "It's what Jesus does," so Jack had said when speaking of his own free entrance into that earthly Home. No destitute lad had ever been refused admittance there, and spiritually destitute Ernest Musgrave knew himself to be, for he also had come to his "wit's end," and was feeling "hungry and cold" outside the Father's House. Yet was not that very condition the ground whereon he might plead for speedy help? and Ernest remembered the words:

"He will regard the prayer of the destitute, and not despise their prayer.”

"He hath filled the hungry with good things, and the rich He hath sent empty away."

Once again he glanced up at the Home, and this time. his eye was met by Jack's happy face, smiling back from an upstairs window. And as Ernest thought of the boy's former dread of the place, he remembered, too, those many years in his own previous life when religion had seemed but another name for gloom. And even afterwards, when earnestly seeking for peace of mind, had he not misread the inscription, "Come unto Me, and I will give you rest," and imagined that something more was needed than a personal "application" to the Saviour Christ.

Slowly and thoughtfully he walked away, and a few days later the aged mother received a letter that gladdened her more than all his previous accounts of temporal success. Earthly riches might take to themselves wings and fly away, but with the simplicity of a little child Ernest Musgrave had sought for refuge where alone it could be found, and from henceforth he had part in that "better and more enduring substance" that cannot be taken away.

E. C. A.