straight down from heaven.' Speaking of the meeting, where we sadly miss her, she said, 'How often I have sat in that room and prayed to know more of the love of God, feeling I deserved the rebuke sent to the Church in Laodicea! But since I have been in this bed, He has revealed to me such heights and depths of His love as I never could have dreamed of. The other night, when very wakeful, tossing from side to side, and, oh, so weary! I remembered the promise, "The Lord will make all his bed in his sickness." After meditating on it a few minutes, I felt as if some gentle hand had really smoothed my pillow, and made the bed soft, and cool, and easy, and I soon fell asleep. I am with you in spirit every week at the meeting, and have true comfort in that the Lord has said to me in that room. The thought of Jesus, my High Priest, is ever present to me.' One of the last addresses she heard having been on that subject.

"One more word from her, and I have done. 'Last Sunday I was suffering all day. Towards dusk I fell asleep, and woke just as the clock was striking eight. Nurse was away in chapel, so I had a quiet time for meditation, and chose the "Institution of the Lord's Supper," of which my friends were then partaking, whom I longed to join. This verse came forcibly to my mind: "I sat down under His shadow with great delight, and His fruit was sweet to my taste. He brought me to the banqueting-house, and His banner over me was love." I tried to picture the scene of the First Supper, and asked myself, "Who were the guests? Our Lord was there and eleven apostles; not Judasof course, he had gone out. But were the eleven perfect men? No. That very night Peter denied his Master, and the rest 'forsook him and fled.' Thomas refused to believe. What did this say to me?" Sinners are invited to the table of the Lord. It is not spread for the sinless, it is for me.'

"The grass

"So young and old together say it is true. withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away; but the word of the Lord endureth for ever.' It liveth and abideth for ever.'

"Hearken, my beloved brethren; hath not God chosen the poor of this world rich in faith, and heirs of the Kingdom which

He hath promised to them that love Him?' May God help us all to love and prize His Word more and more, remembering the Saviour's prayer for all His people, rich and poor,' Sanctify them through Thy truth: Thy Word is truth.'

"I remain, dear Mrs. R.,

"Yours affectionately,

"C. G. H."

THE COMFORT OF MOTHERS' MEETINGS.

Ir is grievous to think how at the small drinking-shops the men get, as they term it, "treated," and return home to abuse and often ill-treat their poor wives, who already are bowed down with their family trials; and were it not for the word of Christian comfort and reminder they get at the Mothers' Meetings, they would, we feel sure, quite sink under their burdens On the Lord's-day they can neither leave their little children nor take them with them to worship. As one said on Monday, she puts her two little ones to bed on Sunday evening by 6.30, yet her husband will not allow her to go out, although, perhaps, he does not speak to her more than twice during the evening. And many such like things they do, and the wives have to bear.

OLD MOTHERS.

During the last three weeks we have in this district been looking after some of those mothers who had lost their Meeting. One of the oldest mothers said to-day, after the Meeting, "It is like old times to be here again, for I did feel it hard, after attending your Mission for nearly nineteen years, to be now in my old age like a sheep without a shepherd; not but what, thank God, I know the Good Shepherd."" She is very old, and said, "I am quite past work now," when we visited her in the morning, "but still, while my daughter mangles, I can mind this dear child," a pretty little girl of two years old, which I thought was her grandchild; but her daughter said, "No, it's not my own, but it seems like our own, don't it, mother?" "Yes, poor little creature! The father and mother lived in

this house when first married. The poor mother never survived her confinement, and died at the age of twenty-one; so I have brought it up by hand since a week old. The father paid me for it as long as he could work, but he took ill with the same complaint (consumption), and died twelve months after his wife; so ever since we have kept the poor little girl. We could not bear to let it go to the workhouse, poor little darling, as long as we can give her a bit to eat, and hope that will be always." I could not, if I tried, tell you how pleased they were, and all the old mothers, to see the old Bible-woman again.

YOUNG MOTHERS.

One of the young mothers who are still attending our room is making a new shirt for her husband-the first garment she has ever tried to make herself. She said, "Oh, won't he be proud if I get through it! Mother and he must see me doing it, or else he'll think you've done it for me." Her mother, turning to me, said, "It's no fault of mine; she's been so very tiresome. I never could get her to try to make her own things." We spoke a word of encouragement to both, and her mother said, "That's what I've told you, my dear, and I hope you will some day thank God as much as I do for the Mothers' Meetings."

GOOD TEMPERANCE MISSIONARIES.

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One very old mother (indeed, she seems the mother of all in the neighbourhood) was absent from the Meeting. I said, "Poor old Mrs. C must be too ill to come," So we went to see her, and found her very ill indeed. But she seemed to forget her own ailments in the joy that God had at last, as she said, made one poor man listen to His Word from her and her good husband about his dreadful sin of intemperance, and said, "Yes, he's been past these two Saturday nights and Sundays without going near the public-house, and more than that, without even having any beer. I sha'n't be able to be at the meeting, I fear, for a week or two, but you will pray for him, I know. Oh, how we have prayed, my husband and I, that God would show him his sin! And I do believe he has. As I tell him, he has more to answer for than an ignorant man he has

had a good education, and has seen the mercy and goodness of God in sparing his life up till now, for he has been an officer in the army a sergeant-major-was wounded in the Indian Mutiny. A bullet lodged in his leg for sixteen years, then worked out at his ankle, so that he has suffered for years, has a fearful bad leg, kept bad by the drinking; but now even that is getting better, and I tell him nothing is too hard for the Lord. He said to me, 'Mother (for he always calls me that), I begin to feel it's all true that you have told me, and I hope to prove it.'”

Who can tell what is done by the mothers of our many Meetings for the good of others and the glory of God, and how some of them suffer, too, from the evil effects of drinking husbands. One told me she had not seen her husband sober for ten days. After that he stayed in bed all one day, to be able to go to work; for she has lost one good home, and tried to show him how soon they would lose their present one, if he did not stop. They have five tiny children, and soon will have the sixth. She is a meek, quiet woman, but said, "I felt I must warn him. He went to work on Saturday, and when paid, came home and offered me so little money, that I could not help saying, 'How am I to pay 8s. for rent, and get all we want, with that? Do give me two or three more shillings, and do have a sleep before you go out again.' But he said, 'Now, for grumbling, you sha'n't have any;' put the money back in his pocket; went out, and came back in the evening like a madman. He had fallen asleep in the public-house, and someone had cut out his pocket, and he had lost all his money.

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"I was so frightened, but when he quieted down, he said, what I never heard him say before, 'If I had only taken your advice, it would never have happened. Never mind, my girl, this will be a lesson to me.' We prayed that it might be."

They began life well. He was a master carpenter, with everything they had need of for this world. Have since passed through the most utter poverty, and, although a good workman, are living from hand to mouth. She said, "The only real comfort I have is on Tuesday at the Meeting, and when Mrs. P comes to see me. She's like a mother, and my mother was good like her."

The mothers were all so much affected last week at the earnest prayer of one of their number; and one told me of an answer to prayer for her dear boy in Canada. He went away some time about two years ago, and had not written to her since. She said, "You know how unhappy I have been ; but I have prayed, and how God does answer I have proved before; and so in all my sorrow I tried to hope, and it's just as if God took hold of my poor boy, and made him write to me, for he says, after all this time, 'My dear Mother, I feel I must write to you.' And the letter is full of good news. I thought of your words when I was so broken-hearted at his going. Do you remember saying, 'God has taken him away to make him better than he would be here amongst bad companions.' And so he has proved that, and now I look forward to his being a bright Christian man at last."

WORKWOMEN AT STRATFORD.

We often find the work of poor women sadly ill-paid. Visited Mrs. G; large family. Husband out of work, also son. She was packing up the sacks to send back to the factory; 50 sacks, for which they received 10d., and have to pay 2d. for carriage, so that they clear 8d. per 50! This is worse than charing! I asked her to come to the meeting; she said she would, then recollected her feet, showed us her boots, which could not be called boots, they did not seem to have either upper leathers or soles.

Went in next door; found Mrs. (of whom you have heard before), aged 62, sitting over hammocks, making the eyelet holes; 52 holes in one hammock, for which she gets 2d.; it takes her about 2 hours to make the holes in one hammock. Last Saturday she was all day making 10 sacks, for which she received 5d., and she works briskly too. The Bible-woman often runs in to read her a few verses out of her precious Bible, which is a great comfort to her.