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spilt milk. Let us make the best of it. We are young and healthy, and I have plenty of work and good wages. May be God did not see it good for us we should have so much beforehand."

Things did not turn out so badly after all; for some gentlemen, resolving that the deserving poor should not lose their savings, subscribed to make up the deficiency.

But their greatest trial was this: their second child was taken ill, when he was about two years old, and for a long time there seemed no hope of his recovery. He did recover; but they noticed that their medical attendant expressed no gladness about it; and at length he told them candidly he feared that there was small prospect for their dear little one save that of hopeless imbecility.

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"It's a sore trial," said John, one of the heaviest, I think, that could have happened to us. However, we must make the best of it."

"Ay, that's what you always say, John," replied his wife; but it's hard to see what 'best' can be made out of

this."

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They acted, however, on John's maxim. They devoted themselves with special care to their afflicted child, got what information they could as to the best modes of training him, and they were rewarded by finding that the wreck was not so great as might have been anticipated. After a few years they obtained for him admission into an asylum, and as the combined result of their own training and of that which he received there, though he never recovered his intellect fully, he recovered it in so far as to be able to earn his own livelihood.

Kendall had not improved during his absence from Bolton. He was a steady man, indeed, and he never spent his evenings in the public-house, but he was very prone to be discontented and to take gloomy views of things. He looked much more at the blackness of the cloud, when any trouble befell him, than at the bright fringe which told of the silver lining which was on the other side of it. If he had ever heard of the old proverb, Always take things by the smooth handle," he never practised it. Indeed, one reason which weighed strongly with him in returning to Bolton was, that he had become involved in misunderstandings more or less serious with several of his fellow workmen in the place where he was. "We must try to do what we can for him," said Spoor to

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his wife, who, with a sharp-witted woman's insight, had soon found out what sort of man Kendall was. "He always had a queerish temper; and he has not improved much whilst he has been away. But if only the Lord would change his heart, I believe he would brighten up wonderfully."

There was an old foreman placed over the men in the shop, a clever workman, most conscientiously devoted to his master's interests, and wishful also to do everything that was right to the men, but resolute, even to a fault, in having everything done in the precise way which he thought the best. He had, besides, a keen, biting way of speaking to any one who crossed him, which was the harder to bear because what he said was said so quietly, and in so few words, as almost entirely to preclude reply. These were both things under which a man of Kendall's disposition was especially likely to chafe.

It so happened that a piece of work, which required more than usual delicacy and skill, had been entrusted to Kendall by the foreman, with explicit directions as to the way in which it should be done. As he proceeded, he thought that it would be a considerable improvement on the plan which had been laid down if he made a certain deviation from it; and instead of mentioning it to the foreman beforehand, he carried out his idea without consulting him. When the work was completed, he presented it with something like a feeling of pride, assured that it would be approved and praised. Not so, however. It was certainly an improvement; but the foreman, who was both jealous of his authority and a little old-fashioned in his notions, looked at the work for a minute or two, and then said— "Humph! and so you've been trying some of your Liverpool fancies, have you? Clever, I dare say; but the rule of this shop is, that we do things as we are ordered. I don't think I can pass it.'

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Kendall coloured; his countenance fell, and he was just about to make a reply which would have broken the peace between himself and the foreman for ever, when, glancing aside, he caught a view of Spoor, who gave him a warning look, which he rightly interpreted to mean that he had better be silent. He had the good sense to take the hint, and, without saying a word, he returned to his bench.

"I'll tell you what," he said, when Spoor and he left the shop, "I can't stand old Robinson. It's vexing enough to

be found fault with about the work, but that sarcastic way of his is unbearable. He and I will have a row some day."

"And a great deal of good that will do, Peter. Now, just think a bit. There's no use quarrelling with one's bread and butter. He's queer enough; but it's his nature, and we must just make the best of him. One will find something to try one's patience any where. You had some odd tempers at Murdoch's, in Liverpool, had not you?"

After a good deal of talk, Spoor succeeded in obtaining a promise from Kendall that he would do his best to keep his temper with Robinson. Perhaps it helped him to do so that when the foreman came to look at the work, he had the frankness to confess that after all it it was an improvement on the plan laid down. Only," he said, rather gruffly, "let us know beforehand when you're going to make any change; they may not always be improvements.'

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SABBATH MORNING.

HAIL! sacred day of holy thought,
Sweet sabbath of serene repose:
Be earth's low pleasures all forgot
In joys the worldling never knows.

The peaceful strains that fill the grove,
Now with increasing sweetness flow,
In notes of harmony and love,
Like paradise renewed below.

And now more pure the dew-drop seems,
And lovelier is the flow'ret's bloom,
And brighter are the morning's beams,
And richer is its sweet perfume.

Fair emblem of eternal rest!
Where nothing earthly shall control,
Nor sin, nor grief, nor care molest,
Or cloud one sabbath of the soul.

There was a sabbath once below,
Brighter than fancy's loveliest dream;
Free from the canker-worm of woe;
Unsullied as the solar beam.

And such a sabbath, bright and pure,
In all its beauty shall return-
In all its glory to endure:

Who would not greet that sabbath morn?

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ONE cold winter's day, about two years after the visit of Sarah Adams to my grandfather, a poor-looking, rather sickly, and thinly-clad labouring man was wearily trudging along the high road towards our village. A small bundle was in one hand, and a stout stick in the other, which stick did him some service in helping on his dragging footsteps. The man was evidently very tired. He had not walked far-not very far for one accustomed to such exer

NOVEMBER, 1867.

cise-only about a dozen or fourteen miles. But then he was not accustomed to it, and this made all the difference.

Presently the man halted, and sat down by the roadside to rest. Cold as the day was, and thinly as the traveller was clad, he was so warm with the unwonted exercise that he was glad to remove his hat and wipe the perspiration from his head and brow and face. And now might have been seen, had an experienced and sharp observer been standing by, that the man had lately been in prison. There would have been no mistaking the peculiarly cut hair which scantily covered his head. No one but a prison haircutter could have produced such an effect.

Yes, the man was a jail-bird," just released from his cage. His name was John Adams. He had been im prisoned nearly two years, on an aggravated charge of poaching, in which a gamekeeper was severely injured. He had served out his time; and having that morning been dismissed from jail, with a few shillings in his pocket to help him home, he was travelling thither. No wonder he was fatigued, for during the two years past his sole exercise in the open air had been confined to monotonous marchings to and fro in the prison yard.

Everything around seemed new and strange to the liberated prisoner. His freedom seemed strange to him; so did the bare hedgerows, and the sheep, and cows, and horses in the fields; the houses by the roadside, and the people he met with on the road. These last produced in him a sort of conscious shame, as though he feared that all who saw him pass would read in his gait, and manner, and countenance some betraying marks of his recent disgrace. He was not sorry, therefore, when the short day began to draw to a close, although he had yet another hour's walk

before him.

Although at liberty, and on his way to his home, Adams was depressed in spirits. This might partly have been the consequence of bodily fatigue, but not entirely so.

When he reached home, what could he do? The chances were that he would not be able to get work; he would be scorned and flouted by employers of labour, and his old neighbours would look shy upon him. As to his home itself-what would he find there? Poverty and wretchedness, no doubt. He should like to see his wife and children; but to see them suffering, and he the cause of their troubles, would be almost worse than not seeing them at all. These were

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