ter. "Just look how wicked they is constantly inviting them to were, when He had done so much return to Him and love Him, for them, too! Oh, mother, were assuring them that he will abundthey not dreadful wicked?" antly pardon all their sins. What if God should say He'd never forgive us ? "

His mother did not take notice of his question then, asked, "And what did God Walter?"

any

but

do,

"He got angry with them, and drove them out of the gardenonly, I don't think that was half bad enough for them," he added, as his own opinion.

"Do you think, when God is angry, he feels as you do when you are so?" his mother asked.

"Oh, mother! isn't God good, and wasn't it hateful in me to call Hiram such names, when he didn't mean to break my kite, and only wanted one rose when I had plenty of buds on my bush!"

Walter's thoughts had returned just where his mother had wished them to, and she answered, very gently, "It wasn't very generous in you, I think."

"Well, I know it wasn't, and I'll go and tell him so." Walter slid down from his mother's lap.

Walter looked puzzled. He had never thought of it before, but the very case they had been talking of, with the issues of each mind, showed that that could not be. At Half an hour later she saw them last he said, very slowly, "No, both in his garden, rearranging the mother, I don't think so. I heard crushed verbenas, while they talked father talking of 'righteous indignation' the other day, and I think that must be more like God's anger, isn't it?"

of the good times they expected to have flying their kites together; and when Aunt Emily came, she appreciated two rosebuds quite as much as she would have done a full-blown rose.

"Yes, my dear. God is angry with the wicked every day,' but never without a just cause, you see. Walter did not get into such He never cherishes malice towards passions after that, for he tried to any of his children (we are all, remember how forgiving God is even the sinner, his children, you when he has such great provocasee), even though they keep on tions, and he tries to bear his little grieving Him every day. He trials in a more Godlike manner; doesn't call them mean and hateful and as he asks His blessing every and ugly, and say he will never day upon his efforts, I have no speak to them again. Instead, he doubt that he will succeed.

THE POWER OF SEED.

A RETURNED missionary from Orissa, India, when speaking in London of the condition of heathenism in his field of labour, said that during the past year the city of Puri was thrown into great consternation on account of the falling of a stone from the roof of Juggernaut's temple, which was erected seven hundred years ago, and on which, from that time, there had not been a trowel laid for repairs. When the stone fell, Juggernaut was absent from his temple on a visit to his "sister;" and the stone, weighing some ten or twelve tons, fell with a crash on the jewelled throne of the idol. When Juggernaut

was brought back from his visit, the workmen were repairing the temple, and the god had to be put up for a time at the house of his "brother-in-law."

After the falling off of this stone the building was examined, and it was found to be entirely unsafe, and on the verge of ruin. There was no mystery about the cause of its dilapidation; the birds had carried berries from the banyan tree to the top of the temple, and had dropped the seeds where they fell into the crevices between the stones, and there, buried in the dust of ages, when watered by the dews of heaven and warmed by the sunbeams, these seeds had germinated, and the tiny roots had struck down among the stones, working their way hither and thither, until they had heaved the massive rocks, and separated one from another the ponderous stones which composed the temple.

One could hardly find a more apt illustration of the power of the Gospel of the Son of God. A temple built by the wealth of ages and the toils of generations, and standing firm through successive centuries, at last shattered and brought to desolation by the Divine vitality implanted in a few little, insignificant seeds! But just as that temple, after standing for ages, yielded to the vital force of those little seeds, so the dark superstitions which that temple represents, though they might resist the iron hand of force and the changing power of passing centuries, must decay and crumble into utter ruin when the Gospel of Christ, which is the power of God unto salvation, once finds entrance into the benighted crevices of the hearts darkened by sin and superstition.

Let those who toil in the Master's cause be of good cheer. Their labour is not in vain, no matter how feeble the instrumentality may be. If a flock of sparrows can subvert an idol temple that has stood for centuries, surely the people of God, of more value than many sparrows, using that good seed, the Word of the Kingdom, may do a work which men or devils never shall be able to withstand.

"WHERE CAN I FIND HIM?"

OUR forefathers somehow con- its appearance, its colour, its stormtrived to keep themselves in very tossed waves, or its moonlit calms. good health without that annual And I do not know but that those autumnal excursion to the seaside, who have been staying at home which now seems to be voted a and attending to their own connecessity. Nay, extraordinary as cerns, have been more wise, and it may appear to my young readers, more honest too, than many who in these days of railways and of have been rushing hither and tourist tickets, I have spoken to men and women between sixty and seventy years of age, who had never seen the ocean; who had very vague and incomplete ideas of

thither, in some cases defraying the expenses out of money that belonged to their creditors. Travel

especially travel in foreign countries--may be made as instructive

a

as it is agreeable. It should rub pushing before him a square off insular prejudices, and widen shrimping net, and ever and anon the judgment till it breaks through examining it for his spoil. Ladies, the constraining trammels of local under a large, umbrella-like tent, pettiness. It should continually sit and read three-volumed novels; furnish us with higher and broader little maidens, their dresses tucked standards, and increase our selt- into short bathing drawers distrust and charity. But whether new invention of the season), much can be said for the seaside rush in and out of the sea that vacation is quite another ques- ripples up against their long, glanction. Not unfrequently the sea- ing legs. Sailors linger about their side tourist goes in expectation boats urging visitors "to a sail," that the salt breezes and the and from time to time a party "long shore rambles will give embarks and launches off. One him health and vigour; but he finds gunboat is at anchor a quarter himself in ill-drained lodgings, or of a mile out on the summer drinking polluted wells, and reaches sea, that is just broken enough home fever-stricken and dying: or, to flicker and flash like a moving if it be not so bad as this, he has diamond; a long trail of smoke during his three weeks' or months' on the horizon tells where the of holiday lived in one perpetual merchant steamer proceeds afar grumble at the bad cooking, the on its busy way; and everywhere small rooms, the hard beds, the close around me are nurses with poor and dirty furniture, he has their troops of small fry, who had to put up with, and returns with their wooden spades dig with a fresh and unwonted enjoyment to the comforts of his own domestic menage.

mimic entrenchments, and pat down the smooth walls of sand castles, that seem to point out their boyish constructors as the future defenders of future Plevnas.

As I sit close to one of these

Twenty times I have experienced all this myself. Yet here this fine afternoon in late August I am at pretty Eastbourne! I note how a groups, a nurse-girl comes up and few years have improved the town- enquires for a boy she had left with how its streets broaden and stretch them. I am so close that I am out their arms, its shade-bestowing compelled to hear all the conversaavenues lengthen and flourish, its tion between this girl, who it Parade has more imposing archi- appeared had been obliged to take tecture, and how its skating rink, his little sister home, and the other gardens, baths, and hotel lend new nurse, who had accepted the charge attractions to the place. And here, of him for the time. A very long lying on the sands, I watch the story it was. How Master Charley sights and catch the sounds of the was a very bad, rude boy-that he beach, the break of the sea on the certainly was. How she had told pebbles, the laughter of children, him not to go down to the water. and the faint cadences of the band How he said he would "for all from the pier. her." How he did go, and got wet. The sights too are pleasant How she had promised him a enough. Yonder race two boys good slapping when his nurse came towards the "Wish Tower," trying by their speed to raise a kite which the light summer air will hardly

66

back." How some big boys had passed along, and Master Charley had gone off with them. How she really did not know where he then was; perhaps on the pier, perhaps by the Wish Tower, perhaps at

the gentlemen's bathing machines. if there be a God or no. Bear All of which the nurse listened to your own griefs; play the man; wrathfully, and took her departure you will not discover Him or get in search of him, saying as she help from Him, for He is not." went, "Oh, that I knew where I could find him!" in a tone that seemed to prophesy that, when she did find him, Master Charley would assuredly get his promised slapping.

The long coated, soft hatted, softer-headed young Ritualist will respond, " You cannot find Him; you want some intercessor, some introducer; I will take you by the hand. Find God in me-in the It occurred to me, as she went bread I break, in the absolution I off, that those are the very words give you-thus will I fit you to used by Job (xxiii. 3). In his enter the King's Palace; and, mouth it was the cry of despair having fitted you, I will take you and suffering. He recognises the by the hand, and you shall seek hand that smites and the hand and find Him-yea, see God." that can alone heal, and his afflicted soul gropes about as it were in obscurity and darkness, till it shall find the way of access into the very presence chamber of the Almighty. Man cannot comfort me, friend cannot relieve me, yea, cannot sympathise with nor understand me. Let me come to my Maker; leave me alone with my God; let His Omnipotence deliver me, His abounding love comfort me. 66 'Oh, that I knew where I might find Him, that I might come even to His seat!"

The man of the world will respond, "Throw off the fancy altogether. You are low and depressed. Seek change and variety. There are clouds to-day, but there is sunshine behind. Life is full of joy, the earth of gladness. Enjoy yourself. Why seek after God at all, or at any rate, why just now, while you have plenty of time before you ? "

The Pantheist will respond, "Where is God, do you ask? Everywhere and in everything! In the And this is evermore the cry of blue abysses of the heavens above suffering humanity, that, in pro- your head; in the thunder-cloud found affliction, recognising the that sails through its vault; in the emptiness of mortal comfort, yearns lightnings that leap from its breast; for the immortal. It is a cry in the widespread forests; in broadsuggested by God Himself in His bosomed rivers; in loud-voiced love. It is the leaping up of the celestial spark within us to the great central fire of the universe. Let me go to Him! Where shall I find Him?

But what is the answer? It will be as varied as the various characters to whom the question may be addressed.

storms and summer breathings; in mountains crowned with perpetual snows, and robed with skirts of purple vineyards, and golden harvest fields. God is in all, and all is God."

But your heart is dissatisfied with these responses. You know that they contain not wisdom or The Atheist will respond, "No- truth. And again the cry goes up where, for there is no God. from your heart, "Where shall I You may guess about Him; you find Him-where shall I find Him?" may feel after Him if haply you And the Scriptures respond, and may find Him. But you will not say, Now, and here. It needs find Him; you may deceive your- not a lengthened search-it needs self, and think you have come not a long preparation of fasting near Him; but logic will prove that and of penance. Behold, now is you cannot, by searching, find out the accepted time; behold, now is

the day of salvation. And would you find God? Then go to Christ, for emphatically, ' God is in Christ.' As St. John tells us, the Word was God-and the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us--and we beheld His glory. We have seen Him with our eyes; we have looked upon Him-and our hands have handled the Word of life.' He that hath seen Him hath seen the Father."

Thus once found, He never will be far from you again. You will find Him then in the common things of life-every hour and every moment; now in calm contentment and peaceful satisfaction, and satisfied peace; now as it were with an inrush and surprise of spiritual grace and personal communion; now as giving strength, power, energy, for performance of duty or resistance of temptation; now as whispering comfort in the hour of distress. Then will the void be filled which honour, or wealth, or

Go then to Christ. Go in secret prayer; not a mere languid wish to find God, but with an earnest, urgent petition-"I beseech Thee love, or learning, or victory and show me Thy face;" and the answer will be given; God will manifest Himself unto you. Jesus said, "If a man love me, my Father will love him, and we will come unto him and make our abode with him." Go in public prayer, in congregational worship; for God" is in the midst," and will be found there by those who seek Him in fellowship by common supplication.

worldly success availed not to close; then, in the midst of the flux and flow and giddy whirl of the fastrunning current of life, the fixed and stable mooring place will have been found to which we can fasten and be safe, and no longer in despairing cry or unsatisfied yearning, shall we exclaim with the patriarch, "Oh that I knew where I might find Him!"

C.C.P.

"ABIDE AND ENDEAVOUR."

A moaning cry, as the world rolls by,
Through gloom and cloud and glory of sky,
Rings in my ear for ever;

And I know not what it profits a man
To plough, and sow, and study, and plan,
And reap a harvest never.

"Abide in truth, abide,"

Spoke a low voice at my side;

"Abide thou and endeavour."

And even though, after care and toil,
I should see my hopes from a kindly soil,
Though late, yet blossoming ever,
Perchance the prize were not worth the pain,
Perchance this fretting and wasting of brain
Wins its true guerdon never.

"Abide in love, abide,"

The tender voice replied;

"Abide thou and endeavour."