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THE WIDOW'S CHRISTMAS EVE.

"GIVE

IVE me neither poverty nor riches,' was the prayer of Agur long ago, and this happy medium is perhaps as desirable in our time as in the days of Solomon. Dont you think so, my young readers? Or would you like best to have a great deal of money? If so, I hope you also expect to make a good use of it.

But it is not necessary to be rich in order to be happy. So, at least, thought Edward Forbes, that fine summer day when he found himself able to bring home his young wife to a pretty cottage outside the country town where he had employment; and when, by-and-by, a little son and daughter came to gladden his fireside, he thought himself indeed the happiest of men. But God had other plans for this family than that of continued earthly prosperity. All too soon, to our short sight, the husband and father sickened and died, leaving no provision for his wife and little ones, but commending them to our Heavenly Father's care. Mrs. Forbes was not a person to sit down in helpless, hopeless despair. In her the grace of God had laid hold of a deep, strong nature. Early left an orphan, she was inured to hardships, and through much conflict and distress she had learned the grand secret of life, and given up her whole soul to God's keeping.

Now that a grave responsibility rested on her, she did not take time to bewail her heavy loss, though knowing very well that the sore pain of bereavement would not easily pass away. She quietly accepted her widowhood, and girding herself up once more for the battle of life, in God's strength, she can still thank Him for 'remembered joys.' In order to maintain herself and her children she must work. In pursuance of this design she leaves the pretty cottage home, with its blooming roses, and free, fresh breezes, to reside in one small room of a huge, dingy building in the narrow street of a distant city. Here we find her one Christmas eve some years afterwards. She has got employment,

for the good reason that she was willing to take up any honest work that offered.

The whole appearance of the apartment, and the tidy look of the children, testify to the respectability that she has been able to keep up. Little Mary is deep in the mysteries of Miss Dolly's toilet; and you girls will be able to sympathise with her, if you have ever had the happiness to find a nice big doll, with clothes to put off and on, laid, perhaps, beside your pillow, by some loving hand, to give you a pleasant surprise in the morning. Ah, dear little ones, you like the toys now; one day, I hope, you will learn to value still more the affection that gives you them. And, even when, as time goes on,-the kind hands that have so ministered to your childish joys are cold in death, and the loving heart has ceased to beat, you will, I trust, be able to thank God for father and mother safe in Heaven.

But to return to Mrs. Forbes's little room on Christmas eve.

'Mother,' says Willie, with an eager, questioning look, 'Why does Santa Claus bring all his nice gifts to rich boys, who have plenty already? Tom Willis expects to find a chemical box and ever so many other things in his Christmas stocking.'

Now, Willie Forbes was not an ungenerous or envious boy. Usually he would have been as happy as Tom himself over any new possession of his friends, but somehow this evening Willie got to thinking about Tom's hopes and expectations as compared with his own; and it was very natural for him to feel that he would like sometimes to have the chance of doing a good turn as well as receiving many favours -a power, this, which riches seemed to confer. For Willie was old enough to understand that the mystic Santa Claus, who is supposed to fill the children's stockings with Christmas gifts, is just a name for kind papas and mammas, uncles and aunts; so that his real trouble was one that sometimes puzzles older heads than histhe apparent unequality in the distribution of the good things of this life. Neither was it exactly a selfish feeling with the boy

for his brightest day dreams were ever glorified by the grand things he was to do for mother.' Tom and Willie meant one day to become doctors, and even now they thought that they were fitting themselves for this profession, by trying little experiments in chemistry; hence their ambition to possess a box such as they had once seen, containing the materials for their purpose.

Mrs. Forbes was a wise woman, and so was careful not lightly to set aside the difficulties of her child; but after lifting up her soul to God in secret prayer for wisdom to speak the right word to Willie, she gently called him to her side for one of those talks with mother' that he had learned to value so much.

'Tell me, my son,' she said, 'Why it is that we make Christmas a festive season, and a time for giving and receiving of gifts, great or small?'

'Because it commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, who came to save us from our sin,' was Willie's reverent reply.

‘And in saving us does He not give us everything that is good for us?'

'Yes, surely.'

'Now we find that Christ's life, although He did, by it and in it, the most wonderful things that the world ever saw, was not a life of ease and honour, but of penury and suffering. The heavenly child, at whose birth the skies were filled with angels singing-"Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men," was yet born in a stable and cradled in a manger. And you remember what the hymn says about Jesus after he grew to be a man:

"Who is He in yonder cot, Bending to His toilsome lot? "Tis the Lord! oh wondrous story! "Tis the Lord, the King of glory!" 'Does this make things seem any clearer to you, Willie ?'

'Yes, mother, but is it then best to be poor, and wrong to be rich?'

'No, my son, there is no merit in being poor any more than in being rich. But what I would have you learn is this, that the

true life of God's children is not to be found in outward things at all. The rich

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man may glorify God and help his fellows by means of his wealth, the poor man in his toil is alike bound, although in another way, to seek the same great end.'

Willie Forbes never forgot this talk with mother.' He thought, and rightly, that it was a solemn thing to know that he, though a little boy and poor in this world's good's, must try to do everything he had to do in the very best way he could, because that was glorifying to God. And when, in after years, this same faithful spirit did raise him to rank and fortune, he was no less careful to fulfil his wider mission, and so proved himself worthy of his stewardship.

THE

A. W.

WITNESSING FOR JESUS. HERE was once a little Hindoo girl named Rajee. She went to a missionary's school, but she would not eat with her school-fellows, because she belonged to a higher caste than they did. As she lived at the school, her mother brought her food every day, and Rajee sat under a tree to eat it.

At the end of two years she told her mother she wished to turn from idols, and serve the living God. Her mother was much troubled at hearing this, and begged her child not to bring disgrace on the family by becoming a Christian; but Rajee was anxious to save her precious soul. She cared no longer for her caste, for she knew that all she had been taught about it was deceit and folly; and, therefore, one day she sat down and ate with her school-fellows.

When her mother heard of Rajee's conduct, she ran to the school in a rage, and seizing her little daughter by the hair, began to beat her severely. Then she hastened to the priests, to ask them whether the child had lost her caste for ever.

The priests replied, 'Has the child got her new teeth?"

'No,' said the mother.

Then we can cleanse her. And when her new teeth come, she will be as pure as But you must pay a good deal of money for the cleansing.'

ever.

WELC

ELCOME! Robin, with thy song,
Humblest of the vocal throng;

Sweet, as rippling waters clear,
Falls thy music on the ear.
When the bolder minstrels cease,
Softly swells thy song of peace,
Sounding like a low refrain
After summer's tuneful train.
As the light of autumn weaves
A glory o'er the fading leaves,
So, when summer sighs farewell,
Steals thy song, 'a silver spell,'
Luring her awhile to stay
Clad in autumn's rich array;
Or, if she must soon be gone,
Thou alone shalt carol on,
Though the blinding rain and sleet
O'er thy fragile form may beat,

Or keen frost and chilling snows
Drape the bare and withered boughs.
Let wild winter do his best,
Still the fire within thy breast
Burns, sweet bird, as warm and true
As thy bosom's crimson hue.
Robin, thou my guide shalt be,
Glad if I resemble thee;

If as trustful be my soul
While the wintry tempests roll;
And as hopeful be my song
When the shadows stretch out long,
Sending still, through dreary days,
Little rills of grateful praise.
When the summer friends depart,
Hold thou up my aching heart,
Till, unmoved, the swallows' flight
Fades before my wondering sight.

TiE singularly beautiful character of Reginald Heber gives an added interest to his poems.

'To find a friend like Reginald, with a heart so kind, so tender, and a character so heavenly, must be utterly impossible.'

'When was there a better man, a kinder, a more delightful, or one more fitted to make Christianity appear in its true light?' Many a good deed done by him came only to light when he had been removed far away.'

'The wisdom of the serpent was the only wisdom in which he did not abound.'

These are only a few of the praises with which his friends delighted to remember him when the sad news reached them of his death in his early prime.

Heber was born on the 21st April, 1783, at Malpas, in Cheshire, where his father's parish lay. In 1803 he received the prize

for poetry at Oxford. 'Palestine' was the subject chosen. It was said to be the best prize poem ever written at the university. A year or two later he was a traveller over Germany and Russia. Soon after his return he married Amelia Shipley, the daughter of the dean of St. Asaph, and about the same time became rector of the little rural parish of Hodnet.

How he fulfilled the duties of his parish has been often told.

'No one could live constantly within the influence of his cheerful, active life-devoted, either at home or among his parishioners, to the good of others, yet with the most entire unostentation-without praying that his mantle might descend upon them. He was daily amongst his parishioners, advising them in difficulties, comforting them in distress, kneeling, often at the hazard of his own life, at their bed