One way in which the Bible is like a lamp is, that the darker everything around is, the more brightly it shines. You have sometimes travelled in a railway train, and never noticed that there was a lamp in the roof of the carriage till you were carried into a long, black tunnel. How glad you were then of the friendly light, which showed you your father's and mother's faces! So, many a man has read the Bible for years, and never discovered that there was light in it for him, till God sent some dark trouble upon him; and then this heavenly lamp revealed to him a Saviour by his side. And many of God's people will tell you that just as the blacker the night, the brighter the stars; so, in their deepest sorrows they have got most comfort, hope, and joy, from God's Word.

I spoke of two lights in the picture-one in the man's hand, and one towards which he is travelling. Perhaps it is a fancy of mine, but I like to think that when David says, 'Thy word is a lamp to my feet, and a light to my path,' there is a special meaning in each clause. 'A light to my path,' to make me sure that I am on the way to heaven; 'a lamp to my feet,' to show me, step by step, how to walk in that way.

I shall conclude with a story told by Mr Weylland, a London city missionary,in his 'Man with the Book.' One day, when visiting in his district, he found a poor little girl of eleven, very ill indeed. She was the child of a travelling tinker, and was lying on a bundle of rags, in a filthy room, which her parents had rented for a few weeks. Turning towards the child,' says Mr Weylland, the visitor inquired how long she had lived there, and if she could say the Lord's Prayer. In reply, the child, panting at intervals for breath, in a low hollow tone, said, "For four or five Sundays, sir. I was ill, and we had to sleep under a hedge, which made me worse; and then we tramped on here, and the doctor has been to see me, and says he can't do much for me, as I am getting thin, and can't eat;" and then, raising herself upon her arm, she continued,

her eyes lighting up with a deeper brightness, "I can't say all that prayer, but I can say the pretty hymn which is in the book under my head. I can't read, but I know it's there." And the peach colour of her cheek deepened as she opened the penny hymn-book, and repeated the first two verses of the hymn,

"Come, let us join our cheerful songs With angels round the throne." Then she threw herself back as though exhausted, but her face assumed an expression of intense happiness. After a few minutes the question was asked, "And how did you learn that hymn?" "A little girl at the tramps' lodging at Ipswich," she replied, "went to Sunday school, and took me with her for three Sundays. The lady saw I was ill, and kissed me, and told me how to say that hymn, and it makes me so happy. And I am going to Him soon," she whispered, gazing up with evident delight.'

That night she went to Him,'—almost in the act of repeating her favourite hymn. Oh! how dark that child's death-bed would have been if light from the Bible had never shined in her heart! And she was led to the light by a 'little tramp girl.' Dear children, none of you is too young to be a light-bearer. If you carry the lamp of God's Word in your hand, and walk by its light yourself, you may be sure that, sooner or later, its rays will shine upon the dark path of some friend or neighbour, who will be led thereby to the city which hath no need of the sun nor of the moon to lighten it, for the Lamb is the light thereof.'

GE EORGE HERBERT was of noble family, descended from the Earls of Pembroke, and born in Montgomery Castle, North Wales, in the year 1593. The castle is very old, and built on a steep and high rock. It was destroyed by the Welsh in the early Norman time, and rebuilt by William Rufus in 1093. It was five hundred years old, and had seen much storm of war, when within it was born this little child, who was to be no warrior like his fathers, but to fill the church with his peaceful songs, and down through the long future years comfort many people who might yet scarcely know his name. Yet perhaps he has no one hymn which has won a household place, sung by little children, and kept as a cradle memory. His poetry is quaint and strange. These, perhaps, are his simplest verses :

PRAISE.

'King of glory, king of peace,
I will love Thee;
And that love may never cease,
I will move Thee.

Thou hast granted my request-
Thou hast heard me;
Thou didst note my working breast-
Thou hast spared me.

Therefore, with my utmost art,
I will sing Thee;

And the cream of all my heart
I will bring Thee.

Though my sins against me cried,
Thou didst clear me;

And alone, when they replied,
Thou didst hear me.

Seven whole days (not one in seven)

I will praise Thee:

In my heart, though not in heaven, I will raise Thee.

'Sweet Peace, where dost thou dwell? I humbly crave,

Let me once know.

I sought thee in a secret cave,

And asked if Peace were there.

A hollow wind did seem to answer, No:
Go, seek elsewhere.

I did; and, going, did a rainbow note:
Surely, thought I,

This is the lace of Peace's coat:

I will search out the matter.

But, while I looked, the clouds immediately
Did break and scatter.

Then went I to a garden, and did spy
A gallant flower,

The Crown Imperiell: Sure, said I,
Peace at the root must dwell.

But, when I digged, I saw a worm devour
What showed so well.

At length I met a reverent, good old man;
Whom, when for Peace

I did demand, he thus began:

There was a Prince of old

At Salem dwelt, who lived with good increase Of flock and fold.

He sweetly lived; yet sweetness did not save His life from foes.

But, after death, out of His grave

There sprang twelve stalks of wheat:

Which many, wondering at, got some of those To plant and set.

It prospered strangely, and did soon disperse Through all the earth;

For they that taste it do rehearse

That virtue lies therein

A secret virtue, bringing peace and mirth
By flight of sin.

Take of this grain which in my garden grows,
And grows for you:

Make bread of it, and that repose

And peace which everywhere,
With so much earnestness, you do pursue
Is only there.'

And there are here and there little verses full of such wise counsel, or such fine desire, they are worth keeping in our memories to help us every day.

'Be useful where thou livest, that they may

Both want and wish thy pleasing presence still. Kindness, good parts, great places are the way To compass this. Find out men's wants and will,

And meet them there. All worldly joys are less Than the one joy of doing kindnesses.

Scorn no man's love, though of a mean degree (Love is a present for a mighty king), Much less make any one thine enemy;

As guns destroy, so may a little sling. The cunning workman never doth refuse The meanest tool that he may chance to use.'

Here are three simple, oft-quoted lines from the little poem on Employment.'

"O that I were an orange tree-
That busy plant;

Then should ever laden be,

And never want

Some fruit for Him that dresseth me.'

Elsewhere, on the same sujbect:

'If as a flower doth spread and die,
Thou would'st extend to me some good
Before I were, by frost's extremity,
Nipt in the bud.

The sweetness and the praise were Thine;
But the extension and the room,

Which in Thy garland I should fill, were mine
At Thy great doom.

All things are busy; only I

Neither bring honey with the bees,

Nor flowers to make that, nor the husbandry
To water these.

I am no link of Thy great chain;
But all my company is a weed.
Lord, place me in Thy consort; give one strain
To my poor reed.'

Like Hume of Logie, George Herbert in his youth was a courtier of James First. But as early as 1626 he became prebend of Leighton Ecclesia, and his life is henceforth one of such earnest and beautiful devotion as, perhaps even more than his hymns, has gathered love and reverence round his name. Leighton is a village in Huntingdon

shire. When Herbert came to it, the old church was falling into ruin. With great earnestness, Herbert began its repair. The tower, the font, and some of the chancel windows he himself contributed. The roof was also made new. From the battlements

of the tower may be seen some sixteen or seventeen villages with Ely Cathedral in the distance, thirty miles away.

Herbert's residence here was not long. His mother died in 1627, and soon afterwards his own weak health obliged him to leave Leighton. He went to the village of Woodford, where his brother Henry lived. Very lovely and pleasant lies this little village in Essex-with the long green glades of Epping Forest making tranquil vistas round it.

But the climate was too severe, and Herbert was again obliged to remove. It was in Wiltshire he first met his wife. They were married after three days acquaintance; and almost immediately Herbert was settled as rector of Bemerton, where he lived for the rest of his short life.

On the 26th April, 1630, he entered his new rectory. The house is separated from the church by only the width of the road. A grassy lawn sloped to the river, and from the river marge one could see the Cathedral of Salisbury in grand and pure old Gothiccomplete as it stands now from the reign of the first Edward. A medlar tree planted by Herbert still grows in the rectory garden; and every foot of the little parish is, to this day, sacred to his memory. 'Some of the meaner sort,' says Walton, who wrote his life, 'did so love and reverence Mr Herbert, that they would let their plough rest when his saint's bell rung to prayer, that they might also offer their devotion to God with him, and would then return back to their plough.' Another old author writes of 'that blessed man, George Herbert, whose holy life and verse gained many pious converts.' In unwearied labours he spent two short years, and then the last illness came. His poems had never been published. He gave them to a friend, saying,

Sir, I pray deliver this little book to my dear brother Ferrar, and tell him he shall find

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in it a picture of the many spiritual conflicts which have passed between God and my soul, before I could subject mine to the will of Jesus, my Master, in whose service I have now found perfect freedom. Desire him to read it; and then, if he can think it may turn to the advantage of any poor, dejected soul, let it be made public; if not, let him burn it, for I and it are less than the least of God's mercies.'

After this he did not linger long. His wife, his nieces, and one dear friend stood beside him, and heard his last whispered words:

'Grant me mercy for the merits of my Jesus. And now, Lord, Lord, now receive my soul.'

He died in the early spring-time of 1632.

A painted window in Trinity College, Cambridge, is consecrated to the memory of Herbert. The picture is of Jesus in the house of Lazarus of Bethany; and among the listening faces of the company gathered round him is that of George Herbert, whose portrait has grown familiar to so many. The window is a fitting and beautiful tribute to one who so fervently waited on Jesus. With the last few verses of his own beautiful poem, "The Flower,' this little sketch of his life and poetry must close.

"O that I once past changing were,

Fast in Thy paradise where no flow'r can wither.
Many a spring I shoot up fair,
Reaching to heaven, growing and sighing thither:
Nor doth my flower

Want a spring shower
My sins and I joining together.

And now in age I bud again;
After so many deaths I live, and write
I once more smell the dew and rain,
And relish versing. O my only Light!
It cannot be
That I am he

On whom Thy tempests fell all night.

These are Thy wonders, Lord of Love:
To make us see we are but flowers that glide,
Which when we once can find and prove,
Thou hast a garden for us where to bide.'

H. W. H. W.