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Brighton.

The world, once watered by His tears and blood,
Is still unsaved, still fights against its God;
And shall we sleep?

Millions are sinking, pierced by sin and care,
And broken hearts await us everywhere;

And shall we sleep?

And still the Master speaks, and still He cries,
With thorn-clad weary brow, and weeping eyes,
Awake, awake!"

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"GANE FORRADS."

Such, or somewhat like it, was the story, and I have ever since seen how the commonest action of life may be made an act of praise and worship; and how things which have no necessary connection with religion may yet be coloured with it, and help us in spiritual growth.

Ir is twenty, or it may be thirty years ago, that I read a little sketch intended to illustrate the text, 'Pray without ceasing." It is so long ago that I have forgotten where I read it; and the exact illustrations which were put into the mouth of the speaker. But I have never forgotten the point of the story, or its practical lesson. The In the same manner I have, when narrative brought before us a walking solitary the busy streets of clergyman, who was represented a town, or sauntering along some as saying to an old trustworthy village lane, pushed shoulder to servant, that he found a difficulty shoulder with a man; and heard in in understanding the command, the act of passing some half-dozen "Pray without ceasing." There were words that have set me thinking, orders to be given, journeys to be and formed in themselves a text made, visits to be paid, letters and a sermon. Some of these waywritten, sermons prepared. How side voices I would from time to could this be done, and yet he time put before the readers of the never cease from prayer? But the CHURCH, and it may be that they old retainer professed that to her will wake echoes in some hearts there was no difficulty at all." I that may be for good. wake, and I pray to God I may so wake to eternal life. I rise, and I pray Him I may rise to newness of life. I dress, and I pray that I may be clothed in the Redeemer's righteousness. I light the fire, and pray as I do so that the fire of divine love may be kindled in my heart. I sweep the room, and it suggests the prayer that the dust of frivolity and the foulness of sin may be swept from my heart."

This afternoon I heard the words which I have put at the head of the present paper uttered under the following circumstances. The glorious May sunshine, the leafing trees, and the springing flowers had made me restless and longing for the country; and I set off for a few days' holiday in the lovely environs of Ross. And in my walk to-day I came to a charming picture. The road contracted and seemed to be

the first speaker moved rapidly on, doubtless to join his more punctual companion in the oak-wood hard by, where I could see the tall white stems that too plainly told the devastation being wrought there. But though he moved away, the

"Gone

carried through a trench, as it were (so high and so steep rose the banks on either side), for a hundred yards or less. On one side this bank was fringed with some very large hollies and dark yews, while the other side was crowned with three noble and wide-spreading oaks, which words stayed by me. stretched their gnarled limbs (now forwards!" They were simple being rapidly clothed with green enough, but they seemed to ring and yellowish leaves) completely in my brain; and it was strange across the lane, to their evergreen that, amid such a wealth of life and opposites. A shady canopy was colour they should suggest thoughts thus made above my head, and of death. But the faculty of assoover the banks, half of rock, half of ciation is most subtle and peculiar; red rich soil, that shut me in. And and it was, doubtless, the fact of the what a prodigality of beauty on one man having disappeared from those banks! From the rim the scene, and the other hurrying drooped down a mass of dark poly- after him, that made me see in that podiums and ivy, which contrasted brief interview a compendium of finely with the first green of the life; and in those two words & young hazels, and of the tender happy and Christian description of thorns, and with the uncurling death. fronds of the common mas. and fœmina ferns. But the profusion of wild flowers had equally arrested my steps. There the stellaria with its spiky leaves seemed to aspire towards the early hawthorn bloom overhead. The bluebells nodded to the cowslip, the clustering primroses whispered the violets, the delicate pencilled wild geranium on its red stalk waved gently over the creamy strawberry, the germander speedwell almost rivalled in its blue the dear forget-me-not, while the late Lent lily, the glittering buttercup, the golden celandine, the purple And does not each succeeding orchis, the dog-violets were all there, besides various flowering nettles. It was a scene in which Hunt or Bligh would have found ten thousand pictures; and while I was lovingly noting them, I was startled by a voice that cried from just beside me, "Hast seen Jim, Bill?" It was from a bark-peeler who had come almost close to me unnoticed, and the man he addressed in the field above us both shouted back, "Hi, lad, he' gane forrads" (yes, man, he has passed onwards). Satisfied with his answer

For is not life for all of us (if we will make it so) a brief passage through a road which our heavenly Father has surrounded with beauteous flowers, and flooded with a celestial glory, more radiant even than this May sunshine? Bare and rugged as the way itself may be, has it not evermore its borders of green and comforting turf which we may at times refreshingly walk, or rest upon ? Has it not its side views and onward prospects, glad with spring hopes, and beauteous with more than earthly flowers?

generation pass on to the work which others before them have been engaged in, but left unfinished ?

We all have our life tasks; many of them to be accomplished only with sweat of the brow, with fatigue of body, with weariness of spirit, and with anxiety or sorrow of soul. The woodmen I had seen but half an hour before had not felled those monarchs of the wood, or stripped them of their bark without many & sturdy blow, many a heave and struggle, many an hour of toil in hot sunshine or in drifting wetting

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chamber of the Master. Let us then not regard death altogether in its gloomy aspect, or sorrow as those who are without hope. Rather let us be assured that it is all well with them, all right for us, and hear, in the stillness of the death-chamber, answering our cry

breathing, "He has gone forward."

But as those words came to the woodman, I saw him grasp his barking tool, and quicken his step. He strode up the hillside at a rapid pace, as one who was late in his work and would overtake time.

rain. Yet as they were not without | of advancement. They are higher alleviations (if they would look for than we are, every way better and them) in the songs of wood birds, more exalted; they are moved from the play of the timid hare or the rear rank to the front, promoted stealthy rabbit, the glittering dew- from amongst the servitors in drops and the thousand beauties of passages and antechambers, into springtide so in sorrows or in the banquet-hall, and presenceanxieties, in disappointments or in mental struggles, in poverty or in sickness, if they come to us, let us look upwards; let us look from our task, and from our troubles to the promises, to the springing hopes, to the dear charities and companionships of life that are on every side of us, and most of all to the happy of distress or doubt, a gentle plains of everlasting summer, to "the never withering flowers" and the celestial sunshine that already makes bright a not distant horizon. And once again. The words gone forward" are surely a happy way of considering our friends who have departed. They were here amid earth's flowers, or with bleeding feet walking its stony ways, as the case may have been. They are with us no longer. The father, the mother, the loving companion, we look for them in vain. Where are they? Shall we say "dead"? It has a blank, dull sound, it has no word of comfort, no suggestion of happiness, no thought of reunion. Rather let us say "gone forward." For death is not a destruction, it is not an extinction. It is barely a separation. They are "gone forward," our departed ones: forward to their work, they wait us there. The work waits us too: a happier, more blessed work than we can do here. "Forward" also in the sense

The words come to us. Come to us in the arrow that flieth in the darkness, in the pestilence that walketh in the noonday; come to us in every relative, companion, or acquaintance who disappears from our side in the great life march. Come to you, reader of this paper. Hear the words! Let us quicken our steps, let us brace up our energies and engage more earnestly in our work-the work of saving our own souls, and helping those who surround us. In a word, let us so live that our death may be a call, “Come up higher," and our sorrowing, yet rejoicing friends may be able to say of each of us, "He's gane forrads."

C. C. P.

THE MINISTER AND THE MARBLE-PLAYER. MANY years ago a certain minister was going, one Sunday morning, from his house to his schoolroom. He walked through a number of streets, and as he turned a corner he saw, assembled round a pump, a party of little boys who were playing at marbles. On seeing him approach they began to pick up their marbles and run away as fast as they could. One little fellow, not having seen him as quickly as the

rest, could not accomplish this so soon, and before he had succeeded in gathering up his marbles the minister had closed upon him, and placed his hand on his shoulder. They were face to face, the minister of God and the poor little ragged boy who had been caught in the act of playing marbles on Sunday morning. And how did the minister deal with the boy? For this is what I want you to observe. He might have said to the boy, "What are you doing here? You are breaking the Sabbath. Don't you deserve to be punished for breaking the command of God?"

But he did nothing of the kind, he simply said, "Have you found all your marbles? "No," said the boy, "I have not.”

“Then,” said the minister, "I will help you to find them." Whereupon he knelt down and helped to look for the marbles, and as he did so he remarked, "I liked to play at marbles when a little boy very much, and I think I can beat you. played marbles on Sunday."

The little boy's attention was and began to wonder who he was. "I am going to a place where I you come with me?"

"Where do you live ?"

But," he added, "I

never

arrested; he liked his friend's face, The minister said,—

think you would like to be. Will

The minister told him where the house was.

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Why, that's the minister's house!" exclaimed the boy, as if he did not suppose that a kind man and the minister could be the same person.

"Yes," was the reply, "I am a minister, and if you will go with me I think I can do you some good."

"But my hands are dirty, sir, and I cannot go looking as I do.” "Here is a pump; why not wash ?" was the reply.

"I am so little that I can't wash and pump at the same time,” the boy said.

"I will pump while you wash." And the minister at once began pumping while the boy washed. Then the minister lent the little lad his own handkercheif, with which he dried his hands and face, and so accompanied the minister to the door of the Sunday-school.

Twenty years after the minister was walking in the street of a large city, when a tall gentleman tapped him on the shoulder, and, looking into his face, said,—

"You don't remember me?'

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No," said the minister, "I don't.”

"Do you remember, twenty years ago, finding a little boy playing marbles near a pump? Do you remember that boy's being too dirty to go to school, and your pumping for him, and your speaking kindly to him, and taking him to school?"

“Oh, yes!” said the minister, "I do remember."

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Sir," said the gentleman, "I was that boy. I rose in business and became a leading man. I have attained a good position in society,

and on seeing you to-day in the street I felt bound to come to you and shake your hand, and say that it is to your kindness and consideration for me, a little marble-player years ago, that I owe, under God, all that I am and hope to be."

And with a hearty shake of the hand, and a "God bless you!" they parted.

TWENTY YEARS.

SHE nears the land, the boat that brings
My wandering boy again to me,
The sturdy rowers lend her wings,
And now each sunburnt face I see.
Among them all I mark not him!
It is not that with rising tears
My watchful eyes are weak and dim,
It is the lapse of twenty years.
He left me when a little lad,

A lad, a babe; I see him now,
I hear his voice so frank and glad,
I stroke the curls upon his brow.
My son returns across the main,
But brings not back the time that's fled;
I shall not hear the voice again.
I shall not pat the childish head,
Perhaps a trace I yet may find
Of boyhood, in his look or tone;
A glance, an accent, to remind

Me still of hopeful visions gone.

His mother's smile may greet me, when
We hold each other hand in hand;
His mother's voice may echo then
A blessing from the spirit-land.

The boat comes on, a minute more

She'll grate upon the beach. And see,
Who rises now to spring on shore !
Who waves his cap aloft ? 'Tis he.

No more I look in wistful doubt,

As in the man the child appears;
His earnest gaze, his joyful shout,

Have bridged that lapse of twenty years.

NEWS OF THE CHURCHES.

THE memorial stone of a new stone of a new chapel has been chapel, for the ministry of the Rev. laid at Hucknall Torkard, for the the Trentham Road, Longton, -The chapel at Little Leigh, C. Springthorpe, has been laid in ministry of the Rev. J. T. Almy. been opened in Cambridge Street, Rev. A. Spencer, has been reStaffordshire.-A new chapel has Cheshire, under the care of the Glasgow, for the ministry of the opened Rev. A. Wylie.-The memorial foundation stone of a new chapel

after

alteration.- The

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