The Church

beam upon me; its breezes fan me; its odours are wafted to mẻ; its sounds strike upon my ears; and its spirit is breathed into my heart. Nothing separates me from it but the river of death, which now appears as an insignificant rill that may be crossed at a single step when God gives permission. The Sun of Righteousness is gradually drawing nearer, appearing larger and brighter as He approaches; and now He fills the whole hemisphere, pouring forth a flood of glory in which I seem to float like an insect in His beams; exulting, yet almost trembling whilst I gaze on this excessive brightness, and wonder with unutterable wonder why God should thus deign to shine on a sinful worm." That this may be your experience and mine, I earnestly desire, through Jesus Christ!

NANNIE'S EXPERIENCE.

FOR THE YOUNG.

"I THINK," said little Nannie Mason, you are such a mamma, that I shall go away some day and leave you, and never come back any more, and then you won't have any little girl.”

Mr. Mason raised his paper to cross conceal the smile he could not quite repress. Presently he lowered the paper and went on, "You said just now, Nannie, that some time & you'd go away and never come back. Where are you going?"

This was Nanny's favourite threat when anything went contrary to her wishes.

"Why, Nannie, what's the matter now?" asked her father, lowering his newspaper, and looking over it at the forlorn little figure seated on the hassock.

"Mary Carr asked me to go over and spend the afternoon with her, and mamma won't let me go,' said Nannie mournfully. "Mamma wants me to play out in the yard with Willie. I am so tired of Willie! I have to play with him every Wednesday afternoon. And I don't love mamma one bit." And Nannie shook her curly head with great decision.

"Dear me, Nannie! Don't love mamma one bit? How dreadful!" said her father. "Some little girls don't have any mammas to love. What do you think you could do, if you did not have any mamma?"

Nannie's face brightened. "Oh,” said she promptly, "I could put on my best dress and my bronze boots every afternoon."

Nannie sat in thoughtful silence for a ininute. "I should go out to Mr. West's farm, I guess," said she. "When we were out there, they asked me to stay and be their little girl; and Mr. West said I might have the cunning little chickens all for my own.”

"Oh, yes, I had forgotten all about that," said her father. “Well, Nannie, this is a very nice afternoon. If you are going at all, why don't you go to-day?"

"Oh, may I?" said Nannie eagerly.

If you had rather go out there to live and be their little girl, than to live here and be our little girl, you may go," said her father gravely.

"And may I wear my new dress and bronze boots?" said Nannie. "May she, mamma?" said Mr. Mason.

"I shall not interfere with any of your arrangements," said Mrs. Mason, who sat sewing by the window.

So Nannie presently arrayed herself in her new dress and boots, and her father, though somewhat unused to the work, managed to fasten the dress and button the high boots.

very nice time playing with the little chickens and making nests in the fresh, sweet hay. But now, as Nannie went along, she did not feel very happy, although she did have on her nice dress and bronze "I shall want my old dress and boots. She had not said good-by ankle-ties to put on in the morning, to her mother, nor kissed her; and you know," said Nannie thought- she could not help thinking how fully, as she put on her hat. disappointed Willie would be when Very well, you can take them he awoke from his after-dinner nap and found her gone. Then the dust would get on her pretty bronze boots, though she stooped and wiped them, again and again, until her handkerchief got quite soiled. And the bag on her arm grew very Mrs. Mason laid aside her sewing heavy, and there was nobody to and folded the dress. "I suppose,' carry it for her. Nannie had never she said, "if you are Mrs. West's taken such a long walk alone belittle girl, she will make your fore. And the sun was so warm clothes now. But she can send in that Nannie's face grew quite by Mr. West for some of your old damp with perspiration, and she clothes, if you need them before wiped it off, quite unaware of the she has time to make you any new streaks the soiled handkerchief ones.' "2

in your satchel," said her father. "But I think we shall have to ask mamma to fold the dress," he said, after various unsuccessful attempts to reduce it to the size of the satchel.

"Thank you. Yes'm," said Nannie, with severe politeness. She was still cherishing the anger against her mother.

She put the satchel on her arm. She was ready to set out, but she lingered beside her father. "I wish you were going too, papa!" she said.

'Why should I go?" asked Mr. Mason. "I love mamma dearly, and don't want to go away and leave her; and I am not tired of Willie."

Nannie hesitated a minute. Then suddenly she said, "Goodbye, papa," putting up her face to

be kissed.

left. So a good many things troubled Nannie; and, worst of all, when she had almost reached Mrs. West's, a big black dog ran barking out of a yard at her, and Nannie was dreadfully frightened, but she could not run behind her mother for shelter, nor cling to her father's hand. Poor Nannie! she screamed, but there was nobody to hear her, and in her terror she ran on as fast as possible. As soon as she dared she looked back, and saw the dog standing still in the middle of the road, looking after her. And at that she ran on faster than ever.

When she reached Mrs. West's

house, she ran round the yard and into the back door, quite out of breath. Mrs. West was sitting in the kitchen, braiding a mat.

Mr. Mason kissed her. Then Nannie ran past her mother without a word, out of the room and "If you please," said Nannie, as out of the house, down the steps soon as her panting breath would and down the street. She knew admit of her speaking, "I have the way very well out to Mr. West's come-to be your little girl." She had been by it often, Well, I never!" exclaimed and once she had been there to tea Mrs. West, looking over her glasses with her father and mother and in great astonishment, pausing in Willie. Nannie and Willie had a her work, and stedfastly regarding

farm.

the grimy little visage under the chickens. But, to her great disbroad-brimmed hat. "If that appointment, she found that the don't beat all! What's your name, little girl?"

Somehow, this was not just the sort of welcome that Nannie had expected. She said, with quivering lips, "I'm Nannie Mason. You asked me to be your little girl!"

"Nannie Mason! I declare I did not know you," said Mrs. West, now adjusting her spectacles so that she could look straight through them. "Did your ma say you might come and see me this afternoon?"

"Papa said I might come and be your little girl," said Nannie. "I have got my old dress and ankleties in my bag, and mamma said you could send for some of my old clothes if you wanted them."

"Well, I declare!" said Mrs. West, "I never heard of such a thing in my life." Just then somebody rapped at the front door, and Mrs. West, laying aside her work and bidding Nannie sit down, went to answer the summons. It was one of Mr. Mason's clerks, who held a short conference with Mrs. West.

She presently came back to the kitchen, smiling. "So you have come to live with me, Nannie," she said. “I am very glad, I am sure. It will seem nice to have a little girl about the house. Take off your hat, dear, and let me wash your face, for it has got very dusty with your walk, and if anybody should come in, I should not want them to think my little girl had a dirty face, you know."

Nannie did not like very well to have her face washed at any time. Sometimes, I am sorry to say, she would cry when her mother washed her. She found Mrs. West's scrubbing and wiping with the rough crash towel very different from her mamma's gentle touch. But Nannie did not dare to say anything.

After Nannie had rested a little while, she ran out to see the

cunning little puff-balls, that flew over the grass so comically when she saw them last, were now half. grown, scraggy, long-legged hens, that were not in the least pretty. She did not like them any more. Then she went through a gate to pick some blackberries growing by the wall, and she got a berry-stain on her dress, and a long scratch across one of her new boots. Be. sides, there was no fun in picking berries when she could not give any to Willie. And Nannie could not help thinking of Willie, and wishing she had kissed her mamma. Then she wondered where she would sleep, and ran into the house to ask Mrs. West.

Mrs. West went up stairs with her, and showed her a little cham ber. It was a room with a sloping ceiling and without paper on the walls, and it seemed very strange to Nannie. She did not like the queer, cross-legged little bed-stead with the patchwork quilt. It was not half so nice as the white-draped bed Nannie had slept in the night before; and she felt afraid the sloping wall would fall down on her while she slept. She looked very sober as she followed Mrs. West down stairs.

Dear me! It was such a long afternoon; and Nannie could not help thinking of her mother, and how she had said she did not love her one bit, and had run away without kissing her: and the tears would keep coming in her eyes. And when it grew dusk and supper was ready, Nannie could not eat anything. She could not even drink the cup of nice milk Mrs. West gave her.

"Oh, dear," she sobbed, leaning her arms on the table and her head on her arms, "I don't want to be your little girl and live here! I want to be my mamma's little girl, and sleep in my own bed,"

Pretty soon Nannie's father came "Bless me!" said he, "is

night?"

"Bless her heart! She should not stay if she did not want to," home. said Mrs. West, lifting her into her Mr. West's little girl over here tolap and cuddling in her arms. "Don't cry any more, dear; you shall go home and see your mother this very night."

But Nannie only cried and sobbed the harder. "It's da-ark and I'm afra-aid to go. A big black do-og barked at me when I ca-ame out here."

'There, there, dear, don't cry, and Joshua shall tackle up and carry you home in the waggon after supper. And just think what a nice ride you will have. So cheer up and eat some supper." But Nannie could not eat any supper; and though she was glad to get home, she did not enjoy the ride very much, for she felt very miserable and homesick. When she reached home, I am afraid she forgot to thank Mr. West for her ride, so eager was she to run into the house and find her mamma.

Nannie lifted her curly head from her mother's breast, and laughed through her tears. "I'm not Mr. West's little girl," she said; "I am my own precious mamma's and yours, and I am going to live here and play with my darling Willie."

"Oh, I thought you were tired of Willie !"

Nannie in answer slipped down from her mamma's lap, and hugged and kissed Willie till he pushed her away. Willie was only two years old, and though he loved Nannie dearly, he did not like to be hugged and kissed very long at a time.

I wish I could say that always after that Nannie Mason was such a good little girl that she did without complaint what her mother thought best.

Oh, mamma!" she cried, with It must be confessed that somethe tears running down her face, times her own way did seem to her "won't you let me come back to a great deal nicer than her mother's. live and be your little girl? I'll But of one thing you may be sure, be your good little girl for ever and she never again told her mother ever." And when she was safely that she would go away and leave sheltered in her mamma's arms, her. She had learned that her and confessing all her grief and mother could do without her better remorse, she began to feel a little than she could do without her better. mother.

AIDS TO COMMUNION; OR, SACRAMENTAL

MEDITATIONS.

BY THE REV. W. P. BALFERN.

VIII. THE INVINCIBILITY OF LOVE; OR, THE SECRET OF PROGRESS.

"Rise let us go.”—Mark xiv. 42.

THAT which the sweet singer of Israel said of himself was preeminently true of his great Lord: "I have set the Lord always before me; because He is at my right hand, I shall not be moved." Christ came not to do His own will, but the will of Him who sent Him, and to finish His work. He did not come to conquer the world by the

power of His divine perfections simply, but by the anointing of the Spirit as it displayed itself in faith, love, prayer, and the force of a holy example. With a few words from the brook of truth, with the sling of faith, He often brought down the Goliath of hell to the ground. He did not move here and there under the influence of His own will merely, or self-originated thoughts and ideals, or give utterance to His own words, but ever and at all times conformed Himself and all His ways to the law of God as written on His heart; and so true was He to this law within and the written Word without, that when about to depart He could say, "I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me, and they have received them and known surely that I came out from Thee, and they have believed that Thou didst send me." And even He, the infinitely perfect One, sustained His faith by simply resting upon the promises of His Father. Hence it is written, that when the time arrived that He should be lifted up, "He set his face stedfastly to go to Jerusalem." He knew that He must go, but He also knew that it was written, "I will hold thy hand and will keep thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles." But while He was thus sustained by the Spirit and word of God, He wrestled with His Father for strength, and other predictions were accomplished in His experience. The weeping prophet, speaking probably as a type of his Lord, had said, "Behold and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me, wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me on the day of his fierce anger," and recording his experience with tender pathos said, "Thou drewest near in the day that I called upon thee; thou saidst, Fear not." It was so even with Christ; and hence, all alone in weakness and sorrow, with all the steady and undeviating constancy of His own love, He went on and reached the place and hour where He had to say:

"I am feeble and sore broken: I have roared by reason of the disquietness of my heart.

"Lord, all my desire is before thee; and my groaning is not hid from thee.

My heart panteth, my strength faileth me: as for the light of mine eyes, it also is gone from me.

My lovers and my friends stand aloof from my sore; and my kinsmen stand afar off.

They also that seek after my life lay snares for me: and they that seek my hurt speak mischievous things, and imagine deceits all the day long.

"But I, as a deaf man, heard not; and I was as a dumb man that openeth not his mouth.

"Thus I was as a man that heareth not, and in whose mouth are no reproofs.

For in thee, O Lord, do I hope: thou wilt hear, O Lord my God."

But He prayed on and the Lord "drew near," and we see Him arise

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