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fishing with His disciples on the Sabbath. His custom was to attend the synagogue.'

'I don't understand, mamma, what difference was made when Jesus rose from the dead, and the first day of the week became the Lord's day.'

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When Jesus rose from the dead a new reason for keeping the Sabbath was added. The first day of the week, the Christian Sabbath, then became a memorial of the Lord Jesus resting from His great work of redemption, and thus Christians have more reasons for observing the Lord's day than the Jews had. And the Lord blessed the Christian Sabbath, for on the first day of the week the Holy Spirit descended on the Apostles, and on that day thousands were converted. Can you tell me, Johnnie, on what day the Lord Jesus appeared to the apostle John when he was an exile in the island of Patmos ?'

'Was it on the Sabbath day, mamma?' 'Yes it was; for we read in Rev. i. 10, John's own words, "I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day, &c." These words show that at the time when the book of Revelation was written the Lord's day was observed by the Christians, and that Jesus met with His own people on that day.'

'In Isaiah lvi. 6, 7, there is a promise to the Gentiles who should come to Christ, and keep holy the Sabbath. I would like you to read it, Georgie.'

""Also the sons of the stranger, that join themselves to the Lord, to serve Him, and to love the name of the Lord, to be His servants, every one that keepeth the Sabbath from polluting it, &c." Do the sons of the stranger mean the Gentiles, mamma?'

'Yes; the Gentile nations were strangers to the covenant of promise till the gospel was preached to them after the day of Pentecost. Then many of them came to Jesus and kept His Sabbath; and many more are still coming, and will yet come to Him. This promise has been remarkably fulfilled to all who have kept the Sabbath. Britain and America owe much of their prosperity to the regard they have paid to the Lord's day. God's word is sure"Them that honour Me, I will honour."

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'Do you think, Georgie, that little boys would like to be obliged to go to school and learn geography, and grammar, and arithmetic &c. on Sabbath, the same as on other days; or would apprentice boys like to be obliged to toil in the workshop on Sabbaths, as well as on week-days?'

No, mamma, I am sure they would not; and I think you mean that we ought to do all we can to prevent any one from being obliged to work on Sabbath, because we would not like to be obliged to work on that day ourselves.'

'That is exactly what I mean. Men who work on railways or in steamers need the Sabbath as much as we do, and it is cruel as well as sinful to deprive them of it. There are many more reasons which show the wisdom of God in providing the Sabbath for man, but you will understand them better when you are older. God's command and His promised blessing are sufficient to assure us that in keeping this commandment there is great reward.

'Lest you should be wearied with this long lesson, I will only ask you to read one other promise to those who keep the Sabbath. It is in Isaiah lviii. 13, 14.

'I can repeat it,' said Johnnie, 'I learned it at school.'

'If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honourable; and shalt honour Him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words; then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord, &c.'

That is a most beautiful promise, and I hope you will always remember it, and ask God to enable you to resist every temptation to seek your own pleasure on God's holy day.'

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THE CATERPILLAR.

ON entering the

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parlour one afternoon in the middle of May, and sitting down, I saw on the damask tablecover a very small creature. It was a caterpillar, about half as long as the nail of my little finger, and it had bright black eyes, and a great many little feet. It was marked with rings, and was of a beautiful, soft, goldenyellow colour. The tiny fibres of wool that stood up from the table-cover many of them as long as itself-must have seemed a forest to the little creature, which every

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now and then tried hard to stand on its tail to get a better view. It stretched its head about in all directions, but, I fear, could see no way out of the wood. I said, 'Little friend, you must be far from home. Where can you have come from, and where would you like to go?' But it could not answer loud enough for me to hear. On loooking round the room I saw a bunch of flowers in a glass on the piano, and thought: Little friend, you know something about these.' I lifted them to the table, plucked a geranium leaf, and placed it in the caterpillar's way. It examined the leaf, left it, and went round by the shortest way into the full light from the window. Then I chose, thoughtfully, a furze-blossom tinted very like my little friend's yellow coat. The blossom was welcomed as an old acquaintance; the caterpillar crept on to it eagerly, and further and further in, till I lost sight of it, and had

to open the blossom rather rudely to find the little creature lying snugly in its deepest part, curled up to rest.

Do any of our 'Dayspring' readers ever feel their souls far from home, far from the light of true happiness, far from God? Do they seek for the light, as did my little friend, and avoid everything, every sin, that casts a shadow between their souls and God?

Children, you love honey, the sweet food which bees gather from flowers in summer; but do you know anything sweeter than honey? Ask David, the sweet singer of Israel. He is long since dead, but still speaks to us in his beautiful psalms. May the Lord teach every one of you to love His light, and the sweet honey of His Word.

My friend the caterpillar, after feeding plentifully on his favourite flowers, would doubtless lie down some day for a long

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sleep, become a golden chrysalis, and wake up, some lovely summer resurrection morn, to find himself a beautiful winged insect. So we hope, you and I, after feeding on the Word awhile, to sleep in Jesus, and to wake at the great resurrection to an eternal summer of liberty and joy.*

MY

THE SHEEP.

R. M.

Y Dear Young Friends,-In former papers I have endeavoured to point out to you the evidence of the wisdom and goodness of God, as it is manifiested in the habits and instincts of the curlew and cuckoo; and perhaps some of you may think that it would be as much in the line of an 'old shepherd' to say something about the sheep. Well then, let us think of them for a little.

All things in creation give evidence of the glory of the great Creator. Job had taken notice of this, and he said to his unreasonable friends, Ask now the beasts, and they shall teach thee; and the fowls of the air, and they shall tell thee.'

The cuckoo has gone and left us for a season, and we shall hear its note no more till the return of summer; but the useful sheep remains with us, and we may ask them if they have anything to say about the wisdom and goodness of their Maker. Of all the animals, they are among the most useful to man; but without their various instincts they would be of very little value. Man, however, knowing these instincts takes advantage of them, and can manage them with ease.

There is great goodness in providing them with a warm covering, which grows rapidly, and thus they are protected from the cold in winter. In the heat of summer it becomes oppressive, and when man shears them, for his own use, they feel relieved. Before the ewe drops her lamb, she generally withdraws to some remote place where she is most likely to be safe from enemies, and then she waits upon her young with great care, licking it with her tongue, and standing over it; and when she feels it touching her nipple she will hold herself

* See hymn 'In the Promise-garden,' p. 108.

down to assist it in drawing from her udder the nourishing milk. If man or beast come near it, she will push with her head and defend it; and if the shepherd take it up to carry it to a place of shelter, she will follow him when she hears it bleating in his arms. When a lamb is dead, the shepherd will sometimes draw it along the ground with a string to the fold or house, and the ewe will follow a long distance, manifesting a greater fondness for it from seeing it in motion, as if she had some hope that it was restored to life. Then the process of twinning takes place; that is, a twin lamb is taken and covered with the skin of the dead one, and confined with the ewe in a close place for a few hours till she takes to it kindly as if it were her own. Ewes know their own lambs chiefly by the smell, and so they are more easily imposed on in that way. Were their sense of sight as active as that of smell they would detect the imposition, and refuse to adopt the stranger; but though quick sighted to see and know their enemies, they can scarcely distinguish by sight their own lamb from another. After they are a few weeks old they know them well by the sound of their voice, and sometimes at a long distance. These things may seem unimportant, but every one of them has its use in their preservation and management.

Then there are some things about the lambs from which children might learn lessons. How delightful it is to see in the cool of a summer evening a number of young lambs, white and clean, collected together on the green sward, leaping and dancing so playfully! Not one of them angry, not one of them envious, not one of them crying from the unkindness of another. All are clean, merry, harmless, and innocent.

How delightful it would be if the same thing could always be said of every group of playful children! Come, my young friends, to the green hills in summer, and learn from the little lambs to be clean, and merry, and harmless.

Under the Old Testament dispensation, the lamb was a type of our Saviour Jesus Christ, but I leave it to yourselves to find out its fitness for that purpose.

AN OLD SHEPHERD.

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THE LARK'S MISSION--A REAL OCCURRENCE.

Asmar o'er the deep blue tide,

S morn by morn the sun arose,

Shedding a golden pathway there,

Where angel feet might glide;
There rose a lark on joyous wing,
Singing, as still he flies,
His morning song of praise to Him
Who made the earth and skies.

Meanwhile, down by yon fisher's cot,
You'd see his busy hand
Mending the nets, while yet the tide
Steals slowly up the strand:
Each morning finds him at the task
He knows and plies so well;
And as he works, he hears the lark
Whose notes with rapture swell.

Is it an echo in his heart-
An arrow winged with love?
He stops his work, and gazes up-
Up to the sky above.

My bonnie birdie, ilka morn

Ye sing your blithesome lay,
While ne'er a sang o' praise I gie
To Him wha guides my way.
Aye! I hae clean forgotten Him
To whom ye gie the praise;
Though He's sae mindfu' aye o' me
In a' my wilfu' ways.

'Twas but yest're'en I saw the tempest lour,
And thocht o' Nelly, and the bairnies four-
Thocht how they'd greet, if never, never mair
They'd see the faither in his ain bit chair!

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Aye, what a sicht was Nelly's watery e'e,
Wi' Robbie in her arms sae fu' o' glee;
When as the wind cam' swoopin' owre the wole,
The boat was anchored safe in Lucky's hole.
Aye, but yon lav'rock there has smote my heart-
I ne'er in sang o' praise ha'e ta'en a part-
I ne'er ha'e thankit Him nor praised His name,
Wha gar'd the awsome waves to guide me hame;
I e'en maun try, like yon blithe birdie there,
To raise a mornin' sang and evenin' prayer.
Sae ilka day I'll praise and bless His name,
Wha sent the birdie wi' this message hame.

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