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THE DAYSPRING FROM ON HIGH.

WHAT WE PROPOSE.

THE abundance of magazines, and of

illustrated papers for the young, is one of the peculiar features of our times. We can look back for more than thirty years, and remember when their number was limited to but one or two; but now they may be counted by the hundred. We have a persuasion that notwithstanding the great number of such magazines, there may be found room for 'The Dayspring' in our Sabbath schools and in other meetings of the young. It is our purpose to fill the pages of The Dayspring' with interesting narratives from the various mission-fields, so as to draw out the sympathies, and prayers, and help of the children of the kingdom on behalf of missions at home and abroad. There will be no lack of short, pithy anecdotes, original and selected, which will prove as nails fastened in a sure place. We have in store, also, many sweet hymns with appropriate music, which will often rise, we trust, into the ears of Him before whom the children marched up the streets of Jerusalem singing glad hosannas. We purpose, also, publishing each month a series of Bible Questions, which we shall expect our many young friends to answer, and at the end of the year, three Prizes will be awarded to the successful competitors. The conditions of the competition will be found in this number of The Dayspring,' together with the first set of Questions. As we have often had enquiries made as to the most suitable books for Sabbath school libraries, and for rewards to the young, we shall set apart a column of our little magazine for notices of volumes which are published, with the view of meeting this demand.

We might fill this page and another with a statement of our plans for the making of The Dayspring' what it professes to be, 'but we deem it best to allow the performance to speak for itself.

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THE DAYSPRING FROM ON HIGH.

WONDER whether many of my young

readers have seen in midsummer, the SPRINGING UP OF DAY. I had been watching all night with a sick child who had, after long tossing, fallen upon a sweet refreshing sleep. Living, as I was at the time, in one of the fairest spots of beloved Scotland-in a place which was like a well-watered garden of the Lord-I strolled out of doors about 4 a.m., to watch for the Dayspring. See! there it comes. In the distant east, there was drawn right across a grey, marled sky, a single streak of gold, which seemed like the gateway into the palace of the Great King; and soon, long rays of light, like golden spears, darted up the eastern sky, pushing and driving the darkness before it, till all of the fair world under my eye was robed in beauty and glory. Nor was I the only watcher: for at the foot of my garden stood an old pear tree, on a branch of which a sentinel had taken up his post, and as ray after ray fought the darkness, this watcher, with clear, clarionlike note, gave many tiny sleepers round him to know that the Dayspring had come. the blackbird trilled out his song, the feathered choristry for miles around wakened up, and such a gush of music came borne on the breeze, that had I not had the pale face of my sick child before me, I would verily have said that sin was dead for ever, and that sorrow was a stranger to the world. But I knew that sin was alive, and that all beautiful as the earth lay under the morning light, sin would do its sad work unchecked; but for one thing, and that one thing you will have called up to your recollection very vividly, if you look at the picture which our artist has drawn. It is more than 1800 years since the true Dayspring came. O, the glorious, blessed Dayspring, for which sentinels with weary eyes, and troubled hearts were watching! The beautiful Dayspring that has chased away the darkness! Old, bloody superstitions that had lived and thriven in the darkness, were driven away before Him; and, as He touched the black mantle of the night with His golden spear,

As

THE PURE IN HEART.

called TRUTH, it rent and tore it so that the blessed light beyond came pouring through it, and all the angels of heaven pealed out the sweet song, 'Glory to God in the highest; and on earth peace, good will toward men.' You must not wonder that we have called our little magazine The Dayspring,' for of all words in our mother-tongue, it is the sweetest; and never sweeter than when it brings the CHRIST OF GOD before us, making young hearts bright and joyful by His presence.

THE SABBATH SCHOOL.

E must not suppose that preaching

WE the gospel to the heathen is the only

form of missionary effort. The Sabbath school is one of the most valuable of our home mission efforts, and among all such home mission efforts we are inclined to give what is called Sabbath Forenoon Services

for the Young, a very high place. In a future number of The Dayspring' we shall have something to say about this good work; meanwhile we wish all to read and ponder the following weighty saying of Dr. Tyng of New York.

'I desire,' says this eminent servant of Jesus, 'to record my testimony as the result of my whole experience, that, in my judgment, there is no department of Christian labour more vitally influential upon the triumphs of the gospel, more remunerative in its immediate results to the souls engaged in it, more effective in maintaining and enlarging the best interests of the Christian church, and the most efficient operation of the Christian ministry, than faithful Sabbath school labour.'

THE MAN WHO THOUGHT HE NEVER PRAYED.

THE Rev. Mr Kilpin passed a very profane man, and having omitted to rebuke him, he waited on him in the morning in the same place. When he approached Mr Kilpin said:

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"Good morning, my friend; you are the person I have been waiting for.' 'Oh! sir,' said the man, 'you are mistaken, I think.'

I do not know you, but I saw you last night when you were going home from work, and I have been waiting some time to see you.'

'Sir, you are mistaken; it could not have been me. I never saw you in my life before, that I know of.'

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Well, my friend,' said Mr Kilpin, 'I heard you pray last night.'

'Now, I assure you that you are mistaken; I never prayed in all my life.'

'Oh!' said Mr Kilpin, 'If God had answered your prayer last night, you had not been seen here this morning. I heard you pray that God would destroy your eyes and ruin your soul.'

The man turned pale, and, trembling said: 'Do you call that prayer? I did, I did.' 'Well, then, my errand this morning is to request you from this moment to pray as fervently for your salvation as you have done for damnation; and may God in mercy hear your prayer.'

The man from that time became an attendant on Mr Kilpin's ministry, and it ended in his early conversion to God.

THE PURE IN HEART.

A LITTLE girl having one day read to her

teacher the first twelve verses of the fifth chapter of the Gospel by Matthew, he asked her to stop and tell him which of these holy tempers, said by our Lord to be blessed, she should most like to have. She paused a little, and then said, with a modest smile, 'I would rather be pure in heart.' Her teacher asked her why she chose this above all the rest. 'Sir,' she said, ‘if I could but obtain a pure heart, I should then have all the other graces spoken of in this chapter.' And surely this was a wise and a right answer.' God himself has said, 'Out of it (the heart) are the issues of life.' It is in the heart that God sheds abroad the graces of His Spirit; and from thence comes that grace of the lips' which shows forth the right mind within.

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THE STORY OF THE FIRST MISSIONARY SHIP.

THE STORY OF THE FIRST MISSIONARY

SHIP.

D our young readers know the story of the first missionary ship? Can they tell how long it is since that ship was employed in spreading the gospel, what size it was, on what sea it sailed, to whom it belonged, and who was the Missionary on whom it waited?

Many years ago, the good men who began the London Missionary Society bought a vessel called the 'Duff,' and sent her to carry the gospel to the South Sea Islands. On her first voyage, twenty-five missionaries were sent in her, and on her second voyage she sailed with thirty more missionaries for these distant islands. The history of the missionary voyages of the ship 'Duff' is a remarkable one. Is it the story of the first missionary ship? No. The first missionary ship sailed long before there was any London Missionary Society, when Great Britain was a dark, heathen island, full of the habitations of cruelty.

Twelve hundred years ago, a good man named Columba, came to Iona, a small island on the west of Scotland. He came bringing the light of the gospel to our shores, and many a voyage he took in his little ship. Was the boat in which Columba made his voyages the first missionary ship? No. Columba was a very laborious missionary, but a greater missionary than Columba sailed in the first missionary ship.

Some little boy or girl will perhaps say, 'I know now what ship you mean; it must be the ship in which the apostle Paul sailed, because Paul was the greatest missionary that ever lived.' You are coming very near to the first ship now. But you are not quite right yet. Paul was a most zealous, selfdenying missionary; he left home and friends, and endured many hardships and much persecution, that he might proclaim the good tidings of salvation to the perishing heathen. But there is one who is greater than even that great apostle. It is He who left His throne in glory, and came into our dark, sin-polluted world, and suffered and died to save us from our sins. But for His work there would have been no gospel for

ministers or missionaries to proclaim; no good news for sinners; nothing but a fearful looking for of judgment.

The word missionary, means one sent, and Jesus is the one sent by the Father to be the Saviour of the world. Paul preached the gospel, but Jesus is Himself the Gospel. He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and with His stripes we are healed. The work of every other missionary wherever he goes is to tell that

'Old, old story

Of Jesus and His love.'

Surely our young readers know now what was the first missionary ship. It was the little vessel in which Jesus taught the people. An interesting history is connected with each of the missionary ships which we have named, but the story of the ship which waited on Jesus is the most interesting of any. No other ship was ever so highly honoured as this one.

When Jesus lived in our world eighteen hundred years ago, a great many little ships sailed on the lake of Galilee. These were not like the large vessels which we usually call ships. They were small open fishing boats, more like the wherries used in the herring fishery on our own coasts. They were rowing boats, with a little sail which was used when the wind was favourable At that time crowded cities and villages surrounded the lake of Galilee, and the little ships belonged to the fishermen who dwelt there. It was from among them that Jesus chose most of His apostles. There are little creeks where the water flows into the shore, and these creeks form natural harbours, into which the fishermen used to bring their boats. One of the little ships belonged to Simon Peter, and Andrew his brother, and another to James and John, with Zebedee their father. Fishing is a very laborious employment. Often these fishermen spent the whole night in their little boats, and sometimes they toiled all night and caught nothing. One morning after a

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