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make them fight with men, or with one another.

The Colosseum was finished by the united labour of 40.000 captive Jews. The Emperor made a hundred holidays; and during that long time there were continual fights with men and beasts. It is said that no fewer than 5,000 men, and 5,000 wild beasts, were killed to please their cruel desires.

When the people got tired of one kind of bloody sport, they had a change, by filling the ring in the middle with water, so as to sail little boats, and enable sea monsters to swim. Thus they had mimic, though dreadful sea fights, and the more the poor combatants were torn to pieces and killed, the better pleased were the blood-thirsty spectators.

These fearful amusements were continued for many hundred years, until Christianity prevailed, when they were ended in a most touching and affecting manner. One day two men were hard at work trying to kill each other with the short Roman sword, when an eastern monk named Almachius rushed into the arena between the combatants, exclaiming, 'In the name of God, cease this inhuman butchery!' Alas! the poor monk was killed in his kind effort to save the gladiators; but his martyrdom put an end to these horrible exhibitions, and he died having done a good work, leaving a name that will live as long as a stone of the Colosseum remains.

What renders the Colosseum all the more interesting, is the sad fact, that many thousand poor innocent Christians-men, women, and children-were delivered up to wild beasts before these blood-thirsty pleasure seekers; but thanks to a merciful Providence, all that is over long ago; and now we look with the deepest interest on a building, which could it speak, would tell many stories of wonder, awe, and horror. Desolate in its ruins, it is majestic withal!a monument of the pride of a former age; and of a people, who many hundred years ago, were swept away from the face of the earth as a great nation, by the avenging arm of a just and all-powerful God.

L

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THE STORY OF AN OLD KING. ISTEN to this little story of an old Eastern king, who lived in that far away time, when the earth, it is said, was young.

Sephi was very rich; Sephi was a great king. His throne was gold; his servants were princes-all the world did him honour. The winds seemed to wait upon his ships; in whatever seas they sailed, the breezes filled them kindly, and brought them home laden with treasure.

If Sephi went forth to war, his banner was the banner of victory-if Sephi remained at peace, harvest and vintage filled his barns to breaking with their store.

Happiest! beloved of Heaven!' said all the countries round. But Sephi was not happy-Sephi in his heart was afraid.

Sephi did not know God-the God who 'rests in His love '-the God who joys in His creatures' joy, and from whom all good gifts come. He did not know the Almighty Father who makes the world fair for us, who touches the earth to greenness, and tunes all the birds to song. He had some dim thought of his own, of a great overshadowing power, who watched with jealous eyes the gladness of living things. And in all his great, rich realm, there was none to come to him with the words which never, never grow old in their sweetness, and quietness, and strength, the words with their dear heritage of peace to high and low-GOD IS LOVE!'

Have you ever thought what they mean, and how God's first commandment fulfilled, is the very joy of life- to love with all our heart' No hard thing, difficult and sorrowful to do, but the first of human delights and the first of human duties, linked together by God's command, so that none may ever sever them.

But none had told this to king Sephi, and how should he know it of himself? How should we know it, but for God's good word?

Sephi's dim thought of God was of a Being jealous of his prosperity; Sephi's heart beat heavily under the purple and gold. In an ignorant, slavish fashion, he feared God--not the God we worship, but

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an unknown God. So he thought he would cast away the jewel he valued most, and make himself thus much the poorer, and the less an object of displeasure.

One noonday he stood on his tower-it was on the edge of the sea-and drew from his finger a ring whose worth had never been told.

Down into the unconscious

water king Sephi dropped this ring, and smiled in self-exultation, as the green waves, with scarce a ripple, closed above his gem. But the ring came back again to the unwilling monarch-it was found in the mouth of a fish which was served on the royal table. And the king, as the story tells, turned deadly pale at the sight, and said with a miserable despair, the gods have rejected my sacrifice.' And soon all his fortune went from him. His kingdom a stranger took, and an utterly friendless exile, he suffered the cruelest of deaths.

And the old poets have drawn their own moral from the story; but a higher and holier meaning it yields to our christian faith. It is this, that the gifts of God are evil only when our hearts, with a perverse, proud mistrust, refuse to receive them as His; when they see no love in His outstretched hand, but only a grudging giver, and know not how our friends, and our homes, and our loves, and our hopes, and our nameless gladnesses, come from that same compassionate tenderness which gave us our Saviour, our Christ;-that we may not cast from us His blessings, but yield Him, in reverent return, the service of our hearts and lives-our whole hearts, our whole lives in love, obedience and faith, which He will not turn back upon us like the fabled king Sephi's ring.

H. H. W.

OUR MISSIONARY PAGE.

WHAT HAS TO BE DONE BEFORE SOULS ARE WON TO CHRIST.

A MINISTER at home somewhat re

sembles a farmer who cultivates land which has long been cleared, and who has a perfect knowledge of the nature of the soil and of the climate. A missionary

resembles a colonist who settles in a new and thinly inhabited country, where the people are jealous, sullen, and hostile, where the ground has to be cleared and fenced, his house to be built, the conditions of the climate to be studied, and his food brought from a distance. The amount of pioneer and preliminary work that missionaries have done since the beginning of this century is seldom realised. They have found their way to foreign lands in spite of the apathy or suspiciousness of the people, and the jealousy or hostility of their rulers. They have gone to regions without the means of knowing at what season it was best to settle there, which localities were most or least unhealthy, or what forms of disease were most prevalent. They have had to study, understand, and conciliate people as ignorant, suspicious, and savage as Kaffirs and Polynesians; or as exclusive, inexplicable, immoral, conservative, and self-satisfied as Hindoos or Chinese. They have had to learn strange and difficult languages without the aid of teacher, grammar, or lexicon. They have had to translate the Bible, and have done it carefully into more than one hundred languages or dialects. Whatever Christian books or tracts exist in African, Polynesian, Indian, or Chinese languages and dialects, have been directly or indirectly produced by them. And, finally, they have had to ascertain by what methods they could best diffuse a knowledge of Christianity, destroy superstition, win their hearers into the fold of Christ, and build them up in our most holy faith.

HOW A GREAT MISSIONARY SOCIETY HAD ITS COMMENCEMENT.

IN the year 1784, the Nottingham Baptist

Association, to which William Carey belonged, resolved upon holding monthly concerts for prayer. Mr Carey's one topic at these meetings was the state of the pagan world; but few entered sympathetically into his views. Seven years later, and after his removal to Leicester, Carey introduced his favourite theme, and pressed upon the friendly, clerical assembly, 'whether it was not practicable, and our bounden duty to

attempt something towards spreading the Gospel in heathen lands?' At the May anniversary of the Nottingham association in 1792, Mr Carey preached his evermemorable sermon from Isaiah liv. 2, 3, and under the two divisions, Expect great things from God; and, 'Attempt great things for God.' The impression produced by this discourse was so deep and universal, that the association resolved upon instituting a mission to the heathen at their October conference. On the 2nd day of October the Eociety was formed; and although the collection on the occasion only amounted to £132. 6, ample funds flowed in and from many quarters.

THE

BIBLE QUESTIONS.

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HREE Prizes are offered for the largest number of correct answers, to be awarded in December 1872.

The following are the conditions.

1. Competitors not to be above fifteen years of age. 2. The answers honestly to be the work of the young persons competing from month to month.

3. All answers to be addressed, not later than the 18th of the month, to the REV. JOHN KAY, Greenbank Cottage, Coatbridge.

31. Where do we find a saying of Jesus while on earth which is not recorded in any of the four gospels?

32. Which verse in Proverbs gives two reasons why we should be very kind to the poor?

33. In the words of Jesus give the same, or nearly the same, two reasons to encourage us to show kindness to His people?

34. Which verse of an epistle mentions our duty to the poor, as a reason for diligence in our daily work?

35. Which church was distinguished by the kind and timely aid its members sent to the apostle Paul in his poverty?

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Paisley: J. AND R. PARLANE.

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wa-ter-floods, our King for e-ver-more!

Tell it out among the heathen Jesus reigns above!
Tell it out! Tell it out!

Tell it out among the nations that His reign is love!
Tell it out! Tell it out!

Tell it out among the highways and the lanes at home; Let it ring across the mountains and the ocean foam! Like the sound of many waters let our glad shout be, Till it echo and re-echo from the islands of the sea!

PAISLEY: J. AND R. PARLANE.