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'NO MORE SEA.'

WONDER why it is said, "no more sea, said Ailie musingly; for the sea came up to the rock on which she sat, and touched it like a laughing child; and the little blue waves far out wore a white crest to be sure, but each crest shone in the sun like a white-winged, joyous bird. Very glad was the sea, and very glad was Ailie.

So the little girl was thinking, as others than she may have done, how the beautiful New Jerusalem had 'no more sea.' She

was thinking how, in that land where all was music and light, the singing of happy waters would be missed upon the shore. And because her brothers did not answer, she softly spoke again :

'I wish it had not been written, "no more sea.""

Willie and Jim were silent; they were busy with their bait and their fishing-hooks. They, too, were thinking perhaps of the 'no more sea.' But they did not think aloud like Ailie,-they were none the

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worse for that, and Ailie said, half to herself and half to her brothers if they chose,

'I like the other picture best, about the sea of glass, you know.'

'What's that?' asked Jim roughly, to cover his interest. He knew well enough; but he thought it pretty too; and he did not mind, without owning it, though Ailie should tell it again.

'I can say it,' said Ailie; 'it was so pretty I learnt it. "And I saw as it were a sea of glass mingled with fire: and them that had gotten the victory over the beast, and over his image, and over his mark, and over the number of his name, stand on the sea of glass, having the harps of God." Isn't that beautiful? It wouldn't be quite like this, you know; it would be so clear and bright, that when the harpers looked down in their singing, they would see there the shining of the Lord Jesus' face. It's about Him they sing, you know, the beautiful, loud song. Is'nt it beautiful-that? Perhaps there was an echo on the sea that always brought back His name. I forget the song, but it's beautiful,-about the Lord God Almighty, and the King of Saints standing on the sea of glass, Jim, "having the harps of God." I like to read that better than "no more sea."

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'Look, we're not alone,' said Willie, touching Ailie as he spoke.

Then Ailie stopped timidly and looked over the rock, and saw on the other side a fisherman mending his net. The heavy black rope-work was drawn up on his knee; and resting on the rock beside him, with an open book on her lap, a lady with her hat thrown off was looking up from the page. 'Whenever I see you mending your net I think of Peter and John.'

‘Ay, ay, ma'am, they were doing that when Christ called them; they were at their common work, and he took them as they were.'

It has made it a kind of sacred work, I always think, John.'

'Ay, ay, ma'am, all kinds of work are sacred when the good Lord gives His blessing.'

But Ailie, from her higher rock, saw something in his eye, something that was pain perhaps which the lady near him did not see. She was turning over the Bible (for Ailie could see it was a Bible), and smiling as she turned, in a happy, restful sort of way.

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'I always like to read the passages that are about the sea;' ('she must be like me,' thought Ailie, and she bent a little nearer to hear,) there are so many, you remember, and so many of Christ's Apostles were fishermen. How interesting it is to read of! It's a silly thing to ask, but tell me if the Bible ever helped to make you a fisherman, John? '

The man smiled, but shook his head and bent further over his net, the red slant beams of the May sun streaming across his bronzed brow; and the lady, looking up from her book, saw now, as well as Ailie saw, a tear, or nearly a tear, in the fisherman's dim eye. Her own dropped in sorrowful sympathy, and then she asked low, Shall I read to you, John, as I was doing before?'

Ay, do that; the words are good for wae hearts.'

And the lady was beginning to read at the page that lay open before her, but the fisherman spoke tremulously, 'read about the "no more sea.

'O Willie,' whispered Ailie, bending down to her brother's ear, did you hear what the fisherman said? and that's what I didn't like. Isn't it queer?'

But the lady with the book had turned the pages over. She looked a moment at the fisherman before she began to read; and when she looked up, Ailie saw that her face was a fair and pleasant one, and Ailie bent to hear, for a question was in her eyes. When I have read this, John, will you tell me why you like it?'

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'Yes, ma'am, surely-surely I will.'

Ailie felt like an eavesdropper, and privately turned to Willie to ask if it were right to listen, when the fisherman and the lady did not know they were there. But Willie's opinion was decided, and Jim's was too. There was no harm, and perhaps

"NO MORE SEA.'

the fisherman might tell a jolly good yarn; and they were too tired besides to move for a full hour. So Ailie nestled quietly back against the rock, and listened to the calm, clear voice which read of the beautiful city.

And I saw a new heaven and a new earth for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no

more sea.

'And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

'And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God.

'And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.'

And the lady read on, about the promise to him that overcometh ;-about the twelve gates of the city that shall not be shut at all by day; for there shall be no night there; the city without a temple; God is the temple of it;—with no need of sun or moon; for the glory of God is its light.

for

When the reader ceased, her eyes sought those of the fisherman; but his were still dropped upon his net; he did not lift them to her. Then there was a little pause: for the sorrow in the old man's face made the lady forbear to ask the question she asked before.

'I be to tell it, ma'am,' (he did not lift his face yet); the story's as short as it's wae: I lost my laddie in the sea,-my ain, ain laddie.'

'O forgive me for asking,' said the lady with quick tears, and her voice grew low as she spoke, for self-reproach and pity.

'Dinna greet, leddy, it's lang, lang syne; and it was but hame the sooner to the port through the stormy waters. My bonny wee child, a' we had, his mother and me;but he's won hame safe before us-won in by the water-gate.'

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'O, I know now: how silly I was, John ; but don't tell me, please.'

'An' what for should I no'? His voice is aye in the waves; an' it mak's it nae louder nor safter that I speak it in audible words: for the sky was as black as pitch; ne'er a star to be seen; an' the "Lown Nell" (that was our boat) moaned like a helpless bairn; an' syne she lay on the rocks, an' my ain laddie lay beside her, hungered, an' cauld, an' bruised, an' dying before my e'en. I took the auld jacket frae my shoulders and wrapped it round my boy. He cam' close into my arms; but he could not grow warm there; for we baith were sair drenched wi' the sea; but he aye crooned and smiled,-I could see his smile, leddy, when the red, jagged lightning shook its fork in his face and mine. An' aye he thought he heard his mother ca'ing him ower the rocks, an' said, "I'll be hame soon; "wae's me! An' when the waves cam' higher, and weeted us ower wi' spray, he opened his weary e'en and said, no more sea. I grippit him closer aye. I fought wi' the sea for my laddie, though I kenned weel before the morning it was na' my laddie I held. I' the streak o' the early dawn I saw the bonnie shut e'en an' nae life in them. My ain bairn was dead. I fought wi' the sea yet for a' that was left o' him; but the wee hands could na' cling now, and a hungry wave clutched him from me.'

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OUR MISSIONARY PAGE.

more sea for the sorrowful, yet a sea of glass for praise; all the storm and the peril past, yet the brightness and clearness left. I think both pictures were needed to let us know what is meant. But O forgive me, forgive me for asking a story like that; and yet it's sweet too, is it not? for your little loved child won home first, to the light, to the beauty, to Christ, and far past the storms.'

And Ailie on the rock whispered very low to her brothers, 'We must get there some time too; not through the water-gate perhaps, but surely by the King's highway.'

LITTLE GERTY.

H. W. H. W.

AY her to rest, beautiful thing!

LA

Calm in death, and pure as snow, Ready to wing, and ready to sing, Wherever the bright-eyed angels go. Angels courted her here in life;

She was meet for their happy band:
And so they won her away from strife
To join them in the Spirit-land.

Two hearts followed her when she died,
Followed her out to the vast unknown,
Mine and another one beside,

And now we are left on earth alone;
No bright hopes of the coming May-
No fireside with her presence blest-
Only a longing to flee away

On the wings of the wind and be at rest.

Playmates linger about the door,

Calling, 'Gerty, come out to play,'
Gerty hears them but runs no more,
She is so far, so far away:
Robin, too, seeks his morning crumbs,
Looking forlorn as he hops about,
But no little Gerty laughing comes

To welcome him with her joyous shout.

Lay her to rest, beautiful thing!

Čalm in death, and pure as snow, Down where the throstle and blackbird sing, And the daisy and violet sweetly grow: She is at peace and we are bereft, Life is a blank and toil a pain, Nothing can fill the gap she has leftWhen shall we see her face again?

G. LINNAEUS BANKS.

OUR MISSIONARY PAGE.

I

SOMETIMES wonder whether our young friends who enjoy in this land the privileges of the gospel of Jesus, are as grateful as they ought to be for the blessings which God has bestowed upon them. When one reads of the degrading superstitions which bind the poor heathen with their heavy chains, the thought forces itself upon the mind, that we also, but for the good tidings of great joy, had been as ignorant, miserable as they. Read, and ponder carefully the following extracts from the letter of a zealous, self-denying missionary, on one of the islands of the Western Pacific; and then take up the thanksgiving of the great Apostle of the Gentiles, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings.'

NGUNA-NEW HEBRIDES.

'With regard to our work here, I am sorry I have no good news to give you. There is not any appearance of fruit yet. None of the natives of this island seem to have any notion of renouncing heathenism and embracing Christianity; and the more we are able to tell them about God and Jesus Christ, the more opposed to the worship of God they seem to become. I used to be of opinion that people of a place like this, where the gospel had never been preached, would believe the gospel almost on the first hearing of it; but I find that the opposite of that is the case. There

is nothing which seems so uninteresting to them or so absurd, as the death of Jesus Christ in the room of sinners. It is very difficult to get them to hear at all.

'On most occasions when you begin to speak to the people here about God and spiritual things, they almost immediately take their departure; although, if you had spoken to them only about pigs and yams-anything for the body or for the belly, they might have remained with you for hours; if they do not go away, they begin talking among themselves about the most trifling things, in order to prevent their hearing anything of what you would fain teach them. They have, like other people, a religious belief of their own, with which they are very well satisfied; but it is

BIBLE QUESTIONS.

difficult to find out what it is. It is evident, however, that they worship stones, trees, and the spirits of the dead, which last they call Natemate. They seem to have two classes of priests or sacred mon, one who make rain and sunshine, and another who can cure, cause, and prevent sickness, cause death, cast out devils, raise hurricanes &c.; so that I fear the miracles of Jesus and of the Apostles which I sometimes read in their hearing, seem to them but little evidence of the truth of Christianity, seeing that "their own magicians do so likewise with their enchantments." They seem to believe that when a man dies, his spirit goes to a place somewhere underground-a place much the same as here, and where one's condition will be much the same as it was in this world; those who are chiefs here, will be chiefs there, but this is not their final or eternal state, for in course of time they die again, and go to a worse place further down, where they remain some time longer, and then descend to a lower deep, where they disappear altogether, and are never more seen. Not long ago, I was told that Munuaifau, a sacred man of this island, had made a journey to this lower region, and had come back. He brought with him a piece of pork, a fowl, a yam, and some bananas given him by the spirits a present of their own food. These sacred men profess to have eyes like telescopes, and to be able to see at a glance whether there is an evil spirit in a man or not. They come to the man possessed with a few leaves in their hand, and pretend to catch the evil spirit that is in him, and pull it out; they then show it to the person himself, and to any others present, in the shape of a small snake or stone, among the leaves, and the poor deluded creatures have not the slightest suspicion that the old scoundrel found the snake or stone elsewhere, and that it was among the leaves in his hand when he came. Every native wears a twig of a kind of tree with variegated leaves, either in his armlet or belt, and frequently in both, given him by the priest to prevent sickness.'

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BIBLE QUESTIONS.

THR

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HREE Prizes, in each of the two divisions, are offered for the largest number of correct answers. The Prizes to be awarded in December 1873. The following are the conditions:

1. In the first, or Junior division, the questions for which will be printed first in order; competitors not to be above thirteen years of age.

2. In the second, or Senior division, competitors not to be above eighteen years of age; and in both divisions the answers must be honestly the work of the individuals competing.

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

As a matter of convenience and economy the answers may be written on post cards. Be careful in all cases to give the name and address of the competitor.

JUNIOR DIVISION.

22. Which saying of Jesus tells us that God made the Sabbath for the good of all mankind? 23. Which verse in the book of Isaiah tells us how we ought to regard the Sabbath?

24. By what miracle did God teach the Israelites, in the wilderness, to remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy?

SENIOR DIVISION.

22. In which verse, from one of the prophets, do we find the feelings with which worldly people regard the Lord's day, expressed in the form of a question ?

23. Where do we find in the prophets a promise to the Gentiles who should keep the Sabbath holy?

24. Which New Testament precept teaches us that, on each Lord's day, we should, as we are able, honour the Lord with our substance?

ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS IN JUNE 'DAYSPRING.'

JUNIOR DIVISION.

(16) John xiii. 34, 35; xv. 12; (17) JesusJohn xvii. 20, 21; (18) Precious ointment and dew-Psalm cxxxiii.

SENIOR DIVISION.

(16) With one accord-Acts i. 14, ii. 1, 46, iv. 24, v. 12, viii. 6, xv. 25; (17) Eph. iv. 3-6; (18) 1 Cor. i. 13.

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