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be exactly such as pleases my Father in heaven." Oh, to feel more of this filial complacency! How happy should we be !

"I stand upon the mount of God
With sunlight in my soul;

I hear the storms in vales beneath,
I hear the thunder roll.

But I am calm with Thee, my God,
Beneath these glorious skies,

And to the height on which I stand
Nor storms nor clouds can rise."

THE OLD SAW-MILL.

FOR THE YOUNG.

AN enticing place it was for little folks. It stands now just where it stood then-over the knoll, a few rods from my childhood's home. The way to it was down a broad, straight, dusty road, bordered with rocks and raspberry-bushes. There was another and a more popular route, of which I will tell you presently.

that I never could resist the inclination to skip out upon the ragged edge of the mill-dam, to see how long I could stand there without getting dizzy.

My mamma was an invalid. She could not bear anxiety without serious injury. She passed a law to the effect that I should not visit the mill unless under the care of some older member of the family. This law lay very heavily upon my heart. But it would probably have never been transgressed had not my cousin Frank visited us, a daring little rascal about my own age.

"Come across lots," he whispered, with that persuasive eloquence so natural to boys.

So we crept through the bars, and the orchard and the clover-field, around the big rock and under the ash-tree, and lastly scrambled over the stone wall, which was surmounted by a rail fence. It was my first lesson in disobedience. But after that Frank and I often went secretly to the mill together.

I should like to sketch the old mill as it appeared to my childish eyes. It had a smooth floor with wide cracks, and many an hour have I passed peering through them into the deep waters of the flume beneath. It had a big beam with a piece of china upon it, which I filled with nails and called my money-box. It had a wonderful saw, with two great arms. How I used to laugh when it fixed its sharp teeth into the end of a log! And after that, the log seemed to slide along itself just for fun, or for the sake of being split. I often got upon the log-carriage and took a nice ride. I was not at all afraid of bumping my head against the mill- The saw-mill belonged to a goodroof, which sloped at one end to an natured neighbour, whom acute angle with the floor. Neither styled" Uncle Willard." He petted did I see the slightest danger of me, sometimes he gave me raisins, losing my balance and falling and called me a venturesome little through the timbers a hundred feet girl. I was not very happy about or more, into the abyss of water it. I remember how a bunch came below. When I hopped off, I was in my throat one night when I was so delightfully near the back door saying my prayers, and how I

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I said no more. I pressed my face into my pillow and thought to myself, Oh dear! then God knows all about it! I wonder what He will do to me! I 'spect He'll punish me with fire, and I shall be all singed up!" And I fell asleep and dreamed I had a new play-house with a saw-mill in the back yard, and that my dolls were all getting ready to go to the moon on water-wheels.

The next day Alvey Stone came to visit me. We played tea; and dressed the dolls in their best clothes; and changed Violet's name to Esther, because the latter was a Bible name, and we agreed that it would make her a better doll; and trimmed Rosabella's new bonnet with the ends of Alvey's blue hairribbons, which she said were too long, anyway; and made soapbubbles, and tried to set them on fire with the sickly flame of a tallow candle; and went to the carriagehouse to play drive; and visited the hens and the geese and the pigs and the calves and the pony; and ran along the great beams in the barn; and played hide-and-seek in the haymow. Finally, I said to Alvey,

"If you never'll tell-never, never, as long as you live and breathe-I will take you somewhere."

She promised with satisfactory protestations. In a few minutes we had reached the fence near the

mill. On the top of it Alvey stepped upon a teetering stone, and was thrown headlong into the briars and thistles on the other side. She shed a few tears over her bruises, and then laughed quite merrily, and said she could fall twice as far if she had a mind to.

"Uncle Willard" was haying in the lower meadow, and no one was in the mill. I was glad, for I had long coveted an opportunity of starting the saw myself. How surprised Alvey would be! Wouldn't she think I was grand if I could run a saw-mill!

I proceeded to my task proudly. The log was in the right place. "Uncle Willard" always fixed everything at night ready for the next day's work. It was necessary to push down a small shaft, which I called a "pump-handle," in order to open the water-gate, and it required the united strength of both Alvey and myself to accomplish it. There was a low gurgle, then a splash, and up went the saw!

We screamed and clapped our hands. I grew self-possessed in a moment, and told Alvey, with a consequential air, that the saw was only walking now. When we should push down the other two " pumphandles," it would just fly on a double canter. We soon had the machinery all in motion. Alvey was perfectly awe-stricken. But my happiness remained to be completed.

"Come down under the mill and see the great gush," I said.

There was a rough path by which the workmen descended on the side of the mill, and holding fast to the alder-bushes by the way, we reached the edge of the bed of the river in safety. Standing upon a large stone, we could see the rolling, foaming torrent as it whirled the mill-wheel and came dancing madly over the rocks.

"What a big water!" exclaimed Alvey.

"Yes," I replied, exultingly. "It | finished a picture well calculated to is just like the cataract of Niagara in inspire two helpless little girls with the geography." speechless terror.

Alvey's face was pale, and her eyes were sufficiently large to reward me for my masterly performance. "Are there any whales here?" she asked.

"Perhaps," I replied. If she had made the same inquiry relative to steamboats and icebergs, she would doubtless have received an affirmative response at that interesting moment; for was it not my exhibition, and was it not my privilege to put it in the most attractive light?

The spray rendered our standingplace slippery, and we put our arms about each other for mutual protection. In attempting to turn a little we lost our balance, and in an instant went spinning into the uneasy water, to the bottom, where shiny pebbles seemed to come halfway up to meet us, then to the surface again, rolling and tumbling until we were stranded insensible upon a small hillock of weeds and brambles in the middle of the river some distance below.

How long we remained there I am not able to say. My first recollections are of a floating-cloud, which resembled a chariot. While I was wondering if it belonged to Elijah, I heard Alvey gasp, "Mattie, I'll be drown-ded."

"So shall I."

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"Is it a flood?" cried Alvey. "I suppose so," I said, humbly now. "I have been doing awful disobedient lately. Mamma forbade my going to the mill, and God has been there and watched me. Oh dear! oh dear! I had ever So much rather been burned than drowned. We are washed away just as the other wicked folks were in the Flood." And I burst into a loud cry.

"I guess He will forgive you if you pray real hard. I will help you, Mattie," said little Alvey, pityingly.

I laid my face into a bunch of plantain and commenced a little petition, mixed with sharp, jerking cries of sorrow.

By this time, the sudden rise of water in the lower meadow had attracted the attention of the haymakers. "Uncle Willard" went up at a run to discover the cause. There was his mill making boards on its own hook! He shut the gate, and looked about for the author of the mischief. He was not a believer in ghosts, and mischievous boys did not infest our neighbourhood. He went straight to my mamma's door and inquired for me.

Then there was much hurrying to and fro. It was "Uncle Willard" who explored the river and rescued I took hold of a big burdock-leaf us from our perilous position. He to pull myself up, and that came up asked me no questions; he only instead. Then a pine-shrub gave kissed me and said, in his rough me more efficient aid, and I sat way, "Never mind it." It was he upright. I helped Alvey up, and himself who put me in my terrified we looked about us, but everything mamma's arms. With mine tightly was strange and new. The river clasped about her neck, I said, “I on both sides of us was tearing over will never disobey you againthe rocks, and high wooded banks NEVER!"

AIDS TO COMMUNION; OR, SACRAMENTAL

MEDITATIONS.

BY THE REV. W. P. BALFERN.

V. THE DANGERS OF SORROW.

66 'Sleeping for sorrow."-Luke xxii. 45.

WHO is there that has not felt his heart touched while gazing upon the face of a sleeping child? And what is it that chiefly touches the heart of a parent as he thus looks into the face of his little one? Its innocent, unconscious helplessness. Numberless dangers, it may be, surround it, apart from the constant watchful care of love. Yet there it lies, fast asleep, perfectly unconscious of them all. And similar feelings, too, are frequently awakened in the Christian's heart as he has to witness a soul asleep under the influence of sin. Oh, how helpless, how exposed! Yet unconscious of its danger. And feelings still more poignant are often awakened, and should be, when we are called upon to witness those whom we have known in other days bright and active in the service of their Lord, lifeless, dead, and cold-like the disciples, indeed, asleep, and that from very sorrow. Here lies one of our chief dangers. The world is full of sorrow; it surrounds us like the air we breathe-the sorrow of the world which worketh death! We all feel this more or less. And many Christians even now, like the disciples of old, are sleeping from sorrow. If the Master has not been outwardly forsaken, if the world has not actually received them, all active and self-denying service for Him has ceased. The cause of this in many instances is that the sorrow of the world has been allowed to master them. Its touch has been like the touch of the torpedo; it has paralysed their love and zeal. This sorrow has all the elements of death in it-present misery, discontent, hopelessness, despair, indifference; and by the death it produces it works. This state of mind is often produced by pride, disappointed ambition, loss of wealth, and sometimes by refusing to share in the suffering and sorrow which real work for Christ must ever bring. Some for a time will watch and work earnestly with the Master, but are often betrayed for a time by their own earnestness. The fruit they expected almost immediately to witness arising out of their labours does not make its appearance, and they think that the Lord has forgotten them, or that He is faithless to His promise. The absence of immediate fruit they construe into the absence of His presence and blessing. The Master is for a time hidden from them in the night of unbelief, and a sorrow seizes them— a hopelessness which is for a time the death of all effort.

Others, wounded in their work by those who should have encouraged them, nurse for a time a sullen grief, often rooted in a disguised anger with the Master, as though He had wounded them with the wound of

an enemy; and thus are led to cease from their work. Brother, from out of the thick darkness of His sorrow the Master once more makes His appeal to thee, and touchingly inquires, "What have I done to

thee?

Through years I toiled for thee,

Oft weary day and night,
That ye might happy be,
And serve Me with delight;
All this thy faith can prove,
I only ask thy love.

And still I am thy Lord,

Thy rightful loving King,

And faithful to My word,

Thy heart to rest would bring:
Why should My love oppress,
I only seek to bless?

Some, too, have abused the very gifts of the Master to their own discomfiture and sorrow-a sorrow which has thrown them down into the deep slough of indolence and failure in work. They thought hard, they worked hard; not only as to what they said, but how they said it. They believed their thoughts were not only vigorous and strong, but often beautifully put; and though it was not said, it was thought, that the Master ought on these grounds to have blessed them abundantly. But He did not; and so, after repeating to themselves for a long time the old lamentation, "Who hath believed our report, and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?" a sullen sorrow seized them, a latent rebellion bound them, and they too are found" sleeping for sorrow."

But might not the inquiry be put, "Where, brother, hast thou read a promise made simply to thinking, to intellectual toil, vigour, and beauty merely?" The Master Himself spake as man never spake, and was richly anointed that He might preach the gospel to the poor, and bind up the broken-hearted; but look at him! See Him on the knee of prayer, wrestling with strong crying and tears for souls! Thou hast appeared with thy crown of vigorous thought, with the flowers of rhetoric and chaste and beautiful forms of speech; but where was the crimson glory that sat upon His temples? where the baptism of holy grief, love, and sympathy which filled His locks with the drops of the night who once wrestled for thee?" Sleeping for sorrow. Oh, arise! Read, think, toil, work; but of this be assured, that if you lean more upon these than the blessing of the Master, you will fail. Souls will come to the birth through us, but only as they did to the Master, through a Gethsemane of self-forgetting love, toil, and wrestling with God.

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The world still sleeps upon the pit of death,
Still lulled by sin and error's poisoned breath;
And shall we sleep?

The word of truth is preached, but who believes?
Still Jesus lives, and still He intercedes;

And shall we sleep?

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