Saviour in all things. The Rector of the parish has often visited him, and we rejoice to be enabled to say that he is still walking worthy of the vocation wherewith he is called. Oh! is it not meet that over such an one, we should make merry in our hearts, and be glad?-for this our brother "WAS DEAD, AND IS ALIVE AGAIN; AND WAS LOST, AND IS FOUND."

THE FLY-MAN; OR, WON FROM THE STABLES.

"It is good for me that I have been afflicted; that I might learn Thy statutes."-PSALM CXix. 71.

OW refreshing it must be to a Reader's spirit to find, as he enters a sick room, that the precious truth conveyed in these words of the Psalmist has been really understood and appropriated by the sufferer! To find, instead of a murmuring spirit, a spirit of submission; instead of impatience and irritation, a thirst for spiritual comfort and consolation! Very different indeed is it to visit the believer under such circumstances, who endures "as seeing Him who is invisible," and who feels that his Master will never leave him nor forsake him, neither will He try him above what he is able to bear; and the sick, or, it may be, the dying unbeliever who has no hope in God, whose ungodly companions have now forsaken him, and who, casting his eyes around him for help, awakes for the first time to the consciousness that "vain is the help of man."

Between two and three years ago, one of our Scripture Readers in the west of London visited, for the first time, a married couple, in the course of his ordinary rounds. This visit was repeated from time to time, during which the Reader urged upon them the great uncertainty of life, the necessity of preparation for eternity, and that this preparation should be begun at once, in time of health and strength, and not be postponed till "a more convenient season,' which is Satan's device to keep us from any preparation at all. No immediate effect seemed to be produced by the Reader's visits and the reading of the Word. But not long after his first visit, the husband burst a blood-vessel, and was laid upon a sick-bed. From this attack he rallied after a while, but the seeds of disease had been sown, and were growing apace. Almost immediately there began to be visible to all about him, unmistakable symptoms

of that painful and affecting complaint, consumption. He went into the Consumption Hospital at Brompton, but, getting no permanent relief, soon returned to his home, gradually to sink into

his grave.

Though no very serious impression seemed hitherto to have been made, yet the benefits of house-to-house visitation were now apparent. The visits of the Reader had not been without effect. The poor man was prepossessed in his favour, and the messenger was welcomed, whilst as yet the message was but little appreciated. And this was a great step gained, for he would listen to his reading, exhortations, and prayers, when he would listen to no one else. These visits were now repeated weekly, and in April last, at one of these visits, the Reader was privileged to see that the Lord had carried the message to his heart, convincing him of sin, and of his absolute need of a Saviour. He had fled from the terrors of the Law, which only pierced him through and through, to the Cross of Jesus, the Refuge set before him in the Gospel. He became more and more in earnest about his soul; the weekly visits of the Reader were hailed with delight, and as he read or spoke of the love of Christ to perishing sinners, his eyes would overflow with tears, and he would drink in the Word as those only can do, who realize not merely their own lost condition, but that there is a "fountain open for sin and uncleanness."

In June, it was apparent that much had been gained, though it had been by much inward conflict. He was studiously careful of his language. He had set a watch over his lips, and said, "I will keep my mouth with a bridle." He spoke more freely of his past life, and of his utter sinfulness in the sight of God, and that in a way which seemed to betoken a truly humble and contrite heart. He spoke too of the long-suffering of God in not having cut him off in the midst of his sins. "I know I shall never recover," he said on one occasion; "but oh, if I had to live my time over again, what a different life I would lead! Many are cut off without warning; how thankful I ought to be I have had time to repent." In August, owing no doubt to the insidious nature of the disease, the poor fellow became very much cast down, and longed more intensely for the Reader's visits. He literally thirsted for the Word; and, when part of the history of Joseph was read to him, where he suffered from the unkindness of the butler, he was led to see and to dwell upon the difference between the promise of man and the promise of God—the shadowy nature of the one, and the everlasting character of the other. Man may change, he felt, but God never. "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and to-day, and

for ever."

"Jesus my shepherd is,

My guardian and my guide,
I know that I am His,

And in His love confide:
Away with every anxious fear!
I cannot want, while He is near.

"Let death then shake his spear,
I'll smile his rage to view,
And walk without a fear

The shadowy valley through :

With rod and staff, His shepherd care

Shall guide my steps, and guard me there."

In the following month it was evident that he was fast sinking. He was entirely confined to his bed, continuing to exhibit much Christian patience and resignation, and a continual longing for the Word of God, which had become to him inestimably precious, and more esteemed than his necessary food. During the last week of his life, he sent for the Reader, under the impression that he was dying. On this occasion he gave renewed evidence of the simplicity of his faith, and of his resting all his hopes on the atoning blood and righteousness of Jesus Christ. He seemed to drink in every word of the 139th Psalm which was read to him, and uttered a fervent "Amen," to the prayer which concluded the visit. A few days after this visit, for he rallied for awhile, he again sent for the Reader early in the morning, spoke freely of his approaching departure, and expressed "many, many thanks for all the visits paid to him." Seeing that his end was near at hand, the Reader called again in a few hours. He found him very weak and feeble, but not too weak or feeble to derive much comfort from the reading of the Word and prayer. On bidding our Reader a final adieu, he took him by the hand, reiterated his thanks, and exclaimed, in a tone of voice not to be misunderstood, "GOD BLESS YOU FOR ALL YOUR KINDNESS.' Calling again the same day, the Reader found that his friend had calmly and quietly fallen asleep in Jesus; that he was sensible to the last, and that he departed, calling upon the name of the Lord.

This man, we may just remark, when he was first visited by our Reader, was utterly careless about his soul; and was, moreover, much addicted to the use of oaths and blasphemous expressions in his ordinary, every-day conversation. To such an extent, indeed, did he give way to this miserable habit, that on some occasions, and especially when irritated, they would flow from him in such torrents as to make those about him to shudder.

SCRIPTURE READERS JOURNAL

APRIL, 1866.

THE COSTERMONGERS; OR, THE STREET HAWKERS OF LONDON.

CHAPTER III.-THE SABBATH, THE CHURCH, AND THE BIBLE.

"The seventh day is the Sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work."-Ex. xx. 10.

"Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is."-HEB. X. 25.

"Ye do err, not knowing the Scriptures."-MATT. xxii. 29.

S we have already intimated, the spiritual condition of the Costermongers is at the very lowest ebb. This arises from their extreme ignorance, on the one hand, and on the other, from their Sunday engagements excluding them from all Sabbath influences of a spiritual character. "I have found them," says one of our Readers, "utterly indisposed to make use of their reason to weigh and examine the first principles of religion; and I have often been told by the costermonger and his family, that they have never read the New Testament with any attention." Their excuse is that they have no time to do so, their attention being wholly engrossed in their daily occupation. Thus they grow up in total ignorance of their duty to God, and with but little knowledge of their duty to man and to society.

Many instances might be given of the extreme ignorance met with by our Readers amongst this class of persons. Two or three will suffice. One poor woman, after conversation with the Scripture Reader, quietly remarked "she thought Jesus Christ lived

before the time of Moses." Another, when the Reader had finished reading the 105th Psalm, said that "she had heard before of the plagues of Egypt, but always thought they had taken place in Ireland." On another occasion, when the Reader had read a portion of Scripture to a poor woman, and directed her to Jesus as the only true and abiding Friend, when all others deserted us, the simple-minded creature coolly remarked that "Jesus was a kind gentleman to look after poor people." At another time he was visiting a poor sick man, suffering from typhus fever, when he was startled by the following question, "Don't the Jews believe in the eleven Apostles, and we in the twelve?" Another Reader, in going to a new district, was asked by a poor man and his wife, when they found who he was, "to read a prayer to them," so ignorant were they of the contents of the Bible.

That very few Costermongers ever enter a place of worship is undoubtedly true. Few of them, in the first place, can either read or write. They cannot, therefore, in church follow the clergyman as he proceeds with the service. This manifest ignorance on their part is painful to their feelings. They soon get wearied, rebel against the restraint and confinement, escape, if possible, before the service is over, and then it is most difficult to persuade them to attend a second time; or, if they do contrive to sit through so long a service, they are mentally incapable of following the thread of an ordinary sermon, and so are virtually ignorant of what is going on. The fact is, living in crowded rooms full of children, and dogs, and pigeons, they feel they are not fit to mingle with respectable people; so, even if they had the will to go, they are painfully conscious that Church is no place for them, and that the more respectable shun them. Nor, indeed, is this without foundation. We have the evidence of an Incumbent, with whom one of our Readers laboured for many years, that as the attendance of costermongers increased, the attendance of pew-holders and more respectable people decreased. This mattered not in his parish, because almost the whole of his parish was composed of this particular class. But it would be different, he truly says, in parishes where there is a mixture of clean and unclean. "I "I very much suspect," he adds, "that if the costermongers of London, as a body, were to take it into their heads to go to church, the tables would soon be turned, and we should see them making a house-to-house visitation in Hanover Square and Belgravia, inviting ladies and gentlemen to go to church." So hopeless, however, does it appear to get them to do this, that special efforts, expressly adapted to their case, seem. necessary to enable us to get at them, as a body, at all. And this is being done in some districts with effect. "I had long seen the