'A flower, when offered in the bud, Praying children; you who love to pray, trust in Jesus; come to Him; God sees you, and he says,― 'Those that seek me early shall find me.'' Mr. Fraser said :-"I am going to tell you a story of a great king. This great king lived in a beautiful palace, with fine gardens, and in the middle there was a fountain of beautiful clear water. He had great riches, and in his country there were a great many people. At some distance from the king's palace, the people were dying for want of water; but there was no channel by which the water from the king's fountain could get to them. The king's son pitied these poor people very much, and he undertook to cut a river to carry the water to them. When he had cut this great river, the beautiful water flowed down from the king's palace, all the way to the poor people who were dying of thirst; and the prince said to them, 'Drink of the water of the river, and let it flow on to those people who live beyond you.' So the people drank, and they were refreshed, and their strength returned, and the water still kept flowing on through the country; but by and bye it came to a little spot of ground, and the people who lived there having drunk of the water, dammed up the river, so that the water could not run any further, though there were many more people beyond dying for want of water. But after a very long time, some good men who lived there, hearing what the prince had said, began to break down the barrier, and the water ran out in little streams. And now it is running on in five great rivers, and thousands are drinking of their waters. And these great rivers are the Wesleyan Missionary Society, the Church Missionary Society, the London or Independent Missionary Society, the Moravian Missionary Society, and the Baptist Missionary Society. Their waters run in Asia, in Africa, in America, and a little stream is running into Europe; they have run to Greenland too, and to Australia, to New Zealand, to the South Sea Islands, and to the West Indies. There are little children digging about the banks of these rivers, and making them wider and deeper; I hope you are helping them, little children. But there are still a great many people who have not drunk of these living waters yet. The number of the people in the world is reckoned to be 800,000,000, and much more than half of them are heathens. Now, can you tell me who the great king is? He is God, and the prince is Jesus Christ. The water is salvation. The little spot where they dammed the river up, is Rome, and the men who began to break down the barrier were Wickliffe and Luther, Whitfield and Wesley, Carey and Fuller, Williams and Moffatt, Knibb and Burchell, and the other founders and friends of our Missionary Societies. I was at a children's Missionary Meeting in the country, a little while ago, and the little boys and girls kept coming in with their boxes; and when all these boxes were opened, there were £60, which the children had collected in the year. I hope you young people who wear smart frocks and coats, and ribbons on your bonnets, have brought £60 for the Mission to-day. At another of these meetings where there were a great many children, they began to turn the money out of their boxes, and the secretary said, 'Here, you may put the copper all into my hat.' So they did so, but the hat was very soon full, and then the secretary called for another hat, and then another, but they too were soon filled, and then the secretary said to the door keeper, 'You must go and see if you can get a great tub to put all this money in.' So the man got a tub, and highly delighted the children were to hear the hats and boxes full of money rattling into the tub. It was not rattling in their pockets. No; they had given it all to the Missionary Society, and they did not wish it back again. When they had emptied it all, the secretary began to count it; and how long do you think it took him? Two hours and twenty minutes. I will tell you about a little boy and his Missionary box. It was given to him by a gentleman, and he took it home to his mother, and said, 'Mother, will you give me a halfpenny for my Missionary box?' But his mother said, 'No, no; I cannot; I do give a penny a week to the Missionary Society now, and I cannot afford any more. Go and take your box back to the gentleman, and dont trouble me with it.' So the little boy walked across the room, and then he went back and said, 'Mother, how many pins can you buy for a penny ?' And his mother said, 'O, about twenty or thirty.' Then,' he said, 'will you buy your pins of me?" And she said, 'O yes, if you like.' And the little boy said that he need not take back his Missionary box, for if any one would not give him money for it, they would at least give him a pin. He used to ask for pins, and then sell them to his mother, and put the money in his box; and sometimes other people gave him money too; so that in six months he took 4s. 6d. to the Missionary Society; the produce of his pins. Some children get boxes and save money in them, and keep it for themselves. A gentleman asked my little boy, one day, whether he had a save-all? And the little boy said, 'O yes, sir;' and he ran and got his Missionary box, and said, 'this is my save-all.' But the gentleman meant a save-all to keep his own money in. Some children are like the spiders, try to get all they can for themselves; and some are like the bees, give what they get to others. Which should you like to be, the spider or the bee? But it will be of no use to you to send the word of life to other people, if you do not receive it yourself. Oh, drink of the water of life yourself! I was walking one day, in a field in Cambridgeshire, and a little rosy-faced girl came running up to me, and I found that it was one of the little girls of my congregation in London, who was at boarding school there. Soon after that, when I was come back to London, the mother of this little girl came to me, and said, 'Sir, I wish you would come and see little Jane.' But I said, 'Why, she was in Cambridgeshire a little while ago.' And then her mother told me that she was so ill that she was sent home. When I went to see her, I asked her if she was a sinner; and she burst into tears, but added, 'But I love Jesus'-'I had hoped to have sat at the table of the Lord with my parents, but I am going to sit with Jesus in heaven.' The next day a letter came from the lady with whom she had been at school, saying what a good little girl she had been there; and when she died we found 7s. 6d. in her Missionary box." Some idols from Egypt, and the South Seas, were then exhibited by Mr. Bird, who said to the children, "These are the things that the heathen worship, and it is to tell them not to worship them, but to serve the living and the true God, that we send our Missionaries out." He then shewed them a little cup in which the Egyptians used to bottle their tears; and a very small lamp, dug from the ruins of Pompeii; and after giving a sketch of the destruction of that city, by the overflowing of the lava from Mount Vesuvius, which buried the people alive in their houses, he said, "If you had been alive then, and had known beforehand of what was going to happen, would you not have run directly to tell the people, that they might have escaped? You know by the word of God of the destruction that awaits this world: should you not then be anxious to escape yourself, and to tell others how they may escape, by fleeing to Jesus Christ ?" The speeches were interrupted and enlivened by the answers of the children, and several hymns were sung. There was a collection at the door; I hope it was a good one. M. J. W. DIALOGUE BETWEEN TWO SABBATH SCHOLARS. William. Hark! sister, Hear'st thou not a sound of woe upon the breezeA sound as of mingled sighs and tears, wrung From anguished hearts? Jane. I do, indeed; Canst thou tell me what it means, my brother? William. Jane. Tell me, whence comes this cry? Who are the heathen? for my heart is moved William. The heathen, sister, are those who know not God, To senseless idols. And their cry comes to us No less with Satan's chains, than with old Jane. O, my heart is sad, at thought of so much |