It cheers our minds like heavenly dew,
Or kind refreshing rain;

And when affliction brings us low,
It softens every pain.'

I only wish I could get Mary to look at it in that light more than she does, poor girl," added Mr. Rands.

"All you say is perfectly true, Rauds; and the hymn you have quoted expresses a glorious truth; and to go back to my first figure, being called in as a very unworthy assistant of the Great Physician of souls, I may still further say of the Bible that it is at once my prescription book and my medicine chest. But to make either prescription or medicine available, it is needful to know the ailment to be cured." And then, tenderly addressing the poor sorrowful woman, Mr. Gresham again encouraged her to make known the cause of her distress; "unless," he added, “it be aught you would keep back from the ears of a fellow-sinner. And in that case, it is our happiness to know that we have always access to the Great Physician without any human interference."

"Oh, sir, it isn't that," said the sorrowing_one, in mournful accents; "and it is nothing new that I have to tell; for it has long, long been on my mind that I am only deceiving myself and others; and I don't wish to do that. Cannot you understand me, sir?" she asked, almost eagerly.

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I think I do, the more easily that I have sometimes guessed at the cause of your despondency, my Christian sister."

"Don't call me by that name, sir," whispered Mary, with a sad sigh.

"But I must, till I have some strong reason for thinking otherwise of you," rejoined Mr. Gresham; "and I see more plainly now where your trouble lies. Your mind is exercised with doubts about your interest in Christ; you think yourself to have been, as you have just said, self-deceived; at any rate, you are ready to say of yourself

"Tis a point I long to know,
Oft it causes anxious thought,
Do I love the Lord, or no?
Am I his, or am I not?'

Have I touched the sore now?"

There was scarcely need to ask the question; Mary's

afflicted countenance showed that her heart went with every word Mr. Gresham had spoken.

Further conversation followed. It is not needful to write down all that the poor soul-afflicted woman said in self-condemnation; but the root of her trouble was this, that experimentally she knew nothing (so she said) of having been converted to God, of having been regenerated by the power of the Holy Spirit, of having passed from death unto life, of having been adopted into the family of God, of having had her sins washed away, and of being sanctified and justified. All these Scripture terms, denoting the happy condition of true Christian life and experience, the mourning woman dwelt upon with strong emphasis; and instead of deriving encouragement from them, she brought them all to bear upon, and increase her misery; so that that which was ordained unto life, she found, in her fears, to be unto death. Especially she laid mournful stress upon the certainty which existed in her own mind that she was not, nor ever had been, a child of God. She had at one time, she said, thought herself to be in that favoured relationship, and had rejoiced in it; but she now saw that this was a delusion of Satan, and that while she was looking up to God, through Jesus Christ, as her reconciled Father, he was looking down upon her as an enemy.

"It must be so," said she, almost with the energy of desperation, if not of despair; "it must be so. My husband tells me that I am mistaken, but it is he who makes a mistake about me."

He

"If you will say such things about yourself, Mary, I cannot but wonder what you can think of me," said Richard Rands, who sat listening with an aching heart to these self-accusations. He had heard something of the state of his wife's mind before; but she had never spoken out so fully and broadly as to the cause of her sorrow. was surprised too at the apparent calmness with which, now she had begun to speak, she seemed determined to make a clean breast of it to Mr. Gresham, who, meanwhile, sat listening to the sad story without offering a word of contradiction. Rands wondered at this; and he yet more wondered, as he had just said, what his Mary's thoughts could be of him, seeing she had such hard thoughts of herself.

"Yours is altogether a different case, Richard," said

Mrs. Rands, with a ready ingenuity which the troubled husband thought worthy of a better argument: "you know the time of your conversion, and the manner of it. The Lord took you and drew you out of the horrible pit, and the miry clay, and set your feet upon a rock, you know he did; and there couldn't be any doubt that it was his doing. He met you, as he did Saul, and brought you to his feet, so that there could be no mistake about it at all. You became a changed man, Richard, from that time, so that it was seen in you, and said of you, 'Old things are passed away, and all things are become new.' But as for me, what do I know of such a change? Why, even when I believed myself to be a child of God, I never could have told anybody when I became so; and that ought to have shown me, as it does now, that I was deceiving myself, that it was all a delusion."

Rands would have said something in reply; the words were on his lips; but before he could speak, his wife began again :

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'Don't you remember, I know you do though, what a state of mind you were in for days and weeks, Richard, when you could not get rest day nor night because your sins pressed so heavy on you? And then, what joy you had in your soul when you found the Saviour ?"

"And all natural too. How could I help it, Mary, when the good word was brought home to me, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, even the very chief of sinners? And don't you remember, Mary, who it was that shared my joy; and who it was, too, that helped me to see the way how that God could be just, and yet the justifier of them that believe in Jesus? Why, my dear girl," exclaimed the ardent, simple-minded mechanic, "wasn't it you your own self? And yet now, you mean to tell us that you have no part nor lot in the matter! Oh, Mary, Mary!" And the sympathizing, yet puzzled husband's eyes filled with tears.

"Poor Richard! I don't want to trouble you; and 1 wish I could help it," said the unhappy wife, relapsing into her despondency; "but all you say can make no difference. I was only like a hand-post, showing the way to heaven, but not moving a step towards that blessed place myself. I never had such experiences as you had, I never knew the time of my conversion. How should I,

when I never was a real child of God ?"

"Did you ever hear the like?" exclaimed the bewildered husband, turning in his perplexity to his pastor, who, as yet, had scarcely spoken since the poor woman began her confession.

What Mr. Gresham said in reply must be told in our next number.

THE VANITY OF THE WORLD.

"Ir is quite right for a believer to use the things of this world, and to rejoice as he uses them. None has such a right as the believer to rejoice and be happy. He has a right to use the bodily comforts of this world-to eat his meat 'with gladness and singleness of heart, praising God.' He has a right to all the joys of home, and kindred, and friendship. It is highly proper that he should enjoy these things. He has a right to all the pure pleasures of mind, of intellect, and imagination; for God has given him all things richly to enjoy. Still, he should rejoice as though he rejoiced not, and use this world as not abusing it;' for the time is short.' In a little while you will be at your Father's table above, drinking the wine new with Christ. You will meet with all your brothers and sisters in Christ -you will have pure joy in God through ceaseless ages. Do not be much taken with the joys that are here. You are going to a feast above, do not dull your appetite with earthly joys-sit loosely to them all-look upon them all as fading. As you walk through a flower-garden, you never think of lying down, to make your home among roses; so pass through the garden of this world's best joys. Smell the flowers in passing, but do not tarry. Jesus calls you to his banqueting-house, there you will feed upon the lilies on the mountains of spices. Oh, it ill becomes a child of God to be fond of an earthly banquet, when you are looking to sitting down so soon with Jesus; it ill becomes you to be much taken up with dress and show, when you are so soon to see the face that was crowned with thorns. Brethren, if you are ever so much taken up with any enjoyment that it takes away your love for prayer or for your Bible, or that it would frighten you to hear the cry, 'The Bridegroom cometh,' and you would say, 'Is he come already?' then you are abusing this world. Oh! sit loose to this world's joy: The time is short.'"-M'Cheyne.

6

its

HOW TO ESCAPE TEMPTATION.

"WHAT is to be done?" cried a tumultuous assembly of mice, their eyes glittering, their whiskers trembling, and their tails quivering with agitation.

"Let us hear the case at length," said an old, sober member, who assumed the place of leader.

"It is this," cried a brisk, fiery-eyed young one, coming forward with great vivacity: "The cook, who never was fond of us, has of late taken the most violent antipathy to us, chiefly, I believe, on account of the large family that Mrs. Downy-indiscreetly, I must say-brought up in the flour-bin, having made a hole in the corner of it that she might effect her purpose. Well, owing to this, the destruction of our whole community is vowed. There are engines with iron teeth set close to our holes, which, nimble as we are, and sharp-sighted too, we have the greatest difficulty in avoiding. Then there are small apartments placed in our way, with the most fragrant delicacies such as toasted cheese and frizzled bacon-at the open doors, through which you have no sooner entered for a taste than they close upon you, and there you are, ready for the cat! But still more dangerous is her last plan. She puts in every corner tit-bits that no mouse, unless gifted with the wisdom and sobriety of your worship, could pass; and-I tremble as I tell it-these are sprinkled over with some horrible stuff that brings on agonizing death immediately!"

The whole assembly shuddered. One told of his children, another of a mate, a third of some intimate friends who had fallen victims; and again the cry arose, "What is to be done ?"

"I should suggest great care in passing by the enemy at the holes. Care and discretion seem to me to be all that we want,” said one.

"And I suggest," said another, "that we exercise prudence; smelling everything well before we taste it, and not eating too much for fear of the consequences.'

"And I," said a third, "advise that we practise selfdenial. Surely we can look at these delicious morsels, enjoy their fragrance, and pass by them! Where is the mouse that is not equal to this?"

A murmur of praise ran through the assembly; but it was noticed that the gray old president sat unmoved, and looked very grave.