he will be back soon. I managed to get a pair of stockings done, and I told him to take them to Mr. Brown, and tell him to let us have as much meal as he thought they were worth." While she was yet speaking, John came in. He was not much older than William. He was pale and thin, and his face was almost blue with the cold. He had a small tin pail filled with meal; he was about to mix some of it with water before he attempted to warm himself. The truth was, he was suffering more from hunger than from cold. William's father went out to the sleigh and brought in a. basket which William had not noticed. It contained some bread and cold meat, and some tea and sugar. He gave John a piece of bread and meat, and he ate it eagerly. He then went to his sleigh again, and brought in a board that covered the sleigh box or seat, and split it up, and by that means caused the green wood to burn. After giving John some directions, and offering some words of encouragement and consolation to the sick woman, he took his leave. The ride home was a silent one. William asked no questions, and his father thought it best to leave him to his own thoughts. Just as they reached the house he said to his 66 It son, would have been better to have had the storm continue all day, would it?" "No, father," said William promptly, but with a feeling of shame. "Why not? You would have had deeper snow to play in." "Yes, father, but when I said I wished it to keep on snowing, I did not think how it might affect other folks." "I hope you will remember the lesson you have learned this morning." Dr. Joseph Alden. TOO LATE. ONE sabbath morning in the summer a well-dressed man was seen running along the road in great haste. What could be the matter? Had some accident happened, and was he running for medical assistance? No, dear reader, he was one of those who run with the multitude to do evil. There was that morning a sabbath pleasure trip on the railway; the hour had arrived when the train was to start, and he was afraid of being TOO LATE. Poor man! he is running another race equally fast, the race of life, and it will soon be over. Eternity is at hand, heaven just in sight. Will he again be TOO LATE when he tries to enter there? Will that door be shut? Reader, an individual who died not long since was TOO LATE too late in coming to Jesus, seeking after God's mercy, and preparing for death. A servant of God was called upon to visit a young man in his last moments. He was a professed infidel, and refused any spiritual aid, or the services of a minister. On entering the room the scene was truly awful; the young man was dying; near the bed sat his widowed mother and fatherless sisters. He struggled to hide his fears, and appear calm in the conflict with death. His eye, for a moment, rested on the visitor, but it was quickly turned away, and with his face towards the wall he seemed determined to prevent all conversation. The visitor took his hand, but he withdrew it. He groaned, and hid himself beneath the bed-clothes. "Shall I pray with you, my friend?" said the Christian visitor. "No, no, no," said he; "I do not believe in prayer." "Shall I read a portion of God's holy word?" "I do not believe the Bible; I tell you I am an infidel; all I ask is to be left alone." "Do you know you are dying, my dear young man ?” "Yes, I know it well enough; I never shall see that sun rise or set again; I wish it was over; I wish I was dead. I wish you would leave me." "Oh, my boy!" cried his broken-hearted mother, "do listen to the word of truth; you will soon be beyond its reach; you are fast hastening to the judgment. Oh! my child, 'tis a fearful thing to meet God unprepared." She could say no more, her tears and sobs prevented her. The visitor knelt, and prayed that God would bring back the wanderer before it was TOO LATE. The poor man constantly interrupted, and groaned so loudly as to alarm all in the room. After many ineffectual attempts to get into conversation, the visitor rose to leave. Before going, he said to the young man, Suppose we were on board a ship together, and in a violent storm the ship was wrecked. I had secured a plank, and as I clung to it for safety the waves tossed you towards me, but I refused to let you share my deliverance by taking hold of it: what would you think of me?" 66 "Think of you," said he, "I should think you a selfish wretch !" "Well, then, dear friend, we have both been wrecked; here, in this Bible, is the plank on which I rest; the billows of death are riding over you; another wave, and you may be gone; will you lay hold before it is for ever TOO LATE? Before you is the shoreless ocean of eternity; the voice of mercy you yet hear, Turn you, for why will you die?' Your infidelity is no security in such a storm. Oh! come to Jesus, he will be your Saviour; your only sure support." The tears started in the poor man's eyes; his whole soul seemed centred in one gaze of agony, as he spoke his last words" IT IS TOO LATE! There is no mercy, no hope for me; I am lost, for ever lost!" THE WORKS OF GOD. It with the second well compare; If well the second thou would'st know. Psalm xix. 1—6. MAN very frequently wishes for preachers, should he not much rather wish for the proper ear? For verily there are preachers all around, wherever we direct our eye, preachers in the sky above us, preachers upon the earth beneath, preachers within and without. What does not even the firmament of heaven above preach? the clear blue sky? the sky covered by the storm-clouds? The heavens with all the wonders of their glory declare the glory of God, they declare it with the glory of day and with the glory of night. But how many hear? How undeniable is it, that so long as God does not speak into a man's own heart, man cannot understand the language of God, which is loud around and above and beneath him! Taulert beautifully expresses this: "As to a man who looks for a long time at the sun, the sun impresses itself upon everything that he sees, so is it with a man who looks much at God." And there are hours when we can stand among the works of nature as though we were in a congregation of God's people, where a cheerful song of praise bursts forth from every breast, so that we cannot help it, but must unite in their hymn; absorbed into the universal strain of devotion, we are borne along upon it. But, at other times, *Nature, the Old Testament and the New Testament. A German preacher before the Reformation, greatly admired by Luther. It how silent and dumb seem all creatures around us! they go as though there was no hand in heaven that led them. depends upon this, whether God speaks in us. It is still the same heaven to which the Saviour looked up when he prayed. It is the same heaven to which the childless Abraham raised his eyes, when in the still night the promise was made to him: "Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them :-so shall thy seed be." It is the same heaven which our first parents saw, whilst they still walked in Paradise as pious and innocent children. Beneath upon the earth everything has become different, at least among men; but for six thousand years, day unto day has uttered, and night unto night declared the one, great, eternal narrative of Him who hath made heaven and earth. There is something unusually great and elevating in the thought, that nature throughout thousands of years has still continued the same, and yet it always preserves the charm of novelty, since in it nothing merely is, but everything grows. Can one refrain from saying with the poet, And thou, fair Nature, thou Art not of one sort, yet art ever alike, In thine everlasting realm! Oh! how does the human heart, which by the contrast with the order and obedience of nature to its laws, becomes conscious of its own fickleness and changeableness, long after that inward steadfastness over which the change from light to darkness, from day to night, no longer has any influence! It is this, even this, that gives nature so edifying, so salutary an influence over man. The voice of nature is such that it can be heard and understood in all languages. The voice with which nature addresses man is like the look of a friend or the faithful pressure of the hand, which are understood among all nations without the utterance of a word. Is it not also really the eye of God, that most faithful of friends, that looks out of nature upon us, and have not the nations of the earth in some measure understood this voice? But true understanding was wanting in their hearts, there was no interpreter within, for they worshipped the creature instead of the Creator, Rom. i. 21-23. And thus they supposed that the song of praise, which all creatures in heaven and upon earth sing, was a song of praise to the creature. Yet all creatures declare only the glory of God, who has made them. How many are there among us, who do not rightly understand this! When I hear the outbursts of enthusiasm at the beauty of nature, it pains me deeply that nothing is spoken of but the honour of the creature, and that the spirit never ascends from this to Him who has created it. I could sometimes go to the enthusiastic admirer and say: "Alas! my fellow mortal, you do not properly understand the true import of this song of praise! It celebrates the honour of God, who has made all his works so beautiful!" Fair lily! which in gorgeous robe Upon the mead I see, Thou art a pattern for my life, A teacher given to me. "Oh come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the Lord our Maker. For he is our God; and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand," Psa. xcv. 6. Everything in the firmament of heaven does indeed declare the glory of God, and everything impresses us with the idea that "everything is old and everything is new in that everlasting kingdom;" but especially do we receive this impression from the sun, when each morning it again arises to its circuit in the sky, with perfect freshness, as though it had just been bathing. To beings like us it appears as though it had been gathering fresh strength, as we children of men renew our strength during the quiet night; yet its setting here is only its rising in another hemisphere. How with its shining does it extinguish everything else that would shine beside it, and thus ascend the sky entirely alone! How does it, without respect of persons, like a monarch send its beams over mountain and valley, over the lowly and over the lofty! It is not so very astonishing that men who had not the second, to explain the first testament of God, namely, the book of nature, should have fallen down before the sun and worshipped it as a god. And yet it is only the servant of Him who can call it "My sun." It is written, "Who maketh his sun to rise upon the evil and upon the good." And yet it is only the servant of his servants, for it is itself in turn but the servant of other suns, which all at last revolve around Him who is called "the Father of lights," James i. 17. Truly the blessed apostle was right, when he says that God in the creation of the world hath declared his invisible nature, his eternal power and Godhead, "so that they are without excuse," Rom. i. 20. But this is first properly recognised to be so by us in whose hearts the precious word of God, the |