Saviour allowed. His disciples to take the ears of corn on

the Sabbath."

"Was your bird fed yesterday, Mary?" calmly inquired

Mr. Sefton.

Mary hung her head.

"No, papa, I forgot to feed it yesterday, and there was very little seed left this morning,not near enough to last him all day."

"But there was some left this morning?" said Mr. Sefton; "so that you see, if you had fed him properly yesterday, he would have had enough food to last him till to morrow morning. It is, therefore, entirely your own carelessness and inattention, that have made you interfere with the rest of this holy day, and occasioned us all to be late at Church : for listen!-the chiming has stopped, and that slow single toll tells us that the clergyman is nearly ready to commence the service."

The little party hastened on. But the Church clock struck eleven as they entered the Church-yard. The bell then stopped, amd the service had commenced before the Sefton party reached their seat.

On returning from Church, Frisk came running and jumping round the little girls, and seemed to wish to hurry them to the house. Mr. Sefton observed this, and followed the little animal to the children's room, to which he plainly wished to call attention. And the reason of his doing so was quiet evident; the bird-cage was empty, and no canary could be seen. No one thought for a moment that Frisk had done the poor little bird any harm, but all feared that the cat might have come in and carried poor Dick away; for Mary well remembered that, in her haste to get ready

when the Church bell had been really heard, she had left the door of the cage open.

"Oh! my poor bird!" said Mary; "what a naughty girl I was, to neglect feeding him yesterday." And she burst into tears, saying she never should see poor Dick again.

"There goes the cat," said Louisa, looking out of the window, "there she is looking up to the tree.

Mr. Sefton asked for the bird-cage, which Mary immediately gave him, and he then went down to the lawn, and moved softly to the tree on which the canary was sitting. The poor little bird looked very much frightened, and the cat was watching it very intently, making a very unpleasant mewing, and seeming every moment to be preparing to make a spring into the tree. On seeing Mr. Sefton, the cat took alarm and ran away, but the little bird still looked frightened. Mr. Sefton then hung the cage in the tree, but did not come far away, lest pussy should take advantage of his absence, and return to the bird. In a few minutes poor Dicky was glad to fly into the cage, and Mr. Sefton again gently approaching, closed the little grated door, and brought both the bird and the cage safely in to Mary and Louisa.

"Oh! papa, thank you," said Mary, "I hope I never shall be so careless again."

"Whatever you

"I hope not my love," said Mr. Sefton. undertake to do, do with attention and punctuality; and particularly when the neglect of doing it may lead to the breaking of God's commandments. Which of the commandments has the neglect of to-day led you to break?"

"It was the fourth commandment, papa."

Mr. Sefton then desired his child to repeat the fourth

commandment, and when she had finished, Mrs. Sefton said that it was nearly dinner hour, and that there was not time to learn one of the pretty hymns which her aunt Harriet had sent her.

Oh! I am so sorry, mamma!" began Mary. But Mrs. Sefton said she must not now linger to express any more regret, but had better go and take off her bonnet, and get her pin-a-fore, that she might be ready for dinner.

(To be continued.)

A. C. P.

FORBEARANCE TO OTHERS.

"LET us learn," from the Gospel of Jesus Christ our Saviour, into Whom we have been baptized, and Whom we have put on, "something of that spirit of Christian charity, which rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth, which beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things."

The better we think of our neighbour, and the worse we think of ourselves, the more likely are we to be right in our judgments. The more we have salt in ourselves, the more glad shall we be to have peace one with another. It is a very easy thing to make a show of being religious. There is little difficulty in working ourselves up into a state of excitement about the so-called religious questions of the day.

"A mere smattering of knowledge will enable us to talk boldly and fluently on the subject. A very little cleverness and assurance will enable us to silence grave, earnest-minded persons, for they will not condescend to argue with us. And we shall not have much trouble in deceiving ourselves into

the belief, that we are a great deal wiser and better than our elders, our appointed ministers, or even than the Church herself.

"Who art thou that judgest another man?" To His own Master he standeth or falleth. But why dost thou judge thy brother? or why dost thou set at nought thy brother? For we shall all stand before the judgment-seat of Christ?" Practical Sermons, by the Rev. E. Paget.

THE BESETTING SIN.

"MARY, my dear, come in and shut the door," said a patient hard-working woman to her little daughter, who remained standing outside the door willfully gazing down the road, which she expected her father would come. She poor child did not know what her mother too well remembered, that it was pay-day, and that it was the abominable practice in that part of the country, to assemble the labourers at a public-house and there to pay them, and this led to a cruel custom of making the men drink a portion of their hard-earned wages for the good of the house as it was called. And William Ashton's (the little girl's father) besetting sin, was a love of drink. Ruth his wife had long known and mourned over this his one great fault, and like a faithful loving wife as she was, had contrived hitherto to screen her husband's vice from the eyes of their innocent child, but Mary, who was now nine years old, had often wondered why her mother was so anxious on certain nights to send her to bed so early; and restless from not being sleepy, she on one of these unfortunate nights heard her father return, and she discovered how differ

ent he was to what she had ever known. him. The next night after she had knelt at her mother's knee and repeated the prayers which ever since she could lisp, had never been neglected, she rose up and throwing her arms round her mother's neck, she confessed what she had heard, and ended by entreating her mother to let her sit up for her father on the following Saturday night.

Much distressed, Ruth shrunk from exposing her child to its father's violence, nor could she bear the thought of her hearing the curses and oaths that he imprecated on all, when maddened by drink. What could she do? What can any one do but "cast their care on Him who careth for them." So the mother soothed her child and persuaded her once more to go early to her bed, and she went: for the child not only loved but obeyed that mother, whose tongue was ever the law of kindness to her.

Oh! mothers, when ye complain of your children, look well to yourselves, and see if the fault began not with you.

Ruth blessed her little one, and then sat in fearful suspense as the moments and hours passed on; when as day was dawning she heard a voice at the door, she hastened to open it, and there she saw her husband who, as she opened the door, fell down drunk, dead drunk! Yes, there he lay in that abject state, he whom she had vowed to love, honour, and obey, how could she keep that vow?

rose up against him; she saw in him the

Her earthly heart author of all her

misery, the disgrace and shame of which, she felt as only a woman can feel, deeply most deeply: poverty was nothing, she could bear that, but the bitter feeling of cruel disappointment, that he whom she had so loved, so toiled for, he