gifts, He does not deny them. God withholds for a time, that thou mayest learn to desire great things greatly.Augustine.

Beware of unbelief, and do not suspect the Lord's kindness, but seek to Him, and hope in Him, and expect all good things from Him, assuring thyself that neither thy hope nor thy prayer, nor a single sigh will be lost. The Lord supplieth all thy wants, and leaveth thee nothing to be desired but Himself.-Bogatzky.

The Christ who prayed on earth teaches us to pray; and the Christ who intercedes in heaven helps us to pray, and presents our poor cries, acceptable through His sacrifice, and fragrant with the incense from His own golden censer. -Maclaren.

Be much in prayer. This is the breath of a living soul. Fach moment is a need, each moment should be a heavenascending cry. Suppliants with Christ in their arms take heaven by storm. But prayer, without Christ, is as smoke vanishing into air.-Law.

The furze, whose bushes fringe the mead,
Hath pods among its bristles,
A thousand plants have ripened seed,
The down is on the thistles.

Thus is it with the life we own,
The life we have in keeping;
It hath its spring when seeds are sown,
It hath its time of reaping.

For every plant upon the field
Its fruit at last produces,

Some worthless in the things they yield,
And some with many uses.

If weeds are in your fields in spring,
And all the summer growing,
And only on some worthless thing
Your life you are bestowing,

Then when the harvest shall have come,
You only weeds shall gather;
And you shall be condemned and dumb
Before the heavenly Father.

Friend, is the harvest of your seed
The fruit which God expecteth?
Or is it but some worthless weed
Which justly He rejecteth?

The foolish servant findeth scorn,
And meets with sure dismissal,
Who thinks to gather grapes of thorn,
Or figs from off the thistle.

Ask God with grace your life to sow,
With such a harvest given,

That He, when death shall lay you low,
May garner it for heaven.

Queen Mab.

HERE were five of us; first, my big brother Jack, who was in a merchant's office; then Fred, who went to sea; myself next, my name is Dora; and then the two younger ones, Jessie and Aleck. We did not, as a family, get on very well together, even when we were quite little children, for we seemed all to have different tastes and tempers. And though we did not

quarrel and fight, as some young people do, there was no great cordiality among us, and we rather shunned one another, and sought for companionship elsewhere. Jack, in those days, cared for nothing but dogs and horses and his bicycle. Fred was a rough, romping boy, given to wild games, and fond of long excursions amid the hills and woods. I was a somewhat quiet young person, very fond of music and drawing; while Aleck was a regular bookworm, and Jessie seemed to live only for her dolls, of which she had a great variety.

I am afraid there was in all of us a great want of sympathy, and a good deal of selfishness; for, though we were so different in our tastes and tempers and pursuits, we might have been very happy among ourselves if we had taken any interest in each other's pursuits. As it was, we were a somewhat morose, and generally a very silent family. I know this was a great grief to my father and mother, and they made many attempts to put things on a better footing; but, finding all their efforts vain, they at last gave up trying, and allowed things to remain as they were.

One morning, when I was about fourteen years old, father got a letter which was destined to change the whole current of our family life. I saw my parents in anxious consultation during the forenoon, and overheard my mother say, in a voice that betrayed her vexation: "Well, I suppose she must come, since there seems no other way out of it; but how I am to manage I know not; for the children, with their

unsocial ways and strange tempers, are already a burden too heavy for me to bear."

At dinner it was announced to all of us that our little cousin Mabel was coming to live with us; for her widowed mother had just died, and there were no other relatives to whom she could go. We had never seen this cousin, for her parents had lived hundreds of miles distant from our Scottish home, away in the south of England. We knew, however, that she was six years old, and that she was a poor, helpless cripple, having to be wheeled about in a little chair; for she had met with an accident in her infancy, through the carelessness of a nursemaid, which had hurt her spine, and made her completely helpless.

"What a bore! What a nuisance !" were the whispered exclamations of Jack and Fred, to be repeated in much louder tones, and even more emphatic language, as soon as they had left table and were out of my father's hearing.

I suspect that my parents looked upon it much in the same light, not that they were at all careless or unkindly, but because of the difficulties which they feared would arise, in connection with the arrangement, from our selfish natures and peculiar tempers. They tried, however, to make the best of it; and, to our intense disgust, impressed upon us the duty of kindliness and helpfulness towards our poor little cousin. We did not want to be bothered with such a helpless creature, and I am ashamed to say, that when our father's back was turned, we did not hesitate, in our mother's presence, to give vent to our annoyance in a way that must have filled her heart with great anxiety and distress. But she said little, for she had seemingly made up her mind that our wayward tempers and ways were a burden she must be content to put up with; but I could see that she looked forward with great anxiety to the coming of little Mabel.

As it so happened, it was quite impossible at the time for either my father or mother to go south for her, and she could not travel alone. There seemed to be no one in the