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ye have been like unto a fish out of the water, yea, as the troubled sea, which cannot be at rest.

4. For the strange people among whom ye now dwell, do regard you as birds of passage, speckled birds, nay, even as black sheep.

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5. And, whereas their flock is already afflicted with chronic hydrophobia, they do greatly fear lest ye should bring amongst them also the plague of hydrocephalus. 6. Moreover, in secret claves their rulers and elders do look grave and wag the head, being sorely perplexed between the joy of bidding you welcome, and the dread of seeing you kick against their ceremonies, as heifers unaccustomed to the yoke.

7. And the holy women, likewise, who compassed streets and lanes, and privily entered your homes, to make proselytes of you, do now tremble at their success, and advise that ye be kept out of all offices of power, lest ye bring on them a deluge.

8. For on assembling with them in their synagogues, it is a great trial of patience to endure in silence many things which ye do see with your eyes and hear with your ears, but approve not with the understanding.

9. When babes and sucklings are placed in the minister's arms, and he dippeth the tips of the fingers of his right hand in water, and sprinkleth their faces therewith, and pronounceth them to be, henceforth, children of God, members of the church, and inheritors of the kingdom of Heaven;

10. And when ye, from your rented pews, behold this strange sight (a spectacle to angels and to

men) with outward assent and consent, but with inward pain and reprobation,

11. Are ye not therein partakers of other men's sins, even the sins of magic, legerdemain, deceit, falsehood, mockery, and blasphemy, all committed in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost?

12. For who hath required this at their hands, to tamper with the divine commission, to patch and tinker a divine institution, and to make the divine order null and void, by their bungling workmanship, while they mislead silly souls, and feed them with fantastic hopes ?

13. Or wherefore should ye be found false witnesses to God, winking at practices which are a smoke in His eyes and a stench in His nostrils, and lending of your money and countenance to establish and perpetuate such flagrant wrongs?

14. Think not that God will hold you guiltless in this thing, when He cometh to reckon with those who change His truth into a lie; for he that joineth himself to corrupters is an abettor of corruption.

15. Furthermore, when your new pastors and teachers do seek to justify the aspersion of infants by reasons which an infant might answer, when they build castles in the air which a single text of Scripture would knock down,

16. When they plead fathers, councils, customs, convenience, circumcision, priestism, hereditary holiness, and other chimeras, as if their hearers were dunces, and Christ and His apostles chimeras too,

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17. Nay, when they take from the Church her crown of twelve stars, namely, apostolic doctrines, and put on her head a crown of twelve extinguished rushlights, namely post-apostolic imaginations,-.

18. Do ye not sit on thorns and spikes while listening to their swelling words of vanity? Are ye not amazed with a great amazement? Are not your thoughts within you troubled ? And do ye not cast wistful glances towards the green pastures and still waters of Enon, exchanged, alas! for a meal of chaff in a dry and thirsty land ?

19. For your ears are bored with these idle janglings, and your minds are ill at ease; knowing that the face of a witness should be as his conscience, and that to hearken unto error is to become its patron and accomplice.

20. Therefore, why tarry ye in Mesech, and sojourn in the tents of Kedar? Let not discontent, half-muttered, eat away your peace, as doth a canker; neither rob your soul of its marrow and fatness till it becomes like unto Pharoah's lean kine.

21. He that hath the word of the Lord, let him keep the same in the obedience of faith; for the servant that knoweth his master's will, and doeth it not, shall be beaten with many stripes.

22. Shake off the dust of your feet as a testimony against evildoings; retrace your steps and end the shame of your exile; be true, not to the sparks of man's kindling, but to the light which ye received from heaven.

23. Then shall it be with you

as in former days, when your works praised you in the gates, and the Sun of Righteousness shone round about you, filling your hearts with music, and your path with flowers.

CHAPTER III.

BUT I would that ye knew, brethren, what great heaviness I have for you, even for as many as have left the oracles of God, to follow after fashionable vagaries.

2. For in so doing you declare plainly, that ye despise the laws of Christ, and set aside the example of the apostles, and are beguiled from the simplicity of the gospel to another gospel, which is not another, but rather an Anathema Maranatha.

3. In divers ways, also, ye do weaken the hands of God's elect, and obstruct the progress of His kingdom, the real growth of which is determined, not by perverts from the sects, but by converts from the world.

4. For when ye go away from the "little flocks," with which ye once took sweet counsel, and cast in your lot with the big flocks, whose sheepfolds have spires like unto the pyramids of Egypt, and whose shepherds wear long robes like the Scribes and Pharisees,

5. Too often ye sow the seeds of discord and strife, and set loose, as it were, Samson's foxes, with firebrands tied to their tails, to lay waste the fruitful fields, and to consume all the pleasant places thereof.

6. Moreover, ye withdraw your offerings from treasuries which are nigh unto emptiness, and put them into treasuries which are already full, but which, like the

cormorant and the greedy horseleech, never say, It is enough.

7. Again, the faithful minister ye reduce to penury, and his children to a crust of bread, that ye may surround the popular minister with more luxuries than heart can wish, and that his eyes may stand out with fatness.

8. By your conduct, likewise ye proclaim, to those who are without, that expediency is better than principle, that to please oneself is nobler than to please God, and that truth, whether hid in a well, or a pitcher, is equally a matter of indifference.

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9. You cause the Gentiles, also, to laugh, and to exclaim in irony, Aha, aha! See how these saints dwell together in unity! tenderly and clannishly they cleave to one another! How strong is the three-fold cord which binds each to each, as one indivisible man!"

10. Nay more, ye make even the sectaries rejoice in their sleeve, and assume a loftier look and a more reserved port, while they say among themselves :

11. "Lo! these poor dippers do dwindle like a waning moon, but we wax as the rising sun; their upper rooms deserted, by their own friends, must soon be closed, but our stately temples are centres of attraction opened in ever increasing numbers;

12. Their religion is too rigid, narrow, uncompromising for the spirit of the age, but ours is broad flexible, catholic, adapted to modern tastes and prejudices, a net wide enough to catch fishes of every size and hue; so good-bye to the dippers, and long live ourselves! ""

13. And shall I commend you for such things, O ye wandering stars, as though ye had done virtuously? God forbid. God forbid. Yea, I commend you not; but pray Heaven to pardon your infatuation, and lay not these evils to your charge.

14. For remember, how the tables would have been turned, how different the picture would have been, had you remained like the noble Shunammite amongst your own kindred; a picture, not feeble and forlorn, but grand in majestic strength, and crowned with auroral splendours.

15. The daughter of Zion, she that dwelleth by the pools and watercourses, where lilies and palm-trees grow, is desolate because her own children have left her to weep alone in her sorrow, while they hold dalliance with aliens, and forget the instructions of their father's house.

16. I speak the truth in Christ, and lie not, that if all believers in adult baptism who are dispersed amongst all the tribes of Israel, from Dan to Beersheba, and from John-o-Groat's to Dover, were restored to their own kinsmen after the faith,

17. Then would the Baptists be not the least among the thousands of Israel, but the greatest, even as also they are the first-born for whom the inheritance is reserved.

18. Then also would they enlarge the place of their tents, and stretch out the curtains of their habitations; and their seed would burst forth like the verdure of spring, and would multiply, replenish, and subdue the earth.

19. Moreover, they who despised,

them would come bending unto them; for the fountain would swallow up the basins, even as Aaron's rod swallowed up the rods of the magicians, sorcerers, soothsayers, and enchanters.

20. Yea, the basins would be utterly abolished, nor would they be any more seen in the sanctuary as a snare to the simple.

21. And there would be but one fold and one shepherd, whose flock would no more be a prey to foxes and wild boars, but would feed safely on the mountains in good pastures, and lie down securely by the rivers in quiet resting places.

22. And the Lord alone would be exalted in that day; for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it. Amen.

CHAPTER IV.

FINALLY, brethren, farewell. 2. I will not write more unto you at present, hoping yet to see you face to face, and to rejoice over you as over the lost sheep that was found again.

3. For who can tell whether the medicine herein administered may not purge away your sickly humours, and renew your spiritual health and prosperity?

4. It may be that He whom ye have put to an open shame, may grant you repentance to the renouncing of the mystery of iniquity, and the fresh acknowledging of the truth in which ye once walked.

5. Only, be not wise above what is written, neither be lured any more by will-o'-the-wisps.

6. Let not the light which is within you go out into darkness, but let it shine again before men.

7. Beware of supposing, that gain is godliness; or that, when ye get into a new station, you must needs get into a new faith.

8. Take heed of the lust of the eye, and the pride of life; for the fashion of this world soon таnisheth away.

9. Shun not the reproach of the cross, knowing that scars borne for Christ's sake are nobler than coronets.

10. Wrap not your talent in a napkin; hide not your candle under a bushel; but witness a good confession against the devil and all his wicked works.

11. Be strong; acquit yourselves like men; do the right, and fear not.

12. And as ye have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in Him, and ye shall find rest for your souls.

13. Paul and his yoke-fellows greet you; as do also Crispus, Gaius, Stephanas, Cornelius, Lydia, the eunuch, the jailor, the three thousand, and all who are baptized into Jesus Christ.

14. Now to Him who blessed little children, but never sprinkled them; whose will is supreme above all councils, synods, conferences, creeds, and temporisings;

15. And whose super-abounding grace can heal even backsliding Baptists, and love them freely:

16. To the church's only King, our adorable Saviour, be glory through all lands and ages, world without end! Amen.

Written to backsliding Baptists from Enon near Salim, and sent by Boanerges the sons of thunder, and Barnabas the son of consolation.

THE LITTLE NEWSBOY.

FOR THE YOUNG.

A BOY of not more than ten years of age walked into an omnibus as it stopped at one of the street crossings. Under his arm he carried a number of daily papers, and as he passed through the car, he appealed to the passengers to purchase his papers. One man, a little the worse for liquor, took one and handed the boy half a crown. The little fellow asked the person on the opposite seat if he could not change a half-crown piece. His request was complied with, and the boy offered the change to the purchaser, but he did not look up from his paper. The boy then attempted to put it into his hand, but the man, without taking his eyes from his paper, pushed his hand away, as if to intimate that the boy should keep it. He passed on to the other end of the car, selling his papers as he went. On his return, he looked up to the one who had given him the halfcrown, and who was still absorbed in his paper, with a look of such deep thankfulness that it attracted the attention of all the passengers, who kindly smiled on the little newsboy.

That half-crown has a history which may be interesting to our young readers. Mrs. Bailey was a widow in very straitened circumstances. Her husband had been a working-man, and, during his lifetime, he could only just provide for the present wants of his family, consequently he could make no provision for them in case of his death; and when a fever left his wife a widow and his children fatherless, want stared them in the face. Bailey thought long and deeply on the best course for her to pursue. She had four children, of whom George, the hero of the half-crown, was the eldest. She felt that she could not leave her little ones alone all day while she was out at work,

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and the only thing that seemed open to her was to take in sewing, by which means she could be at home with her children while she was earning their daily bread. She was industrious and saving; she was also a sincere Christian. She trusted in the Lord, and firmly believed that He would not allow either her or her children to die of hunger or cold; and her faith in God enabled her to keep a brave heart and a cheerful face, and set an example of Christian fortitude and resignation.

Her industry, courage, and cheerfulness were not lost on George, who almost worshipped his mother. In his eyes, she was all that is good and lovely, and his greatest desire was to be able to help her. After thinking of a good many different ways, he found that nothing seemed available except the position of newsboy. No one would hire him and pay him anything for his work because he was so young, but he could sell papers; other boys, some younger than he, sold papers, and why could not he? He mentioned this plan to his mother, who was greatly troubled at the idea; she was deeply prejudiced against that calling. The idea of newsboy was associated in her mind with youthful depravity and crime; and that her son should come in daily contact with the guilty and the vicious was indeed terrible.

George promised that he would have as little as possible to say to the other boys; he would come home as soon as he had disposed of his papers; "and you know," he added, "I have a home to come to, and a good, kind, loving mother to work for, which many of the other boys do not have; and when I see you work so hard all day and half the night, you don't know, mother, how unhappy I feel. Do let me try a little

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