of even our worst foes. In like manner, as already remarked, the very cry for submission will tend to make us submissive. Have you never found it so? When in very deep distress you have fallen at the Master's feet, and asked Him to make you patient and trustful, how did you feel afterwards? Ah! you rose from your knees quite another being; you felt marvellously resigned, and, as the hymn has it, "Ready for all Thy perfect will." A little child, losing a toy, kneeled down and asked God that she might be be able to find it. She failed to do so. "What good has your praying done? asked a companion. It has made me willing to do without my toy." Yes, there are many toys and other possessions which, if needs be, prayer will make us willing to do without. Colombo, Ceylon. "Renew my will from day to day, SEVENTY-SEVEN. FOR THE BOYS. 66 'Charley was a good-hearted fellow. The creek; and then we can take a basket of apples to old Aunty Stannix,' he said. "So they brought the apples, gave them to the old woman, and went down to the creek. Under a big walnut was a dark pool, the very place for perch. "WHAT is that you say, Robert?" "Little things don't count." "Don't they? Now my belief is that there never was a little duty done, or a kind word spoken, which did not bring a long train of bless ings. You may not see them, but somewhere and somehow they are there; just as you plant a seed and go away, and the roots spread, and the tree grows, and goes on growing, and the birds come and sing in the branches-long after you are dead. I'll tell you a story about that," said the old man, settling himself on the heap of warm hay, while the boys pinched. gathered about him. They hardly spoke for an hour. Just as Bill had a nibble, a step was heard on the dry grass above, and a man appeared and looked down at them. His clothes were shabby, his face strangely bloodless and "It's too bad!' muttered Bill. "Two boys went out to fish oneHe's driven that fellow away, and day. If you clear out the barn,' he was a two-pounder. The sneaktheir father told them in the morn- ing old tramp! I'll shy a stone at ing, you can have the afternoon him if he comes any closer!' for play.' 666 'Let's make a quick job of it,' said Charley. ་་ "So they worked steadily and actively, and earned their holiday. As they started, they halted by the gate, their rods over their shoulders. "The pond or the creek?' asked Bill. "You'll do nothing of the sort, Bill Pardee,' said Charley. 'The man looks hungry, poor fellow!' 666 'I believe he's escaped from the lock-up,' persisted Bill. If he comes down, I'll tell him to go back to jail, where he belongs, see if I don't.' "The man was slowly and unsteadily making his way towards Suspicion fell on a companion of the victim, with whom he had had a quarrel. They had been seen on the road together a week before, and the murdered man was never seen alive again. This friend was arrested and tried. The circumstantial evidence was strong against him. He was found guilty, and sentenced to imprisonment for life. Fifteen years of his confinement had passed when he received a pardon, and was released. "On the morning and just at the hour when our boys went to clear the barn, he came out of the prison gates, and stood looking up and down the busy streets, as though he were half-blinded. "Jackson stood beside him. Take a cigar,' he said, in token of their new equality. "I have never smoked.' "Where are you goin', anyhow?" "Seventy-seven stared vacantly up and down the street. When he had gone in at that gate, he was a young and handsome man. He had been a lawyer in fair practice, with a mother who made an idol of him, and hosts of friends. "Now he was bent and whitehaired. There was not a man whom he could call friend, or a house where he had a right to shelter, in all the world. "I'd like to go back,' he said, with a miserable smile. "Can't do that, my boy. You were in for" 666 Murder!' 'Yes!' 666 "He covered his face with his hands. He was so utterly alone! Only to see him once more-to go through the old house-to lay his head on his mother's grave! "'I don't know what to advise,' said Jackson. 'Kinsfolk don't generally kill the fatted calf for returned jail-birds. But you might try it. I don't see what else you can do, in fact.' "About noon the prisoner got off the train at the station next his old home. He walked down the road. Old Aunty Stannix was sitting in the door of her cabin. "Jail-bird!' muttered Bill. Charley gripped his leg like a vice, and whispered, 'Hold your tongue! Yes, sir,' he said aloud, touching his cap, 'we're after perch. Will you take a seat?' moving the 66 Seventy-seven sat down. He could not speak. The boys dropped their lines in the water. "John Pardee lives in the old place?' he said, inquiringly, stop-basket aside. ping in front of her. "Yeh. Dem's his boys a-fishin' in de branch yunder. Stranger in dis country, sah?' "The man shook his head and walked on. A stranger! Why, there was not a stone or a tree which he did not remember and love! "He came to his brother's gate and opened it, and then, ghastly as death, turned away. He could not risk it. "Presently he laid his hand on Charley's arm. It seemed as if he must caress the boy, if but by a touch. 666 'What is your name?' "Charley, sir; Charley Pardee.' "It was his own name! The 666 blood rushed violently to his heart. "Who-who were you named for, Charley?' 666 'My uncle, sir. You've heard of him, may-be?' colouring hotly. 'I never saw him, but my father says he was the best man he ever knew, and the most ill-used. Oh, here comes papa!' "The man staggered to his feet and stood trembling, not looking up. "Well, boys, what luck?' came in Jack's old hearty voice. Then there was a terrible silence. ""Charley!' "Jack had his arms about him. 'Oh, Charley, is it you? Thank God, thank God!' and he sobbed like a child. "The winter passed quietly. Charles Pardee found his brother's house a happy home, but he feared to go outside of it. Public opinion squire.' "I am a magistrate, aunty,' said the doctor. held him as a murderer. A few old a squire? I must say it fohr a friends came to see him, but he shrank from every strange face. "Now little Charley had a habit of taking some trifling gift to old Aunty Stannix on his way to school. The old woman was crabbed and sour beyond her wont, being ill that winter, but the boy persevered. One night he was roused out of bed by his father. 666 Stannix is dying, and has sent for you, my boy.' "It's snowing,' muttered Bill. 'She'll live till morning. It's one of her tricks, anyhow. I wouldn't go a step, Charley.' "Charley thrust out one foot into the nipping air, and hesitated. "I'd better go,' he said. "When he reached the cabin with his father, the old woman was very low. "I want Charley Pardee,' she muttered, fumbling with her hands. "Here I am, Aunty." "I wants to say fohr de squire, dat dis boy's uncle, Charles Pardee, was as innocent as a baby of George Tygart's murder. It was my son Oaf as done it--Oaf, de barber in Dover. "I kep' it quiet, 'cos I didn't want Oaf hung. But when he was shot in dat fight las' summer, an' I knowed he'd got to die, I made him write a paper 'bout it, an' swar to it befohr witnesses. "Hyah's de paper. I gib it to yoh, Charley, kase you've bin good to me. I don't want folks castin' up to yoh dat yoh's got a uncle what's grazed de gallows. Yoh've bin good to me, Charley.' "Before morning she was dead.” "Grandfather," said the boys, after a pause, "is that a true story?" The old man's eyes grew dim. "Boys," he said, "I was Seventy "You've bin good to me, sonnybetter dan anybody in dis wohld. seven!” I've got somefin' foh you. Whah's FACING THE FACT. SPEAKING with an invalid friend of ours the other day in regard to his physical condition, he remarked: "I do not feel weak, but I realise constantly the possibility of being weak." It was a very neat bit of descriptive rhetoric. A good many of us who have been mentally or physically overtaxed, or have been prostrated by acute disease, understand what it means. We are haunted by the consciousness that upon the least exertion, by the least inattention to the imperative demands of our physical nature, the strength which, for the moment, seems sufficient for the day, may suddenly fail us. Often it has suddenly failed us, and that experience compels us to realise that at any time it may. The realisation is a painful one, especially to a person who has enjoyed such rude and vigorous health that he hardly knew what weakness was. But painful as it is, it is by no means unhealthful. If we are liable to sudden prostrating weakness, it is well that we are not suffered to delude ourselves, by any seeming and momentary strength, into the forgetfulness of the fact. Realising the liability to weakness, we so husband our strength, so care for our physical well-being, that weakness continues to be realised rather as a possibility than as an actual fact. Such, at least, was the effect of this haunting suspicion on the friend of whom we speak. And with reference to those spiritual weaknesses which lie in wait for all of us -though for some vastly more than others-painful as it is to realise that though we are not for the moment weak, we are constantly liable to be weak, is it not the best and most healthful condition for a good many of us? It is given to some Christian disciples who are the glory and pride of the Church, a standing refutation of the cavillings and sneers of septicism, to "Walk like some stout and girded giant-stem, Such men, we have no doubt, do not seem to realise the possibility of spiritual weakness, any more than the stalwart blacksmith seems to realise the possibility of physical weakness. Sometimes, conscious how perfectly Christ does, in their own experience, strengthen and sustain, they are somewhat lacking in compassion and forbearance for their weaker and more severely tempted brethen; and yet some of the sturdiest Christians that we have ever known-men to whom Christ's strength was so perfectly imparted, that not only were they always strong, but they did not seem to realise what it was to be weak-have, realising that all their strength was of Christ, been among the tenderest and most compassionate of brethren. Spiritual strength may co-exist, and should co-exist-as in the Master it did co-existwith forbearance towards spiritual weakness. The stronger a man is, the more compassionate he can afford to be towards weakness, since he is the less likely to be infected or enfeebled by it. That spiritual strength which looks with contempt upon him who is weak and ready to halt, is akin to the pride which goeth before destruction and the haughty spirit that precedes a fall. There is likely to be at any moment a snap, a crash, a proud structure laid in ruins, to the conconsternation of the Church and the delight of her enemies. Doubtless even to the spiritually strong, the realisation of the possibility of spiritual weakness is, ordinarily, a blessing. Still there are those, we have thought, from whom - so fully have they been strengthened by His grace-God has seen that it would do to take away this haunting sense of the possibility of weakness. There are others, and vastly more, from whom God sees that it would not do to take it away. Through inherited tendencies to evil, through unfortunate surroundings, more than all through the imperfect surrender of themselves to Christ, they are weak; and the only safety for them is in the constant realisation-even in their moments of seeming spiritual strength of the possibility of weakness. It is unwise to teach them to pray that God will not only make them strong, but make them feel |