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A SECRET WORTH KNOWING.

"MAMMA," said Daisy, as she was on her shoes and stocking preparing to go to bed at the close as possible, and ran to i of a long, pleasant day of play, "I wish I could do some good in the "Good morning, m world, and not spend all my time cried; "I am beginning in dressing and undressing dolls, and just having a nice time. I wish I could be a grown-up person for a little while, and then I could help somebody instead of wasting all my days this way." Mrs. Marsh smiled, and patted her daughter's curly head.

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"Let me do it, please," spoke up Daisy; "my eyes are ever so much younger than yours.'

"Bless the dear child, why so

there was a cradle to rock; and in same way the hours slipped by, and Mrs. Marsh had a nice time to sit down with her sewing, and declare that she had been helped so much they are!" said grandmamma. that it was a regular holiday to her." What a useful little girl you are And if it was a holiday to the getting to be, Daisy!" mother, it certainly was to Daisy, Daisy looked up, caught her who was overjoyed to find she could mother's eye, and smiled, and then really be of some use. She had an bent herself to the task. What a hour to devote to her wax doll, naughty kitten it had been! Not Maria Antoinette Jane Clorinda; only was the yarn badly tangled, but Herbie, who was just old enough but some stitches had been dropped to ask questions every minute, and in the pretty red stocking which wear out the patience of every one was intended for baby. Daisy took in the house before he got half of up the stitches and finished winding them answered, had pulled out his the ball in about half an hour; and Noah's Ark, and wanted to know just then she saw Jenny Ray coming the name of every nanimal as he up the garden walk with her doll in put it in. "What's vis, sister ?" her arms. was his first question in the morning and the last at night. Yesterday morning she had said very impatiently, "I won't answer another thing, so there!" but to-day she took up the camel and told him a little story about it, and showed him how to make the nanimals, as he called them, dance in on their hind legs, and then left him to pursue the interesting performance until he should grow tired.

Of course she had come for a visit, and now that the useful things had all been done it seemed just the time for play. And how much the little girl enjoyed it! A great, great deal more than she did yesterday, when she had an all-day play and no work to balance it.

She told Jenny Ray her new plan, and how nicely it had worked; and as they dressed and undressed their dolls, and played "Come and Visit," they made up their minds After all, it only took a little to try and be a little useful, instead time, and made it so much plea- of wasting so many moments in santer for poor little Herbie. "I just pleasing themselves. wouldn't wonder if mamma was right," she said to herself. "There's ever so many things a child can do, and not get very tired, either." She sat down on the vine-covered porch after dinner to do a little thinking and take a rest, when she saw her grandmother trying to wind some yarn that the kitten had been playing with. Such a tangle! And poor old grandmamma wiping her spectacles and trying to see.

When Daisy went to bed that night she told her mother how happy she had been, and how much harder she was going to try the next day; but mamma only smiled and said, "There are plenty of chances every day to make people happy, if we only stop to look them up."

Wouldn't it be a good plan if all the little Dasies tried the same thing?

THE SOLDIER'S DREAM.

BY THE REV. T. R. STEVENSON.

Judges vii. 9-15.

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THERE is a little incident in connection with Christ's resurrection which merits careful notice. We allude to the following words :"Then went in that other disciple." Peter and John, after hearing of the empty sepulchre, hasten thither; but, as a warm heart often gives a swift foot, the beloved disciple outran his comrade, and got there first. Though, however, he looked down into the vacant tomb, "yet went he not in." But Peter did. "Then went in that other disciple." Simon said not a word, he used not a gesture in order to effect this: he simply went in. But his act led to a like one. such is human life: where one goes, another will. Unconsciously men influence each other mightily for good or evil. The incident before us illustrates this. A soldier wakes and tells "his fellow" of a curious dream which he has had the latter volunteers an interpretation of it. How little they thought that the commander-in-chief of the enemy was eagerly listening outside! Still less did they imagine that their conversation was the means of nerving him to new courage, yea, a courage which would to-morrow, by the Divine blessing, ensure a memorable victory. Yet such was the case. More than that: we do not go beyond the truth when we say that the brief talk of these heathen soldiers was a link in the chain of events by which the destiny, not only of Israel, but of mankind, was affected. Truly, "no man liveth unto himself."

God condescends to human infirmities. Gideon had a direct, distinct assurance that in the coming battle he should be triumphant. "I have delivered it into thine hand." What more could he want? Nothing can be more certain than a Divine promise. But see how graciously the Most High came down to the tent of His servant. "Bat if thou fear to go down; go thou with Phurah thy servant down to the host and thou shalt hear what they say; and afterward shall thine hands be strengthened to go down unto the host." If a sign or "token" will do what a promise cannot, then, although it ought not to be necessary, it shall be granted.

In His dealings with us God "knoweth our frame." Brightly does this fact shine out in the life of the Incarnate One. For example: a man sick of the palsy is brought to Him, and He says, "Thy sins are forgiven thee." Inwardly the Scribes who are present complain: "He blasphemes; who can forgive sins but God only?" Moreover, their thoughts went further, as we may easily see from the words of Jesus. Virtually they reasoned thus:- -"How easy for Him to profess to forgive sins! Pardon is invisible: there is no outward sign by which it is revealed. Let Him do some outward wonder, such

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as healing this sufferer, and then we shall be better prepared to admit that He has a heaven-given commission to declare absolution." The demand was excessive: miracle is not essential as a proof of power and right to pronounce pardon. Nathan said unto David, "The Lord hath put away thy sin," yet Nathan did no miracles. But Christ is so wishful to win even these sneering, captious foes, that He says, "That ye may know that the Son of Man hath power on earth to forgive sins, then saith he to the sick of the palsy, Rise, take up thy bed, and go to thine own house." After His resurrection Thomas was sceptical; he wished to have the evidence of two senses, sight and touch. He must see and feel or he "will not believe." In this he was quite wrong. All the world over, testimony is accepted as a sufficient ground for faith. Had Didymus believed no more than he had actually beheld and handled, his would have been a remarkably small and short creed. Happily for him, however, he had to do with a Master who thinks more of His servants' welfare than of their inconsistencies in logic. The evidence sought was granted: "Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side," and as for anything akin to excommunication or even discipline on account of heresy, all we hear of it is contained in the words, "Be not faithless, but believing." Од а certain occasion Peter exclaimed, "We have left all and followed Thee what shall we have, therefore?" Not a noble question. "Have?" Why, what had they not already? They were possessed of Christ, the sum-total of all good. We should think it foolish if the invalid who, to escape the severity of an English winter, "followed" the sunshine and warmth, gaining health thereby, asked, “What shall I have?" He has that great boon, physical strength, the main thing he just now requires. We may justly speak of Peter's as a parallel case. To have Christ as a Friend, Teacher, Saviour: oh, what would he have, if that were not enough? But Simon, like some of us, seemed to expect that religion should be rewarded in other than its own coin. I am high-principled, therefore I ought to grow rich; my heart is right with heaven, for which cause I should have few aches and pains; years and years my influence has been cast into the scale of the Gospel, so I may look out for prosperity. This, ever and anon, is our secret thought; secret, for usually we are ashamed to give it voice. Unworthy it clearly is, but observe how, mindful of his slow moral progress, the Saviour deals with Peter. In effect He replies: "Is it so, Simon? Have you done much for me, and do you therefore anticipate a secular reward? You shall have it; nor you only, for every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name's sake, shall receive a hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting life.'

God adapts His revelations to our special reeds. Think of Gideon's position. It is the night before the battle: the forces of the foe are like grasshoppers for multitude," the Hebrew army is stringently