form of remittances drawn from his now failing business, and sent monthly to London, in payment of the sums abstracted by him from his employer. What a drain this was upon his slender resources not even Mr. Wilson himself knew at first; for Helena took such prudent care in household expenses, so as to draw as little as possible for them, that her father missed the abstracted sum but slightly.

But by-and-by, as trade fell off more and more, the required sum was with difficulty made up, and every penny had to be thought of and considered before it was spent. Poor Helena! her trial was indeed a heavy one just now; for, in addition to the pinching and contriving that had to be exercised in all her household arrangements, she had to bear with her father's failing health and fretful complainings, besides the constant anxiety she suffered on her brother's account.

No tidings had come from him beyond one letter, which her father would neither allow her to read nor to answer; so that where he was or what he was doing-whether that one wrong step had been mourned and retraced, or whether it was but the first in a downward career of vice-she could not tell.

She had hoped that time might soften her father's heart towards his only son; but, alas! as time went on he seemed to grow more hard and relentless; and she knew that he blamed Alfred entirely for the failure of the business, which threatened soon to leave them almost penniless.

"There, I have made up the last of that hateful hushmoney," Mr. Wilson always called these monthly payments "hush-money,"—" and now I feel as though my life's work was over," he said one day, as he came in from the shop, and laid a letter on the table, which bore the address of Alfred's former employers.

Helena heaved a sigh of relief. "We shall get on now, father," she said, trying to speak cheerfully.

very

He shook his head. "I shall do little more now. I have neither spirit nor energy left, even if I had money to put into the business, and that is going as fast as it can go."

"Father, if we could only hear of Alfred, you would be better," Helena ventured to whisper.

"I have told you

Her father's face darkened instantly. never to mention that name to me,” he said.

"I shall forget

that I ever had a son, now this money is all paid."

Helena saw that it would be worse than useless to press the subject any further just now; but she resolved to watch for another opportunity, for she knew that her father's lacking energy in life was mainly owing to the disappointment he had suffered on Alfred's account, and the restraint he imposed upon himself in never speaking of him. She had some hope now, however, that as the last instalment of the money was paid, he would recover his former health and spirits, and that perhaps their business might improve as well. But alas for these hopes In a few weeks the failure that had been so long foreseen by Mr. Wilson came with a fell crash, and Helena and her father were almost penniless.

Now came the struggle for Helena; for upon her Mr. Wilson depended entirely. His energies seemed utterly to have failed him; and when she proposed their selling off part of their furniture and taking two rooms, he simply acquiesced in the proposal, without asking any questions as to how they were to live now the business was gone.

Helena, however, had thought of this. In their more prosperous days she had learned to make wax flowers, and was considered very clever at it. This she thought might be turned to account now, and she had already spoken to several friends, who promised to assist her in disposing of her work; so that she hoped by care and diligence to be able to support her father until his health was somewhat restored, and he was able to do something for himself.

But alas! as weeks and months rolled on these hopes gradually faded. Mr. Wilson seemed to have sunk into a settled melancholy, from which nothing could rouse him. Poverty, too, stared them in the face. Helena's work was not in such demand as they had anticipated, and she was often at her wits' end to know how to make ends meet.

During all this time nothing had been heard of Alfred. Helena's heart often ached to agony as she thought of him; but she was afraid to mention his name to her father now. It was evident that his' health was fast failing, and Helena felt anxious that he should understand this-understand what she so greatly feared, that his end was drawing near.

But nothing she could say concerning the forgiveness and love of God seemed to rouse him from his apathy. To all her most earnest appeals he would simply shake his head, and whisper, "Ah, but that isn't for me-that isn't for me," until Helena was ready to give up in despair.

One day, after she had been thus talking, and had received the usual answer, she went into the adjoining room, and falling on her knees, besought her heavenly Father with tears to touch the heart that seemed to be as dead as a stone to all softening influences. Before she rose from her knees her heart unconsciously breathed itself forth aloud in the words she had been taught at her mother's knee: "Our Father." At the words, Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us," she quite broke down, and finished amid sobs and tears.

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But her father had heard those last words, and as she rose from her knees he was standing beside her, gently murmuring them over.

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Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us,'-and I haven't forgiven-I can't forgive," he said.

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Oh, father, don't say that!" exclaimed Helena, throwing her arms about his neck. "Only say you will forgive poor Alfred."

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My poor boy! my poor boy!" sobbed the old man. "I'm afraid I've been hard upon him, and now it's too late to forgive him-oh, Nelly, too late to forgive."

"Oh no, father, it is not-indeed it is not," interrupted Helena. "Only forgive him from your heart, and try to think kindly and pityingly of him, and perhaps he will one day come home to receive it; and it will be so much the

more welcome to him when he hears it has been waiting for him."

There was little need to urge her father to accord his forgiveness now. The hard, relentless pride that had lain like a stone at his heart, crushing out all it's life, had been touched and melted by the finger of God, and now he longed to fold his long-lost son in his arms once more. Faith in the forgiveness of God, that had seemed impossible a short time previously, now begun to dawn slowly on the half-frozen heart. He could see and understand why it was the Divine forgiveness could not be grasped before. It was not that God was less willing to forgive-that his pardon had to be purchased by his own being first accorded; but the hard unforgiveness of his own heart would stand in the way of the reception of the Divine forgiveness.

The wish to see his son once more, so heartily shared by Helena, was gratified much sooner than either of them anticipated. A few weeks after a rough-bearded man went to the old shop to inquire for them, and was directed to their lodgings.

Helena was out when he got there; but when she returned, and saw her father with the hand of the stranger locked fast in his, something in his face reminded her of her long-lost brother, and, with a cry of joy, she was the next moment in his arms.

Alfred had suffered bitterly for his fault; but the hope of one day winning his father's forgiveness had nerved him with energy to struggle hard in the Australian diggings. He had sought and obtained the forgiveness of God long since; but he had determined not to see his father's face until he could restore all that had been lost through him, and he had succeeded in gaining more than sufficient for this purpose.

Mr. Wilson's last days were soothed and comforted by the devoted attentions of the returned and repentant prodigal. He could rejoice, too, in the assurance that his heavenly Father had forgiven him, even as he had forgiven his son.

But he could not rally from the heavy blow he had received. He gradually sank, and Helena was left an orphan. Her brother had now the bitter sorrow of feeling that his misconduct had caused his father's death. It is difficult, often impossible, entirely to put away the consequences of our misdeeds. Often when God has pardoned us, he allows the temporal punishment to remain to humble us, and make us feel how evil and how bitter a thing sin is. This was the effect upon young Wilson. Such reparation as it was in his power to make he did make. To Helena he strove to take the place of father. He walked humbly before God and man for the rest of his days.

Hard Work and Poor Pay.

v, you're right there! It is hard work, I can tell you; eight hours at a shift at the bottom of a hot coal-pit, in a three-feet seam, sometimes lying

A

on your back, and sometimes on your side, and sometimes huddled all up together, and heaving away! And it's such poor pay too! One would not care if it were better pay."

John Bell, who said this, was, as our readers may have surmised, a pitman. He was what is called a heaver—that is, one who digs out the coal from its place in the seam-in the Greenfield pit, one of our northern coal-mines. The person to whom he said it was a friend of his, or rather a man who wanted to be his friend; a man who had recently gone to work as a general smith in the colliery workshop. William Allen was a good man, scarcely better educated than most men in his trade, but with a great deal of sound common-sense. He was a sincere Christian, full of zeal for the Lord Jesus Christ, and he wanted to get everybody he could to trust and love him.

Partly actuated by a curiosity to get to know as much as he could of the underground life of his neighbours—and,