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to afford; and as I can guess at much that you are pained to tell me, let it be as if already said, and let us think now, how, by economy and good management, we can make your dear mother and sisters most easy and happy."

"A help meet," and "a word in season," how good they are, and especially when they go together!

So, excursions of pleasure were given up; Anna instructed her little ones instead of requiring a governess, or sending them to school; she economised in the household, and did her part in the new arrangements.

It required no explanation to reconcile Mrs. Bently to her small cottage, while it was to be cheered with the presence of her children, and was just so conveniently selected that Henry might call at it every day. She knew that he was "winding up" his father's affairs, and suspected that they were not in a satisfactory condition; but she did not know that she was dependent upon her son for subsistence. Her daughters had hitherto enjoyed every indulgence, and were almost as tenderly cared for as herself; and Henry shrank, perhaps too sensitively, from permitting them to make any effort for themselves; they were feeble in health, unfit to buffet with the world, and must attend only to their mother.

But Henry's limited means became more manifest in consequence of a request made to him by her, to whom he had never denied one before. One evening in which she had provided for a private interview with her son, Mrs. Bently read to him portions of letters from his sister Laura. And what a tale of sin and wretchedness was revealed to him! The illusion at Laura's marriage was very soon dispelled, and the real character and propensities of her husband appeared. Pride for a long time withheld her from confessing the fact; but when stung and roused beyond endurance, who would listen to her wrongs like the faithful parent whose warnings she had so wilfully disregarded? Then Laura wrote; and the appeal which began for pity, soon ended in entreaties for help. And who, save her weak and disobedient self, ever expected anything better from this connection?

A young and well-dressed lady stood shivering at the door of a house, where an evening party had been given, waiting for her husband to hand her to the hired carriage which stood ready for them. At last he appeared; she sprang in, and after some evident struggles to return to

the supper room, the husband was forced into the carriage too-he had lost all control of himself-Laura was the wife of a drunkard.

Time passed-friends, business, reputation gone, by degrees. A young mother, surrounded by crying children, sat in a desolate room, while creditors carried off the furniture and possessions which she had supposed her own. Laura was forsaken for a drunken revel of many days' duration, and, but for the help of friends, must have been houseless and starved.

There was a police-office in the town, and a wife appeared at it, agitated and distracted, to ask protection from the brutal violence of her husband, who had vowed to destroy her. He was bound over to keep the peace for a year; and Laura henceforth despairing of any provision at his hands, began to work in earnest to save herself and children from the workhouse.

From time to time assistance had been sent; and, on promises of amendment, unsuccessful efforts had been made to restore the degraded man to a respectable position in society. Another appeal for means of existence induced Mrs. Bently to ask her son if it were in his power to afford it.

Duty to his own family, care for her, and a dread of involvement for himself, obliged him to say that it was not; and with a new feeling of apprehension, such as had not troubled her before, Mrs. Bently observed that care was clouding the manly face of her "boy."

Laura's cup of wretchedness was not full yet. Her children became even greater sources of trial than her husband had been; and there was scarce a phase of sin or disgrace through which they did not trace their miserable way. Their defiance of her authority began in early childhood, and ripened into threats and violence which sometimes appalled her. Instead of being in the smallest sense a source of hope or comfort, they seemed like so many evil spirits surrounding to torment her. If she had been to her mother as a chastening "whip," these were to her as "scorpions." It is no pleasure to detail such sin; but "there is a cause," and the secrets of an awful experience must sometimes render their testimony to the solemn truth of retribution : 66 They have sown the wind, and they

shall

reap the whirlwind." "Disobedient to parents," and "without natural affection,"

are some of the features of "the last days;" and no one who reads the public records, or observes the aspect of society in its family relationships, can fail to detect the spirit that is abroad in this particular at the present time. On every side we have youth assuming the importance of maturity, and resenting, the restraints of wise and watchful love. And where parents do yet firmly hold the rein, and look for respect and obedience to their heaven-derived authority, they are sneered at as slow and old-fashioned by the restive colts who would break bridle and rush headlong on their godless way.

THE GOOD SHEPHERD.*

WHAT words of comfort are those which the apostle John has recorded in the tenth chapter of his Gospel: “I am the Good Shepherd," said Christ. This is one of the many occasions on which our Lord appropriates to himself characters which are ascribed to Jehovah in the Old Testament. "Jehovah is my Shepherd," said David; "I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me." All this Christ professes to do for those who believe in him.

:

"I am the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd giveth his life for the sheep." Unlike the hireling, whose own the sheep are not, and who, when he seeth the wolf or the robber coming, thinks only of himself and fleeth, leaving the sheep to be devoured or stolen, the Good Shepherd hazards his own life in defence of his flock, and even lays it down to save them. To this day it not unfrequently happens that the leopards and panthers which prowl about the wadies of Palestine attack the flock in the presence of the shepherd, and he must be ready to do battle at a moment's warning. But never, never, has other shepherd done for his sheep what Christ has done for his. It was not in simple defence of his flock, but for its redemption, that he laid down his life. The world was perishing; the whole race had gone astray from God, and no mere

*From "Rest under the Shadow of the Great Rock." By Rev. J. Kennedy. Just published by the Religious Tract Society.

power could bring them back to God's fold and family. All entrance was closed against them by the justice which demanded that they should die. And Christ, of pure love, gave his life" for them. "All we like sheep had gone astray; we had turned every one to his own way; and the Lord laid on him the iniquity of us all."

There is a second of our Lord's sayings about the Good Shepherd which receives illustration from Eastern pastoral life. "The sheep hear the shepherd's voice: and he calleth his own sheep by name, and leadeth them out. And when he putteth forth his own sheep, he goeth before them, and the sheep follow him for they know his voice. And a stranger will they not follow, but will flee from him: for they know not the voice of strangers." Travellers tell us that this is no fanciful picture, but simple fact. "If a stranger call," says one, "the sheep stop short, lift up their heads in alarm; and if the call is repeated they turn and flee, because they know not the voice of a stranger. They are so tame and so trained that they follow their keeper with the utmost docility. He leads them forth from the fold, or from their houses in the villages, just where he pleases. They are taught to follow, and not to stray away into the unfenced fields of corn which lie so temptingly on either side. Any one that thus wanders is sure to get into trouble. The shepherd calls sharply from time to time, to remind them of his presence. They know his voice, and follow him."

A true parable this of what Christ has done and does for his followers. He has gone before them; he has trodden the path they tread; the path of duty and service, of life and death. He still goes before them. By his providence he prepares the way they have to tread, and leads them in it; by his word he instructs them how to walk so as to please God; while by his Spirit he inclines them to the good and disinclines them to the evil, strengthens them for work and comforts them in sorrow. Then let us say with one heart and voice,—

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The very next chapter of the Gospel by St. John records

the miracle of the raising of Lazarus from the dead, on which we have already remarked as full of comfort. Some of the words uttered by our Lord on this great occasion are the most joyous and heart-sustaining that have ever been heard by human ear.

Standing by the grave of Lazarus we are brought into near contact with that most dreaded thing, death. We can understand the feeling which arose in the bosom of a dying man, who, when told that death was at hand sprang from the bed on which he lay, and rushed through his chamber exclaiming, "I will not die; I will not die!" From our birth onwards we see around us a dark horizon through which our eye cannot penetrate, but through which we know that we must pass into a region of which no bodily sense and no mental power now possessed by us can give us any information. There is no remaining for ever where we are, and there is no passing into another state but through the dark cloud which bounds our horizon. And the change which we undergo in passing through this cloud is such as to fill us with many fears. We tremble. We perplex ourselves with questions which we cannot answer. We work ourselves into a state of impotent rebelliousness against our inevitable lot, a spirit whose natural but foolish language is, "I will not die; I will not die!"

"He

In these circumstances no argument which human reason can suggest will do for us what Christ's words do. that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall be live and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die." This is so wondrous a statement that we cannot accept it without asking on whose authority it is made. And when we have asked we can come to no other conclusion than that in which Mary and Martha rested, that He who made it is "the Christ, the Son of God, which should come into the world." His authority to say what death is and whither the dying go, is beyond all question. “He came forth from God." The unseen was not unseen to him. All worlds were present to his mind. And it is with profound thankfulness we accept his word as decisive. They who believe in Christ "never die." Strange, but blessed assurance! Those who have passed away from the fellowships of earth still live; they live unto God. Their life is real, though impalpable, yet not visionary. It is a life of conscious thought, of conscious affection, of conscious emotion. There has been no gap, no interval,

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