think you'll be able to understand the meaning for all that. It means getting on well. Like that bush of mint there in the corner. I planted it last year, just one single shoot, and now there are a dozen. And look, there is prosperity again," said Andrew, pointing with his awl to the cornershop. "That shop was not much better than my shed ten years ago, and the man it belongs to was not any richer than I am; and now you see what a splendid place he has built, ornamented with marble and carvings and gilding, and it is all his own. Prosperity is a fine thing, if a man makes a good use of it, like Mr. Vernon there, of the Hall, who was a poor man once, and is rich now, and spends half his money in doing good to his fellow-men. But sometimes there is great danger in prosperity. A fair breeze is a fine thing for a ship with all her sails set, but there is danger of capsizing if she has not ballast enough in her hold. Some men can't stand prosperity: they have not ballast enough of good sense to know how to use it well, and so they capsize. That is what the proverb there says: 'The prosperity of fools shall destroy them.' Farmer Greenlee's eldest son was a well-doing sort of lad as long as he held his father's plough, but his uncle in the West Indies died and left him thirty thousand pounds, and that was the ruin of him. He bought a commission in the regiment I was in, and soon, for drink and all manner of folly, there was not a worse young man in the army. He gambled and betted on horse-races, and ruined his constitution with his bad ways, and spent all his fortune, and before he had left the plough ten years he died in the workhouse, destroyed by prosperity. But that man is not the greatest fool, boys, who loses only a great fortune by his folly. The greatest fool of all is the man who loses his soul, because the soul is more precious than all the world, and worldly prosperity destroys many a man's soul. He gives his heart to this world, and neglects the next. He makes gold his god, and loses his soul for it. Do you boys think it would be a good bargain for you to agree to have everything in the world

that you could wish for one day, on condition that at evening you should be beheaded? No; it would be a very bad bargain, you say, because you would be losing all your life for the pleasures of one single day. I suppose you think nobody but a fool would make a bargain of that kind. So think I. The boy would be a great fool who for one day's pleasure should sell sixty years of life; but the man is a far greater fool who, for a few years of worldly prosperity, loses eternal life. For eternity is a great word, boys. It means for ever and for ever. Why, look at that little sparrow there it has got a straw in its bill for its nest. It would take that little bird a long time to carry away all the sand on the shores of Britain, if it carried away no more than one single grain once a year. Nobody could count the years, it would be so long. But, boys," and Andrew looked up solemnly in our faces, "when all these years were passed, eternity would only be beginning. Yes, he is a fool who, for worldly prosperity, loses eternal life. His prosperity destroys him, and destroys him for ever.

"But, boys, I hear the Grammar School bell calling you. If you would grow up wise men, do not neglect your learning, and do not forget that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, and that the best of all knowledge is to know Him whom to know is life eternal."

R. R. T.

For Forgiveness.

From ANGELUS SILESIUS.

LAMB of God! Thou gift of love!
My sin and guilt who dost remove,

By all Thy shame and agony,
Thy conflict unto death for me,
Have mercy, Lord, I pray!

O Lamb! whose goodness overflows,
Whose pard'ning love no limit knows,
My slothful walk, the sins I've done
From youth till now, forgive each one,
For Thy great love, I pray.

OR nothing? That is a thought almost too great to take in. Just think how many things there are to be careful for! I will leave all those of the first importance, viz., growth in grace, power against temptation, and so on, and turn to such as concern our daily earthly need.

First; I want food, clothing, shelter, and that chief of temporal blessings, health, to enable me to enjoy all the

rest.

Then there is the work I have to do; is it a small care that lies upon me to execute that with skill and understanding?

But how can I count up all the various needs that rise before me as I survey my daily course?

And yet you say, "Be careful for nothing!" I tell you, to follow such a command, gladly as I would do it, happy as it would make me, is a sheer impossibility.

Think again. The command is from God, who in giving it conveys the assurance that He, by His care, will make your care unnecessary; He has all things in heaven and earth at His disposal, and "no good thing will He withhold from them that walk uprightly."

Do you remember, in John vi., the miracle of the five loaves and two small fishes, which in the hands of the Lord Jesus fed five thousand men?

Just consider that miracle.

We see the Lord Jesus sitting on the mountain, and His disciples around Him. While He was teaching them, He

lifted up His eyes and beheld a great company, which had followed Him out of curiosity that they might see His miracles. Filled with compassion (as He ever was), He said unto Philip, "Whence shall we buy bread, that these may eat?"

Mark the words that follow: "This He said to prove him; for He Himself knew what He would do."

You know Philip's answer to the question ?-how staggered he felt at it: "Whence, indeed!"

He was lost in perplexity, and so were all the disciples, no doubt, except (it may be) St. John.

If you read carefully St. John's Gospel, you will see that he never lost sight of the Divine character of Jesus. He "He Himself knew what He would do."

writes now,

He was not afraid of any difficulty that lay in the way of the work to be done by his Master; he was quite sure that Jesus saw through all to the end. "He knew what He would do."

Philip wondered, and, as he thought, showed the impossibility of feeding the multitude without any apparent means. Andrew, in a sort of despairing tone, says, "Here are five loaves and two small fishes-but what are they?"

Jesus took the loaves and fishes, and fed the whole company. More than that, the disciples gathered up twelve baskets of fragments that were left.

Joy and admiration must have filled the hearts of those twelve, while the multitude declared, "This is, of a truth, that prophet that should come into the world."

Now, if you will only face any difficulty, any trial, that may come upon you with this thought, "He knows all about it, and how to carry me through it," you will have the victory over all anxious fears; you will possess the blessed power of "being careful for nothing."

Here, for instance, is a most perplexing case. You have work to do which it seems quite necessary that you should do; but your own health gives way, or a member of your family falls sick, or, in some other way, your time is hindered

so that you cannot work, and you are tempted to despair. When such a cloud comes over your mind, instead of allowing it to spread and thicken, think of the words of the Evangelist," He Himself knew what He would do."

Remember that the difficulty is known to Jesus. He is watching you; He has permitted you to be tried, and will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able, but will make a way for you to escape. The end is not hidden from Him, though it is from you: you cry out with Philip, "Two hundred pennyworth of bread is not enough!" The work is as much as I am equal to under the most favourable circumstances of ease and leisure, and how can I hope to get through it thus? and you ask despairingly with Andrew, "What will five loaves and two small fishes do?"

Now, instead of giving way to such sad desponding thoughts, take the little amount of time and opportunity you can get to Jesus; put your feeble powers into His hand; say, "Ah, Lord! I bring Thee all I possess: I want to do Thy work well and faithfully; but Thou seest I cannot succeed in it with such poor means without Thy help." Do this simply and sincerely, and fear not; the work will be done to His glory and your comfort; or, if He see it better for you not to accomplish it, He will satisfy your mind that disappointment is better for you than success. It does not matter which course He takes with you; it must end well.

But don't fail to take the loaves and fishes to Him. Such energies and opportunities as you have, small and unworthy as they may seem, are to be offered without any reserve. You don't know what to do with such poor helps; but He knows what He will do. He sees the end from the beginning.

Oh, what rest comes to the troubled heart when it can take in this fact!

Do you

think it will make you indifferent as to exertion? Quite a mistake.

The seven priests that brought down the walls of Jericho