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WORD or two heard as you pass along the street may set you thinking about something quite different from what was being spoken of, perhaps much more important. The speaker may not even have known that you heard what he said, for he was speaking to some one else; yet his words may have struck

your ear, and brought many thoughts to your mind. Have you never found it so?

Words have been called "winged words." They escape from the lips, and fly hither and thither, and alight on this ear or that, as if they had wings. A word spoken in due season, how good is it !" A bad word may do untold harm. Even a trifling word, a chance word (as it would be called), may raise thoughts and feelings in those who hear little suspected by the speaker.

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Oh, she's gone to her place," said a woman standing at her door to another woman who had stopped to speak to her. It was not very difficult to guess what she meant. Perhaps the friend had stopped to ask the woman after her daughter who had been ill, or to inquire whether the girl was still at home, or something of that sort; and this was the answer, "Oh, she's gone to her place." That was all.

But a passer-by heard the words; and they made him think very seriously. Here are some of his thoughts.

This might be said when any one dies: "He has gone to his place;" or, "She has gone to her place;" not merely gone, but gone to his or her place. For every person living has a place; not only a place here, but also a place to which he will go when he dies. He will not be forgotten, or lost in a crowd. He will not be left to take his chance, to get what place he can, a good one or a bad one, as we have seen people crowding in and taking their places at some public meeting, "first come, first served." You know that even at those meetings there are often "reserved seats," each of which has a number; and no one must take it but the person for whom it is kept. That seat may well be called his seat or place. Somewhat in the same way, each person at death goes to his place, a reserved place, a place kept for him.

Reader! there is a place kept for you. You have not gone to your place yet, but you have a place, and you will go to You do not know when. No one knows that, but God. "It

is appointed unto men, once to die," and when you die, you will go to your place.

All that we know about what will happen after death we learn from the Bible, God's book. The Bible tells us there are two sorts of places-good and bad, happy and miserable. Your place will be of one sort or the other.

Judas, who betrayed Jesus, was one of the apostles. Outwardly he was one of the Lord's disciples and followers. Peter said of him, "He was numbered with us, and had obtained part of this ministry." But he was never truly the Lord's. When he had died miserably, the rest spoke of him as having gone" to his own place." The place he had among the disciples was not his; he was an intruder there, though the Lord let him be there for a time: when he perished in his sin, he went to his own place. Oh, how awful! especially when we think of what the Lord Jesus said before: "Woe unto that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It had been good for that man if he had not been born." No one can doubt where this wretched man's place was; it was among the bad and miserable.

But there were true disciples as well as false. When Jesus was going away from them, this is what He said: I go to prepare a place for you." What sort of place did He mean? Not a bad place, but a good; not miserable, but happy. For it was in the Father's house; and He Himself, their Master and Saviour, would be there. There they would see Him again, and be with Him for ever, safe and happy. These were His words besides: "And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto Myself; that where I am there ye may be also." This was His promise; His promise, not to those disciples only, but to all His true disciples. He has redeemed them by His blood; He has saved them; all their sins are blotted out; their hearts are changed; they are renewed by the Holy Ghost; when they die they do but fall asleep in Jesus. He fulfils His word; He comes for them and receives them unto Himself, and so they are ever with Him.

There are two sorts of places therefore, both spoken of in the Bible, and spoken of as awaiting certain personsallotted to them, and so belonging to them as their places. Judas had his place, the disciples had theirs. At the appointed time they went to their places, each to his own.

When you die, you too will go to a place—a place of one or the other of these two sorts, for there is no third sort-a | place that you will find ready for you, your place. If you were to die now, where would your place be? If an illness rapid and sharp, or some hidden disease, or an accident, were to cut short your life-in that moment, when the breath left your body, and you ceased to live, and you left the place which you fill in this world-in that solemn moment, what place should you go to in the next world? What do you think on this matter? What is your belief, your hope, your fear, about it?

Oh, what a question! How solemn, how important, how unspeakably important! your place for eternity, where you will be for ever—that is the question, nothing short of that. Do you care for this? Do you care for it before everything else? Is it the great concern with you?

Jesus, who told His disciples that He went to prepare a place for them, alone can take you to that place where He is, and where they are. He is the way. He is the door. His blood to wash away your sins, His spotless righteousness to cover you, this you must have, if ever you would find a place there. He calls you. He offers you all this. Listen to His call; accept His offer; believe in Him; cast yourself upon Him as your Saviour; be His. He will never turn away from one who comes to Him thus. He has a place for you, if you will seek it; a place in His salvation, in His love, among His disciples, here; a place in His kingdom of glory hereafter. "In My Father's house are many mansions. I go to prepare a place for you."

What will become of those who are not His? If He is the only Saviour, and yet not their Saviour, what must become of them? This question answers itself. Alas! there is a

place for such too. To go to that place, you need not be a Judas, you need not betray the Lord, you need not revile Him, deny Him, oppose Him. Thousands will go there who have done none of these things. Only neglect Him, that is enough. And not to believe is to neglect. There is a place prepared for each one who does not believe, as well as for each one who does. Shall such be your place, when even now the gracious Saviour calls you, and offers you pardon and life, and a place with Him where He is, "without money and without price ?"

Setting out for Heaven.

A SIMPLE STORY.

F. B.

CHAPTER II.

HERE was an old book, with curious pictures in it, which Mary remembered to have been a favourite with her mother, and sometimes her mother had

read little bits of it to her, and endeavoured to explain the pictures. The book was about a poor man who went on a long journey to find heaven; and, as far as Mary could understand, the place he set out from was very much like the place where she and her brother were living so unhappily. And sometimes the thought entered her mind that it would be a good thing for Johnny and herself to follow Christian's example-for the pilgrim's name was Christian, of course.

One day, when no one was taking any heed to the children, Mary took Johnny by the hand, and went off with him up a hill near the house. There she watched the clouds as they were flying quickly by, and a great longing to be carried away on their wings seized the child. Those clouds which seemed so near to her, and were yet so far off, were in heaven, where her mother was. She could see