But still thy law and gospel, Lord,
Have lessons more divine:

Not earth stands firmer than thy word,
Nor stars so nobly shine.

Thy Word is everlasting truth,

How pure is ev'ry page;

That holy book shall guide our youth,

And well support our age.

While from yon lowly roof, whose curling smoke
O'ermounts the mist, is heard, at intervals,
The voice of psalms, the simple song of praise."

OW certainly the outside world sometimes answers to the condition of our inner life! The face of creation seems troubled when our souls are uneasy. Signs of sorrow appear around us when our hearts are distressed. All music is discord when we ourselves are out of tune; and all forms are rugged, all outlines harsh, when irregularities and unlovely tempers are taking unholy shapes in our own inward selves. But all forms of creation become lines of beauty, all shapes make themselves agreeable, all sounds harmonize, and all influences are calm, when our souls are conformed to God's will, when we enjoy the repose of a spiritual Sabbath." These were the thoughts of a pilgrim who had lived and journeyed till he had seen all the companions of his earlier course drop off from the road, and who had learned to turn with tremulous delight towards anything in nature that

seemed to wear an expression of sympathy with him in his loneliness. Hills, rocks, valleys, and waters, flowers and all tiny forms of beauty, he had become happily familiar with; and friendship with nature, in his case, was so akin to friendship with "the God of all grace," that they seemed to blend their influences for his pleasure, and to act by turns as a sort of brotherhood on his behalf. He was sometimes far away from the Sabbath assemblies of God's people; but everything in the outer world at such times tendered its sympathies, and offered its ministrations, and joined him in the celebration of his Sunday service. So it was one Sunday morning, as he went quietly but with buoyant footsteps over the soft, turfy undulations which, like the waves of a quietly-subsiding sea, sank from the hills of the coast down to the low cliff, and formed the marshy lawn-like approach to a lone cottage, which looked out upon the waters of the Atlantic. Every step brought up fragrance from the crushed camomile or the wild thyme. No breeze disturbed the sea. There was something solemnly calm in the very sunlight. "Nature feels her Sabbath," said he to himself, "and is still; but my undertoned music will only deepen her stillness;" and then, as he went, his steps kept tune with his low chant, as he sang a charming hymn, which in that day was just beginning to float about in a few private circles of religious life

Hail, thou bright and sacred morn,
Risen with gladness in thy beams!
Light, which not of earth is born,

From thy dawn in glory stream:
Airs of heaven are breath'd around,
And each place is holy ground.

Sad and weary were our way,

Fainting oft beneath our load, But for thee, thou blessed day,

Resting-place on life's rough road! Here flow forth the streams of grace, Strengthened hence we run the race.

Great Creator, who this day

From thy perfect work didst rest,
By the souls that own thy sway,
Hallow'd be its hours, and blest;
Cares of earth aside be thrown,
This day given to heaven alone!

Saviour! who this day didst break
The dark prison of the tomb;
Bid my slumbering soul awake,
Shine through all its sin and gloom:
Let me, from my bonds set free,
Rise from sin, and live to Thee!

Blessed Spirit! Comforter!

Sent this day from Christ on high; Lord, on me thy gifts confer,

Cleanse, illumine, sanctify: All Thine influence shed abroad, Lead me to the truth of God!

Soon, too soon, the sweet repose
Of this day of God will cease;
Soon this glimpse of heaven will close,
Vanish soon the hours of peace,

Soon return the toil, the strife,

All the weariness of life.

But the rest which yet remains

For thy people, Lord, above, Knows nor change, nor fears, nor pains,

Endless as their Saviour's love:

Oh, may every Sabbath here

Bring us to that rest more near!

The last line still lingered on his lips as he entered the cottage.

"Ah! you were singing," said a young woman who was lying on a couch, so placed that she could look out upon the ocean; "you were singing. Well, I do not wonder at that, for who could help singing on a morning like this? Does not all nature seem to feel its Sabbath hush and its Sabbath joy ?"

"That was the very thought which moved me to sing," was the reply; “and I was indulging in that sort of inward murmur of which the psalmist speaks as one of his devotional pleasures. I was murmuring the praise which seemed to rise with a kind of naturalness from my quiet heart, and Mrs. Lyte's beautiful hymn appeared to be my best form of expression.”

"That is rather remarkable," said the young sufferer, with a smile that told the whole story of her long discipline of affliction, and the peaceful submission and patience which she had learnt in the process of her trial. "Just before you came in I was humming to myself that sweet Sabbath hymn by Bishop Heber. How often some of his hymns rise within my soul, as if the hand of my Redeemer had touched all the musical chords within me! I sing them to myself, while the sea is whispering and roaring by turns on the beach; and then I look on the waters as I lie here, and love to think of that cultivated and gifted man crossing the deep under the constraining power of his Redeemer's love, and gladly sacrificing all the comforts and honours of his native island for the joy of proclaiming peace to the multitudes of India. I think of him, gentleman, poet, scholar, theologian, as he was, going out to live and die amidst the idolatrous millions of that vast old country, that he might, as he said, “in