some degree, however small, be enabled to conduce to the spiritual advantage of creatures so goodly, so gentle, and now so misled and blinded.' How I love to follow him in his travels! Everything that he describes lives before me. How I like to watch him as the tear trembles in his eye at hearing one of his own blessed hymns sung far up in India, at Meerut, and sung, as he says, 'better than he had ever heard it sung before.' Then to go with him from Delhi to Bombay, from Bombay to Ceylon, where he seems to have caught the inspiration for his missionary hymn— What though the spicy breezes Blow soft o'er Ceylon's isle; Though every prospect pleases, And only man is vile.

In vain with lavish kindness

The gifts of God are strown,
The heathen in his blindness,

Bows down to wood and stone.

Can we, whose souls are lighted
With wisdom from on high,
Can we to men benighted,

The lamp of life deny ?
Salvation! oh, salvation!
The joyful sound proclaim,
Till each remotest nation

Has learnt Messiah's name.

And then to follow him to the south, the scene of his last charge, and his mysterious call to his reward. Oh that last kind, loving, truly Christian address, at Trichinopoly! How often I have read it. 'And now,' says he, 'depart in the faith and favour of the Lord; and if what you have learned and heard this day has been so far blessed as to produce a serious and lasting effect on you, let me entreat you

to remember sometimes in your prayers those ministers of Christ who now have laboured for your instruction, that we who have preached to you may not ourselves be cast away, but that it may be given to us also to walk in this present life according to the words of the gospel which we have received of the Lord, and to rejoice hereafter with you, the children of our care, in that land where the weary shall find repose, and the wicked cease from troubling; where we shall behold God as he is, and be ourselves made like unto God in innocence, and happiness, and immortality.' Blessed man! he soon found his rest after he had uttered these words. How touching it is, that story of his end! Alone in his last moment, and his happy spirit suddenly departing and leaving his body in the waters of the bath in which he had sought refreshment after his Sabbath toils. I wonder where he wrote that beautiful Sabbath hymn. I have often pictured him lying yonder, sick and weary, under the pressure of a tropical climate, still bent on his holy mission, but feeling the lack of England's Sabbath pleasures, and looking upwards in hope

Longing, gasping after home;

and then I seem to have pleasant sympathy with him; and his Lord's-day song comes with deeper pathos and richer music upon my soul as I sing it—

Thousands, O Lord of Hosts, to-day,

Within thy temple meet;

And tens of thousands throng to pay

Their homage at thy feet.

They see thy power and glory there,
Where I have seen Thee too;

They read, they hear, they join in prayer,
As I was wont to do.

They sing thy deeds as I have sung,
In sweet and solemn lays;

Were I among them, my glad tongue

Might learn new themes of praise.

For Thou art in the midst to teach,
While they look up to Thee;
And Thou hast blessings, Lord for each,
And blessings, too, for me.

Behold thy prisoner, loose my bands,

If 'tis thy gracious will;

If not, contented in thy hands,
Only be with me still.

I may not to thy courts repair,
Yet here Thou surely art;
Oh give me here a house of prayer,
Here Sabbath joys impart !

To faith reveal the things unseen,
To hope the joys unfold;

Let love, without a veil between,
Thy glory now behold.”

The closing prayer of her hymn was answered. There was an ethereal light on her face as from the unfolding visions of faith. Her eyes seemed to reflect the smile of her loving Saviour. An air of deeper stillness pervaded the little chamber, and for a time the two remained in silence-silence that was full of Sabbath peace and joy. The poor girl had been long a sufferer. A spinal affection kept her to her couch; but she was contented and happy in daily companionship with Jesus. A little table-like bracket had been fixed on the wall by her bed-side, so that she could at any time take a book from it, or regale herself with the perfume of the flowers with which she was daily supplied. On that Sunday morning her visitor saw Herbert's poems near her; she had been using it he

thought, and taking it up he said, "Do you like Herbert?"

"Oh, yes," said she, "I like him, for he makes me think, while I am enjoying the old fashion music of his verses. There is that rich old hymn for Sunday'; it always sends my thoughts back to the time when, in my childhood, I used to keep my eyes on the glorious old painted window that was over against me in the church, and, while they were singing the anthem, used to fancy that the music and the coloured light were like one another somehow. I wish I could sing that hymn; but I am never tired of saying it over to myself. Read it to me, will you?"

The hymn was read; and how full of thought and Sabbath feeling it is

O day most calm, most bright,

The fruit of this, the next world's bud,
Th' indorsement of supreme delight,
Writ by a friend, and with his blood;
The couch of time, care's balm and bay,
The week were dark but for thy light :
Thy torch doth shew the way.

The other days and Thou

Make up one man, whose face Thou art,
Knocking at heaven with thy brow:
The working days are the back part;
The burden of the week lies there,
Making the whole to stoop and bow,
Till thy release appear.

Man had straight forward gone
To endless death; but Thou dost pull
And turn us round to look on one
Whom, if we were not very dull,
We could not choose but look on still:
Since there is no place so alone,

The which He doth not fill.

Sundays the pillars are

On which heaven's palace arched lies :
The other days fill up the spare
And hollow room with vanities;
They are the fruitful beds and borders
In God's rich garden: that is bare
Which parts their ranks and orders.

The Sundays of man's life
Threaded together on time's string,
Make bracelets to adorn the wife
Of the eternal glorious King.

On Sunday heaven's gate stands ope;
Blessings are plentiful and rife,

More plentiful than hope.

And did enclose this light for his:
That, as each beast his manger knows,
Man might not of his fodder miss.
Christ has took in this piece of ground,
And made a garden there for those
Who want herbs for their wound.

The rest of our creation

Our great Redeemer did remove

With the same shake, which at his passion
Did th' earth and all things with it move,

As Samson bore the doors away,

Christ's hands though nail'd, wrought our salvation, And did unhinge that day.

The brightness of that day We sullied by our foul offence:

Wherefore that robe we cast away,

Having a new at his expense,

Whose drops of blood paid the full price,

That was required to make us gay,

And fit for paradise.

Thou art a day of mirth:

And where the week-day trails on ground,

Thy flight is higher, as thy birth: