when the prayer ceased it was felt that, as in the day of Pentecost, God's Spirit had been overshadowing the worshippers, and an "Amen" burst, as if by one consent, from every lip. And now another hymn was sung a hymn which will be dear to God's people as long as there are weary, sin-stricken, Christ-loving hearts in the world; a hymn that has been translated into scores of languages; a hymn which dying lips have essayed to sing, as being the expression of the most sacred and profoundest experience of the human soul; a hymn, in fact, which for pathos, beauty, and spiritual power stands almost alone and unrivalled. It was-" Rock of ages, cleft for me."

Just behind the group of those who had taken part in the meeting there had been drawn up a large farmer's wagon. This now served the purpose of a platform for those who were about to address the people. The wagon was speedily filled. One man rose to speak. He was followed in turn by six or seven, who successively spoke of the Lord's dealings with them in the days that were gone by, and who made strong and personal appeals to the hearers to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. They were homely, pointed, sometimes evincing a dash of humour, but solemn and earnest. After some half-dozen addresses, the speakers gave way for an old man, whom I judged to be well known, for as he rose a slight murmur passed through the crowd. His hair, somewhat thin, was quite white; his face, though wrinkled, bore on it a most pleasing expression; and, whether from excitement or from the heat of the sun, his countenance was ruddy, as if with vigorous health. He stood up in the wagon as straight as a young larch-tree, and his eye was quick and piercing. He reminded me of what I have fancied Moses was when, having lived a hundred years, his eye was not dim, nor his natural strength abated. His voice was sweet, and clear, and strong: at times it was full of pathos, proving that although old in years his heart was still young and full of feeling. He spoke in the broadest Yorkshire; and I noticed that when his words seemed to have greatest force he was using a dialect which, to a stranger, would have been wholly unintelligible. I shall not attempt to give exactly the words he uttered; but, put into plain English, he spoke somewhat as follows:

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My friends, most of you know Old Tom.' I was ninety years of age last Michaelmas, and, bless the Lord, I

It's

stand here to-day, neither lame, nor blind, nor deaf. true the storms of many a winter have tried this old tabernacle. I know it must soon be taken down, for I feel the loosing of the pegs many a time; but I know that when this tabernacle is dissolved, there is a building, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. I'm a monument to-day of God's saving and of God's preserving grace. I bless his name that he has spared me so long, and has permitted me once more to speak for him. As I've been sitting here hearing the prayers which some of you have offered up, and the words which some of you have spoken, I've felt very near to the kingdom. It's a grand sight to see you all here to-day, and to feel that the main of you have come to worship God. With the sun above us and these green fields and old hills around us, whilst that last hymn was being sung, I couldn't help feeling as if heaven must be something very like what I see and feel to-day. But I know that it'll be a grander day and a better gathering, when, with lighter hearts than any of us have felt yet, we stand, all of us, afore God's throne in glory. I say all of us, for I can't bring my mind to think of any one of you coming short of that glory. Neither you men, nor_you_women, nor any of the bairns being missing then. I spoke of lighter hearts, for they're oft-times burdened here, sometimes about money, sometimes with affliction and sorrow, but mainly I reckon with the burden of sin. My heart was once as heavy as anybody's. When I was a lad, afore any of you were born, I think the village in which I lived was the most wicked spot for many a mile round. My father and mother both died whilst I was a child, and I was left with an uncle of mine to grow up very much as I liked.

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People sometimes talk about religion being a hard thing; but I know nought so hard as the drudgery of sin. We used to think that it was an easy and merry life, but when I remember the lives my companions lived and the deaths most of 'em died, I see things in a very different light. As to our Sundays, if we were bad in the week-days, we were ten times worse then. As oft as Sunday came, it meant cock fighting, dog-racing, and bull-baiting. Ah! I've seen on many a good Sunday a bull brought out to what you know is still called the bull-ring,' nigh to the village 'green,' and fastened down, to be baited hour after hour. And when our feasts came, which you know always

come of a Sunday, we had roystering, merry-making, gluttony, and drink for many a day. Under such influences, with such companions, what wonder that I should grow up fearing neither God nor man? All the strength that God gave me-and I was as tough as leather and as strong as wire-was used in the service of the devil. And thus I lived year after year.

I'd known him

"I was a good workman. I worked for one old gentleman for years, and then I worked for his son. With all my wickedness I was faithful to that man. as a lad, he'd grown up very nigh to me; and when he became the master, after his father's death, if I loved anybody, I loved that young man ; and the young master had confidence in me. He trusted me in everything, for he knew that, whatever I was to others, I was as true to him as a 'bull-dog.' I never wronged that man of either brass, or time, or work. His father had given him an education such as very few in those days could boast of. Besides this I've heard he'd travelled into many foreign lands; and when he came back, with his handsome face, and bright eyes, and hair as black as the raven, and he himself as strong and as straight as myself, nobody could see him without admiring him from their very heart. His father left him a good name, a good business, besides money and property. I felt proud to work for such a man. often had friends visiting him at the Grange,' as they called his home, and I was generally sent for to help to look after their horses, or to do what odd jobs there might be to do. During the evening one thing I found out, that whatever else these friends were, they weren't good men. They did our master no good. Not that I thought much of that then. What with the books he read, or the companions he surrounded himself with, our master came at last to doubt whether there was a God, or a heaven, or a hell. I didn't understand much of these things then; but the master used to let words drop, so sneering, and so full of unbelief, that I couldn't help letting them sink straight into my heart, and whenever I thought of them they made me almost tremble. But whenever such thoughts came across me, I always drowned them in drink or sin."

(To be continued.)

'

He

A VILLAGE WITHOUT BREAD.

LET me tell the story as I heard it.

"It was fifty-yes, more than fifty years ago; but if I were to live another fifty years, which I know I shall not, I shall never forget that terrible time.

"It was a dear, dear year; for it was in war time-that was one thing. Another thing was, it had been a miserable harvest. The crops at best were bad; for the whole summer had been cold and wet, so that nothing had ripened properly; and when harvest time came, nothing

MAY, 1868.

F

was ready for cutting, and never would be, they said. This was bad; but to make matters worse, when the farmers did try to get in their crops, such as they were, there came such down-pourings of rain, day after day, for a whole month, that they were stopped. The end of it was that more than half the corn-I ought more rightly to say, the green straw and shrivelled-up ears-was rotting on the ground, while such as was got in was scarcely fit for human food.

"Fit or unfit, however, it had to be eaten, though the bread it made was black and heavy, and unwholesome. Dear too-oh, very dear! Such as it was, however, the poor, half-starved people were glad to get it, to keep life in them.

"Winter came; and with winter came more rain and cold sleet; then a hard frost, and, after that, heavy falls of snow which blocked up the country roads, so that for more than a week all traffic was suspended.

"There were not many houses in our village, about twenty or thirty cottages, perhaps, inhabited by poor people, and two farmhouses: this was all. It was a shutout place, very lonely. The nearest other village was four or five miles off; and we were ten miles from any town. There was one shop in the village, which was kept by my mother, who was a widow, and her trade was of a very miscellaneous character. She had a small stock of haberdashery; a small stock of grocery; a small stock of hardware and crockery; and a very large wooden bin which took up one whole side of her shop. This bin was divided into compartments: one for fine sifted flour, another for whole meal, and another for barley meal. My mother's principal business was in flour and meal and bread; for she added to her other occupations that of bread making, and, in ordinary times, this was a busy trade with her. Even at the time of which I am telling, her business was not so much affected by the scarcity as may at first be supposed, for whatever else they may be obliged to dispense with, people must have bread.

"It was a dreary winter's day. The snow was falling, and a keen north wind was drifting it as it fell. It had been snowing all night, and all the day before; and from one and another we heard, that morning, that the roads all round, in every direction, were becoming impassable.

"I hope not quite,' my mother said, rather anxiously,