When in the sultry glebe I faint,
Or on the thirsty mountain pant;
To fertile vales and dewy meads
My weary wandering steps He leads;
Where peaceful rivers, soft and slow,
Amid the verdant landscape flow.

Though in a bare and rugged way,
Through devious, lonely wilds I stray;
Thy bounty shall my wants beguile;
The barren wilderness shall smile,
With sudden greens and herbage crowned,
And streams shall murmur all around.

Though in the paths of death I tread,
With gloomy horrors overspread,
My steadfast heart shall fear no ill,
For Thou, O Lord, art with me still :
Thy friendly crook shall give me aid,
And guide me through the dreadful shade.

The Beatitudes.

THE BEATITUDES.

ST. MATT. v, 1-12.

IN Galilee, near the Lake of Gennesaret, by which Jesus so often walked, is an open plain, and rising from it a low pointed hill. When Jesus was teaching in Galilee, in the springtime of the first year of Hi ministry, the fame of His miracles brought so many people round Him, that the plain was filled with the multitude.

Jesus went up the hill-side and sat down, with His disciples gathering round Him. There, among the fields of grain, the vines and olives of Palestine, in sight of the blue

waters of Gennesaret, Jesus preached that wonderful discourse which we call "The Sermon on the Mount," and which is written for us in St. Matt. v, vi, vii, and St. Luke vi, 20, 49.

Our Lord began His sermon by pronouncing eight special blessings on eight classes among His followers, and it is these eight blessings, Beatitudes as they are generally called, which we are now about to examine. It must be very interesting and important for us to know who it is that are thus blessed by God, and how we can gain such blessings for ourselves.

The Beatitudes are here placed in the order in which they were pronounced; a little story or illustration following each, which may help you to see more clearly to whom Jesus promised these great blessings.