2. A good life is one that by faith conquers the temptation to illgotten gain. "Woe," says the vision, "to him that coveteth an evil covetousness to his house, that he may set his nest on high, that he may be delivered from the power of evil." The woe, be it observed, is against an "evil gain," not gain necessarily, as such, for there is a righteous getting as well as an unrighteous, and let us be careful here to distinguish between things that differ. Those who inveigh against every kind of gain know not what they say. The fact is, we are all in some way "getting," that is, if we are industrious and wise; and this faculty of acquiring is one of the most essential to our natural life. We are all getting, though our pursuits differ. One is a naturalist, and is always getting "specimens" for his cabinet or museum; another gets books till the footsteps in almost every room of his house sound muffled with the well-filled shelves; while a third, with a view to these purposes, pleads for the getting of money, backing himself up with the wisdom of Solomon, "Money answereth all things." "With money," he says, "I can secure flowers, natural curiosities, books, pictures, and delights of all sorts." I once knew a rather clever, though, in his pursuits, fickle man, who for some time gave himself to the study of the violin; when he had learned to play but indifferently well, he said, as if a bright thought had struck him, "Why should I spend so much time in this matter, when for a shilling I can listen to the best that this art affords!" "Money answereth all things." With a certain truth there is of course a fallacy here. There are some things that money will not buy. For a few shillings I can buy one of the best editions of the "Paradise Lost;" but what would I give to be able to produce a "Paradise Lost"! Still, as to this money getting, does not our Lord say, "Lay not up treasures on earth," and "Take no thought for the morrow"? Well, is there any one of you that really, as to the letter, carries this out? "Why, no, you say, "not exactly, we admit. We must take some thought, and there is a reasonable provision which a good man may make for the future; what we object to is. exactly that which some one else does. As to these words of our Lord, may we not here, as everywhere else, reverently interpret his teaching by his practice? Jesus said, "If a man smite thee on the one cheek, turn to him the other also." When Paul was smitten, he broke this precept, both in the letter and the spirit, when he said, as the hot blood mounted to his cheek, "God shall smite thee, thou whited wall;" but when Christ was smitten he taught us the true meaning of the letter, as he exemplified its spirit: "If I have spoken evil, convince me of the evil; but if well, why smitest thou me ?" Now we say also as to these precepts, "Take no thought," and "Lay up no treasure." In the Sanhedrim look at them too in the light of the Lord's practice. There was among the little community over which Christ ruled a "bag," and one appointed to bear it, and keep what was put therein-a little stock treasured, so that when occasion arose "something might be given to the poor," and also things bought for the "morrow." Sometimes, indeed, the bag, no doubt, was empty; as we may presume it to have been when a miracle was wrought to pay the tax; but the principle of reasonable care and honest gain is condemned neither by the teaching nor the practice of our Lord. While, however, we are careful to distinguish, let us not lose sight of the evil the prophet's "vision" condemns. An "evil gain" is that which is taken by force, fraud, or stratagem, from its rightful owner, as in the case of Ahab and Naboth; and an evil gain, too, is that which comes by tricks in trade, doing "what everybody does," &c. An evil gain is it, too, if you save money for your children for the future, at the expense of their present good, physical, mental, or moral; an evil gain, too, if you grow rich by withholding from God's cause, no matter how specious your plea may be. Some people tell you you will never be richer by what you keep back from the Lord. They little know how terrible God's judgments are, how many a hell is kindled upon earth by suffering a man to be "filled with his own ways"! for O my brother, in setting thy "nest so high thou hast consulted shame to thy house." "Your sin will find you out." Your goodly dwellings, your comforts, your luxuries, shall conspire against you; thus saith the plain vision of Habbakuk, "The stone shall cry out of the wall, and the beam out of the timber shall answer it." Would you be a just man, living above this evil? Then live by faith. Would you conquer the strong temptation that comes to you as an armed man? This is the victory that overcometh, even our faith. Am I speaking to some young man whom the devil is tempting to-day? Does it seem to you that at small risk of being found out you can rob your employer? Remember this sure "vision". "—it will not lie-"The stone" and "the beam" shall declare the secret thing; and remember, too, that this threatening against evil suggests the promise of grace to resist the evil, Lay hold upon that promise and live; for the just shall live by his "If this fail, the pillared firmament is rottenness, and earth's base built on stubble." 3. A good life is one that by faith conquers every form of tyranny and oppression. Here, again, most plainly speaks the vision. "Woe to him that buildeth a town with blood, and stablisheth a city by iniquity!" The oppressor may afflict the just, yea, kill him; and yet by faith he lives according to that word of the Lord, "Fear not them that kill the body." The oppressor may seek to silence the just and quench the light of their faith by false accusation, charging them with sedition, treason, heresy, and what not, as their enemies of old time, the ministers of Beelzebub, charged our Lord and his apostles. Sedition, indeed! Yes, verily, the Bible is a seditious book, and missionaries, at least as to the issue of their work, must, by God's help, continue to be seditious men wherever towns are built in blood, and cities stablished in iniquity. When despotism in its madness rules, the introduction of the Bible is as dangerous to the despotic throne as gunpowder to a rock; but when kings, and all that are in authority, will bow themselves to the Highest, and so reflect his righteous rule that men may see that the powers that be are ordained of God, then they too shall live by their faith, and their thrones be established in righteousness. A life of faith, moreover, is as much opposed to tyranny in the Church as in the State. Popery must fall as faith rises. Not the popery of Rome merely, but of all churches wherever in any measure it is. And can we affirm, concerning any church, its absolute freedom from the popish spirit! Were the apostles themselves at all times free from it? Was there not, while they sat round the table of the Last Supper, and beneath the impending shadow of the Cross, a strife among them as to which should be greatest? "Our Master is to be taken from us, which of us shall be master in his stead ?" Is not this popery? Does not the pope claim to be Christ's vicar? Does popery consist, as some seem vainly to imagine, in mere external forms and ceremonies; in incense and altars, dresses, flowers, painted windows, music, and such like? I think not. These are but its outer edges, fringes, and tassels; the gilding of the bitter pill, not the pill itself. The essential nature of popery is in any one man, or body of men, presuming to have dominion over the faith of others. "One is our master, even Christ;" and if we are just men, and live by our faith, we shall neither call any man master nor be so called ourselves. 4. A good life is one that by the power of faith allures others to goodness. See how solemnly the prophet's vision speaks of those who seduce to evil. "Woe unto him that giveth his neighbour drink, that puttest thy bottle to him, and makest him drunken.' It is a woe, I fear, that must in some measure fall upon our social life. In some society the customs of the table are at once seductive, treacherous, and tyrannous. To make one's neighbour drunk, for the first time in hist life, is, in some instances, accounted a capital joke; and when there is no such foul intention, you have sometimes seen hospitality, in the form of some choice vintage, imperiously urged by an old man, who will not take no for an answer, upon a young man, who, at first resisting, is finally drawn into folly and sin. Or when some great scandal has arisen because one has fallen in high places, then the sacred rites of hospitality have been violated, and he who has been to his "neighbour" the strongest tempter and the greatest sinner, has been the first to mutter the scandal and to point the scornful finger. Woe! woe! unto him, saith the vision; and let us who see it strive to make it plain. You may, of course, expand this thought till it shall include all forms of evil by which men are seduced into the path of the destroyer; but let us remember that if there is a "woe" upon those who seduce to sin, there is a blessing on those who allure to holiness. If I would, for myself, realize this blessing, I must live a good life; it is not enough that I preach, I must practise also; and I can only live a good life in proportion as I live by faith. Faith in the tender love of the infinite Father; absolute belief in his gracious word, that he willeth not the death of a sinner; faith in the precious sacrifice of his dear Son; an unfaltering trust in his gracious word, "I if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto me;" and faith in the presence and power of the Holy Ghost, the Comforter:-this shall inspire me with the wisdom that belongeth to him who by God's grace "winneth souls." Newport. Tales and Sketches. KATE FRASER. A SKETCH. Or the many interesting landsapes which lie scattered among the Grimpians, one of the most interesting is the Vale of Rannoch, in the Highlands of Perthshire. In the middle of the valley, a lake, twelve miles in length, fresh and pure as the dew of the morning, lies laughing under the sunbeams in the safe embrace of its parent mountains. At a point near the eastern end of the valley, rugged rocks, around whose giddy summits hawks and ravens are seen constantly wheeling, rise almost perpendicularly to a height of several hundreds of feet. Away farther on, to the left, is the Black Wood, still dense and flourishing, a remnant of the ancient forest of Caledonia. And still farther on, at the western end of the valley, beyond miles of uneven ground, thickly strewn with huge boulders of granite, lies the far-famed Moor of Rannoch, which, for extent and awful solitude, is without a parallel in Britain. And, overlooking the whole scene, at the eastern extremity, stands the lofty, "cloud-capped" Shiechallion, one of the highest peaks of the Grampian range. About a mile from the foot of this mountain, and on the other side of the valley, Kate Fraser, the subject of the following sketch, was born in the year 1789; and there she still lives. But to poor Kate all the beauty and the grandeur, so lavishly strewn around, were destined to exist in vain, For from her cradle she had never seen Soul-cbeering sunbeams or wild nature's green." At the early age of four years she was totally deprived of sight by small-pox; so that all which she knows from experience about vision is that she has a very faint recollection of having seen the sun. While yet but young she was left alone with her widowed father, who, though a kind, attentive parent, does not appear to have manifested any particular concern for the spiritual welfare of his daughter. So Kate grew up quite careless about her soul's salvation. In her twenty-third year she was aroused to an abiding sense of her need of a Saviour, while hearing a sermon from the words, "O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee." She went home in deep distress of soul; but it was not till more than six months after that she found peace in the blood and righteousness of the Lord Jesus. Here, then, was a young woman, who, being both poor and blind, could necessarily derive but a very limited amount of pleasure from the things of this world. Let us now see what religion could do for such a one; and what she could do for her religion. Having before her conversion embraced the principles of the Baptists, she very soon after owned her Saviour as her Exemplar and King by being immersed, upon a profession of her faith, in the name of the Three-one God. At that time the Rannoch Baptist church met at a village situated at a distance of eleven miles from Kate's dwelling. And-which should make many a professor blush-such was her relish for the means of grace, that for four years-a few weeks excepted-she actually walked thither and back every Lord's-day; thus performing a weekly journey of twenty-two miles. Upon leaving the village E above referred to, the church met at a distance of six miles from Kate's residence. And until a comparatively recent period she groped her way to and from the place of worship every Sabbath. But to return. Like every new-born spiritual child, she now ardently desired the sincere milk of the word, that she might grow thereby. But how was her desire to be gratified? The following was her plan. She invited such of the village children as could read Gaelic (for to this day she does not understand one sentence in English) to come to her residence every evening in order to read a portion of Scripture. But to satisfy Kate's spiritual appetite proved to be no light task. A chapter or two she would not deem at all sufficient; but, as a rule, the reader was expected to peruse no fewer than twenty-seven or twenty-eight. In this manner she soon got her mind richly furnished with the best material for meditation. And possessing, like most blind people, a very retentive memory, she soon came to be almost thoroughly acquainted with the whole compass of Revelation. In the New Testament, in particular, she was so much at home, that she could tell the chapter and often the verse of the Gospel or Epistle at which any given text was to be found. And to the present day, although her memory has become considerably impaired, she is far in advance, in her knowledge of Scripture, of many a professor of religion whose ignorance is altogether inexcusable. Besides this, being a pretty good singer, she learnt almost all the Gaelic hymns which were then in circulation; and until very recently she sedulously continued to add to her store. AItogether she has about eighty long pieces, one of them containing no fewer than eighty-five double verses. In order to keep them fresh upon her memory, she had the whole stock 66 divided into three sections, and, while engaged at her spinning-wheel at which she was a good hand, it was her custom to sing a section every day. She thus spent the day speaking unto herself in psalms and hymns, and spiritual songs singing and making melody unto the Lord in her heart." And to the present day, should one listen at the door of the humble dwelling in which she has lived alone ever since her father's death, Kate will infalli bly be heard singing a hymn, engaged in prayer, or else talking with herself upon some portion of Scripture. When engaged in the lastmentioned exercise it is somewhat amusing to observe her manner if she happens to stumble upon a diffculty. She knits her brows, contracts her features, and repeats at short intervals the perplexing text, now in a whisper, then quite audibly; and during the intervals she is heard to utter a Gaelic ejaculation, indicative of dissatisfaction, corre sponding almost in sense and sound to the English Umph!" But whenever she begins to enter into the meaning of the passage, her features gradually relax, a smile is seen forming on her lips, and at last there comes a half-suppressed "Aha!" 66 Her mind seems to be constantly engaged about spiritual things. From her we verily believe that the greedy Cæsar gets but his bare dues. She converses about temporal matters only as a matter of duty, and only for a very limited time; for, viewing everything, as she does, from a spiritual stand-point, she soon discovers in any subject which may be introduced something which leads her back into her own element. And should the conversation not be "profitable," to use her own word, it will soon be quite apparent that Kate has fallen upon a theme of her own. She loses all interest in the company, gradually becomes quite absorbed in and |