have nothing to demand, but every thing to beg at a throne of grace. Salvation is all of grace. "Except e be converted, and become as little children, ye shall in no wise enter the kingdom of heaven."

THE HIGHLAND SERVANT

GIRL.

ABOUT the middle of the last century the part of the Scottish Highlands

has Ross-shire, was favoured with dass of ministers remarkable for their personal godliness and for the Wonderful results of their labours. One of them was Mr. Hector McPhail, of Resolis. The story of one version, some years after he had been erdained pastor, is one of singular interest, but it is too long to be given in this article.

con

Mr. McPhail was once going up to Edinburgh to attend the General AsRembly, of which he was a member, and in the course of his journey stopped for the night at a Highland country mn. As he made it an invariable rule

have family worship wherever he chanced to rest, whether in a public or private house, the household was, of rse, on this occasion, summoned ether for this purpose. Mr. McPhail ked round the group and asked if every inmate of the family was present. The landlord answered this inquiry in the affirmative.

"All" inquired Mr. McPhail. "Yes," replied the host, 66 we are all here; there is a little lassie in the kitchen, but we never think of asking her in."

"Then," said Mr. McPhail, "call the lassie in; and we will wait till

comes."

The landlord urged that she was dirty that she was not fit to be . But no excuse. The servant Lassie had a soul-"a very precious e," said the minister; "and if she not usually summoned to family ship, all the more need of her Jing in it now." So in she came. After the exercises were concluded,

Mr. McPhail called the little girl aside, and questioned her about her soul and her eternal interests, and found her in a state of most deplorable ignorance. "Who made you?" asked the minister.

"I do not know."

"Do you know that you have a soul ?"

"No. I never heard that I had one. -What is a soul ?"

"Do you ever pray?"

"I don't know what you mean.' "Well," said he, I am on my way to Edinburgh, and when I come back I will bring you a little neckerchief if you will promise to say a prayer which I will teach you; it is very short; there are only four words in it: 'Lord, show me myself.' If you engage to repeat this, night and morning, I will not forget to bring you the present."

The little girl, of course, readily gave the promise to perform the easy condition which would secure for her an object so valuable, and, to her,

so rare.

Mr. McPhail went his way to Edinburgh, and was busily occupied with the meetings of the Assembly, and in executing a multitude of commissions with which he had been charged by the friends at home, but he did not fail to keep in mind the little neckerchief for the poor little Highland lassie. On his journey homeward he again stopped for the night at the Highland inn, and again summoned its inmates to gather for worship. The servantmaid, however, did not appear, and to the inquiry of Mr. McPhail respecting the cause of her absence, the hostess replied:

Indeed, sir, she has been of little use since you were here; she has done nothing but sit and cry night and day; and now she is so weak and exhausted she cannot rise from her bed."

"My good woman," exclaimed Mr. McPhail, at once divining the reason of her grief, let me see the girl immediately."

He was conducted to a wretched hole beneath the stairs, where the poor little

creature lay upon a straw bed, the picture of mental agony and spiritual distress.

"Well, my child," said he to her in affectionate tones, "here is the neckerchief I have brought you from Edinburgh. I hope you have done what you promised, and said the prayer I taught you?"

"Oh no, no," she answered, "I can never take your present. A dear gift it has been to me. You taught me a prayer which God has answered in an awful way. He has shown me myself, and, oh, what an awful sight it is! Minister, minister, what shall I do ?"

Now, let us pause here a moment to ask how this fact, the truth of which is beyond dispute, is to be explained by the class of theologians who style themselves " liberal," and who deny that there is any special agency in the conversion of sinners? How did that poor Highland servant-maid, within the short space of two weeks, attain that "awful" self-knowledge? Mr. McPhail doubtless gave her some little insight into the meaning of the prayer he had taught her, but beyond this slight help she had no means of learning unless she was taught by the Spirit of Light and Life. She could not read, and in that careless household not a soul sympathized with her in the least.

Mr. McPhail opened to the poor distressed girl the Gospel method of salvation, the unsearchable riches of Christ, and closed by giving her another short prayer of four words. It was this: "Lord show me thyself." The next morning he started for his home.

Many years passed, when one day a matronly-looking woman was ushered into the good and now venerable pastor's study, who, with modest air, said to him: "You will scarcely know me, Mr. McPhail." He was obliged to reply that he could not recognize her.

66 Do you remember a little servantmaid in -inn ?"

THE BOY THAT LOVED HI MOTHER.

FOR THE YOUNG.

SOMETIMES, when I have been vi ing sick people, I have seen a lit girl watching beside her mother's b and arranging her pillows, or steali about on tiptoe to fetch anything wanted, so fearful lest she should d turb her, and make her head ac But more interesting still it is to se little boy fulfilling such kind offices he can do for a dear sick moth Nursing is part of a woman's wo and God gives her, for the most p even in childhood, a gentle hand an quiet step, to point out the work means her to do. But boys are mo noisy and thoughtless; so that I th it is much harder work for them control their high spirits, and cr about in a sick room.

First of all, you must know that a small town of France, about a h dred years ago, there lived a mi He was a man who loved money much that he denied himself the co mon necessaries of life in order to s it. A miserable, unhappy man Master Lombard; for that was name. He was by trade a chem and he made a great deal of mon but he lived just like a beggar. had no wife nor children, friends; he never showed anybody kindness.

nor e

At night, when he shut up his sh

f

e would sit by the smallest scrap of re, and eat a dry crust for his supper; ben he would bring out his gold ces, and count them over and over himself. Alas! of what use were hey, hoarded up like that? I think if laster Lombard had ever tried the elight of doing good to others with En one of those gold pieces, he would have found counting them up a very par pleasure in comparison. But he he did try it; he never gave anything away; he never made anybody any happier. I do not know whether he ever read the blessed Bible words, "He that hath pity upon the poor hendeth to the Lord, and that which he ayeth out will He pay him again." If he did, they never reached his heart. He lent money to other people, to bring him in a profit, but he never tried the better profit of lending it to

the Lord.

One cold winter's night he was tting as usual in his back parlour, ald and shivering, with nothing in all the world to comfort him but his bags of gold, when he heard a knock at the water door. He did not trouble himself to get up to answer it at first, for he thought perhaps it was only a foolish boy playing him a trick, and that if it really were a customer he would knock again. Presently the knock did come gain, and then Master Lombard slowly fose from his seat, passed through the hop, unbarred the door, and looked nt into the street. The ground was vered with snow, and all was still and silent; so that he was about to close the door again, angry at having been disturbed for nothing, when a thinly-clad boy stepped out of the hadow of the doorway.

Please you, good Master Lombard, it is me."

"Me! and who dares disturb me at this time of night? Who says I never ve to those who want? They speak ale. You want a thrashing, and you shall have it," and he seized the trembling child to fulfil his threat.

He struggled from his grasp, and again began to tell

"Please, Master Lombard, I only want some medicine for mother." Lombard would again have interrupted him, but he continued, "She is ill, sir-she is dying, partly for want of food; but this medicine may save her, if you will only give it to me. Look, it is in Latin, but you can read it."

The apothecary took the paper from the boy's hand, and, stepping back into the shop, put on his spectacles to read it. When he had finished, the boy told of his mother's affliction, and asked anxiously whether the remedy were a good one.

Yes," said Lombard, "the remedy is good, but it is dear; it will cost a good deal of money."

66

Oh, what shall I do, for I have only fivepence?" and the boy thought of his sick and dying mother with an agony of distress.

The miser looked on in cold unconcern. Well does the Bible say, The love of money is the root of all evil." He had gold in plenty, but he never thought of giving it to save a fellowcreature's life. It is no affair of mine," muttered he.

"Oh, if you will only let me have the medicine," again sighed the child.

"Bring the money and you shall have it, but not a drop without, I tell you," was the hard reply.

66

Oh, Master Lombard, give me but the medicine for my mother, and I will be your servant, your slave; I will work for you night and day; I will do anything, go anywhere-only save my mother."

The hard and cruel miser began to relent.

"I want a boy," he thought to himself; "I know this one to be steady and clever; I can work him hard, feed him little; it would answer my purpose. Yes, I will take the boy-I might have done worse;" and having come to this conclusion, he made up the medicine, and then returned to his cold, solitary parlour, to meditate over his bargain.

The grateful boy meanwhile has

tened home to his mother. He gave her the coveted draught, which had cost him so much to earn, and then all through the night he watched beside the sick-bed. It was cold and cheerless; but what mattered that? Others were sleeping, he was watching; others had comforts around them, he had none; but he cared not; his whole soul was absorbed in the one hope for his mother's life; and if that was spared to him, all else seemed as nothing. His brave young heart rose, even in the prospect of the difficult path to which he had bound himself, if only God would spare his mother.

And God did reward such love as this. When the morning dawned, she opened her eyes, she spoke to him, she was better; the medicine had worked its desired end. When she was well enough to hear his story, how sad and grieved she was to hear of the hard lot before him, and yet how she thanked God for having given her such a son! She was a widow, in sickness and poverty, yet how rich she felt in the possession of this better gift than worldly goods!

In due time she recovered, and the boy entered upon his duties at Lombard's shop. Hard indeed they were, and very difficult he was to please; the food was bad, the lodging worse, yet he never complained; and more than this, he prospered. The lad was

clever God had given him talents: better still, he was painstaking and industrious. As the years passed on, he grew rapidly in knowledge, and in the good opinion of others; so that at last the poor, fatherless boy, the miser's apprentice, became a wealty and a celebrated man, the chemist Parmentier.

God does fulfil His own promises. and even in this world reward and prosper those who honour their parents. There is only one commandment to which an earthly reward is attached; and when God promises, w may be quite sure he means what he says: "Honour thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee." Not that length days may be exactly the shape the blessing may take to us; you know to the Jew length of days was the very best of earthly blessings, because each one hoped he might, by living a long time, see the promised Messiah; and so God in this commandment graciously appeals to this very feeling in their heart. But to us it is different, and it does not follow that the blessing will come to us in the form of lon life; but in some way God will show that He is especially pleased with thos who love and honour their father and mother.

FAITHFUL IN OUR LOT. MANY fill their life with regrets for being confined to such a narrow sphere of usefulness. If they only were in the ministerial cffice, or had millions of money, they would do so and so; but what can an ordinary labourer, a poor Sunday-school teacher, accomplish?

Friend, be content to serve God where he has placed you; for there precisely you can accomplish the

most. It is better to make the best of what you have than to fret and p for what you have not. The man with one talent is never accountable for Ev But for his one he must give as strict an account as the other for his five. It may require more humility to husban one talent than five, and so far as the improvement or misimprovement of either is concerned, they are both equally important in the sight of God.

The king's million and the widow's te are worth the same with the Eternal. And under the direction of I who multiplied the widow's oil nd the seven loaves, the widow's ute can be magnified into a million; and when He withholds a blessing the aion becomes a mite. According to the arithmetic of heaven the servantgs shilling and the mechanic's

-piece are worth fully as much as the thousands of a millionaire. But the the mite must be given laden

the benediction of faith. No gift iso small for the great and alipossessing God to receive, who, for rakes, became poor, that He ht make us rich. But the gift st be as God has prospered us." When Ananias and Sapphira give only rze mite, God will curse them. penitent and rich Zaccheus gave half his goods to feed the poor; and the poor woman who had nought but tears with which to bedew the Saviour's feet, ve an offering more precious than its of gold.

The

What God requires is faithfulness to that which he has entrusted to us. A or man is responsible for the little. his poverty, and sins if he withhold mite. The Church needs the gifts the poor; the gifts of the industrial nd labouring classes. She needs the Auence of those who think they have influence. She needs the symties and prayers of those who can ly stammer out of their sin-bured hearts, "God be merciful to me anner." The most fertile summer wers are composed of unpretending drops. Water-spouts are far less eficial than the steady, soaking, seless rain.