before, and he now announces it as a prophecy: "they will hear." The ministry that fails with some succeeds with others. Is it to fail with you? Is it to fail with you? Pray for a sensitive conscience; a conscience that will be tender as the eye that closes its lids against an atom of dust. Pray to be made of quick understanding in the fear of the Lord. "To-day, if ye will hear His voice, harden not your hearts." Swansea. TRUSTING. FOR THE YOUNG I'm not going to tell you a very dren were already paddling in the long story this week, children; but water when Nannie jumped out of because it is such warm weather bed to look out of the window. I want to make you all cool by Very soon she was with them, taking you down with me to the dashing the water over her red sea-shore, where Nannie Brigham bathing-dress; and, after a ducking has been spending her summer. or two from a larger wave than usual, she hurried to dress, to be in time for breakfast in the low, bare room that looked out on the water, where her father and mother were waiting for her. * * * * * The next day was Sunday-a day that Nannie loved very much, because papa was always there and they would have, with mamma, a long quiet morning on the sand, After a stroll along the shore, where papa would read a part of Nannie sat down on a large stone the service; and after that they near the water to learn-as she would sing hymns, with only the always did every Sunday, now that sea-gulls to listen to them; and she was old enough-a lesson in the usually after that mamma and her Catechism; and this pleasant mornfather had a long, quiet talk, while ing it was particularly hard work, Nannie poked about among the with the water calling to her, and stones for jelly-fish, or perhaps dancing up and down right in her went asleep on a shawl under papa's very face. The lesson was, "What umbrella. After that, in the after- is thy duty toward God?" and noon, papa would take them on long sails over the water to the lighthouse on the island that lay out of sight around the headland, coming home sometimes just as the moon was rising out of the water. Such lovely days! No wonder Nannie woke up early to think about the nice time she was going to have the morning after her father had found her standing in the water. It was a beautiful morning, with plenty of sunshine out of doors; and all the fishing-boats were drawn up on the sand with the nets in them, and half a dozen little chil somehow the words would not stay in her mind, but danced about much as the waves did, and so mixed themselves up that her father shook his head just as gravely over the third repeating as over the first, for Nannie had quite left out, "To put my whole trust in Him." "You have left out a very important part, Nannie," her father said, when she took her book back for the third time with a very cloudy face. "To put my whole trust in Him.' Do you know just how much that means?" "No, papa; only that we must believe what God says." "That is a very small part of the meaning, dear, and would come under the head of belief. To put one's whole trust in a person is to believe that whatever they may do, no matter how strange it may seem to us, no matter if it seems in our eyes that what they are doing for us or to us can only harm us, if we only feel perfectly sure that they know best; that God knows exactly what is best for us, and even if He sends us great pain to bear, or perhaps makes us lame or terribly deformed for life, we must try with all our hearts to say, 'I'm sure God knows best; and if we do exactly as He wishes us to, we will be safe." There was a puzzled look on Nannie's face as she began studying the long question for the fourth time; and when at last she had repeated it without a single mistake, Mr. Brigham said "I don't believe, little blossom, that you understood my explanation very well; so I'll tell you a story about your aunt Nannie. -something that happened to her when she was a little girl no older than my Nannie-and how she learned to trust in God, that He would help her, and after Him in her earthly father.' Papa's stories were always a great treat, and particularly any about the dear aunt Nannie, of whom there was nothing left in this world now but a lovely, sunny, laughing picture, that hung in her mother's room at home. "Nannie and I were always together when we were little thingstwins, people used to call us, though there was nearly two years' difference in our ages; and some of the very pleasantest days of my life, it seems to me, were spent in rambles over the rocks with her for shells and seaweeds and curious finny treasures at the sea-shore. Not such a quiet place as this, with its sands and gentle surf, but a wild place over the water on the coast of Normandy, where the rocks were rough and steep, and the tides came in with a rush and a roar that warned people to run for their lives if they would save themselves from the terrible death of drowning. "One Sunday-it seems no longer ago than yesterday-Nannie and I had taken our Prayer-books to a quiet nook in the rocks, high up above the water, to learn this very same lesson, and repeat it to our father after dinner that evening. We found it about as tough a lesson to learn as you have, dearie, and Nannie shook her beautiful golden head very soberly over my blunders a good many times before I had it perfectly." "Just as you did at me this morning, papa." "Did I?" with a soft kiss on the lids of the great blue eyes looking up in his fuce.. "Well, to go on. After I had heard her perfect lesson-Nannie's lessons were always perfect-she said, in a half-whisper, as if she were almost afraid to hear her own words spoken, 'Papa says that to trust God means to believe that He knows just exactly what is best for us, and that even if He does let good and bad things happen, it is because He knows we need them. Now, do you suppose,' going very near the edge of the rock, and looking down into the dizzy depth below, that if I fell over there it would be best for me? I don't; I think it would be very unkind in God to let me.' "But if I pushed you over, then He wouldn't have anything to do with it.' And as I spoke, just in fun I gave my sister a little push only in fun, for no one ever loved Nannie better than I did, and no one can ever know the awful horror that came over me, little boy that I was, when I saw that, the place pery with moss, Nannie's feet were sliding from under her, and when, after a frantic clutch at me-at a little bush growing near, but whose tiny roots came up in her handNannie slid out of my sight, and I could only think she had fallen hundreds of feet into the water below. where she was standing being slip- | brave, and if she had not given me courage to move by feeling so sure that God would keep her safe till help came, I could never have found strength to move away from that dreadful spot, for I was such a little fellow, and not very strong; but as it was, her brave words helped me to scramble into the road on the heights, and fly down the road toward the village. In God's mercy, because He was not willing any harm should come to my little sister, and because her time to go home to heaven had not come yet, I saw coming slowly toward me two men, who, when they saw me running toward them without any hat, and looking, I am sure, wild and white with fear, quickened their steps, and ran toward me, till I saw that it was my father and a friend who were out for an afternoon stroll along the shore. "How long a time it was before I heard her voice again calling to me from below I'm sure I cannot tell, but it could have been only a very few seconds, though it seemed ages of horror to me since I had, as I thought, killed my sister. In a moment I had crawled to the edge of the rock, and, looking over the edge, I saw Nannie hanging by a slender, very slender branch of a tiny evergreen tree that grew out of a crevice of the rocks directly over the water. She had slid from where I was kneeling down over the side of a moss-covered bank to the rock below, so fast that she had not been able to stop herself till, at the last moment, she had managed to get hold of the little tree, and found strength enough to call to me. "But what could I do? for the tiny branch threatened to give way every moment, and if I had started down after her, it would only have been to slip myself, and carry her with me into the ocean. I could even see her face, for she was hanging on her side, and the least movement seemed to weaken her only hope more and more. "Nannie,' I screamed, 'I'm right here. What shall I do? Oh, you're killed, and I did it!' as "What is it?' my father called soon as he recognised me. Where is Nannie? What has happened?' "I have no idea what my answer was, for black spots were dancing before my eyes by this time, and I fell all in a heap by the roadside, unable to think or stir for a few moments; but whatever it was, it was quite enough to send my father toward the rocks, while his friend ran back toward the village for ropes and help. And when my senses began to come back to me again, I could only repeat over and over to myself, She's trusting in God; she's trusting in God!' "When my father reached Nannie he saw, from her position, the frail branch that she was clinging to, "No, I'm not killed, only the and the weak, faint voice that stones are sharp; and you must answered when he called for his run and tell somebody to come-darling to be brave, for he was tell papa. I'm holding on just as coming-that there was not a motight as I can, and I'm trusting in ment to waste in waiting for ropes God. I know He won't let me fall to help him, that might be so long a till you come back.' time in coming. So, with the help of the sharp-pointed cane, without "If my sister had been a bit less which my father never went to walk, he cautiously made his way for a very short distance down the slippery moss, and then fixing his stick firmly in a crevice of the rock, found that by stretching his arm to its full length he could just reach her, but could not lift her up unless 666 her on the rock beside him, the little bush gave way, and whirling around and around as it went, fell into the sea, hundreds of feet below. "Your eyes are ful of tears, little daughter. It's of no use to hide your eyes under my sleeve, for I've seen them, and am not Nannie, darling,' he said-and going to tell you anything else that I know just how hard my father is sad. Think now how happy we tried to make his voice sound were carrying my dear sister home strong and cheerful, for the sake of again safe, sound, and whole, and the poor little tired girl hanging only bruised and tired; how she over such a dreadful death-papa was kissed, hugged, laughed and has come to help you, to bring you safe upon the road again; but you must trust him just as you have been trusting God all this time. Let go of the bush with your right hand, and raise it straight over your head.' "Nannie could feel that she was gradually slipping farther down and away over the side of the rock she was lying against; that the bush was slowly parting from the roots and sliding out of her grasp, and, too, her firmest hold on the branch was with her right hand; but the dear child trusted her father just as all this weary while she had been trusting in God, and, letting go of the branch, lifted her hand only just in time, for, as my father drew cried over, and how every one in town, even to the oldest fisherman, came to see her, and praised her for her courage. And think, most of all, of that courage, Nannie-for it was the real, true kind-that trusted in God that He would surely do what was right for her, even if it was slipping into the water at the end, and that trusted in her father even when the command he gave her seemed like taking away her only chance of life. "Think of this, dear, and then you will have learned- but not in such a terrible way as your aunt Nannie did, thank God-what it means to 'put your whole trust in Him."" AM I NEARER HOME TO-NIGHT? Deeper shadows gather fast, And another day is past, Let me make this solemn quest: Have the hours that winged their flight Since the dawning of the day, Sped me on my homeward way ? Have I since the opening morn Has my strength on God been stayed? Have I run the Christian race Has my vision clearer grown Have I learned to feel how near Tell me, oh, my anxious soul, In the land that knows no night? |