was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of the Lord." Still you are not as tired as you might be, the Sunday after-dinner nap having been a very refreshing one. So you look with some interest, or, at the very least, with a momentary excitement of curiosity toward the pulpit. A man comes forward who has something to say to you. He has a message to deliver which he believes he has received from God, He has thought over it, prayed over it, felt over it. It has cost him many hours of positive hard work. But he has it ready now, and rises to deliver it.

The text is announced and read. It is one which you have seen before, and it does not, therefore, possess the charm of novelty. There is nothing particularly striking in the first sentence of the sermon, the preacher being more anxious to lead up to an important conclusion than at once to startle his hearers into sudden and fitful eagerness. As for you, you seldom find introductions interesting, you are accustomed to give one ear to them, and the other to the many inner clamouring voices which make themselves heard even in the silence of God's house. So before the preacher has spoken a couple of dozen sentences your eyes begin to wander. They fall upon your friend Smith, and you remember his words of greeting in the morning, and also that you are engaged to dine with him on Tuesday. Then you look at Jones. You wonder if that report is true of which you have heard several versions. As it is right to be charitable, especially on a Sunday, you hope it is not; but still you would not be very surprised if it were! Mrs. Jones looks careworn, looks indeed as if she were having some wandering thoughts, too; and how fashionably his daughters are dressed!

Cutting through your musings upon Jones and his belongings come a few solemn words. You arouse yourself to a little more attention, and find that the preacher has got through his introduction into the first, second, and thirdly. For five minutes you follow him, and then you find yourself wondering what day of the month it is, and carrying your thoughts forward to the week you begin to reckon up the things that most need attention. You have a bill to meet, or a contract to ratify, or a paper to write, or the spring painting and cleaning to look after, or you

are going for a holiday, and speculate as to what sort of weather there will be.

The preacher's voice is growing more loud and distinct. He looks really very much in earnest, and you feel a sort of pang as you contrast your own thoughts with the words he is saying. You move a little out of the indolent position in which you have been indulging, and which conscience now renders uncomfortable, and look at him. He is telling you that you are making a mistake, that the world to which you give your thoughts and energies-your very life indeed—is not everything. He reminds you that there will come a time when you will be amazed and grieved that with strange infatuation you preferred the little and the fleeting things to those that were great and everlasting. You almost feel that he is right. You ask yourself is it worth while to spend your labour for that which satisfieth not? Your eyes move from the preacher's face to the windows through which the sunset dyes are coming. After all, you think, this world is very beautiful, and its interests press around you so strongly that you cannot get away from them, and would not if you could.

You make a final effort to listen. Your resentment is aroused against the speaker, for he has twice said "Lastly," and now he says, "A few words in conclusion." It is time he had finished, and you look at your watch, and tell yourself that the place is very close and warm, and you will be glad to get out. A rush of things from the outside comes over you again, but with virtuous indignation you banish all and listen to the closing words. So fervent are they, so impassioned, that you almost wish you had listened all the time. The preacher speaks of the Saviour of the world until even your heart is moved. You wish you loved Him better, and thought more of Him, and did fewer things to grieve Him. You really will try, for you would like to have His blessing.

But while you are thinking so, the book is closed, the sermon is over, the rest by the way is finished, and you go away from the sanctuary, and the hymns and the preacher's earnest voice, into the world again.

People say that in our modern days too much importance is attached to the sermon, and undue attention given to it. If it be so, alas for the prayers and the singing!

Letting in the Light.

"I FIND life is altogether a different thing from that which I supposed it to be. It is something more than toiling and moiling from morning till night, without a glimmer of joy, though I used to think it dreary enough before. I have known what it is—though I am only eighteen, and people say that youth is a happy time-to awaken in the morning with a crushing sense of the gloom of all things, and a weary resignation to what I supposed was the inevitable darkness of the day, while the only spark of brightness I had lay in the thought that the night would soon come round again, when at least I might find rest.”

"And it is so no longer? what has made the difference ?"

"The light has been let into my life. I was invited to join the young women's Bible-class in our Sunday-school. I have found Jesus the Light of the world, and this has quite changed the aspect of things for me. I cannot tell you what a low kind of life I lived before, but this has raised me and given me not only heaven to look forward to, but a life here that is worth living. It is wonderful what this light does for us in the world."

So it is. Do we not all know that? Are we not all helped to live more nobly and strive more earnestly because Christianity has let in the light upon us? Many Sunday-school teachers who take their places on Sunday morning with bright, eager faces have spent weeks of toil and anxiety, which would have been almost unbearable but for the light which the love of Christ has shed upon them. They find that the expressions, "the wilderness and solitary place," are not too strong to describe the world in which they live. They are often enough weary and heavy laden, the burdens of life are heavy for them to carry, and the paths they have to tread are steep and rugged enough. They know what darkness is. They know what it is to labour upon uncongenial work and in uncongenial society, and often they have very weary limbs and aching heads when the night brings its season of rest and repose.

And we think it is well that these things should be. Much is said about all the work being left for those who are already workers to do. "Why do not the rich, who have nothing to do all the week, teach in the Sundayschool, and let those who are busy during the six days rest on the Sabbath?” But God gives His work to those who can best do it. What could the rich say to these young people? What do they know about darkness and hard work, about scanty fare and empty homes? How can they sympathise with those who have to spend a long dreary day earning a shilling? No, we think we have the right

class of teachers for the work.

Only let them let in the light by all means in their power. Let them not fail in their duty. They know what is needed; let them give to their children that which will brighten their whole existence. The young people, looking bright enough in their festive Sunday array, have a very dark to-morrow to look forward to. Give them something that shall last longer than the school hour-something that that they can take with them to their work, which will make them strong to resist temptation, diligent in the discharge of their work, something that shall shed a light upon everything.

Can we do this? Have we anything to give that shall have this effect?

God has sent us to them us on purpose. We have sent the Saviour's words to give them; we have to tell them of His love. Oh, friends, let us be in earnest, and pray that we may bring them out of darkness into God's marvellous light.

The Unprayed-for.

NOTWITHSTANDING the multitude of petitions which go upward to the throne of the Hearer and Answerer of prayer, there are yet several large and very important classes of persons for whom supplication is seldom if ever offered. Who ever attended a prayer-meeting without hearing a petition for ministers of the Gospel from each

person who engages in the sacred exercise? But who ever heard so much as a word uttered on behalf of writers? What a start of surprise there would be if some earnest brother uttered such a sentence as 'Lord, bless all editors who proclaim Thy truth, make them wise to win souls, let them not labour in vain, and may they find that in watering others their own souls are watered by the dews of grace.' Such a prayer is presented daily on behalf of those whose office it is to break the bread of

life in the midst of the people. And how necessary it is that in their great and solemn work their hands should be upheld by the prayers of all thoughtful believers cannot be too strongly understood and felt. But why should not writers be encouraged and strengthened in the same way? Is the press much less powerful than the pulpit? Is its influence less strongly felt? We venture to suggest that an earnest and a God-fearing writer to whose words the people will give heed has as much ability and as many opportunities to do good as a preacher. He addresses thousands instead of hundreds, for many who will not listen will read. And where error is combated and the truth upheld, where infidelity and sin are fought against, and the cross of Jesus Christ is uplifted, and His name glorified in tender, reverent words, there the Lord's work is certainly being done. Yet oftentimes it must be that the work is great and the labourer weary, the wrong so mighty and the warrior so feeble; how, then, shall he go forth to the battle unless his brethren wish him Godspeed, and make him strong by their prayers?

We hear, and very properly, hundreds of prayers on behalf of Sabbath-school teachers. But who hears a single petition for day-school teachers, heads of schools, and masters of colleges? And yet these, who have so much more influence over children, who have all the week instead of a single day in which to impart their instruction, surely need to be prayed for. Is the exception made because they teach secular knowledge? Many an earnest Christian teaches the Bible every day. Do you know any Sunday-school teacher who is doing a greater or a better work than Dr. Arnold did? Do you know a more arduous occupation than that of a London ragged-school teacher, labouring every day and every evening in the endeavour to