empty, but the contents are very different from those which gladdened us years ago.

Then how many links of friendship have been dropped as we have gone on our way! Names which were once ever upon our lips and in our hearts are never spoken now. If we hear them they are like strains of long-forgotten music, and the notes, sweet as they are, smite us with pain and bring tears into our eyes. What has become of our friends? We have lost them in all directions. They are in other lands, they have passed into another world, they are altogether changed, and, though they pass our very doors, are farther from us than if oceans divided We scarcely know how we came to lose them. We cannot remember their disappearance. Very few of these links were wrung violently from the chain; they dropped off slowly and unobserved, but they are completely gone, and even if we could retrace our steps, which we cannot do, we might not be able to find them again.

us.

Then we have lost some precious things in the way of emotions and experiences. Once how gay we were! we were brimful of life; we had energy enough for anything. We cannot feel so now, however much we may desire it.

That treasure has fallen from the casket; we have a few things instead-languor, weariness, and so on; but they are no such precious possessions as those we have lost. Once what peace we had! But our serenity has been mislaid or lost. Once how strong we were! but now we have only weakness instead.

What becomes of our lost treasures? Are they indeed really lost, destroyed altogether-annihilated? No; nothing that God makes can perish. Everything is enduring. We have let them slip out of our keeping, but may not He have taken care of them? Perhaps they were too costly for us here, and He may be saving them for us at home. When we are older and wiser, when we have left school, and reached maturity, when He sees that we are able to appreciate our treasures and take care of the chain, perhaps He may give them back, unaltered and still beautiful, into our more skilful hands.

Between the Lights.

THE summer brings bright, long days, and all of us will give them a welcome. So many hours of light surely bring many opportunities for good and various work, which, if we are wise, we shall strive to improve. But the summer brings something more. It gives us a full hour of evening twilight, a time between the day and the dusk which may be, if we use it rightly, full of rest and blessing to ourselves and others.

Of course there are some people, thrifty, industrious, and good, who gather up the fragmentary minutes that they be not lost, and who have all sorts of odd pieces of work saved to be done at this especial time. All honour to industry; but surely twelve or fourteen hours of daylight are long enough to work in, and we may take the time between the lights for doing nothing but what we will. It may be indicative of natural indolence, but we think it very delightful to let busy hands do nothing, and even the head and the heart only such things as are recreation. In these bustling, eager days we work too much and reflect too little. It is well to steal away out of the rush and excitement, and give a little portion of our time to quiet thought.

Did you ever notice, as you sit alone between the lights, what a change takes place in your estimation of different things? All the day you are anxious and troubled about this life. You are as busy and excited as the rest of the world. They race and you race with them. All their powers are put forth and so are yours. You are afraid lest you should be left behind, and so you struggle and pant and toil with all your might. You too eagerly catch the moments and get as much out of them as possible. The beauty of the world, the quiet of religious calm, dreams of the heavenly home with its river of life, and harpers harping with their harps, come quietly up to your heart with mute entreaty, but you dare not let them into your thought. The present is so imperative, so all engrossing, so supremely important, that you feel as if nothing may interfere with it. But how different it is between the lights.

The things of the world, its hopes, and ambitions, and struggles, sink down considerably lower, and your heart opens to other and surely better influences. It does not matter so much to you now that you have gained such an amount by the day's labour. It is not so bitter a thing that some one has gone beyond you. You look back a little wonderingly on all the fuss you have made, and care a great deal more about being good than being rich. For the noise of carriages, and footsteps, and machines, and rough voices is dying away, and you hear with a sort of tender observation how happily the children are playing in the distant street, and how sweetly the nightingales are singing their passionate, pensive songs. You do not care to think about large buildings, and fine houses, and rich dresses, for your eyes are caught and held by the opal colours in the western skies, and your thoughts wander even beyond them while some mystic words steal into your memory. "And I, John, saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven prepared as a bride adorned for her husband."

The time between the lights is, as everybody knows, a very tender time. You want your beloved ones near to you. You begin to feel sorry for all the quick, hard words you have spoken to them during the day. You had other things to think about then, but now you find yourself caring very much that nothing shall grieve them or lessen their love for you. Home grows dearer than it was in the morning. The fields around your house are more beautiful with the shadows upon them than they were when all the daisies had their eyes wide open. Your gardens, with their two or three trees, and common flowers, make you think of Eden. And your own room over which the dusk is stealing, grows quiet and restful until you fancy that a benison of peace is breathed over it. You can scarcely see the faces that are there, but you feel that they are beautiful because they belong to you. To-morrow, at eleven o'clock in the morning, all this will seem nothing but nonsense and waste of time; but between the lights, if you allow yourself to be still, you cannot help feeling tender.

Surely it must have been between the lights that the prodigal son came to himself and said, "I will arise and go

to my father." For that is the time when so many of us do come to ourselves. We see how worldly and foolish and forgetful we have been. We think of our Father's love and all He has done for us, and wish we were better children than we are. And somehow, as it gets darker we find our way to Him, and ask not for success, not strength to toil, not for riches or honour or greatness, but only for His forgiveness.

Are we better or worse, weaker or stronger, for the hour between the lights? Surely the time is not lost, though all it seems to do is to make us sing—

"Abide with me: fast falls the eventide."

For Somebody's Sake.

"For Hiram was ever a lover of David."

It is wonderful how much is done by all sorts of people for the sake of others. The temple had to be built; Solomon was ready and eager to begin, but he could not do it entirely alone. Hiram, King of Tyre, sent his servants unto Solomon. David knew that this Hiram possessed an abundance of timber, so he sent a message to him requesting that he would furnish some. "Hiram was ever a lover of David," and when he heard the words of Solomon, he rejoiced greatly, and his love showed itself in the grateful words which he used: "Blessed be the Lord this day, which hath given unto David a wise son over this great people." But did his love spend itself in words only? Would he send the timber for the Lord's house? "So Hiram gave Solomon cedar trees and fir trees according to all his desire." He might have done the same in consideration of the "twenty thousand measures of wheat, and twenty measures of pure oil," but he certainly never would have sent to Solomon at all, only "Hiram was ever a lover of David."

Love is a wonderful thing, and hard to be appeased. It never can do enough. Even when it has loaded its

beloved with all the wealth it possesses, it is not satisfied -it must go on showering its blessings from father to son. There are plenty of Hirams in the world to-day, and there are plenty of Solomons all the better off for it. Many a young scapegrace is regarded with favour, watched over, assisted and cared for, not by any means because he deserves, or has any right to expect it, but just because of the name he bears, or a feature in his face, or the tone of a voice, which is like a friend who is gone. He is loved for somebody else's sake. "I was his father's friend." That is enough. Take care of him, pray for him, teach him, take all his anxieties and even his sins to yourself, love him as much as you can for his father's sake.

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Why do we so readily undertake a responsibility for the sake of a departed friend? Perhaps because he is departed. 'Blessings brighten as they take their flight." Our friends are dearer than ever when they have passed away. Already they have exchanged their earth-soiled robes, and are dressed as angels in our minds; all that was little and mean and sinful has passed away, only the good remains; the dross has fallen off, we see only the purest and finest gold. But we love our friends too late. Who has stood beside the open grave, and heard the solemn words "Ashes to ashes," without a regret that has more bitterness than anything else could bring, born of the conviction that some time or other he has failed toward his friend? He has been less pitiful, less true, less friendly than he might have been. And so it seems almost like an atonement to make up to the children what has been kept from the fathers. The heart can almost satisfy itself now. There is some one left for whom our friend cared; we will give that one all the tenderness which he would have lavished upon him. Perhaps who knows?—even our friend in heaven will understand why we do it, and that it is all for somebody's sake.

Those who love Jesus have plenty to do for His sake. Even to give a cup of cold water to a repugnant, unappreciating person is not in itself a pleasant thing. But then we do it for Jesus' sake. There are many so besotted in ignorance and vice, that we cannot love them. But the All-merciful would have touched them, laid His hands upon them, and healed them. Only tender, pitiful words