blessed the words he prompted me to speak last New Year's morning. Poor young Holland's lip quivered with emotion, and presently, with a shuddering sob, he gratefully accepted my offer. He has had a year of comparative prosperity, pecuniarily speaking, but a year, too, of great sorrow. 'Earthborn clouds,' as the hymnn says, and the remembrance of past faithlessness, have darkened his vision of heaven and of God. I have talked with him many times, as father to son, as brother to brother; but there was a painful vacancy in his mind which I was powerless to fill up; all I could say was, 'Holland, I know that Christ can do for you what I can't; keep very close to him, and always remember that I am daily, I was going to say hourly, praying for you.' My dears, he has had a year of great mental struggle and sorrow; but to-night, when he came into the vestry for the hymns, there was a light in his face which I never saw before. He caught hold of both my hands, and said, in a voice tremulous with joy, 'He has found me; I am God's child for evermore.' And so it was that we had the magnificent 'Hallelujah' to-night. It was the poor fellow's thanksgiving to him who had brought him out of darkness into marvellous light."

A New Year's Resolve.

A TRUE STORY.

T was New Year's morning, and therefore might have been supposed to have brought some ray of light and hope into the dullest and darkest dwell

ings. As the rule, however, to hundreds of workpeople in Hardington, the birthday of the new year was like any other day in their weary and monotonous lives. They would rise in the dark, go out to the factory breakfastless, unless their good wives had been up an hour before them, go through their accustomed toil, and return in the evening too weary and too hungry for anything but sleep. So long had they been accustomed to this kind of life, that it seemned

strange to them on this New Year's morning to have nothing to do. They might lie in bed, if they had one, as long as they liked; they need have no dread of the factory bell ringing its last notes, or of being fined because they were behind time. It was true there was nothing, or next to nothing, in the cupboard for breakfast, that the wife looked aged before her time, and that the poor children gave a toofamished look upon every morsel that was placed upon the table; but then they were their own masters, and were determined to make their employer see that their labour was as good as his capital; and so they were out on strike.

Their employer was a good man, if ever there was one on earth. He worked harder than any of his men, and kept on the factory that they might have their daily bread. Years ago, if he had followed the advice of those dearest to him, he would have given up business for the retirement and pleasures of a quiet home life; but his answer invariably was, "What will the poor people do if the mill is silent, or if they have a master who does not understand them as I do? What I have earned for my family is sacred; it shall never be touched: but so long as the mill pays its way my men shall get their living out of it."

For several years "the master," as he was called, seemed understood by those in his employ, and, trade being brisk and wages good, not a word of discontent was whispered. Almost in a week, however, the markets were closed against him, and he received the ominous information from many houses that they had more goods on hand than they could hope to get rid of in two or three years' time. Although Mr. Dorling had long expected such a crisis, a batch of letters coming by one post made it so clear to him that he went home to breakfast with a pale and half-frightened face. "What shall I do?" he asked his wife.

"You must tell the men, my dear, exactly how things stand, and that if you are to keep on the mill they must work, for a time, at lower wages."

"But they won't understand why I should live in a fine

house up on the hill here, and own more than half the land in the parish, and lower them sixpence a day. As things are now, the mill will scarcely pay two days a week."

Mr. Dorling was right; the men could not, or would not, consent to their wages being lowered. Left to themselves, perhaps, they would have remembered what a kind and faithful master he had been; but they were roused into the assertion of their "rights" by the speeches of deputations from other towns on strike," who vehemently demanded that they should break their bonds asunder, and show themselves men.

"Why," asked one of the orators, "should Mr. Dorling have his grand house, his carriage, his landed property? why should he be allowed to fare sumptuously every day, while you poor people have scarcely a crust ?"

"We have always had enough until now," said a gruff voice; "and we know the master, and don't know you.”

"Hold your tongue, Matthew Bates," shouted a dozen voices at once! "We're not going to be trampled upon; turn him out!"

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Gently," said Matthew, whose hair, although he was not forty years old, was speckled with grey, and on whose face labour had left its wan and weary mark: "gently; I am not going to make any fuss. If you are all going to strike, of course the mill will be closed, and I and mine must bear the consequences; but I do say this, that having known the master all these years, you might put more faith in him than you do in this fine-talking chap whom you have never seen before."

The orator of the evening grew quite indignant, and his audience sympathising with him, Matthew Bates left the hall in which the meeting was being held, and went home to tell his wife the sad news that there was no more work; and that as the winter was coming on, unless God sent his ravens, there would be nothing to eat. "They are all wrong, Jenny," he said, sorrowfully, as he opened his thin hands before the fire to get the warmth of the blaze; "they are all wrong; but I can't set them right."

"It's cruel work," said Jenny. "To think, now, how good the missus was when the children had the fever, and how she nursed me when I thought I was going to die! And now, perhaps, she will think that you are mixed up in this."

"It's useless, Jenny, for me to stand alone. They are all going to strike; and if I stand out, I don't know but what the house might be set fire to."

"Let them do it," said his wife, indignantly; "let them do it, if they dare."

"Think of the children, Jenny," said Matthew, gently.

The words had a magical influence; Jenny's passion died away, and for the first time perhaps since they were married husband and wife wept together.

There came now a month of dreary idleness. The mill, which for years had never failed to give to those employed in it at least their daily bread, was closed. Hardington, once so thriving and peaceful, became the scene of dissipation and riot. All day long groups of people were assembled at the corners of streets, or, more frequently, in front of public houses, speaking in violent language of their rights and their wrongs. Almost every night a mass meeting was held, and poor fellows who had gone dinnerless, and left their wives and children at home half famishing, contrived somehow to put their few pence into the collection plate to maintain "the struggle." A small sum was distributed weekly amongst them, contributed by fellow-workmen in other towns, who bade them hold out until they were once more on their old footing. The manager of this fund one morning called upon Matthew Bates.

"We do not wish to pass you by, Matthew," he said, "notwithstanding your opposition to our movement; and I have brought you what the rest are having." He held two or three shillings in his hand.

Matthew shrunk back. "Mr. Wilson," he said, "take your money elsewhere, if you please. You and yours have stripped my little place bare. It was the joy of my heart once to see this room-look what it is now! Where is the

old chair in which I used to sit? Where is the lookingglass?—where are the few books I had? Gone-all gone. Look at my wife-will she ever get her colour again? Look at the children-sinking into graves that I haven't money enough to pay for digging. If you have a heart within you, man, look on all that your 'strike' has brought about, and don't come offering me your shillings."

"No, Jenny, lass," he went on, when Wilson had departed; "we will not take their money. Let us hold on in the strength of Him whose promise is, 'Thy bread shall be given thee.' There is no unrighteousness in Him. thou weary of the struggle, Jenny?"

"Very weary of seeing thee suffer, Matthew, and the poor children. But thy faith is mine; and I believe, in God's good time, all will come right. Mrs. Dorling came here yesterday while you were out. I did not tell you."

"Why ?"

"She said that what had cut her husband most deeply was that you were amongst the leaders in this strike."

"How could he think such a thing?" asked Matthew. "He was told that you spoke at the meeting."

"Of course I did, lass; but it was for the master, and not against him. But let us be patient, and full of faith. Jenny, we have not parted with our Bible; let us read a chapter, my girl, and then pray a little bit. It will do us all good— you, me, and the children."

Winter set in with unusual severity; but in home after home a fire was scarcely ever kindled. There were no public meetings now, and the fierce excitement of the strike had died out. Hunger was sharply written on almost every face, homes were bare and desolate, wives and children dying; yet "no surrender" was the watchword of those out on strike. It was New Year's morning, and Matthew Bates had risen very early. He had scraped together a little fuel, and having lit a fire, sat down to read his Bible by the flickering blaze. He had spent nearly an hour in reading and praying, when he said aloud, thinking himself alone, "I'll do it."