This was the question which a minister of Christ put to himself many times when on his death-bed. He was very aged, and weary and worn with toil for his Master. From his boyhood he had been engaged in Christian service, and could say with truth, "I thy servant serve the Lord from my youth." He had outlived his wife and two or three of his children. Of the congregation to whom he had preached his first sermon only two or three remained. Instead of the fathers had risen up the children, and the babies whom he had fondled in infancy were the men and women of a new generation. As he grew older he went more and more back into the past, and vividly recalled scenes and associations of forty and fifty years ago-far more vividly than occurrences of merely a month back. The old place of worship in which he had ministered so long became peopled to his memory with the faces that looked upon him when he was quite a stripling; he remembered them in connection with certain sermons he had preached, and with certain snatches of conversation which told more of their real character than a bulky volume would have done. He remembered ministers with whom he had travelled and worked for the extension of the Redeemer's kingdom, and over whose graves he had repeatedly wept tears of tenderness. The past was more real than the present, and as his great, solemn future opened before him, he frequently whispered, "Where are they all? where are they all?"

They were too vividly in his mind for him to believe that they were not in existence; his faith and love were too strong to allow him for a moment to believe that they were not in the Father's house, in serene, perfect happiness. But where was that house not made with hands? How far or how near? In the moment, the most mysterious moment, when the mortal puts on immortality, should he find himself amongst any of the sweet companionships of earth? He left the whole question in the hands of his Redeemer, believing that where He was heaven must be, and that his

joy would be perfect, and that he should be complete in Him. Yet frequently on his feeble lips were sometimes murmured and sometimes sung to an old tune of his boyhood the words of Charles Wesley's noble hymn,

A few minutes before his death his face became radiant with a Divine expression, and the glory of heaven took away the gloom from death. With the last effort of expiring nature, he clasped his hands in prayer, and then said in a more audible voice than he had spoken for days, “I see them all! I see them all! They are coming to welcome me, and to receive me into everlasting habitations!" Then he numbered friend after friend, and while doing so with a smile on his lips, which remained on them for two or three days afterwards, he breathed his last.

Your cold philosopher might call this the vision of a sick man's fancy; no Christian heart that has really loved and lost will call it such, but accept it as one of God's tender acts of mercy to encourage the fainting spirit in fording the dark river, and to convince us that when we die we are not going to a world of strangers, but to a home in which will be realised in perfection the tender relationships of earth.

Not long ago the writer attended the death-bed of a Christian lady who years before had lost her mother, in whom her life seemed to be bound up. As her end drew near, she fell into a state of apparent unconsciousness, from which no one thought she would ever awake again. A minute or two before she died the eyes that had long been closed suddenly opened, and she cried, with a voice that startled every silent weeper by her bedside, "Mother!

Mother!" Then she departed, as we all believed, to be for ever with her mother, and for ever with her Lord.

These are helps by the way which our gracious God occasionally gives us to encourage us to believe that eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor heart of man conceived, the things which God hath prepared for those who love Him. It is only natural that we should ask,

"Can the grave those ties dissever,

With the very heart-strings twined?
Must we part, and part for ever,

With the friends we leave behind?"

To this, revelation as boldly as mercifully answers NO! On quiet sabbaths, when the thought of the dead steals tenderly over our spirits; in quiet walks through the churchyards in which their precious dust lies sleeping, let us not count it fancy when we so vividly realise their existence and their blessedness; and let the thought of their perfect purity animate us to walk as those who are anticipating the inheritance of the saints in light. If we are Christians, we believe that at any moment we may find ourselves translated into their holy society. Are we at all times in the mood for such a translation?

Pride.

RIDE is the worst viper that is in the human heart, the greatest disturber of the soul's peace, and of sweet communion with Christ. It was the first

sin committed, and lies lowest in the foundation of Satan's whole building, and is with the greatest difficulty rooted out; and is the most hidden, secret, and deceitful of all lusts, and often creeps insensibly into the midst of religion, even sometimes under the disguise of humility itself. Jonathan Edwards.

Poor and lowly though I be.

EAR Lord of life and Lamp of love,

Yes, hear me when I call to thee,
Poor and lowly though I be.

Oh let me not, when in despair,

Forget that thou wouldst answer prayer,
But bid me ever think of thee,
Poor and lowly though I be.

And guide me in the way that's right,
To do thy will both day and night,
That I may do what pleaseth thee,
Poor and lowly though I be.

Lord, I will ever to thee pray

My thoughts on earth may never stray
From one so good and pure as thee,
Poor and lowly though I be.

And I will try to love thee more;
Yes, day by day, and hour by hour,
My love shall always cling to thee,
Poor and lowly though I be.

I will not mourn what is my lot,
Let it be hard or let it not;
My song on earth shall be to thee,
Poor and lowly though I be.

Then every day that's fleeting by
Fit me for heaven when I die,
That I may sit and sing with thee,
Poor and lowly though I be.

Oh, then, let every trial prove

Me better worth thy joys above,
That my last breath may fly to thee,
Poor and lowly though I be.