“I? Oh, yes. Always at your service, you know. But what is it? Not a five-mile walk, I hope, over this frozen snow, in search of some unfortunate tramp? I do believe you would shelter all the dirt and rags in the neighbourhood, if you could!"

But Mr. West was too much in earnest to reply in the same light strain. "It's only this," said he, tremulously," that before you go to sleep to-night you will take a sheet of paper, date it, sign it underneath with your own name, and write in the middle

"Well, what?" asked Leslie, as his companion paused; "not what I am worth, I suppose, for at present that's precious little! To tell you the truth, Leslie Heath spends just about as much as he gets, and doesn't need to keep a bank book yet!" "What your purse is worth is a very different thing from what you are worth," was the grave response. "No, this is what I ask, that you write down the words, 'For me to live is' and then stop and examine the aim and motive of your life, and fill up the blank according to truth."

Leslie stared. "Whew-w!" said he, in a long breath, "that comes of the sermon to-night."

"Yes," said his friend, as quietly as before, "it does. If St. Paul could say, 'For me to live is Christ,' we, on our part, ought to find out what life means to us. As a young business fellow, Leslie, you know what is meant by taking stock. Then take stock of your life to-night-you could not have a more fitting time-and don't be too cowardly to dare to face the result."

Two or three hours later, Leslie, having said good-night to the rest of the family, retreated to his room, and took out a sheet of paper from his desk. He was still thoughtfully regarding it when there came a slight tap at the door, and his mother entered the room. He was her eldest son, and she could not allow such a day as this to pass away without saying, if possible, a few motherly words of counsel to her boy.

She laid her hand on his shoulder, and found herself able to talk much more freely than usual, in that he listened so quietly to all she had to say. "So now, Leslie," were her concluding words, "as you are no longer a child, but a man, take care that you live a good, true, and noble life, such a life as was meant for every man to lead."

66

Mother," asked Leslie, "what do most men live for? Tell me that."

"There are so many things, it would be hard to say," she slowly replied. "Some live for fame, some for business, and the money-getting that comes with it, some for their wives and children, and some for selfish ease and enjoyment alone."

"Rather hard on us," said Leslie, dryly. "But tell me, what do women live for, then? I suppose the shortcomings are not all upon our side?"

"Not quite," said his mother, with a smile. "Well, some live solely for praise and admiration;

many more for their homes and their little ones; others for the passing fancies of the hour, without any life-plan at all; and here and there a few for their district-visiting and other useful work; but not even that, Leslie, good as it is, is the highest type of life at all."

"What is, then?" he asked.

Mrs. Heath shook her head. "You must think for yourself,” she said. "There are some truths we get a firmer grip of, so to speak, if we are not told them by another, but search them out, each for himself, alone."

But Leslie, with Mr. West's words ringing in his ears, thought he very well knew what answer his mother might have made, had she so liked. At any rate, the Apostle Paul had confessed that the ruling principle of his life was consecration to a Person, which, while it includes consecration to every form of useful work as well, is yet a higher and a different thing.

Left to himself once more, he looked at the blank sheet of paper, and looked again. What was he to write? "For me, Leslie Heath, to live is,"-well, what? He began most heartily to wish he had never promised his old friend to do this thing; though now, having given his word, go through with it he must. And he was too sincere and truthful to utter a falsehood. And so he sat there, biting the end of his pen and asking himself just what life meant to him, and many unexpected replies came floating through his mind

"to enjoy the good opinion of others, to be thought a jolly young fellow, to go cricketing, boating, bicycling, to laugh and talk, to have merry times," and, in short, to do many things which, right and harmless in themselves, yet appeared most poor and trifling when pursued as the main object of a God-given life.

But finally all the various answers grouped themselves beneath one head, and it was with a very sober face that Leslie Heath dipped his pen in the ink, dated paper, wrote the line "For me to live is self," signed it, and then shut it away in the secret drawer of his desk, in the hope of shutting it out of the secret thoughts of his heart at the same time. But he only whistled himself to sleep to dream that an angel took out the paper, and carrying it upward in his hand, spread it out before the burning Throne, to be read and re-read there as the self-made accusation of one whose life up to that hour had been for himself alone.

But the next day's fun and merriment banished for a time all graver thought, and by-and-by even the recollection of that paper faded from his mind.

Several years passed away, and Leslie Heath, still young, had gone into business on his own account, and was now sitting in his private room adding up row upon row of figures, until he had almost reached the last. It was stock-taking time, and he was most anxious to see how his balance stood.

"Yes, yes, child; anything you like," he replied hastily, vexed at the interruption, and scarce noticing what she said. Another quarter of an hour, and he was congratulating himself on the most successful year he had ever known. Truly he was both a prosperous and a rising man!

"Oh, papa, how funny!" said a childish voice. "Look! This little piece of wood was loose, so I pulled it up like that, and here's something jumped out inside."

The child's father, at leisure now, stooped to show the little one the working of the spring, when out fell the piece of paper, folded and laid in there so long a time before. Forgetful of what it was, he opened it and spread it out beside the ledger on the table. Instantly the recollection of the past rushed back on his mind, and for one brief moment of intense feeling he seemed to see all those rows of figures being laid beside the paper before the eyes of Him with whom, whether with or against our will, we must all have to do. And he knew in his heart that what his mother had termed "money-getting" had more truly represented the chief interest and aim of his life, during the last few years, than had all that outward conformity to religious customs which had gained him the respect and approval of the neighbourhood.

Then as by-and-by he rose to go, Leslie asked one question that had been weighing on his mind all the interview through. "But tell me, how am I to keep myself from getting too much absorbed in my business again? The work must be done, you know, and I don't believe in the man who doesn't throw his heart into everything he has to do!"

"No more do I," was the quiet reply. "But the answer is very simple. As we learn to live for Christ, and not for self, we also learn to hold all we have and all we are as His. You will look upon your business as belonging to Him, and to be managed by you as His steward, and therefore to be managed well. Only you will not forget that the Master's principles must be carried out through it all; and that the money you make is not alone for the use of yourself and your family, but that you may have to give to him that needeth;' also, that every man, woman, and child you come across in the course of your daily work is one whom Christ also loves, and for whom He also died, and and that will keep you from treating them on a selfish business footing alone. And as for your wife and the little ones you have spoken of this evening, you need not fear to love them too well; all you have to do is to love Him better to whose heart they are dearer than even to you."

"Thank you, thank you, I shall not forget," said Leslie, and with a warm pressure of his hand, he bade him good-night.

That evening found Leslie Heath some miles away from his present home at the house of his old friend, Mr. West. Another crisis in his life had come, and this time he would not, stifle the voice that spoke within. Frankly he told Mr. West that he had come for direction and help; and the old man spoke in right fatherly fashion from out of the experiences of a life now drawing very near its close, his blindness seeming to have set his tongue at liberty. One sentence Leslie never forgot.

"But don't begin at the wrong end, Leslie. You can't hope with any sense of freedom to live unto Christ, until first you have learnt by heart, as well as by rote, how Christ has lived and died for you. If the Apostle Paul had not realized so strongly that the Son of God loved him, and had given Himself for him, do you think he would or could have yielded up his life so gladly, and so naturally

But as the door closed behind him, the old man

deeper depth in St. Paul's words than he has guessed at yet. It's not, 'For me to live is to live unto Christ" but, For me to live is Christ; and what that means, perhaps no one can put into words for him; he can only come to know it as the Master Himself shall lead and teach!"

He

Leslie Heath was in thorough earnest. never destroyed the paper he had written on his twenty-first birthday, but he did one day in all humility add a few words that would have rejoiced the heart of his old friend to see, only that ere then he had entered the Home where blindness and the infirmities of age are among the former things that have passed away. And when those words were added, instead of dreaming that night that the paper had been carried away as a terrible witness againt a selfish life, Leslie rather seemed to feel a hand laid in blessing on his head-the hand of One who "died for all, that they which live should no longer live unto themselves, but unto Him, who for their sakes died and rose again."

CONSTANCE EVELYN.

OMING upon a wealthy Mongol who was in the act of flitting, I found that part of his effects consisted of ten immense volumes piled up in a little stack near the spot where a tent was to be erected. Each volume might be two feet long, eight inches broad, and proportionately thick, and the whole formed rather a bulky little library. The books were carefully wrapped up in cotton cloth bands, and I asked the bystanders if they, like a neighbour I had met before, kept these things as a talisman or had them read? "Oh, no," they said, "they are read through every year-our master sees to that." "It must be a lot of work for him to read through all these large volumes," I said. "Not at all," they replied, "it is easily managed. A tent is set up, ten priests are invited from the temple, and they do the reading." In the morning they take their seats in order, the volumes are handed round, and the whole ten of them beginning simultaneously, with no regard to each other, with no listeners, each man reads away at his own particular volume, in a loud voice, or low voice, just as may suit his throat better, himself even not necessarily paying any attention to what he is reading, having before him the one fixed idea that to get through that volume is a day's work, and that he must be finished by sunset. This is really a fair statement as to the manner in which these Buddhist books are read.

Now no Christian would for a moment dream of having his Bible read in this profitless way; but there is a danger to be guarded against in Bible reading. Some people arrange to read through the whole Bible in a year, and a more numerous class read daily a stated portion, such as a chapter morning and evening. Both systems are useful, but in both it may happen, if care be not taken, that the mind fails to grasp well the meaning of what is read, and the tongue, in fact glides over the words. The merely perfunctory reading of so many verses or chapters may thus become something a little like the heathen reading of the Buddhist writings we have been speaking of. A very good way to counteract this tendency is to read some books on Bible subjects, after the perusal of which the sacred narratives will be found, when next read, full of new interest and suggestiveness. Then again a powerful preventive to careless reading is to approach the Bible, not with the idea of reading as a duty a certain portion of it, but with earnest prayerfulness seeking to find the teaching of its lessons, to correct the wrong and strengthen the right that is in our lives.

Some men say they know all that is in the Bible and give up reading it; they say that there is nothing new for them to find in it.

When at sea I noticed that day by day the captain and officers of the ship got out their intruments and "took the sun.' Why? Was it to make astronomical discoveries? To see something new in the sun? Not a bit of it. Navigators are continually looking at the sun. Day after day, if clouds do not prevent it, during all the years of their voyaging they keep "taking the sun," not to find out something new, but to find out where