was dismissed, Mary Irving asked her mother if she might remain in church and see the communion. Her mother saw she looked serious and interested, and that it was not mere curiosity that made her wish to stay, and she was very much pleased to gratify her by consenting.

During the whole service Mary was very attentive and thoughtful; and as soon as she got home, she followed her mother into her room, and having shut the door, she looked as if her heart were full of something which she did not well know how to communicate. At last she said, "Mother, does not our congregation believe in Jesus?"

Certainly, my dear child. I trust there is not one that

does not."

"Does uncle William believe in him, mother?"

"Certainly, my dear. Why do you ask such a question?" "Why, I thought, mother, when I listened to the sermon, and to all that Jesus had done for us, and all he suffered; and when I heard that it was his last request that his disciples should eat bread and drink wine in remembrance of him; and when the minister invited all that believed in him to stay, I thought to be sure all the congregation would stay; and I do not know what made me feel so then, but I could hardly help crying when I saw them almost all—all but a few, such a very few-turn their backs on that bread and wine, and walk out of church! I thought to myself, Uncle William certainly will stay, and I looked to his pew; but oh, he had gone with the rest!"

"What made you think your uncle William certainly would remain ?"

"Because, mother, you know the last time he was here you asked him to stay dinner, and he was engaged to the Washington dinner, and he would not fail being there on any account. I asked him why? And he said, 'My dear Mary, though you are but eight years old, you should not ask such a question; and then he took me on his knee, and told me all that Washington had done for our country, and how grateful we ought to feel to him. He said it was Washington's birth-day, and there was to be a dinner in remembrance of him, and that it was everybody's duty, who could go, to be there. When the minister said the communion was in remembrance of Jesus, I thought directly of what uncle William had said about the Washington dinner;

and I thought how much more our Saviour had done for us than Washington, and how glad uncle William would be to do what he had commanded to be done in remembrance of him. Now do tell me, mother, why he did not stay, and why did not they all stay."

Mrs. Irving hesitated a long while before she replied. She thought of the various reasons that are assigned by different persons for their failure to perform this interesting duty, but they all seemed so very unsatisfactory, that she felt reluctant to give them even to a child. She then gave what appeared to her to be the true reason in most cases. “I am afraid, dear Mary," she said, "that most of those who neglect this duty are wanting in religious affections; for our Saviour said, If ye love me, ye will keep my com

mandments.””

"You mean, by religious affections, love to God and to our Saviour, don't you, mother?"

"Yes, my dear."

"I should not think people could live very long without having those, mother: I remember very well when I first felt them."

“When was it, Mary?”

Mary put her head on her mother's shoulder, and her arm round her neck, and then replied in a low tender voice, "It was the day after father died; all of us were standing around him and crying; and aunt Susan said that before our Saviour came into the world, no one knew certainly that we should live again after we died here. She said, God sent Jesus Christ to tell us, that if we were good here, we should meet again in heaven, and never, never again be separated. And then she told us how much our blessed Saviour had suffered in bearing this message, and how willing he had been to suffer it all.

"When I looked at my dear father, and saw that his eyes were closed, and his voice and his smile were gone from me, I thought I could not bear it if I did not know I should meet him again; and then it was, mother, that I felt for the first time what God and what our Saviour had done for us, and I thought I should delight to do everything they commanded me to do, just as I had taken pleasure in doing what you and father wished, because I loved you; for then I felt for the first time real love for them; and it

does seem to me, mother, as you say, that those who do feel this love will keep their commandments."

Mrs. Irving was very thankful to find that her danghter's young heart was impressed with a sense of the great revelation of immortal life, and she asked her why she had never told her this before.

"Because, mother, you always cry when we speak of father, and I cannot bear to make you sad."

Mrs. Irving felt she had done wrong in indulging her feelings so much as to prevent her child from talking to her on the most interesting of all subjects, and she said, “In future, Mary, talk to me freely of your religious thoughts and feelings, and if I shed tears, they will be tears of joy, of joy, that my dear child's spirit is rising to communion with her Father in heaven."

"Thank you, dear mother; I shall love to tell you everything; and want to tell you now what I was thinking of to-day at the communion service. It seemed to me that I could see our Saviour at supper with his disciples, and the disciple he loved leaning on his bosom; and everything he had done in his life seemed to pass before my eyes. I fancied I could see him on the Mount instructing the multitude, and standing with the sisters of Lazarus at his grave, and weeping there; breaking bread to the hungry, healing the sick, and bearing his cross up the hill of Calvary; and it did not seem to me that he looked very sorrowful."

"Can you tell me, Mary, why he did not appear to you very sorrowful?"

We never

"No, I cannot exactly explain it, mother." "Perhaps I can assist you, my dear child. hear of Jesus doing anything for his own personal gratification all the time he was in the world. We know that if he had asked God to deliver him from the cruel death that awaited him, he would have sent his angels to deliver him; but Jesus came into the world for the salvation of men, and he knew his work would not be finished till he had died

the death of the cross. Therefore, fixing his mind on the great good to be accomplished for mankind, he went calmly forward; as you say, Mary, 'not sorrowful,' but looking with a prophetic eye to the good we were to receive from his death."

"How can it be, mother, that any one who lives in a Christian country can be so ungrateful as to neglect his last

request! I think I shall be very happy and very thankful when I am permitted to drink wine in remembrance of him."

Text-1 CORINTHIANS Xi. 23-26.

THE LORD'S SUPPER.

AROUND the patriot's bust we throng,
Him we exalt in swelling song;
For him the wreath of glory bind,
Who freed from vassalage his kind.

And shall not He our praises reap,
Who rescues from the iron sleep;
The great Deliverer, whose breath
Unbinds the captives e'en of death?

Shall He, who, fellow-men to save,
Became a tenant of the grave,
Unthank'd, uncelebrated rise,
Pass unremember'd to the skies?

Christians! unite, with loud acclaim,
To hymn the Saviour's welcome name;
On earth extol his wondrous love;
Repeat his praise in worlds above!

THE OLIVE.

EIGHTEEN kinds of olives have been described by writers; but when spoken of in Holy Writ, the olive is only represented either as wild or cultivated: it is the latter kind of which we now speak.

The cultivated olive runs up to a height of twenty or thirty feet; its wood is solid, its trunk knotty, its bark smooth and of an ash colour; the leaf is not unlike that of the willow, green in its colour, dark on the upper side, and on the under side white. It bears white flowers, growing in bunches; and the fruit, though at first green, and afterwards of a pale hue, is black when quite ripe. The olive-tree flourishes in Syria; and its fruit is not only

valuable as food, but, as yielding a plentiful supply of grateful oil, useful in a variety of ways in a hot country. This oil formerly was obtained from the olive berries, by pressing them with the foot; but now mills are employed for the purpose. On account of the soothing power of olive oil in mitigating pain, the olive tree has been frequently used as a figure illustrating the goodness and mercifulness of God to his people, and of the blessed influences of the Holy Spirit in correcting our unruly passions, and expelling the poison of sin, in the same manner as olive oil is said to cure the poisonous bite of a viper.

The olive-tree, like the vine, will grow on the driest and most flinty soil, thereby covering the desert place with foliage, and rendering the barren rock fruitful. You cannot have forgotten reading in the Holy Scriptures about "the Mount of Olives," resorted to by our Saviour. This Mount is near Jerusalem, and at this day has some olive-trees on it, and probably had many more when our Saviour walked there. During the siege of Jerusalem, all the trees growing near were cut down; but it is more than probable that the aged and immense olive-trees now growing in that place sprang from the same roots as those standing there before our Saviour's crucifixion.

When Noah sent out the dove from the ark, she returned in the evening, "and lo, in her mouth was an olive leaf plucked off: so Noah knew that the waters were abated from off the earth" (Gen. viii. 11). The olive-branch is an emblem of peace, and, in this instance, was one of mercy also. We shall do well not to forget the salutary warning that is given in the New Testament under the similitude of an olive-tree. The apostle Paul, in speaking of the Jews being separated from God, says, "And if some of the branches be broken off, and thou, being a wild olive-tree, wert grafted in among them, and with them partakest of the root and fatness of the olive-tree; boast not against the branches: because of unbelief they were broken off, and thou standest by faith. Be not highminded, but fear: for if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest he also spare not thee" (Romans xi. 17-21).

Text-GENESIS viii. 11.