not, indeed, always a delightful taskyltristaccons! panied by numerous discouragements, and toilsome difficulties, arising from the common corruption of four fallen nature, and from the endless and scapricious varieties of temper and character. Heavenly wisdom is less readily imbibed than human wisdom, because it has to encounter and overcome the pride and the evil propensities of the heart, whereas theses are often flattered and gratified by secular knowledge.Haps pily, however, the incentives to patient perseverance, in cultivating this humble field, are neither few snor feeble. The probabilities of effecting the most im portant and the most lasting good, are sufficiently great to sustain the benevolent labourer among of children of the poor under the various discouraging, depressing, and perplexing circumstances of hisTeRD ployment. "Cast thy bread, or thy seed, upon the waters, and it shall be found after many days." alt might seem a hopeless expenditure of labour, and time, and seed, to scatter it over lands covered with othe waters of an inundation. But experience encouraged the Egyptian husbandman to expect a fruitful harvest. So the volatile and vitiated minds of children, often subject to all the destructive and counteracting inofluence of the worst domestic examples, may appear San unpromising soil in which to deposit the good seed

gothe

of the kingdom of heaven. Yet, though for many

days and many years, it may seem decayed and lost, some will spring up, and, by the rich exuberance of its produce, in a measure compensate for that which the fowls of the air carried away, which never germinated, orothich never came to perfection. jrd to esiinny Ji As the children of the poor reach an age at which they may by their labour diminish the burden of their parents, they generally are withdrawn from our schools, and are scattered over a surface too wide to come within the future observation of their instructors. But, surely, we may hope, and experience sanctions the expectation, that the oft-repeated, and gently instilled téssons of childhood, will recur to the memory, and retouch the heart, of many a wanderer through this world of change and sorrow; and, seconded by the ever returning storms of a disastrous life, may be made effectual in the hand of God to the renovation, the comfort, and the salvation of his soul. The dying warrior son the field of Waterloo, trembling at the approaching disclosures of a world, of which he had thought too little and too feebly to let him enter it with peace and hope, endeavoured, but in vain, to form hiso anxieties into prayer, till memory supplied him -with some of the collects of our church, which, when a boy, and in a sunday school, he had been taught to Sunderstand and repeat. In the language of these he vací zół duct 57 2d at 5d cat to

1.

breathed out the penitence and trembling hopes of his departing soul, and died in peace.

Many pages in the history of our charitable institutions for the diffusion of heavenly knowledge, are illuminated by facts of this description, which seem to echo in the ears of benevolent persons: 66 In the morning sow thy seed, and in the evening withhold not thine hand: for thou knowest not whether sh shall yodaid she. cor daiw I bus, prosper, either this or that, or whether they both shall

be alike good."

-32800h 18

-H lo

"gia molt mindɔ usbice od) nwob gnittel 107

vaz odt of brewqu somoibus aid with sli Hool and mi notezimmon 16919 aid god 9H de b'raftea bus ̧97. b'iquot yitsewa jnd

"You are going to the darkest corner of my diocese, and I wish you abundant success," said the bishop

of H-- to my great uncle, the Rev. J. B

3

Dark indeed, with the thickest shades of moral debasement and spiritual ignorance, my relative found the spot where he pitched his tent, and where it remained till death took it down, and bade him go forth and enter into the joy of that Lord, to whom he was long a good and faithful servant. Many years revolved, and yet he saw no heavenly light break forth upon his pastoral charge. They came and went. They heard and talked of his message; and as he "spoke the truth in love," they, with few exceptions, regarded him with affection, and his name and character were invested with all the veneration that was due to a messenger from God on an errand of eternal import.

For letting down the golden chain from high,
He drew his audience upward to the sky;
He bore his great commission in his look,
But sweetly temper'd awe, and soften'd all he spoke.

He preach'd the joys of heav'n, and pains of hell, And warn'd the sinner with becoming zeal; tol vlei But on eternal mercy lov'd to dwell.

He taught the Gospel rather than the law, but And forc'd himself to drive, but lov'd to draw.

Yet had he long to mourn the apparent inefficacy ΟΙ his labours. On not one of his flock did the word of life descend with renovating power. He might have been addressed in the words once spoken to Ezekiel, xxxiii. 31, 32. "They come unto thee as the people cometh, and they sit before thee as my people; and they hear thy words, but they will not do them for with their mouth they shew much love, but their heart goeth after their covetousness. And, lo! thou art unto them as a very lovely song of one that hath a pleasant voice, and can play well on au instrument: for they hear thy words, but they do them not."

It was winter-and winter in its most rigid garb. The snow lay on all the neighbouring hills and moors, when some pastoral duty called Mr. B to the distance of several miles from his home, and he had to return after the short day had closed in. His way lay across extensive moors, where the roads being marked by no elevated objects, were completely hidden, and every foot-print was speedily obliterated by the falling and drifting snow. The night was without a star, the cold was intense, and the bleak and