A MOONLIGHT LESSON.

THEY tell me that the gentle moon
Receives her silver light

All from the great and glorious sun,
That beams in heaven so bright:
He pours on her his golden ray;
She shines to guide our darksome way.

And as she treads the evening sky,

And smiles so sweetly there,
I think a little child may try
To read the lesson fair,

Traced in pure lines of silvery light
Upon the gathering clouds of night.

Some distant ones have never heard
Of Christ, "the Truth, the Way :"
If God upon our minds has pour'd
His Gospel's precious ray,
And if the Sun of righteousness

Has fill'd our hearts with joy and peace ;

O shall we not reflect the beam
To us so freely given,

And guide young wanderers to Him
Whose glory filleth heaven;

And yet whose eye hath often smiled
On the weak efforts of a child?

Teacher's Offering.

FEBRUARY, 1856.

HYMN.

(Written by James Montgomery the Day before his Death.)

O COME, all ye weary,

And ye heavy-laden,

Lend a glad ear to your Saviour's call;

Fearing or grieving,

Yet humbly believing,

Rest, rest for your souls He offers to all.

O, then, sing Hosanna

With jubilant voices,

And follow His steps with willing accord;

Like Him, meek and lowly,

In heart and life holy,

Own Christ, as good servants, your Master and Lord.

How easy His yoke is!

How light is His burden!

But what He suffer'd no language can tell;

His grief in the garden,

To purchase our pardon,

His pangs on the cross to save us from hell.

Thence loud Hallelujah

Shall sound without ceasing;

And till they all meet in the kingdom above,

The living, the living,

Prayers, praise, and thanksgiving,
Shall joyfully render, and show forth His love.

KIRKSTALL ABBEY.

It has been often observed, that the sudden rise of the Cistercians (an order of Monks, founded in the eleventh century) was truly remarkable. Within fifteen years five hundred abbeys sprang to light, in solitary and uncultivated places; it being a rule of the body that no house, even of their own, should be built within a certain distance. The Cistercians say they had once six thousand monasteries in all. When Henry VIII. suppressed such places, they had thirty-six large establishments in this country, besides many smaller ones. The Monks wore white dresses in the choir where they sing, black and white in the house, and black out of doors. Many thousands of little boys and girls, in our happier days, know far more about Christianity than those poor superstitious Monks ever conceived.

Order that remain are ruins,
Such are those of Kirkstall,

The houses of this but very fine ones. Tintern, and Melrose. The first of these, a little to the west of Leeds, stands in a beautiful vale, once solitary, now full of people; once still, now echoing to the sounds of the anvil and the steam-engine. The river Aire flowed clear and full, when the Abbey flourished; now its waters are by no means