the glory? Has He not made England the wealthiest and most prosperous of nations, and have not His own people their full share of this prosperity? Shall not, then, a generous proportion of our wealth flow back into the service of Him who has thus enriched us? Who is there but should be ambitious of laying his richest gifts-not his poorest ones-on the altar; of bringing his brass instead of his iron; his silver instead of his brass; his gold instead of his silver; to build and beautify such a temple for God! Such offerings bring no regrets to the soul; they call forth happy and noble remembrances in life, and in the future they will be as a well-spring of gladness even amidst the bliss of heaven. Then, how differently we shall judge of our expenditure to what we ofttimes do now. As we look backward, how will the soul reproach itself for living so selfishly, and erring so greatly in the use of wealth. Its thoughtless expenditure, when pleasure, appearance, and rank were concerned, will excite but regret. The freedom with which we spent for self, and the cautious reluctance with which we gave to Christ, will deepen our humility; and when we think of what we might have given to the cause of Him who gave us so freely His well-beloved Son, but which we thoughtlessly expended, or graspingly withheld, a cloud of sadness will come over the spirit even in heaven. But how different will be the emotions of those who have been "rich toward God." Gladness will be theirs, pure and ever-recurring, because they learned in time the holiest and noblest use of gold. The spendthrift's self-reproaches, and the covetous man's fear and humiliation will not be theirs; but evermore the voice of Him who praised the widow's offering in the temple, and the penitent's gift in Simon's house, will sound as sweetest music in their ears. And should not every Christian heart pray for India? Her interests are momentous enough, and our own identification with her is close and solemn enough, to demand that we should never forget her when we pray. In the solemn moment of secret prayer -among the prayers of the household--at the missionary prayermeeting in the supplications of the sanctuary, she should not be forgotten or feebly remembered. We should pray that God would not smite India in His wrath, but rather soften and subdue her by His grace. We should pray that England may be taught to think wisely, justly, and lovingly of her. We should pray that never to her again may be sent by us the weak, the incapable, and the unworthy; but that all appointed to guard her destinies may be wise, good, and great. We should pray that none but men of preeminent fitness may be sent out to spread the Gospel there. We should pray that all missionaries, catechists, and teachers may richly be gifted with fervour, wisdom, and prudence. We should pray that barrier after barrier may fall at our advance, and that successive years may see the growing purity and strength of the Indian church, until the consummation speedily comes when idolatry is extinguished, and God alone is worshipped through Christ the King. A REVIVAL INCIDENT. , was a In the village of boarding-house, kept by Mrs. F—. At this house I was a lodger. Of the fifteen or twenty guests about the table was a young gentleman about twenty-four years of age. He was full of animation, and his vivacity created the impression that whoever else might be affected by the solemnities of the time, he was not. On a Sunday morning the late Rev. Dr. Perrin preached a peculiarly effective sermon on the consequences of a life of sin. There was a singular unction and tenderness in the discourse, and its vivid pictures of hell's torments produced a most solemn and subduing effect. As we were sitting at the dinnertable, and remarks were passing freely in regard to the morning service, the young man above-mentioned expressed in strong terms his disapprobation of the sermon, and added, "Such preaching only hardens me and makes me worse." I replied, "It is possible that you think it makes you worse, when it only makes you conscious of sin that was before slumbering in your heart." "No," said he, "it hardens me. I am at this moment less susceptible to anything like conviction, from hearing that discourse. I feel more inclined to resist everything like good impression than usual." "Yet," I rejoined, "good impressions are those which are best adapted to secure the desired end; and I am greatly mistaken if an increase of the effect which you feel would not be greatly useful to you. If, for instance, you should read now Watts's version of the 51st Psalm, beginning with— Show pity, Lord, O Lord, forgive,' it would take deep hold of your heart." "Not the least," said he; "I could read it without moving a muscle. I wish I had the book, I would read it to you." "We have one," said Mrs. F—, who was fully aware of the excitement under which he was labouring; and in a moment the book was handed him, opened at the place. He commenced to read, with compressed lips and a firm voice: "Show pity, Lord, O Lord, forgive, Towards the last part of the stanza, a little tremulousness of voice was plainly discernible. He rallied again, however, and commenced the second verse with more firmness. "O wash my soul from every sin, At the last part of this stanza his voice faltered more manifestly. He commenced upon the third with great energy, and read in a loud, sonorous voice,-the whole company looking on in breathless silence:-"My lips with shame my sin confess." As he read the second line,"Against thy law, against thy grace;" his lips quivered, and his utterance became difficult. He paused a little, and entered upon the third line with apparently a new determination : "Lord, should thy judgment grow severe," Yet before he came to the end, his voice was almost totally choked; and when he began the fourth line "I am condemned, but thou art clear," an aspect of utter discouragement marked his countenance, and he could only bring out, in broken sobs, "I am condemned," when his utterance changed to such a heartbroken cry of grief, rising at the same time and rushing from the room, as I had never witnessed in a convicted sinner. The dinner was interrupted, but that was the beginning of a change, leading on to a new life in Mr. H., and probably every person in the room retains the impression to-day, that a view of the awful justice of God, in connection with the grace that saves from it, is often effective in subduing those who say, "Prophesy unto us smooth things," and that sinners are not always good judges in respect to what produces the best effect upon themselves. ENCOURAGEMENT. A MAN of God may be in prosperity, or he may be in adversity; it is not necessary that he should be in sorrow always. I believe that God will take care to put the cup of sorrow to the lip of His people often; He will frequently let them taste the bitterness of the streams of this world, that they may learn to see what a path their Master's was, and what a cup He drank of. If a believer's cup is bitter, in which cup there is not one drop of anger or of curse, O what a cup of sorrow was that of which Jesus drank, which was not only the weighty accumulation of sorrow upon His head, but the bitterness of that curse which He had taken upon Himself that His people might go free! Be their path prosperous or adverse-be their way smooth for a little season, or be it full of thorns and briars, "The eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous." O, blessed truth! wherever they are, and under every circumstance, He knows all that concerns them. If we had time to open out to you what constitutes a man's life, the duties, and the trials, and the onerous responsibilities, that rest upon him in the various relations of life, we could show you how Jesus follows His people into every department of duty and relative interest, and how He stands there as the Succourer of His people. O, that we may think of this when we talk of the weight of duty. Who has called the Lord's servant to any place of difficulty? who has laid upon him those relative duties? One who has told him that he is not to go a warfare at his own chargesOne who has told him that He is responsible to give him the supply of wisdom and of strength which he needs for the performance of the duties to which He has called him. Be it that his path is such as is described in the 43rd of Isaiah, as passing through the rivers and through the fires, the Lord has promised that He will be with him. Some of us know what it is, as we go upon our providential path, to find ourselves, as it were, locked between mountains of difficulties. Remember that word that was spoken by the prophet-" Who art thou, O great mountain? Before Zerubbabel a plain." These things become actual matters of experience to the Lord's servants. Difficulties come across their path; they know not how they are to get on, and the Lord rolls away the stone. These are great encouragements to the people of God. Nay, when the Lord would teach Israel of old what a regard He had for them, He told them that they were "graven upon the palms of His hands." W. H. K. HOW TO BEAR LITTLE TROUBLES. THERE is a kind of narrowness into which, in our every-day experiences, we are apt to fall, and against which we should most carefully guard. When a man who is in perfect health has a wound inflicted upon him-a wound in his foot, a cut on his finger, a pain in his hand-he is almost always sure to feel, even though it be only a small member that suffers, and the suffering itself be unworthy of the name, that the perfect soundness of all the rest of his body counts as nothing; and a little annoyance is magnified into a universal pain. Only a single point may be hurt, and yet he feels himself clothed with uneasiness, or with a garment of torture. So, God may send ten thousand mercies upon us, but if there happen to be only one discomfort among them, one little worry, or fret, or bicker, all the mercies and all the comforts are forgotten, and count as nothing! One little trouble is enough to set them all aside! There may be an innumerable train of mercies which, if they were stopped one by one, and questioned, would seem like angels bearing God's gifts in their hands! But we forget them all, in the remembrance of the most trivial inconvenience. A man may go about all the day long-dis contented, fretting, out of humourwho, at evening, on asking himself the question, "What has ailed me to-day?" may be filled with shame because unable to tell. The annoyance is so small and slight that he cannot recognise it; yet its power over him is almost incredible. He is equally ashamed with the cause and the result. We may fall into such a state merely through indifference, and remain there simply because we have fallen into it, and make no effort to get out. When a man starts wrong early in the morning, unless he is careful to set himself right before he has gone far, he will hardly be able to straighten out his crookedness until noon or afternoon -if haply then; for a man is like a large ship; he cannot turn round in a small space, and must make his sweep in a large curve. If we wake up with a heavenly mind, we are apt to carry it with us through the day; but if we wake up with a fretful, peevish, discontented disposition, we are apt to carry that all the day, and all the next day too! I have comforted myself, and risen out of this state of mind, by saying to myself, "Well, you are in trouble; something has come upon you which is painful; but will you let it clasp its arms around you, and shut you in its embrace from the sight and touch of all the many other things that are accounted joys? Will you suffer yourself to be harnessed and driven by it?" It is well to remember that there is a way of overcoming present troubles by a recognition of present or promised mercies. The apostle Paul knew this, and so exhorted us to "look unto Jesus, who, for the joy that was set before Him, endured the cross, despising the shame." All that Christ had to bear, He bore patiently-He carried His sorrow about with Him as a very little thing. Why? Because of the "joy that was set before Him." Oh! let us apply the exhortation faithfully to ourselves; and when we are worried, and tempted to give way to vexation, let us seek a sweet relief in the thought of the blessedness that is set before us to be an inheritance for ever. B. The Counsel Chamber. THE SECRET OF SUCCESS. Ir may to some appear like vanity in me to write what I now do, but should not give my life truly if I omitted it. When filling a cart of manure at the farm dunghill, I never stopped work because my side of the cart might be heaped up before the other side, at which was another man, but I pushed over what I had heaped up to help him, as doubtless he did to help me when I was last and he was first. When I have filled my column or columns of a newspaper, or sheet of a magazine, with the literature for which I was to be paid, I have never stopped if the subject required more elucidation, or the paper or magazine more matter, |