HE natural instinct of almost every mind is to shrink in repulsion from the spectacle of hopeless disease-from the sight of the pinched features, the stunted frame, the palsied limbs of its victims. And yet it is not all ugliness. All his uncomeliness begets and nurtures a beauty of its own. It is God's beautythe beauty of moral health which, by a wondrous paradox, springs out of physical sickness, and transfigures it. With what fine fortitude do these patients bear their hard lot! They know they have nothing on this earth to hope for; they know that for them one day must be like another, presenting the same grey monotony of weakness and pain-and still they are patient and resigned and even cheerful. They do not cry out because their load is heavy; they do not impeach the justice of a dispensation that has doomed them to incurable wretchedness while so many of their fellowcreatures, whose very voices reach them from the street outside are revelling in the joy of life. This is heroism indeed, and it is heroism which is not confined to them, but repeats itself in many a life that is passed elsewhere than in a Home for Incurables.

MORRIS JOSEPH.

OR God who binds the broken heart

And dries the mourner's tear,

If faith and patience be their part

Will unto these be near.

XXII. The Heroism of Submission.

They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. . They shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not be faint.-Isaiah xl. 31.

MANY a time as we walk abroad we meet a face that

tells the same noble story-a face on which trouble has left deep traces, but endurance and victory footprints deeper still. Now and again you meet some one whose story needs no interpretation—it is so obvious -an old man, perhaps, bowed and broken with his years, yet literally carrying his heavy load as the only means of earning the bread he scorns to beg for, or some brave girl going forth to her work, thinly clad, in the early morning of a bitter winter's day, when ease and comfort and fine raiment might be hers if she would only forget the meaning of virtue. Nay, do you not know of examples among your own acquaintances? Do you not know of those who in all their trials have never lost their integrity, who submit to the chastening hand of God without repining, who go their way and do their work making no sign, but, like the Spartan boy in the ancient tale, sternly repressing the anguish which is knawing at their hearts? Do you not know of those whom sorrow has bruised, but who have overcome it at last, of those who have loved and lost, and yet have clung gratefully to what has been left them, of those who have found some heart worthless for which they

have sacrificed themselves, and yet have retained their trust in human goodness, of those who drag the heavy chain of ceaseless suffering, and yet cheer and encourage those about them, yet look up into God's face with a patient smile? MORRIS JOSEPH.

HEN adverse winds and waves arise

And in my heart despondence sighs

While life her throng of care reveals

And weakness o'er my spirit steals,-
Grateful I hear the kind decree,

That "as my day, my strength shall be."

XXIII. “Not so in Haste, my Little Man.

Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with all

thy might.-Ecclesiastes ix. 10.

OH, for the art of doing things quickly, yet without haste, of speeding on to the finish without hurry. What an unfailing source of joy would our daily tasks, yea, our very drudgeries, b to us under such skillful handling, what a saving of strength and nerve-power it would mean to us. "Procrastination is the thief of time," yes, and so are hurry and haste, false friends; nay, they rob us of more than time, they steal patience, good-nature and all joy in our labor. Because our forefathers went out of Egypt in haste, we, their latest posterity, still are eating "the bread of misery" on the

Passover, and yet the rush was from bondage to liberty. Was it by way of contrast that the prophet foretold of the later deliverance that "ye shall not go out with haste nor as if by flight; but the Lord will go before you and the God of Israel will be your rear-guard?"

G. G.

ITHOUT haste, without rest,

Bind the motto to thy breast;

Bear it with thee as a spell,

Storm or sunshine, guard it well.

Heed not flowers that round thee bloom,
Bear it onward to the tomb.

XXIV.

"JN

Our Times of Life.

N Thy hand are my times," both, good and evil. Human life never flows in an even course. Like a river it passes now through green meadows, and now through dreary wastes; now along a valley and now amid mountains and over precipices. Only the foolhardy trust in the constancy of earthly things. Even if nothing changes outwardly, we ourselves change with increasing years; time leaves its furrows not only on our faces, but on our minds also. It is not pleasant to be reminded of this, but it is wholesome. For whilst it is true that a general should always go into a battle with the feeling that he will win, he must, none the less, keep his line of retreat open and accessible. The more necessary is this in our warfare of life, as we

know we shall be beaten some day. Let us, then, ask ourselves: what city of refuge have we prepared for shelter when that day comes? It is pitiful to see people plunged in affliction without any spiritual resources within themselves or any aptitude for finding comfort in what is offered them by others; no God near to look up to; no prayer possible to relieve the oppressed bosom; no ray of hope falling into the gloom and no knowledge of the higher uses of adversity. The stroke only is felt, never the hand that dealt it! G. G.

EAVE to His sovereign sway

To choose and to command;

With wonder filled, thou then shalt own,

How wise, how strong His hand.

Thou comprehend'st Him not;

Yet earth and heaven tell :

God sits as sovereign on the throne,
He ruleth all things well.

XXV. The Hope of a Future a Light for the Present.

The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light; they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death-upon them has the light broken.—Isaiah

ix. 2.

'S the pleasure of the future will be spiritual and pure, the object of a good and wise man in this transitory state of existence should be to fit himself for