It was as I feared. He had come to tell me of a transaction he had arranged which, whilst perfectly honourable according to the usual code of morals of the share market, meant the saving of myself from the fear of loss by placing another person in the danger of it. He laid the whole scheme before me, without taking the slightest notice of the Lord; I know not if he even saw Him.

I cannot tell the bitter shame 1 felt. I saw how impossible it was to square such a transaction with the golden rule, but I could not hide from myself the fact that the broker told me of it with a manner and tone that meant that he had no doubt whatever that I would applaud him for his cleverness and eagerly close with the offer. What must that mean to the Christ? Would it not tell Him that I was in the habit of dealing with one thought only in my mind-how I could. benefit myself?

The broker was astonished when I rejected his proposals on the ground that they would be prejudicial to the interests of the other party in the transaction, and left me abruptly, apparently thinking I had developed a mild species of insanity.

Humbled, I fell at my Saviour's feet, and cried to Him. for forgiveness, for past sinfulness and strength for time

to come.

"My child," said He, in tender accents, "thou speakest as if My presence were something strange to thee. But I have always been with thee. I have seen, and have seen with grief, the way thou hast dealt with thy fellows in business, and marvelled at thy unbelief of My promise that I would be ever with thee. Have I not said to My servants, 'Abide in Me and I in you'?"

Just as He had said these words another gentleman entered the office. He was a customer whom I could

not afford to offend, and I had uniformly shown a cordiality to him which I was far from feeling in my heart. He was vulgar, profane, and often obscene in

his talk.

He had not been many minutes in my office before he made use of an expression which brought a hot flush to my cheek. I had heard him speak in a similar way before, and although I felt repelled by it, I had, for fear of offending him, met it with faint laughter. But now I felt as I should have, had it been uttered in the presence of a lady, only this feeling was intensified by the realisation of the absolute purity of the Divine One who had been a hearer of the speech.

I gave expression to my feeling in a word of expostulation, and he exclaimed, "You seem to have suddenly grown very prudish," and left me in a rage.

Again I turned to the Christ with a cry for pardon for past transgression, and once more I had brought to me the thought, that though unseen by me the Lord had beheld all my former intercourse with this man.

I was now called into the adjoining office where my clerks were employed and found that one of them had made a foolish blunder which would mean a considerable complication and perhaps loss. I am naturally irritable and at once lost my temper and spoke to the delinquent in unmeasured terms. Turning my head I saw that Jesus had followed me out of my private office, and was standing close beside me.

Again I was humbled, and had to cry for mercy.

Opening my letters, I found that difficulties had arisen of a very serious nature for me. I seemed suddenly hemmed in, and unless help came in a few hours, loss and even ruin threatened me. From what quarter the aid would come I knew not, but I just took the letter

containing the news, and laid it on the table before the Master, and said,

"Lord, if Thou hadst not been here, my heart would have been overwhelmed, but now I can with confidence and joy leave all in Thy hands."

Then He replied, "O thou of little faith. Because thou hast seen Me thou hast believed; blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed."

Yet though He rebuked me for my want of faith, He showed me how the difficulty was to be met, and put a new song of gratitude into my mouth.

Through all that strange day similiar incidents to these occurred, and the presence of the Master, which I thought would have been a joy, was a rebuke to me. It showed me as I had never dreamed before, that I had framed my life on the supposition that He had but little to do with it.

But on the other hand there were times during the day when my soul was filled with rapture; times when He smiled on me in loving approval, or when He spoke words of pardon and absolution, or when He opened. out before my wondering gaze some fresh beauty of His character and person. Such a time was the moment when on our return to my home the children came crowding round Him and wanted to show Him their toys and their pigeons and a brood of newly-hatched chickens, and I rebuked them and said to them, “Run away, children; trouble not the Master with such trifles."

And He seated Himself and took my curly-headed little boy on His knee, and called my two little girls to His side and said to me,

"Suffer these little children to come unto Me and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven.”

He laid a pierced hand in tender blessing on the bright golden curls, and there came a joy to my heart

which was as much as I could bear. Then the Saviour went with them to see their treasures, and smiled graciously on them as they told Him in their childish prattle of their love for Him who had first loved them.

But this dream has made me ask myself this question as I never did before,-Must not our realisation of the presence of the Saviour be very poor for it to exercise so small an influence upon our lives? Do not we contradict by our daily conduct what we often assert, that Christ is abiding in us? And the words spoken by Jesus when on earth, and which He had seemed to repeat in my vision, came to me with a new and intenser meaning, "Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed."

CAPTAIN BALL'S EXPERIENCE,

AS RELATED BY HIMSELF

AT AN

EXPERIENCE

MEETING IN AMERICA.

"I HAVE had a strange experience," said Captain Ball, speaking with much emotion. "It began about three weeks ago. I had lately been making some very good trades; and one night, I was riding home, reckoning up my gains, and feeling a pride and triumph in the start I had got in the world by my own shrewdness and exertions. It was starlight, and very still; I could scarcely hear a noise but the field-crickets and the tramp of my horse on the dark road, when suddenly a voice said, 'What shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?'

"Was it actually a voice? I questioned.

"No; I knew it wasn't at the time. It was, I have no doubt, my own mind; or rather, the voice of the

Holy Spirit in the conscience. But the expression was just as distinct and as unexpected as if it had been spoken by some person in my ear. I went to talk with my minister. I wanted to get into the church, where I thought I should be safe. I had no conception of repentance and a change of heart. I supposed our pastor would commence questioning me about doctrines and so forth, to let me know what I would have to understand and believe before I could become a church member. But he didn't take any such course. He made me go into the house and sit down in his study, where he talked with me a long time about the blessedness of religion, and its value above all other things of this world, independently of its rewards hereafter. Then he said,

"Captain Ball, do you know the first thing requisite to be done, if you would be a Christian?'

"I did not know.

"The Christian life-the life of a faithful follower of Jesus Christ,' said he, 'can be founded only upon repentance. Now, it is easy to say we repent, but the only repentance that is worth anything is an active repentance-by which I mean not only sorrow for sin, and an earnest desire to avoid it in the future, but one that goes to work, and seeks, as far as it is in his power, to make amends for every wrong we have ever done. Is there a person in the world, Captain Ball, who can look you in the face, and say you have wronged him?' "He knew my weak point," added the Captain. Every man has his weak point, and I suppose the lancet must be applied there first. The question was like sharp-scratching steel driven into my soul. I writhed and groaned inwardly, and struggled and perspired a long time before I could answer. I saw it was going to be dreadful hard for me to be a Christian. I meant, however, to get off as easily as I could. So I determined to confess something which I suppose was

66