city a few days since? Declaring that it would be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for them?"

PETER." Forgotten it! That woe has rung in my ears every hour since. But he has been so kind to our poor, despised city, calling us and Philip and the gentle Nathanael, and I was in hopes the city would receive him."

ANDREW." True. And when, a few weeks since, he fed that great multitude, how many of them belonged to our city, and were our neighbours and friends! And when he healed every sick one among all that throng, and sent five thousand home refreshed, strengthened, instructed, and impressed, I thought they would not forget him and reject him as they do. Alas! they seem to hate him now!" PETER. "Yes. They think that when the Messiah comes, he will appear with pomp and arms, trumpet and spear, and will drive away the Romans and restore Israel."

ANDREW." Why, Peter, I thought this was thy opinion."

PETER." For a long time it was. But I begin

to have doubts when I hear him say, 'My kingdom is not of this world.' But the blind manhe healed him not at the first touch, but gradually. Why was that?"

ANDREW.-"As the Father worketh, so he works. Sometimes God speaks the word, and light is born. Sometimes he is months, years, and even a hundred years in making a single flower. Dost thou remember our conversation among the wild, beautiful oleanders on the banks of the Jordan?"

PETER." But why send him home another way, and not let him come back to the city, and tell what He had done for him? Perhaps they would have believed."

ANDREW.-"No, Peter, they would not. There are many in our wicked city who were once blind, on whom he had compassion and opened their eyes, and yet they never thank him, nor follow him. They have all abused his mercies, and he is taking them away. Alas! the woe is beginning to be fulfilled! But weep not, my brother; on His head shall be many crowns."

Ever compassionate,

Christ o'er them yearning,

Would needful strength provide For them returning.

"Give ye the people food;"

See our store scantyBread for a multitude!

Can this be plenty?

Silence, each doubting thought!

Hence, unbelieving;
Life-bread will multiply-
Grow, in the giving,-
Over each little loaf,
As it was broken,
Blessings that multiply,
Jesus hath spoken.

The bread He dispenseth

Is never diminished; The basket He blesseth Is ever replenished. Food in abundance

To all hath been given, Healing and pardon

And meetness for heaven.

O thou compassionate,
Merciful Saviour!
Fulness unfailing,
Abounding for ever.
Thus thy sustaining hand
Ever stretch o'er us,
Kind as a brother's,
And as a God's, glorious.

XLIV

CHRIST'S PARABLE OF THE BLIND LEADING
THE BLIND.

WHEN Tyranny wishes to wring the heart of his fellow with an iron hand, he digs his prison down deep, and shuts his victim away from light. And probably nothing so quickly crushes the spirit and withers the soul, as to be compelled by man to live in a shroud of darkness. But when you would describe the last act of cruelty which the human heart ever perpetrated, you would describe the awful deed of putting out the eyes. How blessed the fact, that while we have enough who are blind to show us what that state means, and how terrible its sorrows, the great mass of the human family are able to see. Would it were so in the moral world. Alas! how far otherwise. How few are aware how responsibility is a part of the inheritance of every being who has intellectual faculties;-how every one is leading, influencing, and forming the character of others. The group of boys at the door of the country school-house have their leader. There is one among them who is stamping his strong character -and it is this that makes him their leader-on all the rest. If he is a wilful, headstrong, cruel boy, without conscience, and with little human kindness, he will lead them blind to walk in his steps, to imitate him, and to strive for his character. We all know that every child comes into the world darkened and ignorant. His whole character is to be formed and moulded. If the parents

are unenlightened, if they care only to feed and clothe their child, and train him up as a creature of time, they will be likely to make him such. They are blind to the heavy responsibility which rests upon them, and they will probably lead their child in the way he should not go. But this is one of those sermons of Christ which were delivered with special reference to his ministersthe accredited teachers of the human family in the things of religion. Can the blind lead the blind? No: and they never attempt it. Nor ought any who are not seeing light in God's light, to attempt to teach the character and the plans and ways of God.

A man may understand Hebrew well and read it fluently, would it follow that he could navigate a ship across the ocean, and that lives and property would be safe, if intrusted to him? Or he may be familiar with the principles of law, and be a sound lawyer, does it follow that he could be safely called to administer advice to your dying child.

Or, because he knows, as did the Pharisees, the letter of the Scriptures, does it follow that he has felt the spirit of the Bible? By no means.

But we will rejoice that, while all men are by nature blind, while it is easy for the blind to be misled, while even the teachers of religion may be blind, there is one infallible teacher which never can mislead. I mean Holy Scriptures;they have eternal life, and are a sure word of prophecy, a lamp to the feet, and a guide to our life, till the day dawn, and the day-star arise in our hearts.

"And he asked his father, How long is it ago since this came unto him? And he said, Of a child."-MARK ix. 21.

MADNESS in childhood!-ere the golden hair
Hath lost the radiance of the morning hour;
Ere the brow darkens, or is seamed with care,
Or sin or sorrow hath usurped its power;
While the winged eyelids fold the lucid eyes,
That gaze like angels on our Father's face,
Opening at morn to view with glad surprise

The new-found glories of their dwelling-place;
While the warm blood yet flashes in the cheek,
And dances joyous in the tingling veins,
And the soft lips are all unlearned to speak
The lengthening list of human woes and pains;

Ere yet temptation, with illusive song,

Hath lured the footstep far from heaven's gate;
Ere the unsullied heart is schooled in wrong,
Or anger grows revenge, or envy hate.

Madness! the demons once to exile driven,
Emboldened, tend no more the life-long snare,
Seizing their victims at the gate of heaven,

Of such as they who only enter there!
When the brief shadows of the noonday warm
Proclaim the sultry solstice of the soul,
Madness may gather as the thunder-storm,
And breathless hurricane o'er ocean roll.
Pleasures that shine and perish in the grasp,
Illusive phantoms of substantial woes;
Kisses of rapture, stinging like the asp,
Enduring thorns beneath the passing rose;
Passion to passion calling, deep to deep;

The blear-eyed gnome alluring to the mine;
Goading ambition urging to the steep,

And wild adventure beckoning o'er the brine.

These the dark spirits, whose unblessed control,
Deposing reason from her awful throne,
Kindles the fires of madness in the soul,

And makes the dreary empire all their own.

Quickening a little the impetuous pulse,

A little urging the tempestuous brain,
And the strong passions which our souls convulse
Bind us demoniac with resistless chain.

Hope may illume the darkness of despair,

And faith o'ercome the terrors of the tomb; Friendship allay the weary woes of care,

And love dispel the soul's impending gloom;

Man may exorcise from his brother man
The maddening passion, and the frenzy wild;
Only the accents of the Master can

The darker demons that assail the child.

XLVI.

CHRIST THANKING THE FATHER IN BEHALF OF
CHILDREN.

THE pure air that surrounds our world is just as healthful to the infant the first moment his lungs are filled with it, as to the strong man who inhales the element between every uplifting of his arm in toil, and braces his nerves anew by its aid. And the light that causes the infant to leap in gladness is just as well adapted to his sparkling eye as to the eye of the astronomer who measures the universes which hang side by side. So the water which refreshes the giant, when carrying off the gates of the city, is no less the delight of the feeblest child, whose hand is too weak to lift the cup to his lips. The air, the light, and the water, are great things under the government of God, but the child can use them, enjoy them, and be benefited by them, as much as if he were the mightiest of the earth. And the grand, too;-we have seen the child shout in ecstasy under the arch of the rainbow; we have seen him stand immovable during the thunder-storm, and watch the dark, moving masses, to see if he could discern the wheels of the chariot of God, which made so deep a rumbling, or if he could catch a glimpse of the eye that sent out such flashes of light, or see the shuttle which darted through the darkness weaying the heavens with threads of melted gold!

Why need we wonder, then, if, when a new fountain of waters came to be opened, when a new sun was kindled up, when the Spirit began

to breathe over the earth a new atmosphere, these should also be adapted to the capacities, the wants, and the enjoyment, of the little child?

And when man, in his strength and his guilt, shall turn away from this light, and hide himself in a dark cave, the little child on the greensward will exult in the clear sunlight. When the man shall prefer the impure air of the city or the crowded lane, because he can there gain money, or follow out his passions, the child will bound in his joy, and his merry voice will ring the clearest on the sunny slope of the mountain. And when the man shall pervert his taste, and call for that which maddens and destroys the brain because it has passed through the worm of the still, the child will stoop over the iron-bound bucket, and drink with a relish and buoyancy which nothing else can create.

Thus God reveals to babes and sucklings these sources of enjoyment and these unspeakable luxuries, while they are lost to those who esteem themselves wise and great. Infidelity is never astonished that these things are so revealed to babes, but she despises a wisdom and a goodness that can adapt the gospel of mercy to the child as fully as these! "But the child does not understand the great truths of the Gospel!" Perhaps not. Nor does he know what composes the water he drinks, or how the light reaches his brain, or how the air he breathes is compounded, or how breathing helps him to live. But he drinks, and sees, and breathes, and rejoices in all. So the light of Christ's face may fall on him, and he may love that Redeemer, and cry, Hosanna to the Son of David! So the waters of life may flow past him, and he may measure and find the river up to the ankles; so the air of heaven may be breathed over him, and it may revive him like the dews of Hermon or the breezes of Lebanon. O beautiful, beautiful plan! There is nothing necessary to eternal salvation which is not within the reach of babes, and there are heights and depths and lengths and breadths which, to the highest intellect of mortals, are unsearchable.

XLVII.

CHRIST REFUSING THE REQUEST OF THE MOTHER OF JAMES AND JOHN.

BY MISS E. BOGART.

AMONG his followers Jesus stood,
His chosen ones around,
Disciples of the living God,
In heart, together bound.
Unwearied on his words they hung
With many a wondering thought,
For ne'er before had mortal tongue
Such heavenly wisdom taught.

But two were absent,-where were they?-
Behold them near at hand!
With hurrying steps, upon their way
To join the faithful band.

The mother with her sons appeared,
Believing in his name-

The Saviour's presence they revered,
And worshipped as they came.

"What wouldst thou?" Jesus said, though well
He knew that mother's heart;
"What wouldst thou ask?-thy wishes tell,
Ere I from hence depart."

With kind and gentle voice he spoke,
And on her listening ear

His soothing accents sweetly broke,
And took away her fear.

"Grant, Lord, that when of these bereft,
My sons, so dear to me,
That on thy right hand and thy left,
These two may sit with thee."

Thus, of his earthly kingdom still,
Did their ambition dream:
While seeking at his sovereign will,
For honours most supreme.

Ambition lurked within the souls
Of those unlettered men;
Yet hark! how Jesus' voice controls
Their inmost thoughts again.

But while he pityingly reproved
The brothers at his side,
The ten, with indignation moved,
Rebuked them for their pride.

Not so the Master. "Can ye drink," He said, "my bitter cup?-