How joyfully he tells his blessed tale !— The mourned are yet alive! the lost are found!

He points them back where, 'neath the cold gray rocks, In rosy sleep his childish charges lay; Then, glad and thankful after duty done, But faint and worn, he turned and went his way.

And had not the Great Father watched them well, To give, after calm night, a morn like this? Awaking to their earthly father's love, Awakened by their tender mother's kiss.

Soon hand in hand in that reunion sweet, Shelter and needed food they haste to seek;

The children prattling in unthinking glee, Eager to hear all, and of all to speak.

Blithely the little feet and tongues ran on; The day is up—how full life seems of

joy!

How far off death, that was so near last night To them! How is it with the sailor boy?

A little speck, first seen with straining eyes;

A figure lying on the spotless snow; A white set face, whose sleep they could not break; A faithful heart, that no more cold should know!

He had but done his duty—that was all; Sought no reward, and never thought of fame: The ship he sailed in came not back to port, And, perchance, no man living knows his name.

But it is known: there is an awful Book, In which his name and deed alikearewrit,

Which will be opened on the Judgment Day, And men and angels too shall hear of it.

And none will wonder like that sailor boy, When his dear Lord shall tell the story o'er,

Saying, " Didst thou not warmth and comfort give When I was cast upon the frozen shore?"

He asking, "How, Lord 1" all will hear, "Well done! [be!

Thou good and faithful servant, welcome For inasmuch as it was done to one

Of these my children, it was done to Me."

BEWARE OF SMALL BEGINNINGS.

SOME workmen were lately building a large brick tower, which was to be carried up very high. In laying a corner, one brick, either by accident or carelessness, was set a very little out of line. The work went on without its being noticed, but as each course of bricks was kept in line with those already laid, the tower was not put up exactly straight, and the higher they built the more insecure it became. One day, when the tower had been carried up about fifty feet, there was a tremendous crash. The building had fallen, burying the men in the ruins. All the previous work was lost, the materials wasted, and worse still, valuable lives were sacrificed,— and all from one brick laid wrong at the start. The workman at fault in this matter little thought how much mischief he was making for the future.

Reader, do you ever think what may come of one bad habit, one brick laid wrong, while you are now building a character for life? Remember that in youth the foundation is laid. See that all is kept straight.

10

IT is without spire, without belfry, without bell; it has no pastor, no congregation; it stands—this small church in the wood—the solitary memorial of a good missionary, who built it, so long ago that no man is quite certain of the time when, for the Chippewa Indians.

Missionary and Indians alike have gone, and nothing remains in all that far-off Western region but the little church to tell that they have been.

When the farm-houses were built, and the acres of grain began to grow, and the voices of children to be heard in the land, no man laid a hand upon the little mission church, nor utilized it for house, or school, or barn. As time went on, the trees grew up about it, clustering nearer and nearer, until it came to be buried in the very heart of a small forest of pines. Pine-tree trunks columned it around; great branches of pine were laid in air above it; pine-tree needles thatched it anew every year; and on either side of its low entrance nature had raised a sentinel who never deserted his post, but stood bravely up under the laying on of heat and cold, of light and darkness and storm. For many a day the forest had held this little well-nigh-forgotten mission church. No prayer, no praise, no preaching within its walls, only the great bowing toward heaven of the lofty pines in the air above it.

One day two little girls wandered into the pine wood. It was on a solemn day; such a day as the United States had never before known. From the Atlantic to the Pacific the people of God were engaged in prayer. The thing craved, with a mighty craving, was the life of their beloved President.

Edith Bartlett stood, amazed, in the wood, at the sight she saw. "Alice!" she whispered, "look there!" Edith pointed with awe amid the lofty trunks toward the little church.

"What is it 1" returned Alice. "It looks like a house. But I never heard of anybody living here; did you, Edith 1" she asked.

They trod softly over the carpet of pine; they ventured nearer and nearer, until they were at the little mission church.

"It's deserted," whispered Edith.

"Oh, such a discovery!" gasped Alice. "We've lived here four months and never heard of it."

"Shall we knock?" questioned Edith. "Oh, Alice, suppose—what if an old Indian should open that door 1"

"I'll try and see. Stand off, now, if you are afraid." Alice knocked softly at first, then louder. No response.

"Try the door," suggested Edith, who stood aside, with one of the pine sentinels intervening.

"I can't open it. Come and help me. I tell you there's nobody been here since these woods were made. It's awfully old," said Alice, who was exerting all her strength upon the latch, held down by the rust of many years.

Edith ventured to look in through a window.

"Alice," she said, going to her sister's aid, "it's been a church, some time. Just to think, folks have prayed and sung in here!"

A few vigorous strokes with a stone caused the rust to give way, the door parted a little, a little more, and then the two girls stood within the church. How quaint, and 11

old, and forgotten it seemed! The light was dim; the flooring was uneven; the thoughtless roots of the trees were invading the place; but the little high, square pulpit, was there, and the seats—pews there were none. Up the aisle walked Edith and Alice.

"How long ago was this place used, do you think?" questioned Alice.

"Oh, ages before we were born," returned Edith; "and"—with sudden emphasis— "what a place to pray in for the dear President! Here, where nobody has prayed for him before—a church all to ourselves!"

"It does seem as if God would hear us in here," said Alice, in an awed tone. "Shall we go into the little, high-up pulpit 1"

They went into it. In all the United States, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from their most northern point to their most southern boundary, I think there could have been found no two young girls more eagerly interested in the life of the President than were Edith and Alice Bartlett.

During all the days, from the second of July to the very end, no day was too stormy or too hot, no pleasure so alluring as to prevent their walking two miles for the latest news from Washington. They had written letters to the President's young daughter full of love and affectionate wishes—letters that were never sent, because their mother thought they ought not to go; and they had prayed earnestly that the President might get well. Now together they ascended the pulpit of the sweet old missionary, and there was no voice raised, in heaven or earth, to prevent their going into it to pray there for the man in suffering.

"How strange! How queer! Don't you feel awed ?" asked Alice.

"Yes I do," replied Edith, "just as

though I were somebody who used to live and pray here ages ago."

"Let us sing first," observed Alice; and her sweet young voice rose softly to the low rafters as she began to sing "Sweet Hour of Prayer."

"I feel quite as though I were in church, don't you?" questioned Alice in a subdued whisper, as the last tone of the last word died away.

"Dear Lord," prayed Edith, "we have found this little church in the wood. We don't know who prayed in it, but no man owns it to-day. It is your house, and we came into it to ask you to make the poor dear sick man well who lies so hurt and ill on the edge of the great sea—but—we don't ask that now. We only ask you to make him happy. Don't mind us, or our wishes, or our prayers any more. We are willing to be sorry and to suffer if only you will make him happy. Take care of his dear mother, and his wife, and the boys, and Mollie, and make them all sweet and willing—"

Edith could not pray another word. She burst into passionate sobbing at the touch of Alice's arm about her waist, and for a few moments the little mission church heard only the loving cries of two warm-hearted girls.

"Come; let us go," said Alice, at last. "How selfish of us to think that we had anything to give up when those children lose a father, and we only a President—if he has to die."

"Yes," said Edith, "and don't you remember how mother told us the other day about President Lincoln's dying—and how all the people felt then as though they could never love another man? And now God has made the man, and the love too, I begin to feel as though God could be trusted right on, through everything."

12

"Even if he dies!" questioned Alice. "Would that be an answer to our prayer?"

"If it comes to him to die, that must be God's best for him. Oh, Alice, I feel as though I did not want to pray for him any more; as though I knew that, just beyond where we can see or know anything at all, God himself is preparing something a great deal better than we can know or think about for our President."

"God has always been very good to us," said Alice, as they walked down the aisle and passed out of the little church.

The latch fell into place, and the silence of the pine forest came again and inwrapped the spot. One more prayer had gone up to God for the President.

There came one answer to them all.

The prayers were ours. The answer was God's.

WAITING FOR GOD.

ONE day a kind-hearted gentleman observed a little boy standing in the street, and gazing up into the sky. He ,was a clever-looking boy, but evidently sick. The gentleman went up to him and asked him what he was doing there.

"Waiting for God to come for me," said lie.

"What do you mean?" said the gentleman, touched by the tone of the answer and the condition of the boy, in whose eye and flushed face he saw the evidences of fever.

"God sent for father and mother and little brother," said he, "and took them away to his home up in the sky; and mother told me, when she was sick, that God would take care of me. I have no home, nobody to give me anything, and I came here, and have been looking so long up into the sky

for God to take me, as mother said he would. He will come, won't he? Mother never told a lie.'

"Yes, my boy," said the gentleman, overcome with emotion. "He has sent me to take care of you."

You should have seen his eyes flash and the smile of triumph break over his face, as he said:—

"Mother never told a lie, sir;—but you have been so long on the way.",

GOING HOME.

"Suffer the little children to come unto Me." Mark X. 14.

THEY are going—only going—
Jesus called them long ago!
All the wintry time they're passing,

Softly as the falling snow;
When the violets in the spring-time

Catch the azure of the sky,
They are carried out to slumber
Sweetly where the violets lie.

They are going—only going—

When with summer earth is dressed; In their cold hands holding roses

Folded to each silent breast.
When the autumn hangs red banners

Out above the harvest sheaves,
They are going—ever going—

Thick and fast like falling leaves.

All along the mighty ages,

All adown the solemn time,
They have taken uptheir homeward march

To that serener clime,
Where the watching, waiting angels

Lead them from the shadows dim
To the brightness of His presence

Who has called them unto Him.