winter in the greenhouse. Gradually the words sank into his heart, as those in his cottage testified from his changed life.

Soon after this his gentle little teacher was taken ill and died, giving, during a long and trying illness, much proof of the faithfulness of the Saviour she loved. When she lay in her coffin, looking like a beautiful marble statue, a sweet smile on her face, her poor friend, the gardener, came in and besought that he might place a handful of cowslips beside her. They were gathered from the bank he had planted for her. Poor man! tears streamed down his face as he covered her with her own flowers, and said, "You don't know what she has been to me: God help me to follow her till I see her sweet face again in heaven."

I left home at this time. Many years after, returning and missing old George's face in the garden, I went to his cottage, where I found him unable to move from his chair, from the effects of paralysis. He was delighted to see me; and we had a long and interesting conversation. He spoke of his thoughtless youth and wasted life, until through the child, and her cowslips, and her Bible reading, the Spirit of God spoke to his heart; and he shuddered when he found how near he had been to eternal death and ruin. His expressions of thankfulness were most intense.

I read to him; he appeared to "drink in," if I may so express it, the words of life. At last I said, "Are you not tired?" "Oh! no, ma'am; you could not tire me. I never care to hear anything else, and I could listen to those words for ever."

As I was leaving, he said, "Do you know if they have removed her cowslips? As long as I was able to work, I took care they should not be touched."

I told him they were still where he and she planted them, when he said, "It does not much matter: I shall soon see her now, and be with the Saviour in heaven.”

Soon after this conversation I heard of the old man's death. What a subject for thankfulness that he had been brought to God, and that through much suffering and trial he was enabled to hold on his way until he reached the haven where he now is! Through such simple means God often works out his own glory, that we may feel indeed that his declaration is true: "Not by power, nor by might; but by my Spirit, saith the Lord." And who would not

rather be the simple child, through her flowers leading the old man on to heaven, than the clever infidel, whose perverted talents were made the instruments of such fearful destruction?

BENJY SPARGOW; OR, MAKING HASTE TO BE RICH.

ON one of those long, dreary, granite-sprinkled hills which occupy the middle part of the western division of Cornwall, stands a cottage, which I will describe, because it is a type of its kind. The walls, built of granite, are scarcely to be discerned at a distance from the natural masses around. They are low, with a door and two windows, and are surmounted by a thatched roof. The thatching is held down by large stones, strapped together by straw ropes, to secure it from the force of the storms which prevail there; for the dwelling stands on a height called "Blow the Cold Wind;" and many a wild gust, fresh from the Atlantic, sweeps across it. You look in vain for any signs of a garden in front. A low wall shuts in a small plot, entered by a gate; but this is given up to potatoes; and the muchesteemed ornaments of the premises are the pigsty, abutting on one corner of the cottage, and the dirt-heap, gathered under one of its windows. This last provision for manuring the bit of potato ground is, one inclines to think, badly placed for the health of the inhabitants; but, on such a suggestion being made, the reply was, "It makes it sweet inside to have the smell thickly there outside the door."

The Cornish mind of independence is best suited by each cottage standing alone in its separate allotment; and so it comes to pass that the whole hill-sides are studded with them; and, at night, the lights from their windows, scattered everywhere on the dusky heights, give a curious glow-worm life to the darkling scene.

According to miner rule no man works more than eight hours a-day underground, consequently, out of the remaining sixteen hours, he has plenty of time to keep his patch of ground in order, and, by degrees, to add bit by bit at a cheap rate from the unreclaimed moor around. Thus may be seen, oftentimes, thriving little farms, small fields of barley, or even wheat, added to the original potato garden:

In one of these cottages lived Benjy Spargow. Fond of variety, and with that taste for chance which is a character

of the Celtic race, he preferred, to the regular eight hours work in the mine, the plan of "piece-work." In this way, a man paying a certain sum to the mine captain, retains, during a certain time, a fixed share of the ore he finds for his own benefit. It is, so to speak, thoroughly chance work. He pays the same money for the "let," whether he finds ore in plenty, or none at all, and is only allowed the help of one man and a boy besides himself in case the piece should prove a good and productive take. For once, however, the case was singularly fortunate for Spargow. Scarcely had he begun his month's bargain, when he hit upon a rich vein of sparkling, yellow ore, which widened as he went on, and became a fortune in his small way. Day and night he worked at it with more and more success. I can recall, as a child, seeing him just as he had come up, panting and exhausted, from the depths of the earth. A grim, weary smile of triumph was on his face; and the men round said, that Benjy was killing himself.

There lay, in bright heaps, the rich copper ore, mixed up with broken quartz; and the adventurers in Wheal Damsel looked on, and talked of the capital new vein with a feeling sense that their turn would come next when Ben's was out. He and his boy did, in truth, work themselves nearly to death in the eager pursuit of their hid treasure; and when it was all broken to pieces, and washed, and picked over, and sold, it amounted to several hundred pounds-riches indeed for him and his family in that low, one-storeyed cottage on "Blow the Cold Wind."

One naturally asks, what next? and what did he do with it? He did not drink it, nor waste it, as many men would have done. He laid it out in buying a mill. Unused to that kind of work, he succeeded badly in his business. Unsettled by too sudden riches, he was spoiled for regular habits of industry. What was quickly won, soon melted away; and he never prospered afterwards.

This is a sadly true story; and I remember the lively pain it gave me to hear it, when all was over, and the good fortune and Benjy Spargow had both vanished from the face of the earth. He died before long, and "his place. knew him no more."

It is well to buy experience as cheaply as may be, and to learn by the failure of others how to escape the snares into which they have fallen. There was nothing morally wrong in the means by which his fortune was won or lost. The

warning counsel is not to embark too eagerly in things purely belonging to this life. Forty years have passed since that day. Nearly all the men of Benjy's age and standing have gone to their long account. The lights on those bare hillsides shine, it may be, from the same cottage windows; but their children and grandchildren, not themselves, are sitting by the fires within. It matters little to them now how much they made by their "lucky takes," how much they lost by them when there was a fault;" and the vein which promised so much ore, passed into a neighbour's piece. The great question for them all is, "Did they seek and find the true riches ?"

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There is, however, an example to follow in this miner's earnestness of purpose. He counted not his life dear that he might win his fleeting gain. He worked night and day to attain it. And have you ever thought that there is for you a hidden treasure of immense and eternal value?

is sure.

You have, like the miner in question, only a limited time in which to seek for it. It must be your own seeking. You cannot pay another to do it for you. It is waiting, ready laid up. The work may be hard, but the recompense Then do not stay your hand, nor put off till to-morrow the business of to-day. Soon the time allotted will be overpast; and what then? You are deeply in debt. This hidden treasure only can pay it, and make you rich indeed. No fear of its melting away afterwards. It will be as safe, as it is precious. Unlike the fleeting prosperity on which Spargow expended his all, this will prove for you "a treasure in the heavens," where no thief approaches nor rust corrupts. His treasure left him before he died. Death would only secure you full possession.

THE PHYSICIAN.

THERE is often to be observed a very close analogy, or resemblance, between natural things and things spiritual, as for example: the body is ill and suffering; the physician is consulted; he advises and prescribes for the patient. Is this all that is required or done? By no means: the advice given must be followed, the remedies prescribed must be taken, or no good is effected. Just so is it in spiritual diseases. The suffering sin-sick soul needs the physician. Jesus, the Great Physician, says, in his

word, "He that believeth in me shall never perish, but shall have everlasting life;" and again, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." Again, we ask, Is this all that is needed? Surely not. The advice given must be followed, and the remedies prescribed taken, if we would hope for recovery. Jesus must be believed on, and his word must be received in our hearts by simple faith and trust.

There is, however, this great distinction between the two cases. In the former, kind and dear relatives and friends may, and do, administer the remedies: in the latter case, however willing and anxious, they cannot do so; the Great Physician himself must, by his own Spirit, apply the truth to the soul.

Dear reader, have you thus received the Great Physician of your soul?

"I NEVER KNEW HAPPINESS TILL NOW."

Ar the request of a city missionary I went some time since to visit a poor man. A more miserable-looking object I never beheld. His limbs were so paralysed that it was with difficulty he could move, and everything about him showed signs of the deepest poverty. But poor as he was in outward circumstances, and lowly in station, this humble man had been made, by God's grace, both rich and great spiritually. It is with a view to the honour of that saving and peace-giving grace, that this simple narrative is given, and also for the encouragement of those whose daily employment it is to visit the abodes of poverty and ignorance, endeavouring to raise the fallen and to save the lost.

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From the missionary, the following facts were gathered. One day, when visiting in his district, a wretched-looking cripple leaning against the door of a house, thus accosted him, "Mr. W you do not know me ?" No, I do not know that I ever saw you before." me in Newcastle." "What! can it be Sergeant Armstrong?"

"You knew

In the year 1844, the missionary was himself a soldier in the 26th Cameronians then stationed in Newcastle, and James Armstrong was then a fine-looking man, a sergeant in the 4th Dragoon Guards, then staying in the same place.