giveness for Christ's sake, through His atoning blood. And more than pardon-grace, the grace of the Holy Spirit, to change, restore, and strengthen them, to keep them from falling, to enable them to help others to stand or rise. Is all this to be had for the asking? Yes, for Jesus Christ's sake. "Ask, and ye shall receive; seek, and ye shall find: knock, and it shall be opened unto you." Do not be afraid said it for you. to ask. Jesus Christ said this, and He Make use of His name, ask for His sake; you may, for He said, "Whatever ye shall ask the Father in my name, He will Ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy give it you: may be full." 44 “If God would but stretch out His Hand to me." WAS once called to visit a dying woman. She was in great distress of soul. After I had pointed her to Jesus, as the sinner's friend, and assured her of His willingness to save all that come to God by Him, she said, “If God would but stretch out His hand to me, I would take hold of it." I explained to her that God had been saying to His impenitent creatures, "All day long I have stretched out My hand to a disobedient and gainsaying people."1 Reader, that sermon which impressed you; that affliction which brought you to your knees; that dream, which left you with a strange terror upon you; that longing for something good, which sometimes has come upon you, you know not how or why; that remembrance of some long-forgotten sin, which has come up before you, like a spectre from the grave of the past; that illness, that sudden death in your family or in your neighbourhood, which forced upon you the reflection that "here there is none abiding," and the warning, "Prepare 1 Rom. x. 21. to meet thy God"—all these are instances of God's way of stretching out His hand to sinners, to beckon them away from a life of ungodliness or sin to the blessedness of “the man whose sin is forgiven." Yes, all the day long God is stretching out His hand to you. It is " a mighty hand; "2 and to take hold of it is to take hold of God's strength, and be at peace with Him.3 With it He plucks us as brands from the fire, and lifts the load of sin from off our conscience, after it has "laid upon His Son "the iniquity of us all."5 God stretched out His hand to us when He sent His Son to stand in our place, that we might stand in His place; and God has stretched out His hand to us whenever we have been persuaded to place the small hand of faith into the great hand of the Almighty Saviour, in the assurance that none shall pluck us out of His hand. Let these words be as a message from the dead to you, and let your resolution from this time be to "lay hold of the hope set before you," ere it be too late. He is angry with you every moment while you remain in an impenitent state, unsoftened by His love, heedless that He calls you to Himself. The prophet revealed to us how God's hand is stretched out often, not in love and pity and in invitation, but in wrath-the wrath of offended mercy. He writes: "For all this His anger is not turned away, but His hand is stretched out still."6 Awful will that day be when God will say to many, 66 Because I have called, and ye refused; I have stretched out My hand, and no man regarded; I also will laugh at your calamity; and mock when your fear cometh." A TTUNE my heart, O God, to things divine; Fit me to join Thy saints in praise and prayer; My lips are sealed; my tongue will silent be, And powerless prove to speak abroad Thy grace, "Ope Thou my lips" Thy praises forth to show; Touch Thou my sealed lips, my soul inspire; Low at Thy feet in emptiness I lie Be pleased, O God! Thy word to glorify, My grace and power I to My servants give. W. H. G. Old Andrew's Proverbs. THE SLOTHFUL HUNTER. NO. III. LD ANDREW has a good many neighbours who might be better off than they are if they were only more industrious. No matter at what hour of the day you may happen to pass down the street, you will be sure to see some idle fellows lounging about, with their hands in their pockets, and groups of slatternly women standing by the doors. Probably it was with some view of benefitting these that Old Andrew one morning wrote up, in big chalk letters, the proverb "THE SLOTHFUL MAN ROASTETH NOT THAT WHICH HE TOOK IN HUNTING." One of these idlers happened to be passing leisurely by the stall just as old Andrew was putting the tail to the G, and stopped to have a look at it. Slowly removing the pipe from his mouth for a moment, he remarked: "Well, I would, old fellow." "Would what?" said Old Andrew, who had been surveying his own handiwork, and now turned and looked round at the man. "I would roast what I had taken in hunting." "I have no doubt you would," said Old Andrew, who knew his man ; "but then you are too lazy ever to have taken anything by hunting." "That's one for you," said another lounger, who had just come up, and had heard the remark. "You see "I daresay it is, friend," said the old man. there are two kinds of slothful people. There are some so lazy that they never muster courage even to make a beginning of anything that is worth doing; and there is another kind of slothful people who do make beginnings, but have not perseverance to go on and finish anything. It is a man of that kind who is spoken of in that proverb. Such people I have known a great many. They are very common. were just like that hunter; he set off in the morning to hunt, and by-and-by managed to catch something; so he went home and flung down his game on the floor, for he felt tired and hot, and could not be bothered doing anything more. Probably the cat got it, or he forgot all about it till it was worthless, and had to be thrown out. "Sam Crates, whom I used to know when I was young, was of that sort. He began lots of things, but he was too slothful to finish them. He took it into his head one day to rent a bit of garden ground. I can easily work it 6 myself,' said he; and it will be nice to have fresh vegetables of one's own growing.' "About two hours' work in the garden was enough for him. He never thought digging was so hard before, and, after one or two poor attempts, he gave up, and the weeds had it all their own way. 'Ah,' said he, 'it needs one accustomed to that kind of work to do it; but I have been reading lately about rearing fowls. It is the easiest thing in the world, and no end of profit.' So Sam put up a fowlhouse, and bought some chickens. There was no hard work needing to be done : 'But then,' said Sam, after a few weeks, 'it is such a bother to have to attend to them regularly.' The upshot was that the poor fowls were neglected. Some of them died, and the rest became so thin and sickly that nobody cared to buy them, and they were useless for food; so he killed them and buried them. He might have made some use of the feathers, but he could not take the trouble to pluck them off. "Sam was fond of music; and, as it seemed an easy thing to play the fiddle, he bought one, in a fine case, and commenced to learn. He found, however, that it would take a good deal more than a month to master it; so he gave it up. The fiddle was, fortunately, saleable; he got half his money for it. He thought it would be a most useful thing to know shorthand, and got an instruction book, learned the signs, and practised them for a week or two. He came to the conclusion however that we ought to learn shorthand when very young, in order to become expert at it; so he gave it up. German and botany, chemistry and landscape-painting, all shared the same fate. He began to write stories, and never got beyond the first chapter. He tried to write poems, and never finished them. At one time he thought of becoming a public lecturer, but managed to write only about the fourth part of one lecture. So that came to nothing. "Poor Sam did not appear to most people to be slothful, for he was always after something; but, unfortunately, he never completed anything, or continued any pursuit that he began; |