In the case of the squire's family one of the girls immediately fainted, and her father and mother and sisters led her out, and did not come back again. "It would never have done," she explained afterwards, "just to have walked out as if the squire's presence had after all been treated as the presence of an anybody! She saw her sisters were not prepared to faint, so she did it herself, and she knew that their going out created quite a sensation. But if she lived to be a hundred, she would never like the doctor again—never, never!"

Why not?

Because Dr. Coultonsby had said aloud to her mother, as they laid her on the grass at the door of the barn,

“Undo her stays, please; this is the result of tight-lacing. When will young ladies learn that nipped-in waists are as unhealthy as they are ugly!"

"Rather stiff that, doctor," said a man in the crowd who overheard the remark; while the chemist's daughters standing near, pinched each other's arms and secretly resolved to make some

alteration in the order they had given their dressmaker about their dark blue poplin cos

tumes.

Dr. Coultonsby soon filled in the seats, vacated by the squire and his family and others, with the poorest from the crowd outside. Then the door was propped open, to enable those on the other side to hear.

And the service began. Very earnest and impressive, very simple, very soothing.

The doctor said, after reading a chapter,-there had been singing and prayer,—

"I am amongst you to-night, dear friends, as the doctor of many of you. Now you know what brings you to me: you are ill, and want to be well; and you know what brings me to you, you are laid by and I have come to try and cure you.

"Now I am going to talk to you to-night about the Good Physician, the soul's doctor. You know, with all the skill and care possible, the most clever doctor on earth cannot keep your bodies alive when the time has come for you to die; but the Good Physician can keep

your souls alive for ever. Only first they must be healed of a bad disease, which sooner or later, if not cured, brings death to every one. This disease is called sin. And everybody has it, old and young, rich and poor, kings and princes, chimney-sweeps and scavengers.

"You know what it is to have what is called consumption in the family.' The father and mother were consumptive, and all the children inherit it. Now we inherit sin, the consumption of the soul, just in the same way from our parents Adam and Eve. When God made Adam and Eve, they had nothing the matter with them, their souls were healthy and strong, and might always have been so, if they would have done what God told them to do-if they had obeyed Him. But an enemy came to tempt them to disobedience; and instead of being so full of the thought of obeying the great and holy God, and, because they had but this one thought of doing what He had told them, determined not to listen. for a moment to any one who asked them to do what He had said they must not do,—instead, I say, of being whole-heartedly loyal to God, they

listened to the enemy, and just heard what he

had to say.

"Ah! this listening to evil is the first step to ruin to-day, as it was then. Young man, do not listen to the voice of temptation in whatever form it comes to you: if a bad book, put it down as you would poison; if an evil companion, shun him as you would the fever; if an unholy appetite, down upon your knees and overcome it!

"Well now, our parents listened to the tempter, looked at the fruit which they had been forbidden to eat, took it, held it in their hands, and then ate it. Eve did all this first, and then she gave to Adam, and he ate too; and in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, the soul of our parents became diseased with sin. They had cut themselves off from God and life and health by disobeying their Maker.

"What a forlorn condition to be placed in what a hopeless state for the human race! Yes, but for God's love we should all have been for ever lost. But He loved and pitied our first parents, and all of us yet to be born, and He made a way by which this sin might be taken out of the soul:

'God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.'

"The Lord Jesus, God's Son, died for us, to atone for (or put away) our sin, and He is the Good Physician who alone has power to heal us.

"Now, my friends, will you come to Him to be healed? You know sometimes we doctors have to tell you very plainly we cannot cure your malady, but we will do our best to patch you up for a time.' Now the Good Physician will never say that to you; what He does He does thoroughly. You have but to come to Him and He will heal you entirely, not patch you up for a time. He will put your sin all away and give you a new heart, so that sin will become hateful to you, and to love and please Him will be the first thought of your life.

"My dear friends, who will come to-night? Do you remember when the boatman's little boy, the joy of his dear mother's heart, and the admiration of all of us who knew him,-(Bless the little darling with his long curls and bonny blue eyes, I think I see him now!),-do you remember him