66 May 30th.-Oh, this hard heart of mine! I know that I am a great sinner, and that I might any minute be taken out of the world. As yet I cannot grieve for

my sins as I would. Almost as long as I can remember I have felt some checks of conscience, and sometimes I have felt a secret love to the Lord for His lovingkindness in saving poor sinners, though I could never feel I belonged to the number of the saved; yet I have at times a hope that I do. But oh, my heart is so hard! I seem to gain strength of body, and if it be the Lord's will, I hope He will raise me up again; but if it is His design to take me, I think I could be willing if I was going to heaven."

"Oh, that I were washed in the Redeemer's blood! How the following lines from the SOWER just describe my feelings

"Lord, hear a restless wretch's groans;
To Thee my soul in secret moans;
My body's weak, my heart's unclean,
I pine with sickness and with sin."

It was a solemn time to those present; and, when singing the last verse, they all wept together.

Miriam now spent much of her time in reading, and much loved her Bible and the LITTLE GLEANER.

In January, her brother wrote to say he had met with Mr. H, of Brighton, who had prayed very beautifully on her behalf, and said, "You are favoured, Miriam, in having such good men to pray for you, are you not? to which she replied, "Yes," her countenance, at the same time, beaming with delight.

She was very reserved, and said but little, yet manifested much concern about her state. The reading of Bunyan's "Come and Welcome" was made a great blessing. She much liked Mr. C read and pray with her, but she seemed afraid to open her mind to him. She was a patient sufferer, and had much resignation to the Lord's will.

to

In February, 1883, the doctor said that she could not last long, which her mother broke to her as tenderly as she could. She said she should not mind if she knew that she was saved.

For several days she was exceedingly thoughtful, and asked, on one occasion, that Medley's beautiful hymn, number 1105, Gadsby's, might be sung

"Jesus, engrave it on my heart

That Thou the one thing needful art;
I could from all things parted be,
But never, never, Lord, from Thee!"

She said, too, that the text, "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him," had been much upon her mind.

On the last Sabbath she spent on earth, her father asked her if she felt her heart going out in prayer that Jesus would re

veal Himself to her. She replied that this was her chief desire.

On Monday, she was very weak. Mr. C came and prayed with her, and told her there was the same joy awaiting the longing soul that there was the rejoicing soul, which remark greatly comforted her.

Early the following morning, she said to her sister, "Oh, I must die, and I know not how soon, and I have no good hope. Do pray for me!" When her father entered the room, soon after, she said smilingly, "Don't cry. Let me have one more kiss. I have got more hope than I had just now." Her mother gave her a little beef tea, and soon after she fell into a beautiful sleep; then awoke, gazed round the room, then upwards, and again sank into a calm sleep; and presently, without pain, sigh, or groan

"The spirit dropped its clay and fled— Fled off, triumphant, home."

Thus peacefully departed Miriam Jarvis from this vale of tears, March 6th, 1883, at the age of fifteen; and we believe the sense she had of her lost condition, the earnest petitions she offered up for mercy, and the love she felt to the Lord, His people, and His ways, prove that she was one of those who think upon His name; and of such He says, 66 They shall be Mine in the day that I make up My jewels."

On the following Monday she was buried by Mr. C, who spoke very appropriately upon the occasion. Several of the friends and school children were present to witness the solemn scene. May the Lord make this event a blessing, especially to the young.

We cannot do better than close this brief account with the following verses, and an acrostic, of Miriam's own composing

To be on the Rock, oh, what a blest place!

To have a free pardon, and smiles of God's face!

83

Safe on the Rock! how I wish to be there!

But to be on the Rock is a thing very rare,

Considering the thousands who build on the sand,

And trust their own deeds, forgetting the hand

Of that blessed Creator whose throne is above,

Who has saved many sinners through pity and love.

Almighty Creator, do make me Thy child;

By nature so sinful, so rude, and so wild; Oh, do wash my sins in Christ's precious blood,

And teach me the way that leads unto God!

girt by savage cliffs, that spring

four hundred feet out of the sea, is a grey old castle with straggling ramparts, which, in its prime, presented a resolute force and supreme difficulties to the enemies that attempted to storm it. Scarborough Castle is now in ruins, and its prostrate and disjointed fabric seems like a part of the native rock from which the earth has been washed away.

Could the grey old walls speak for themselves, they would tell a thrilling story of the assaults they have resisted, and the brave hearts they have sheltered.

Once in the great civil war it was besieged, the governor receiving a message, threatening instant death to him and all within the castle, unless he surrendered without shedding one drop of the invaders' blood. The arrogant captain did not know the courage and hardihood of his foe, and the castle was held cut against him for nearly a year.

"Conceiving that I would relent in respect of her being there," the governor wrote, "my wife came to me without any direction or trouble, and prayed me that I would not for any consideration of her do aught that might be prejudicial to my own interest, or the king's affairs."

At the end of a year capitulation was unavoidable, and the enemy marched up the craggy steps that led to the sally-port, an exultant horde, in sober drab jackets and shining helmets, to drive out the crestfallen and attenuated defenders.

In 1655, the castle was the prison of George Fox, the famous founder of the Society of Friends, who, at various times, was confined in three different rooms. The first, he tells us, was filled with smoke; in the second there was no fireplace or chimney at all; and here, being unable to dry his clothes, his body became benumbed and his fingers swollen; but his greatest suffering was in the third, into which the wind drove the rain so

bed." His jailers made a threepenny loaf last him three weeks, and steeped wormwood in his water. Some years later, he was not only free, but was invited to preach at the castle, where he was received lovingly and with honour.

Beyond the castle, the summit of the crag on which the ruins are, expands into an almost level greensward, which suddenly ends in a perpendicular cliff. In the comfortable semi-circle of the bay lies luxuriant and ultra-modern Scarborough.

Scarborough abounds with contrasts. There are narrow little byways in it, and many queer little houses, roofed with the ever-welcome and hospitablelooking red tiles.

Scarborough is not a mushroom growth. It looks back to the Saxon period, whence its name is derived from two words signifying the town or fortress on the rock, and there is little doubt that still earlier it was a Roman camp.

Now, however, Scarborough is one of the most fashionable watering-places in England. It has but one objection-it has more than its share of rain. Sometimes the rain begins in the very middle of the season, and falls day after day, from week to week, putting an end to all festivities, and saturating the people with ennui. Sometimes it is so persistent that the visitors are driven away at the beginning of their holiday, to re-embrace London with true Cockney felicity.

But, with fine weather, Scarborough is charming, and preferable to any other watering-place we know of; that is, considering its size and population, which, not including visitors, is twenty-four thousand. -Harper's Magazine.

"TRUST in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding."

INE years ago this spring, at a place called Bidsdon Bottom, near Ludgershall, a ploughboy was one evening returning to his home, and when in a lonely part of the road, he climbed a tree in order to take some young starlings out of their nest, which was deep down in a hole in the tree. Being eager to seize his prize, he thrust his arm as far as he could into the hole to reach the birds. But, when he pushed his arm into the hole in the tree, he did not expect that it would turn out to be a trap for him. But so it was, for, when he tried to withdraw his arm, he found he could not do so; and the more he tried to free himself, the tighter his arm seemed to be held. The arm being pinched in the hole, the blood could not flow back to the heart, and so caused the veins to enlarge, which gave him considerable pain. But it was useless for him to cry, for there was neither house nor person near. He took out his knife from his pocket with his other hand, and began to cut away the wood to enlarge the hole, but before he had made much progress he let his knife fall.

After some time a man passed by, and the boy would have gladly asked him for help, but he had taken a hurdle to aid him in getting up the tree, and he knew the man to be the farmer whose hurdle he had taken from the stack, so he was afraid to call to him; and, as no other person passed along the road, he had to remain in the tree a prisoner all night; therefore he had time for reflection in this sad condition and solitary place during the dark hours of the night. We hope he made up his mind never to attempt to steal again.

He had two visitors, neither of which could help him; and, if either of them could have thought of the boy's condition at all, they would, perhaps, have thought that it served him right, and would have been glad to see the thief caught, for

they too were birds. The one was an owl and the other a cuckoo. But there were two other birds near all night, which made known their sorrow and fear by pitiful cries. These were the parents of the young birds in the nest. And doubtless the boy's parents would have been in great trouble about him, if they had had any thought that he was out of doors; but, as he sometimes slept at the farm where he worked, they concluded that he was doing so on this occasion.

In the morning, he shouted to some men as they were passing along to their work, who soon got others to help them I cut the tree down, and let the self-made prisoner go free. No doubt he was both ashamed and sorry for having tried to steal, and being caught and punished in the very act.

Reader, shun the cruel practice of birds' nesting

Look not with envy on the home of others,

Nor covet ought that is by right another's; They who to others needless pains impart, Shall have the same returned into their