tuary. They were congenial to his soul. They met the longings of his renewed nature. There he felt more peace when he beheld the atoning Lamb, and realised strength as he beheld the pledges of Divine help, or heard the words of revelation.

He liberally supported the house of the Lord. He did not serve God with that which cost him nothing. He was ready with his offerings-voluntary as well as obligatory. He instituted and supported the musical service of the ancient Church. He dedicated much of his treasure to the house of the Lord, and a part of what he won by the spoils of war was consecrated. He made great preparations for building a house to the Lord. "Behold," he said, "I have prepared for the house of the Lord 100,000 talents of gold, 1,000,000 talents of silver, and of brass and iron without weight, for it is in abundance." Though he was not permitted to erect the temple, yet he made liberal and frequent contributions to secure its building by his magnificent son.

He lamented absence from the house of the Lord. Next to his complaint of personal guilt and family affliction is to be ranked his sorrow for absence from the house of the Lord. In several of his Psalms this feeling is expressed with much pathos. It was ever his infirmity, not his will, that kept him from the sacred

courts.

It is our duty and our interest. The promise of the Lord's presence is given to our united meeting in one place in his name. That is sufficient to give importance to a place and the services connected with it. We need a place. It may be an arched cathedral, where the highest art is made to give a material glory to the house of the Lord, or it may be a barn, where the circumstances of a people find their only comfortable meeting-house for worship and instruction. It may be your own, or it may be hired. It ought to be adapted to the end designed, the accommodation of worshippers and profitable hearing. It ought to be comfortable; there is no reason why it should not be costly, as many of your own mansions are; and there is no reason why it should not have architectural beauty and massive strength-with tower or steeple, and chimes of bells. It should be maintained in comfort, and provided with a ministry. Here are opportunities for the consecration of gold and silver and the highest talent to the service of God. Churches should all be out of debt, and material wants should always be subordinate to the ministerial; the earthly house to the spiritual building.

The place is for the people, as a means of public blessing and of spiritual delight. The services give the house of the Lord its glory, and the enjoyment of those ordinances secures the worshipper's blessing.

He sought God in the temple. Attend- Then you should attend the house of ance in the house of the Lord was not God on all occasions which are reasonhis end. He desired to be there because ably within your ability. Many make very he wished to meet with God. My paltry pleas to excuse their absence. heart and flesh crieth out for the living Many attend only half a day, and only on God. When shall I come and appear a certain half-perhaps the morning, that before God?" The outward service could they may give all the remaining portion not satisfy his longing. The round of to worldly converse. Many never attend ceremonies did not meet his wants. He on a week-day, when services are held at sought fellowship with God, and went hours suited to the circumstances of the to the sacred courts with that holy object. congregation. Punctuality and regularity We do not wonder that he enjoyed the of attendance are great virtues of a sacred place, or that he delighted in the church-going people. company of the people of God, when his soul had such intense desire to hold intercourse with the Father of his spirit-prayer, his God and Saviour.

Brethren, the Christian should not be behind the Jew. The house of the Lord, though it lacks the visible token of the Divine presence, and is not of itself holy, or capable of sanctifying your service, yet is the place of public prayer and praise to God, and of solemn instruction in Divine truth. It is the Lord's will that we should assemble ourselves together.

You should love the house of God because of its sacred services. These are praise, and exposition of the Word-all attractions heavenward, and which have made many sing with Isaac Watts :

"I have been there, and still will go,
'Tis like a little heaven below."

You should give your mind, while there, to the sacred service. Our Lord used a scourge to cast out of the temple courts those who bought and sold within them, and he said, "It is written, My house

The number of auditors has been gradually and regularly on the incapacity of the places opened. At the crease; now it is bounded by the last meetings held in the Salle Herz, the crowd pressed around the doors We have not thought it prudent to before the Hall was opened. Elsenotice too hastily that which is now where, except at the Gymnasium going on in Paris of a religious charac- Triat, a large number of persons ter; but since other journals have have been obliged to return home taken it up, and, at the same time, the without getting admission. One of authorities have interposed, the popu- the special blessings which God has lation of Paris also being interested, it granted in these meetings is that they

have been, up to the present, as quiet

The Archives states that the meetas they have been profoundly impres- ings in Paris continue to take place sive. There has been no trace of and to be blessed. Eleven meetings those physical effects which have oc- of prayer for ladies only are held curred elsewhere. We have seen weekly, eight for men only, three for many, many tears flowing, but we young men only, eighteen for men and have not heard a single cry, nor wit- women. Two of these meetings are nessed a single fainting (except the held in German, two in English. fainting of one young lady, oppressed by the heat).

The above are prayer-meetings, with the exception of one for singing on We have ourselves been much sur- Friday at two p.m., and another on prised at the total absence, in Mr. the same day at half-past seven p.m., Radcliffe, of all those means by which for prayer and mutual edification for it is so easy to create an artificial ex- such as take part at the prayer-meetcitement amid a large religious ings during the week. Besides these assembly in which is found a con- there are special meetings for opening siderable number of females. Mr. the Scriptures, for mutual edification, Radcliffe addresses the heart and and, on Sunday, at two o'clock, for conscience, not the nerves and the the Lord's Supper, at the Evangelical imagination. True, he speaks of the Chapel. M. Monod believes the numbottomless pit, and of the wages of sin, ber of meetings will be yet more which is death; but he speaks as the numerous. Word of God warrants, neither more A correspondent says, that during nor less. The infinite and fatherly the stay of the English evangelists, love of God is his habitual theme; this Messrs. Radcliffe and Henry, above love is the beginning, the end, the three hundred persons professed to substance and life, of all his addresses. have obtained peace through believWe shall never forget the general im-ing in Christ Jesus. pression which was produced one evening by the simple repetition, from the bottom of his soul, of three words, which he had learnt to speak in our language "God loves you. God loves you. God loves you.' The love of God towards all; his desire that all should be saved; salvation assured to all by faith in Jesus, are the themes he loves to repeat in different forms and expressions. There is in his whole manner, voice, in the expression of his face, in all he says, something which comes from the heart and which reaches the heart. He speaks to a large company as easily as he converses with a single individual; one feels that he believes what he says, that he has profound experience of what he affirms; that the salvation or perdition of souls is to him a present reality, a solemn and real alternative. Above all this, he is a man of prayer; he believes in and he realises the efficacy of prayer. There, in our opinion, is the secret of his power.

--

Mr. Radcliffe and Mr. Henry left Paris in July, but the meetings have been continued in many of the Protestant places of worship with evident token of the Lord's presence.

At the earnest solicitation of friends, Messrs. Radcliffe and Henry intend revisiting Paris, and will likely remain for some time. Mr. Henry is a son of the Rev. Dr. Shouldham Henry, of Queen's College, Belfast, and was for some years studying in London for the English bar.

JOHN BROWN, THE GRAVE

DIGGER.

HOPE FOR THE INFANT DEAD.

IN the churchyard (says a writer in the Hamilton Advertiser) and in matters connected with it, John Brown seemed quite

a different man from what he was anywhere else. Genial, free, and hearty in his own house and the village, he was grave and taciturn in the discharge of his funereal duties, and watched over the place of tombs with jealous care. This part of

his character no one could read but the

parish minister; he alone had the key to it. The secret, however, was this:-The deepest affections of his soul centred on the enclosed two acres, which he had tended for twenty years. He regarded

white clover sheet spread abune it: dae ye no think sae yersel', sir?"

"But why not thus cover larger graves ?" asked the minister, hardly able to suppress his emotion. "The dust of all His saints is precious in the Saviour's sight."

Very true, sir," responded John, with great solemnity; " but I canna be sure wha are His saints, and wha are no'. I hope there are mony o' them lyin' in this kirkyard; but it wad be great presumption in me to mark them oot. There are some that I'm gey sure aboot, an' I keep their graves as nate an' snod as I can, and plant

sheet.

bairns.

but I daurna gi'e them the white It's clean different though wi' the We ha'e His ain word for their up-goin', an' sae I canna mak' an error there. Some folk, I believe are bauld enough to say that it's only the infants o' the guid that wull be saved."

it with a pride, and even a soul, as great as, and very similar to, that with which an enthusiastic gardener looks upon his domain, and cherishes its floral treasures. Every new made grave was to John like a flower which he had planted; and it was added in his memory to the many hundreds which covered the surface of the enclosure, to be thought of and cherished according to the degree of respect and reverence which the sexton had for its inmate. As a gardener has his favourite flowers, so John had his favourite graves, and spent additional time on their adornment. Hence, one grave might be seen with a smooth a bit flure here and there as a sign o' my velvet turf, and a flower or two blooming hope; upon it, while those surrounding it were covered with rank masses of grass; and by looking at any one grave it could be known what was the state of John's feelings towards the mouldering dust beneath. His professional love was particularly lavished on the little ones. For the children's graves he had a peculiar affection and reverence. Not one of them was suffered to go to waste; and long after the little mound had disappeared, the little level spot was easily found by patches of white cloverfor John invariably sowed this on the little graves, and on none other. Mr. Gray had not been long minister of the parish till he noticed the odd practice of his gravedigger; and one day, when he came upon John smoothing and trimming the lonely bed of a child which had been buried a few days before, he asked him why he was so particular in keeping and trimming the graves of the children. John paused for a moment at his work, and looking up, not at the minister, but at the sky, said, "Of such is the kingdom of heaven."

"And on this account you tend and adorn them with so much care," remarked the minister, who was greatly struck with the reply.

"Surely, sir," answered John, "I canna mak' ower braw and fine the bed-coverin' o' a little innocent sleeper that's waitin' there till it's God's time to wauken and cover it wi' the white robe an' waft it awa' to glory. When sic graunder is awaitin' it yonder, it's fit that it should be decked oot here. I think the Saviour that counts its dust sae precious will like to see the

"And do you adhere to that doctrine?" inquired Mr. Gray.

John answered by pointing to a little patch a few paces off, which was thickly covered with clover. "That ane," he said, "is the bairn o' Tam Lutton, the collier. Ye ken Tam, sir ?”

Mr. Gray did indeed know Tam, for he was the most notorious swearer, liar, and drunkard in the parish; and John did not require to say any more to show that he disbelieved the doctrine of the condemnation of infants.

"It's no' only cruel and blasphemous," he continued, in a dry, sarcastic way, “but it's quite absurd. Jist tak' that bairn o' Tam's as an example. According to their belief it's lost; because we may, without ony breach o' charity, say that Tam is at present a reprobate. But he is still in the place o' hope, sir; and it's quite possible that he may yet be convertit. What becomes of the bairn then? Na, na," he added, looking reverently upward, "God is merciful, an' Jesus died; and it was him that said, 'Of such is the kingdom of heaven.'"

The minister took John's hand and silently pressed it. He had got the key to his deeper nature, and was thrilled by its unexpected richness.

[For this exquisite extract we are indebted to Logan's "Words of Comfort for Bereaved Parents.]

PALE symbols of our mortal end,

Ye meet me on my way,

Where thrushes coo, and streamlets wend
As if it still were May.

They died, for Adam sinned—they live, for Your merry dance with wind and light,
Jesus died!

Correspondence.