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No. XII.

Y YOUNG FRIENDS, - I heard a minister preaching lately to a number

of little children, and, amid great silence and attention, he told them the following story::

In a place in Germany (I cannot well remember the name) there had been, at one time, a great many mines. These had now all been abandoned, cottages were built over the top of many of them. Many of the people who lived in these cottages had forgotten all about the mines, and seldom thought of their danger, although often there were only a few planks or or boards between them and a pit several hundred feet deep.

In one of these cottages there lived a poor woman and her

DECEMBER 1854.

child, a girl of seven years of age. One day the mother sent her daughter to fetch something out of the cellar ; the poor little girl was running as her mother requested, with a mug in her hand, when the boards below her feet, which had become quite rotten, gave way, and she was precipitated in a moment down one of those very deep and dark pits of which I have spoken. The mother heard the noise, and in great agony of mind discovered the awful position in which her loved child was placed. She had fallen deep, deep down, water was at the bottom, and, had she reached it, it must have drowned her in a few minutes; but providentially an iron hook caught her clothes several feet above where the water was, and there she hung in that dark pit of despair, expecting every moment that the hold would give way. Her mother ran in dreadful alarm shouting for aid. At last she got an old miner, who lived in the neighbourhood, a kind and good man, to come to her help. He calmly got a large bucket with a `rope; he fixed the rope on a pulley above, where the mother and other female friends were standing, and, lighting a small lamp, he let himself down gently in the mine, calling on the poor girl not to fear, as he was coming to help her.

All at once they heard a splash below; they never doubted that she had at last fallen into the water, and that all the good miner's attempts to save her would be vain. They were partly relieved, however, when they heard her voice, saying that she was quite safe, and that it was only her mug which had tumbled in. The old man continued to descend; he let down a rope from his bucket, and told her to lay hold of it. She had no sooner done so than the hook, which had preserved her hitherto, yielded, and, if she had not a minute before seized this rope, she must certainly have perished. "Keep a good hold, and never fear," said the old man again. The little girl, though in great terror, resolved to do all her kind benefactor told her; she grasped firmly the rope, and he gradually pulled her up till, with a joyful heart, he found her safe in the bucket with himself. Imagine the joy when the old man called aloud to the terrified group above: "She is safe! she is safe!" In a few minutes the rejoicing

mother had her arms round the neck of her darling, exclaiming: "This my child was dead, and is alive again; she was lost and is found."

What a picture is this of our state by nature! Down in the horrible pit of sin, that nail or hook a fit emblem of the insecure hold we have of life, "being but a step between us and death." In that kind old man with the rope, we have a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ coming down into this deep pit of our misery, that He might rescue us from our awful danger. The little girl laying hold of the rope is a picture of the sinner's faith laying hold of Jesus, and trusting in Him for salvation; while the crowd of anxious weeping females above is a type of the blessed angels in heaven, who rejoice as one sinner after another is brought out of the horrible pit and miry clay," there is joy in heaven among the angels of God over every sinner that repenteth."

Children! have you fled to this Saviour? Have you grasped that rope? "Neither is there salvation in any other." If that poor girl had tried to climb up herself, or if she had refused to lay hold of the means of safety provided, she must have perished. So must you, unless you lay hold of Him who came down into the world's dark pit of misery to save the "chief of sinners."

COLONIZATION OF PALESTINE.

THE Official Gazette in Wurtemburg, at the beginning of November last published some account of plans now rife in that country for emigration to Palestine. A "Society for the bringing together God's people in Jerusalem," has constituted itself, and, among other proceedings, has prepared a petition to the Bund at Frankfurt, the purport of which is as follows:-That the Assembly of the German Confederation will be pleased, through the agency of the two great powers of Germany, to induce the Sultan to permit the "Society for the bringing together God's people in

Jerusalem," to found communities in the Holy Land under the following conditions:-1. Self-government in all civil and religious matters, that these may be able to be arranged entirely according to God's Word; 2. Security for person and property against the arbitraments of Turkish officials, and against uncontrolled and oppressive taxes; 3. Exemption from Turkish military service; 4. Guarantee of the same rights to every one who shall subsequently become a member of this Society, whether he may previously have been Christian, Jew or Mohammedan, Turk or foreigner; 5. The assignment of the Holy Land to these communities, in order that they may settle there comformably to the object and purpose which they have stated above.

This plan is by no means confined to a few, or to illiterate persons. During the sittings of the Evangelical Kirchentag, -the seventh of which was held in Frankfurt towards the close of September,—a number of its members endeavoured to procure the adoption of a motion, that the Kirchentag should apply to the Bund to take steps to procure the holy city of Jerusalem to be declared a free town, and put under the protectorate of the great powers of Europe. Some of the leading members of the meeting advised them, however, first to apply to the sovereigns of Austria and Prussia. That advice, of course, proceeded upon the notion, that Austria and Prussia are likely to have something to say with Turkey in arranging the terms of a peace, and settling the affairs of the East in general-a notion at this moment so absurd as to make the advice little better than a mockery. But this we believe, that, whoever the arbiters of the present struggle in the East may ultimately come to be, they will not be able to avoid the question raised by the state of Turkish rule in Palestine; and must meet the movement that is setting in towards the ancient Land of Promise as the scene of new colonization, and towards Jerusalem as the centre of a new nationality. That question and that movement may, for ought we know, be deep-lying elements in present political commotions. Interesting to every one who is "looking after those things which are coming on the earth," these commotions ought specially to engage the

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prayers of the friends of Israel. Who can tell but perhaps the time to favour Zion, yea, the set time, may be come, when the Lord shall arise and have mercy upon Zion.

"I AM ONLY THE BRUSH,"

ONE of the first lessons a Christian learns after his introduction into "the household of faith," is to glorify God in his daily walk and conversation. Like the holy apostle, he can truly say: "The love of Christ constraineth us, because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead; and that He died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him which died for them, and rose again,” (2 Cor. v. 14.) All Christians are required to glorify God in the stations they occupy. A servant may do this as well as a master, by a proper discharge of daily duties.

Elizabeth Kenning was not unmindful of this duty. In the Penitentiary, and on the bed of extreme suffering, she glorified God by humble submission to His will, and by her efforts to advance the kingdom of Christ, and the spiritual good of her fellow-creatures. One interesting fact of usefulness has been mentioned. On the first visit to the Penitentiary, the writer saw the remains of a young female who had been directed to the Saviour by Elizabeth. This devoted young woman had experienced the blessings of pardoning love, and she wished others to participate in the same blessing. The Lord had restored unto her the joy of His salvation; therefore she taught transgressors His ways, and sinners were converted unto God, (Psalm li. 12, 13.)

The ingenuity of Elizabeth was very remarkable. In 1822, having lost the use of both her feet and hands, she learned to write with her mouth; she placed a pen between her nearly closed jaws, and by the movement of her head she succeeded, by great perseverance, in writing very intelligibly. Having thus succeeded in writing with her mouth, she thought she could place a brush there instead of a pen, and so draw, and paint flowers and other little pictures. After much difficulty she succeeded in this attempt also; and by selling these specimens of her ingenuity and industry, in twelve months she disposed of as many as realized £38, which sum she gave to the institution which had so liberally supplied her wants. She wrote to a Christian friend in America, in 1823; and in her letter she remarks: "Through mercy the Lord hath enabled me to

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