them, to the people they met, and tried to bring them to Jesus. They have been dead a long time, but there are still "fishers of men." Do you know who they are? Some of them are Missionaries, and go a long way to bring men to Jesus: they have to learn a strange language, which is sometimes very difficult. This is like one of the waves that meets the little fishing boats. The Missionaries spend a great deal of time in learning the language; and when they know a few words, they try and speak to the people they meet about Jesus. Thus they take their oars to row.

I will tell you a story of a Missionary who was learning one of these difficult languages. He used to learn with an Indian every morning what the Indian words meant, and then he would say them after his teacher, till he could speak plainly. One afternoon, about five o'clock, he was sitting with another Missionary in the verandah outside his house, looking at the rain which fell in large drops, and watching how the wind drove it: they had never seen such a heavy shower before. Presently they saw two little boys running towards their house for shelter. One of them had a basket of things to sell, which he unpacked, and asked the Missionary to buy some writing paper. The Missionary did not forget that he was one of Jesus Christ's fishermen; so when he had taken the paper he said to the boy, “Do you know that God sent His Son Jesus Christ into this world for you and me? We were like people who had done something wrong: God was like the Judge, and, when He was going to punish us, Jesus stepped in between.' "And so God punished Him instead," the boy said. "Yes; and if you go and speak to Jesus every day in your heart, He will be your friend; and God will be pleased with you, and will take you to live with Jesus when you die."

When the Missionary had finished speaking, his friend, who had been talking to the other little boy, said, "It is still raining: let us read the story of the Prodigal Son." The boys listened very attentively while the Missionary read and explained Luke xv. from the Indian Bible. And then they went away.

THE FISHERS OF MEN.

157

But the net had been thrown, and perhaps some day these boys will be brought to Jesus by those words from the Bible.

The Indians do not always listen so quietly as these boys did. One day, when the Missionary was talking to a man he met in the street, the man laughed at him, and told him to go home and learn to speak plainly. The Missionary was disappointed; but he went on learning with his teacher, and trying to speak. And so, when he had been in India more than a year, he went with his friend to speak to the heathen in the villages and large towns about Jesus. When they met any one, they read a chapter out of the Bible to him, or gave him part of the Bible, if he could read. But when the Missionary had been travelling a few weeks he became very ill, and was obliged to leave his kind friends, and the Indians that he wished so much to speak to, and to go to another country. Was not this like a gale of wind driving the fishing boats back to the shore?

Dear children, we must pray for the Missionaries: they are often tired and ill, and many waves meet them before their nets are full: but our heavenly Father can help them, and He will hear us if we ask Him to be with them, and make them wise to bring men to Jesus. Ask Him to bless the poor heathen, to send more kind teachers to them. Many of them never hear how Jesus loves them-how He died for them. They do not know that

"There is a happy land

Far, far away,

Where saints in glory stand."

No one asks them to

"Come to this happy land."

Then pray that Jesus will show them where "the still waters are, and bring them to that "pure river of water of life" which the holy angels see in heaven.

F.

KIND WORDS CAN NEVER DIE.

Music and Words by Sister Abby, of the Hutchinson family.

Childhood can never die-wrecks of the past
Float o'er the memory bright to the last;
Many a happy thing, many a daisy spring,—
Float o'er time's ceaseless wing, far, far away.
Childhood can never die, &c.

Sweet thoughts can never die, though, like the flowers,

Their brightest hues may fly, in wintry hours;

But when the gentle dew gives them their charms

anew,

With many an added hue they bloom again.

Sweet thoughts can never die, &c.

Our souls can never die, though in the tomb
We may all have to lie, wrapped in its gloom;
What though the flesh decay, souls pass in peace

away,

Live through eternal day, with Christ above.
Our souls can never die, &c.

NOTES AND NEWS.

YOUNG MEN'S ASSOCIATION IN AID OF THE BAPTIST
MISSIONARY SOCIETY.

Liverpool, Myrtle-street, Junior Auxiliary.. 10 0 0

33, Moorgate-street,

September 20, 1859.

H. J. T.

Next month we shall print "HOSANNA," a Missionary Sermon to the Young, by the Editor.