of Christ. Somehow, if one drops a word of Him, it does not seem responded to. I have several times lately been struck with this. Conversation has been lively, but when a turn is given to something experimental in religion, a silence, or a simple assent, is all that follows, and you feel as if you were on different ground."

To MISS G—.

"1858.

"As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you.' Is this possible, dearest Mary? Yes, it must be so; for Jesus Himself said it. But how astonishing it seems! Jesus knows all our vileness, all our backslidings, all our coldness, and yet He makes this assertion. And He knew, too, that it would be so little understood by us, that it was necessary to add, 6 Continue ye in my love.' Had He not known us, He would have supposed that it was needless to say this, for did we fully take in His assertion how could we but continue in His love? Ah, dear friend, how we want to enter into the full meaning of this! Does any earthly friend express attachment to us, how quickly does our heart go out in love in return! Did we then fully understand our Saviour's mean

ing, what intensity of love should we feel towards Him!"

To MISS G

"1858.

"I have just been seeking to renew my dedication to Jesus. I had got wrong, cold, careless, needing to take the first step afresh. 'As thou hast believed,' said Jesus. Ah, what do we not lose through want of faith! and somehow the older I get the less faith 1 seem to have. My evidences of being a Christian, instead of getting stronger, seem to get weaker, and I am obliged constantly to begin at the beginning, and even the very beginning has to be begun for me by Jesus. I was thinking of the man who was shut out of heaven because he had not on the wedding garment. If we present ourselves at the gate, and point to this garment, how sweet the thought will be, not that Jesus recognizes it merely, but that He gave it to us-our very title to admission to the benefits of His kingdom being His own gift!"

666

To MISS D-—.

"Be careful for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God.' These two terms seem very decisive.

However small the trial or difficulty, still it must come under the term 'everything.' It does not say everything not too trivial. Besides which, there is no standard in God's Word as to what is sufficiently important to make a subject of prayer or trust in God ; and then, too, that which may seem trivial to us may be a link in a chain of God's dealings with us which in the end may prove most important. It is not for us to say what is or is not God's hand; we are not quick-sighted enough in spiritual things. And, again, in God's sight things are not little and great as we view them. The patient bearing of some apparently insignificant trial may, in His sight, be of more value than some far greater display of piety, as viewed by man."

To MISS D

"August, 1858.

'Oh, how the consciousness of Jesus' love sweetens everything! Our friends are the dearer, because He gives them to us. The expression of their love is the sweeter, because we know that He put it into their hearts. The unkindness is more easily borne, because we know He would not have let it be, if it were not to do us good. The daily work is less irksome, because it is what He wishes us to do.

It matters not what is our occupation, if He is in our hearts, joy is in our faces, light is on our path."

TO MISS D-—.

"November 8th, 1858.

There

"There are different kinds of work for Jesus. There is the active work outside. There is the work of a consistent life. is the work of patient suffering. There is the work of quiet willingness to do nothing. Oh! how much easier it is to work for Christ in visiting the sick, teaching one's class, writing to the unconverted, than in imitating in daily life Him of whom it is said, 'He pleased not Himself.' I know much of this. Though enjoying health, for me, I am still not equal to continuous or great exertion, and I am trying to learn to do just what Jesus would have me do; not what other people expect of me, but what I feel it right to do.

"But this giving up of one's own will to work more extensively and thoroughly is not learnt in a day. When conscious weakness, or domestic interruption, prevents the fulfilment of what to the eyes of others seems duty, how sweet to look up and say, 'What dost thou think, O my Saviour?' and to feel no wish for any approbation but His."

CHAPTER III.

WORKING.

"Not myself, but the truth that in life I have spoken,
Not myself, but the seed that in life I have sown,
Shall pass on to ages; all about me forgotten,
Save the truth I have spoken, the things I have done.

"So let my living be, so be my dying;

So let my name lie, unblazoned, unknown;

Unpraised and unmissed, I shall still be remembered:
Yes, but remembered by what I have done."

DR. BONAR.

THE last extract from Miss Dryland's letters may fitly introduce some notice of her in relation to that work which was pre-eminently the labour and joy of her life. It has been already said that at a very early age she gave herself to the sacred labour of Sabbath-school teaching. At first she was fearful lest she should be doing wrong in teaching truths, of which she might not consciously have felt the power, but the counsel of a Christian friend, Rev. W. Milne, M.A., then a student at Homerton College, subsequently a missionary to China,