The evening came on; it was moonlight, and the crusted snow shone like silver. There were many men and boys enjoying the sport, and the air rang with merry shouts as skaters swiftly glided about, and the sliders tripped one another up. At first conscience smote me for my selfish pleasure-seeking, for my mother's strict charge told me that it might be at the cost of another's suffering. This, however, was soon forgotten in the excuse that a few minutes would not matter, and in the joy of the occasion the village clock struck nine. It was then too late to go on the errand; so, hurrying home, I crept softly to bed, not caring to meet my parents. At breakfast next morning my mother said to me, "Well, Charles, how did you find Mrs. Long last night?" My cheeks became quite red, and I made no answer. When the truth was known, I shall never forget the look of pain with which it was received. "Oh!" my mother cried, "what may not that poor woman have suffered from your neglect. Gladly would I have gone myself, rather than left her to it." Then adding to the store of good things, she hurried me away. It was, however, no welcome task to me. I was unhappy, and was ready to blame the poor for being poor, and thus giving others trouble. How colder than all other mornings seemed that, as I went on the forced mission of mercy. The cottage was at length reached; it was an old hut, with broken windows. "Does widow Long live here?" I asked of a strange-looking man who came to the door. "Yes; first door at the right hand, at the head of the stairs." Those narrow, ricketty staircases, how plainly I seem to see them now. Rapping at the door, a feeble voice said, "Come in." I entered, and what a scene! All alone, on her lowly, thinly-covered cot, lay the aged woman, helpless from pain and age, with no food, no fire, and the snow, sifted by the winds through the loose windows, had fallen on the floor. This was a new scene to me, brought up, as I had been, in the midst of plenty. My heart was deeply touched. "Here are some things my mother sent you," said I, showing the basket. "Oh, thank the Lord!" she said, lifting her hands in deep feeling. "How good he is to raise me up such a friend, and how kind your mother is to send these things! And I need them so much just now. But our heavenly Father knows what we need, and the best time to give it to us. Last night I lay here so cold and faint, without food, and no one to help. It seemed as if I should starve. But I called on my Saviour, and late in the evening the man who lives below, a poor drinking man, came in with some wood, and made me up a fire, and got me a good bowl of porridge. He could not do much for me, he is so poor himself, but it was so strange that he should do it. Oh, it was the Lord's doings, and I praise him for it." "I have brought some wood for you, too," said I, "and it is at the door; let me get it and make you a fire." "Thank you! thank you!" That scene of poverty and piety had wrought a sudden change in my feelings, and I hastened for the wood with mingled emotions of self-reproach for my hard-hearted neglect, and joy in being able to do anything for one so pious and so needy. That face-calm, trustful, grateful, even amid the sufferings of dying old age and the discomfort of the gloomy chamber-beamed on me like a star amid thick darkness. As the fire threw its faint warmth over the room, the aged woman called me to her bedside, to thank me again and again for what I had done. "I cannot reward you," said she, with falling tears, "but God can." Then she prayed-oh, how fervently-that I might "grow up to be a pious man, and, through faith in Jesus Christ, become an heir of heaven." Is it strange if the prayer of such a one, at such a time, moved the soul of the wayward boy? Never, in after life, could he listen to the tale of want without the stirrings of sorrow, and the desire to afford timely relief. A FAMILY WITHOUT A GOD. A little boy, whose father possessed A GOOD BOY. A sick mother lay upon her deathbed, and her little son sat beside her, Is it a dream too wild and vain, That tones are breathing all around, And music woke, whose blissful thrill That on the very air we breathe This may not be--but oh, there is To whom thy bosom's secret thoughts And though the realm of life or death The Sun of Righteousness at last A FATHER'S ANSWER TO HIS CHILD. "WHY does the sun go down?" Thy infant lips exclaim, As thou gazest on the departing orb, While heaven seems wrapt in flame. It goes to cheer another sphere, soothing the pains of decaying life. WHY DOES THE SUN GO DOWN? "Mother," said the boy, "do you wish sister M- and me to pay our subscription to the missionary society yearly when you are dead?" "Yes, my son," replied the Christian mother. "Mother," continued the son, "do you wish sister and me, when you are dead, to pay yearly your own subscription to the missionary society?" "Yes, my son," replied the mother, and a smile lit up her wasted features. When I heard of it, I felt that some one had sown good seed in good soil. Make other hills look bright, Perchance thou soon may'st say, hood's years Are vanishing away. Those fairy dreams desert thee now, The Cabinet. WILLIAM PALMER. THE LESSONS OF HIS LIFE AND CRIMES. THE history of the unhappy man whose trial has excited such painful interest in the public mind, and the termination of which has fastened upon him the infamy of a most notorious and heartless criminal, and doomed him to a murderer's death, is fraught with lessons of most solemn warning, especially to the young. His short career of profligacy and crime, which reached a rapid and fearful climax in deeds of unparalleled perfidy and cruelty, speaks in terrible tones of warning to those who may be on the threshold of a similar course; while it furnishes such a disclosure of the depravity and profligacy of those who frequent the turf, and are addicted to gambling, as can hardly fail to deter many from mingling with their society and engaging in their maddening pursuits. Who can contemplate the successive steps by which this miserable man descended from the honourable position of a medical practitioner to the deep disgrace and dreadful criminality of a murderer doomed to an ignominious death, without being warned against the beginnings of a course of profligacy! Belonging to a respectable and wealthy family (though report speaks of "ill got gain," and the pernicious influence of parental training and example), early married to a young, accomplished, and amiable woman, who was to him a confiding and affectionate wife, and whose sudden death (which, there is too much reason to fear, was the effect of poison administered by her husband's hands) was deeply and universally lamented in the vicinity, and especially by the poor, who still "deplore the loss of a most sympathizing benefactress," with such a wife, and the addition to his income of £200 a year derived from his marriage, with all the comforts of a quiet home, a professional practice inviting to honest industry, and promising a useful and happy career, free from all anxiety about pecuniary matters, and with the best possible prospect of success, what was it that led to that course of profligacy which eventually involved him in complicated crime and most heartless cruelty? He suffered himself to be diverted from honourable pursuits by pleasure and excitement; he frequented the race-course, was brought into association with the very scum of society, became by degrees a practised and professed gambler; gambling, with its attendant extravagances, involved him in insolvency; to rescue himself from insolvency, he resorted to forgery and other unlawful expedients, and to insure the success of these expedients, he had recourse to murder, and murder, too, of the basest, the most cowardly, and the cruellest kind; the murder of one, if not more, of his bosom friends, and under circumstances which afforded to his victims no opportunity of self-defence, which did not even excite their suspicion of his foul purpose, and which, while giving to his name an immortality of infamy, will brand him as one of the most unheroic of murderers; for, as a great public writer has truly said, "the most depraved fancy cannot elevate William Palmer into a hero, and he ends his career a notorious, but still a most vulgar criminal." of In the fast and fatal career of this man we see how "the way of the wicked seduceth them." They listen to the syren song pleasure; they fall beneath the spell of pleasurable`excitement; they are first enchanted, then enchained by sinful indulgence; the cords of their iniquity are bound faster and faster around them, till they become the veriest bondslaves of sin, are led captive by Satan at his pleasure, and prepared for the perpetration of any enormity; and fearfully familiar as they may have become with vice and crime, they can scarcely fail to shudder as they contemplate the terrible termination of a course from the very forethought of which they would once have shrunk with instinctive horror! In the ineffectual struggles of such to extricate themselves from the sad consequences of their crimes, and in their incurable remorse and anguish of soul, we have an impressive comment on the statement of holy writ, "The way of transgressors is hard." And if any readers of this paper have entered, or are in danger of entering, on a course of profligacy, they are solemnly admonished to turn from it, lest their "bands be made strong." "Oh, man! break away from the treacherous links 66 Of a chain that will drag you to hell! "Come along, come along, man, 'tis not yet too late, Be quick, and be quit of so fearful a fate, My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not." Say unto your soul, "O, my soul, come not thou into their secret; unto their assembly, mine honour, be not thou united." "Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful." And while the sinful and miserable career of this man speaks in tones of solemn warning to such as may be wandering from "the way of understanding," his sad and terrible fate suggests the certainty with which a career of crime, however successful in its beginnings, will sooner or later be followed by a righteous retribution, and says, in a voice of thunder, to all the workers of iniquity, "Be sure your sins will find you out." Pendleton, Manchester. A. E. PEARCE. TESTS. THOSE who have entered a chemical Christian prove himself, and try laboratory have probably noticed a whether he has true religion abiding small book, containing leaves, of in him. differently-coloured paper. On asking its use, the visitor is informed that it is a book of tests-that by immersing one of these leaves into a chemical compound, the operator can discover its character. The Bible supplies us with accounts of the tests applied to various persons, and the results. Let us in imagination apply some of these to ourselves, for such things may happen to us; for they were but men, The Bible is a spiritual test-book. as we are; "All these things hapBy means of its varied contents, the pened unto them for ensamples; character of any man can be dis- and they are written for our admocovered. Paul exhorted the Co-nition." Let us then attend to the rinthian Christians, "Prove your divinely-recorded experiences of inown selves." The Greek word here dividuals, which truly are as varied translated " "prove" refers to the as the leaves of any test-book; that assaying process-the process of thus we may prove ourselves whetrying metals by heat. Paul had ther we are in the faith-whether before exhorted Christians to ex- we are children of God. amine themselves; now he bids them prove themselves-to put their religion to practical proof. Metals are best proved by the fire of the furnace; and so, as Barnes says, "The best way to prove our piety is to subject it to actual trial in the various duties and responsibilities our allegiance to Him who should of life." Daily, then, should the be loved best of all? Like Eve, do we love knowledge, or the pleasures of sense, better than to keep God's commands and retain his favour? Do we, like Adam, allow the blandishments and persuasions of our dearest ones to draw us from |