bear to think that you should live in hard selfishness, or narrow love, when God has given you a heart to warm and melt with all sweet and beautiful affections to overflow with the blessed charities of life towards all within your reach! and, most of all, I could not bear to think that you would live cold, desolate, and hopeless, for this world only, forgetful of your Father in heaven, with no treasure beyond the grave, when He has invited you to seek His face, to lean upon Him and be comforted; when He has told us, by the mouth of His own Son, that there is happiness in store for us, beyond what the heart of man can conceive, and has offered us, while here below, the privilege of high and blessed converse with Him.-"Oh! Lord of Hosts! blessed is the man that trusteth in Thee. My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth, for the courts of the Lord: my heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God. For a day in Thy courts is better than a thousand. I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God, than to dwell in the tents of wickedness."-Psalm lxxxiv. 12, 2, 10.

Thessalonians v. 18.-Quench not the Spirit. Romans viii. 9, 14.-If any man has not the spirit of Christ he is none of His. As many as are led by the spirit of God, they are the sons of God.

Proverbs xvi. 32.-He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty: and he that ruleth his spirit, than he that taketh a city.

HYMN.

With kindred power, oh, touch my heart,

Spirit of holy love;

The mind, the will, the power impart,

A friend of man to prove.

The call of duty may I hear;

It bids me love like Thee;

And, in Thy strength, from sin and fear

My fellow-mortals free.

This work be mine! Oh, may my days
In such employ be spent ;

That, while to heaven my soul I raise,
My heart to man be lent.

FROM KEBLE'S MORNING HYMN, "THE CHRISTIAN

YEAR."

(See Hymn 638, Martineau's Hymn Book.)

VERSE 13.

We need not bid, for cloistered cell,
Our neighbour and our work farewell,—
Nor strive to wind ourselves too high
For sinful man beneath the sky :

The trivial round, the common task,
Would furnish all we ought to ask-
Room to deny ourselves: a road
To bring us, daily, nearer God.

(HYMN, "Nearer, my God, to Thee," in Lesson xxv.)

LESSON XXIV.

TO SERVE GOD OUR DUTY.

Matt. vii. 24--27.—“ Endeavours after the Christian Life: " Discourse 9. Also, "The Two Roads," from Agathos; and Ware's Sermons, Vol. III., page 199.

FOR Some days it was nothing but a pleasure to Bertha and Walter to watch what were the wishes of their mother, and to comply with them, but it was hardly to be expected that it would be always quite easy and pleasant, and they found before long that it was sometimes difficult to give up their own pleasures for the sake of pleasing her. One morning at breakfast, she said she wanted to send a parcel to aunt Mary, and she did not know how to contrive about it, unless Peter Wood's boy could go with it. "I think you two might go to Peter's cottage after lessons, and ask John to take it. I do not feel well enough to-day to go with you, but you will not mind going aloneshall you?" They said "No;" and their mother showed them the parcel lying on the side-table. While Walter was finishing his lessons, Bertha was busy making little paper trays for some shells she

had brought home with her from school: and when Walter bad done, instead of getting on their things at once to go to Peter's cottage, they continued to work together at the paper trays. They did not forget the parcel, but it looked so cold out of doors, and it was so pleasant making the paper trays. After some time their mother happened to see the parcel still lying on the side-table: they looked so happy at their work that she felt unwilling to disturb them— perhaps it would have been more true kindness if she had, but it would have been hard to do it-and hearing the clock strike twelve, she thought they would not have time now, before dinner, to put by their things and go, so she put on her bonnet and cloak, and, without saying anything to them, went quickly to Peter's cottage herself with the parcel. You may fancy how they felt when they saw her from the window, already at the bottom of the hill, with the parcel in her hand! There was no longer any pleasure in working at the paper trays! They stood silently together at the window, watching for her return, and met her at the door with downcast eyes, full of grief to have so soon failed in their resolution of showing their love by their obedience to her wishes. She saw that they were truly, deeply sorry; and she tried to cheer and encourage them. After dinner she put an arm round each of them, and drew them to her, saying, "You grieve, my dear ones, that your resolution has given way-I grieve too; but we