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THE CUP AND THE PLATTER.

THE following incident will illustrate the strictness with which the rules as to pots and cups are enforced among these Hindu Pharisees.

Eleven Brahmins passing through a district wasted by war, arrived exhausted by hunger and fatigue at a village. To their surprise and disappointment, they found it deserted. Rice they had with them, but no vessel in which to boil it. Looking around, they could find nothing but the pots in the house of the village washerman. But for Brahmins even to touch these would be a defilement almost impossible to wipe out. Pressed by hunger, they bound one another to secrecy by an oath, and having washed one of the pots a hundred times, they boiled their rice in it.

One of them alone refused to partake of the repast, and on reaching home he accused the other ten before the chief Brahmins of the town. The rumour quickly spread ; an assembly was held, and the offenders compelled to appear. Aware of the difficulty in which they were likely to be involved, they were prepared for the charge; and according to previous agreement, each protested that the accuser alone was guilty of the offence which he laid at their door. Which side was to be believed? Was the testimony of one man to be taken against that of ten? The result was that the ten Brahmins were declared innocent, and the accuser, being found guilty, was expelled with ignominy from the caste. Though the judges could scarcely doubt his innocence, they were offended by his disclosure, and could more conveniently sacrifice him than his ten perjured brethren.

"Ye make clean the outside of the cup and platter, but your inward part is full of ravening and wickedness. Ye fools, did not he that made that which is without, make that which is within also?"

THE COLLIER'S DYING CHILD.

I KNEW a collier in Staffordshire who had one dear little girl-the last of four or five. This child was the light of his eyes; and as he came home from the pit at night, she used to meet him at the door of his cot to welcome him home. One day, when he came in to dinner, he missed his little darling, and, going into the house with his heavy coal-pit clogs, his wife called him up stairs.

The stillness of the place, and her quiet voice, made his heart sick, and a foreboding of evil came upon him. His wife told him that they were going to lose their little lamb. She was taken suddenly ill, and the doctor said she couldn't live. As the tears made furrows down his black face, and as he leaned over his dying child, she said, "Daddy sing,

Here is no rest-is no rest!'"

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66 No, my child, I can't sing, I'm choking; I can't sing." "Oh, do, daddy sing. Here's no rest.' fellow tried to sing,

"Here on this earth as a stranger I roam

Here is no rest, is no rest!"

The poor

But his voice couldn't make way against his troubles. Here he tried again, for he wanted to please his sweet little girl,

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"Here are afflictions and trials severe,

Here is no rest-is no rest!

Here I must part with the friends I love dear,
Yet I am blest-I am blest!"

66

Again his voice was choked with weeping; but his little one whispered, Come, daddy sing, Sweet is the promise."" And the poor father went on again,

"Sweet is the promise I read in thy Word,

Blessed are they who have died in the Lord;
They have been called to receive their reward;
There, there is rest-there is rest!"

"That's it, daddy," cried the child, "that's it;" and with her arms round the collier's neck, she died happy in the Lord.-R. Weaver.

"SUCH A NICE WAY."

SOME years since a little boy kissed his mother goodnight, and went to his room. After some time she heard him up, and fearing that he might be sick, she went to see. There she found little Harry sitting up. "Why, my son, are you not in bed?" said Mrs. Lane. "Oh, mamma, I have got such a nice way of finding out whether I keep the commandments. Every night I say them, and try and think of all I have said and done during the day, which has broken them. Is it not a nice way, mamma?" "Yes, my dear, if you are only faithful to yourself. We sin not only in what we say and do, but in what we think and feel. God will call us to account for every secret thought and intent of the heart."

"I am afraid, mamma, I broke the sixth commandment to-day, when Charlie Hunt tripped me up at school; I was very angry, and would have knocked him down and hurt him if our teacher had not come out; and I thought of what you had taught me; I did not say a word, but it has troubled me that I felt so hateful towards him, and I have been asking God to forgive me."

I will not repeat any more of the conversation Harry Lane had with his mother, but tell my young readers that he kept on in his good way, which he begun when he was eight years old, and is now one of the most consistent Christians in the land, and his mother hopes to see him one of the most useful ministers of the gospel.

H.

PRAYER THAT IS NO PRAYER. PRAYER, if it be done as a task, is no prayer.-John Mason.

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HE CAUGHT THE ROPE.

A YOUNG Soldier was shot on the battle-field, and dragged by a comrade aside to die. He shut his eyes, and all his past life flashed before him. It seemed but an instant of time. He looked forward and saw eternity, like a great gulf, ready to swallow him up, with his sins as so many weights sinking him deeper and deeper.

: Suddenly a lesson which his pious mother taught him

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