of God brings us into His presence. The moment we ask our hearts, "What would God have me do?" we are up and away for the high hills of the soul. The mountains might be far from the alarmed roe when it turned to run, but "God is not far from any one of us." So ever be afraid to sin, and ask God for guidance to what is right. For the heart that bravely fears to sin and trusts in God is always both strong and safe.

FOURTH EVENING.

Opening Hymn: "And is it true, as I am told." Lesson: Luke xvii. 1-4, 11-19. Concluding Hymn: "Jesus, Tender Shepherd, hear me."

I am going to tell you a story which, though I do not know that it ever happened, at least, just as I have heard it, is so beautifully true to the character of man and the character of God, that I shall ask you to hear it, and to try never to forget it. Once upon a time, | many, many years ago, a man, old, poor, and hungry, was wandering in one of the wide, open deserts of Syria. It was now towards the end of the day; the sun was setting, and soon it would be dark, when the wild beasts would come forth from their lairs to seek their meat. And this old man was weary, and longed to find some place to eat an evening meal and a place to sleep. It was with thankfulness that he caught sight of the white tent of some evidently well-to-do farmer of the desert. To this tent he turned. Standing in the door was a tall, noble-looking man with a turban on his head, long loose robes down from his shoulders to his feet, fastened with a girdle round his waist. The weary traveller asked shelter for the night, and was at once kindly bidden to come in. A supper was prepared for him and, as soon as could be, set before him. Doubtless the hungry man was very grateful, but he was evidently not grateful to God, for he began at once to eat the meal without saying a grace. Now the owner of the tent observed this. He himself was a good man-his name was Abraham-for he was no other than the grand old Abraham of the Bible, and observing that the old man ate without grace, or any acknowledgment of God, he was angry, stopped his meal, and told him to go out and away. He would have no godless man under his roof. The graceless old man was dismayed, but he dared not disobey such a fine, powerful man. So he got up, left his unfinished meal, and went out into the desert and the night, and righteous Abraham watched him wander away. Scarcely had the man gone when Abraham heard a voice saying, "Abraham, Abraham !”

He

knew the voice, for he had often heard it before, and he replied, "Here am I. Speak, Lord." "Where is that weary traveller that came to thy tent to-night ?" "I sent him away, for he feared not Thee, neither did he honour Thee; and I will have none beneath my roof that do not honour Thee." "Abraham, Abraham," the voice gently and chidingly replied, "I have borne with him these seventy years, and couldst not thou bear with him for one night?" Suddenly Abraham was ashamed of himself, and of what he had done, and immediately he set out to seek the godless man, and when he found him he brought him to his tent again, saying to him, "God has pleaded for thee," and he asked him to return to eat his meal and rest.

Now what does this teach us? It teaches us how far better God is than the very best of men. Abraham was a glorious man, nor was he quick-tempered or impatient compared even with patient men. But he was both when compared with God. God could be patient with the man twenty thousand days and nights, but good Abraham, good as he was, could not be patient with him for one single day and night; nay, not even for one solitary night. God, my dear children, wants us to be good, and grieves that we are not good; but God is not impatient. However we try His Spirit, He is never impatient. What a glorious fact this is-God, never impatient. He is the God of all patience.

I can

Now while we are talking of this old man and of the great God's long patience with him, I want you to think how long God has been patient with you. How many years have you lived? Almost all those years He has been patient with you, and He will be patient with you should you live to be very old. not tell you how glorious this all seems to me. Keep the idea of a patient God in your mind, especially when you are trying to be good, and more especially still when you have failed to be good, and are sad about it. No one, my dear children, ever becomes either good or blessed who has not come to feel that everything he has—yes, life itself-he owes to the patience of God. It is "Because His compassions fail not we are not consumed."

FIFTH EVENING.

Opening Hymn: "Was there ever kindest shepherd." Lesson: Luke xv. 1-7. Concluding Hymn: 'Jesus, Tender Shepherd, hear me."

I am going to speak to you about obedience-obedience to your parents and obe

dience to God; and I am going to you in a kind of story which is parable.

speak to called a There was once a flock of sheep that was under the care of the best of shepherds. So long as it listened to his call and followed where he led, it was always sure of sweet, fresh grass to eat, cool, bright brooks from which to drink, and a comfortable fold in which it could rest and sleep safe from wild beasts and every harm. As it often happens with people, so it sometimes happens with sheep; though they have everything heart can wish, they are not contented. They want more of their own way, and fancy that they could be supremely happy if nobody controlled them, and they could do and be just what they liked. Well, so it fell out in this very flock. One sheep got it into its foolish little head that it was a very hard thing to be always doing just what its shepherd wanted. It did not at all like this following at his heels, as it called it, all day, and then being shut up in his fold all night. Was there not a wide and beautiful world to see, and many delightful things to enjoy? These thoughts were not long cherished betore it resolved to take an early chance to get rid of the shepherd's control, to go out into the beautiful world, and be its own master. The chance soon came. One morning, when the flock were following their guide round the jutting corner of a rock, this silly sheep hung back to the very last, and when all but itself had passed round it stood still, and finding it was not missed, overjoyed it frisked away into what it called "the lovely world,” to be its own master and to see what was to be seen. What it saw I will tell you. It had not gone very far before it saw that it had lost itself; hunger came on, and it became very thirsty, but it saw no grass to eat, no water to drink. It wandered about to find where it was, but only the more completely to lose itself. As the hot day passed on and it found no food, it became weary and faint. Then it began to think that, after all, it was nice to have a shepherd who always found grass for its hunger and water for its thirst. Whilst these thoughts were in its mind, a distant sound made its heart beat violently: it was the howl of a hungry wolf. Then it thought of the fold in which every night the kind shepherd had shut it up. To be made to go into it did not now seem SO "hard" as it had looked before; nor did the wide and beautiful world, and being its own master" in it, seem quite socharming as in its ignorance it had fancied. How glad

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it would be to go back again! At the sound of the howl of the hungry wolf it started to its feet, and would have tried to find its old home again, but it was too faint and feeble. It only stumbled into a thicket of thorns, from which it was too weak to free itself. The evening had now come, and the night would soon be here, and the shepherd was far away folding his sheep. He counts them, and lo! one is missing. Poor, foolish thing!" thought the shepherd, and, shutting the door of the fold, away he went to seek and to save it. Well did he know the dangers of a night in the desert. He hunted far and wide. He shouted, and listened if he could catch the sound of the poor wanderer's bleat. Often did he call, and often did he listen before he heard the longed-for reply. At length it came-a feeble, faint "baa, baa" from the distance. He followed the direction of the sound, and called again. Another bleat. Yes; there it was. A few more steps and the lost one was found, panting, with open mouth, its dry tongue hanging far out of its parched mouth, fast among thorns, and quivering with fear and pain in every limb. 'Dear, foolish sheep!" said the shepherd, as, at a glance, he took in its forlorn condition. Then, seeing that however willing the sheep was to follow him it was far too weak to do so, with a sweet, forgiving smile the shepherd lifted it up on to his shoulders, and, weary though he was, There was no carried it back to its home. need to have carried it but for its weakness; for never was it so willing to obey the shepherd, and never did it so love him for his care as now. It arrived at home a humbler, but a wiser and a happier sheep.

Here is a picture of disobedience. When children disobey their parents, it is because they fancy it will be nice to do so; but it is a foolish fancy. And so, too, when we do not obey our Heavenly Parent, in our foolish little heads we fancy it will not be pleasant to obey Him; but we are wrong. Disobedience to God is always a blunder. God may tell us to do things we do not like. He may tell us to be forgiving, to be generous, to return good for evil, and we don't like to do these things; so we don't do them. think as if God was unkind, as if God commands us that He may make us miserable. Then, we are just like that silly little sheep.

We

But God is like the kind shepherd; He soon forgives us and pities our folly. It is a good thing that we have such a kind God. Let us try to obey and please Him, for His commandment is as kind as His mercy.

I.-HOME NOTES.

THE AUTUMNAL CONGRESSES.

THE numerous congresses which it is customary to hold in the autumn weeks seem generally not to lose ground in interest and popularity from year to year. During the past month we have had the Social Science Congress, at Manchester; the Church Congress, at Swansea; the Baptist Congress, at Glasgow; and the Congregational Congress, at Swansea, besides several minor, or more exclusive, gatherings. At the Social Science Congress considerable prominence was given to educational questions, and many important suggestions were made as to means which might be adopted for improving the education of girls and women, who still labour under unfair and unnecessary disadvantages in this respect. In the various departments valuable conference also took place on many subjects affecting the welfare of the community, such as health, recreation, instruction in music and other arts; and the seeds were sown, we doubt not, of some wise and charitable thought and profitable action. At the Church Congress the proceedings were, as usual, marked by a good deal of animation, and it was natural that, meeting in Wales, the attention of the assembly should be directed by several speakers to the relations between "Church and Dissent." The utterances on this subject were on the whole kindly and likely to be useful, although they showed, as might have been anticipated, that closer union between Conformists and Nonconformists must be realised rather in the cultivation of the true spirit of Christian charity and brotherhood, than in the fusing of principles or in the abolition of external lines of

distinction.

THE PROGRESS OF ELEMENTARY EDUCATION.

Ordinary people may perhaps fairly ask to be excused from paying very close and minute attention to the returns issued by the Committee of Privy Council on Education, bristling, as those returns necessarily do, with figures and fractions. But dry and dull as such documents look, they are full of information of much significance. The returns before us relate to the works of the Education Department for the promotion of Elementary Education in England and Wales for the past year. We will venture to cull at least one or two items from the vast array thus presented to us. It is gratifying to know that the Council consider the progress made since they issued their previous Report to be extremely satisfactory. In attendance of children, in educational attainments, in extent of accommodation provided, in the number, efficiency, and remuneration of teachers, and in the supply of pupils, the records of the schools of the country show a marked and steady tendency to improvement, giving evidence how effectual an impulse the national mind has received on this subject during the last few years. There were in 1878,

3,495,892 names of day scholars on the registers of the inspected day schools of England and Wales, and this is the number of children, out of nearly five millions, for whom Elementary schools are required, who received more or less of efficient instruction in

such schools during the past year. This number is equivalent to 14 per cent. of the estimated population, and the average attendance amounts to 9.7 of the same. This average, although showing improvement, and suggests the necessity of further measures for is still below the proportionate average in Scotland, number of children who ought to be, but are not, securing the regular attendance at school of a large and of an intelligent appreciation of its benefits will daily under instruction. The growth of education doubtless prove one of the most powerful means of securing and maintaining this most desirable regularity.

MERCIFUL WORK IN ST. GILES'S, LONDON.

Mr.

The "St. Giles's Christian Mission," with which, ever since 1860, the name of Mr. George Hatton has been associated as superintendent, seems to be prosecuting its merciful work with unabated vigour and sympathy. A very special branch of its operation is the effort made to render assistance to discharged prisoners, and this, we are informed by the report, has grown so much of late that it is difficult to know where to begin to tell the story of its onward rapid advance. We can appreciate the necessity, arising from the peculiar nature of such work, of caution in the publication of details; but sufficient facts are placed before the reader in the report for the past year to enable him to judge of the nature and value of the compassionate service thus rendered. Wheatley, secretary to the Mission, labours very earnestly and with much success in this department, and in writing to him, the Rev. T. E. L. Jones, the Ordinary of Newgate, says: "I have been engaged in this work in connection with several agencies for the last fifteen years, but I have never found any one who has given me more real assistance in this difficult enterprise than yourself." The task undertaken is to lend a helping hand to prisoners when they come out of gaol, to offer them a temporary home, to endeavour to procure them suitable situations, and thus to give them a chance of escaping from the criminal ranks, and, generally, to bring good counsels and good influences to bear upon them. To step in, with such a purpose, at the critical moment of a prisoner's discharge, is often a means of preventing incalculable evil and misery, and is worthy of the spirit of the gospel. The total number of discharged prisoners | helped by the agency of the Mission during the past year has been 480. Of these the following account is given: 118 have been set to work to get an honest living; 62 have been sent to sea, 58 of whom were boys; 220 have been relieved by gifts of money, clothes, tools, &c.; 36 have had their fares paid and been sent home; 10 have absconded; 8 have been