"Mamma, I was playing after school to-day with Jane and Ellen, and Robert Hamilton. The master walked across the yard, and pulled out his pockethandkerchief, and a pencil came out and rolled away, but he did not observe it. When he was gone, Robert ran after it, saying, 'Oh, what a capital pencil ! just the very thing I was in want of!' I said, Robert, it is the master's, not yours: you must not keep it; that would be a great sin. 'Oh,' he replied, the master can get plenty more, and it is only a penny pencil: it will be but a little sin.' Mamma, was Robert right ?" 66 Lucy, what reason have we to hope that God will pardon any of our sins ?" "Because Jesus died." Is there any sin too great to be forgiven for Jesus' sake ?" No, mamma." "But may we not ask God to pardon our small sins in some other way ?" Lucy thought for a minute, and answered, "No, I do not think there is any other." Certainly not. Well, my love, can we think any sin a little thing, if Christ must have died that it might be forgiven? "But now I shall tell you a story. Some years ago, before you were born, papa and I lived in an old house quite near the sea. There was a low wall at the foot of the garden, where we used often to sit and admire the pure waves coming in below, and the pretty vessels sailing past. One lovely summer evening we were sitting there; all was calm,-the clear water reflected the red sunset clouds of the sky, and the white sails of the ships. Just then we saw a man and a boy preparing to set out in a fishingboat, from a little pier at a short distance from our garden. The air was so still, we could hear them speak. The boy looked down into the boat, and said, 'Father, the water is coming in.' 'Oh,' said the man, 'there's a small leak; but never mind, it will do us no harm; it would not be good in a storm, but' (looking at the sky) there is no fear to-night; so come along.' So they hoisted the sail, and we heard them singing merrily as they moved slowly out to sea. "The sun had quite set, and the darkness_was coming on, before we went into the house. In a short time we felt that there was a change in the weather. The wind began to rise, and whistled through the passages, making the doors and windows shake, and soon we heard the noise of the waves dashing up against the garden wall. We were quite safe and comfortable, but our thoughts turned anxiously to the many ships and boats we had seen so lately on the quiet waters. Then we thought we heard cries from the sea, and, between the large waves, the sound of a bell, as if some one were in great distress. We could not rest at home, and we went down to the shore. The people of the village were all running about, the women sobbing and screaming, the men calling for the lifeboat. We could see, in the darkness, a feeble light glimmering out at sea, and again the bell rang violently. Then the light disappeared, and we did not hear the bell again; but cries for help seemed to come on the wind. By this time the lifeboat was ready, and four strong men jumped into it, and made for the place where the light had last been seen. Oh, how eagerly we looked, and listened, and watched, for their return! God was very merciful, and they were not too late. They found the man and boy we had watched in the evening still clinging to a raft; but their boat had gone down. And what had sunk the boat? Just the small leak. Do you think it appeared small to them then, that dreary night, when the winds and waves were rising round them, and the water getting deeper and deeper at their feet? แ Learn, my dear child, never to call any sin a little thing. Remember, how great it will look on a sick or dying bed, and how much greater before the judgment-seat of Christ. May God give you a new heart and tender conscience, which will shrink from the first beginnings of temptation. This is a good prayer, may you be led to pray it "Ah! give me, Lord, the tender heart A FALSE IDEA OF HAPPINESS. A LAUNDRESS who was employed in the family of a great man, said to him with a sigh, “Only think, your lordship, how small a sum of money would make me happy." "How little, madam ?" said he. "Oh, my lord, twenty pounds would make me perfectly happy." "Then I will send it you to-morrow upon the understanding that the amount will make your happiness perfect." "I thank you, and assure you it will," she said, and took her departure. She was no sooner outside the door than she thought she might as well have asked and received forty; so she stepped back, saying, "Please make it forty.' "Ah! I am released," said his lordship; you have proved that twenty would not make you happy; nor would any other sum.' 66 BRIEF MEMOIR OF ALICE TAYLOR, Who departed this life June 2nd, 1861, aged 15 years. ALICE TAYLOR, the subject of this memoir, was born at Hindley, on the 9th day of February, 1846. She was the daughter of persons who fear the Lord, and who worship at Ebenezer Chapel in the village. The cause of my becoming more intimately acquainted with her was her being, previous to her illness, a scholar at the Sabbath school with which I am connected. There is no evidence of a divine change having taken place until after her illness had commenced, which was a decline. In January last, soon after the death of her beloved grandmother, she was taken very ill. Her parents got medical advice, various means were tried, but all to no purpose, she gradually grew worse. When I first called, on the 18th of April, after a little conversation with her father, he told me about his daughter being so very ill. I looked at her, and thought she appeared in a decline. Up to and a little after this she was very solid, but no deep concern as to the state of her soul was evinced; but about six weeks before her death she became seriously alarmed about her state as a sinner before God; and she felt, she said, that she "had been very naughty and sinned greatly against the Lord;" and added, “I did not know that I was such a great sinner before now." During this time she would cry very bitterly at times. When she had laboured for more than a week in this soul-sorrow, she began to cry to the Lord, and she said, "Oh, if the Lord would but just speak one word to me I should be satisfied;" and the Lord was entreated of her, for these words were brought to her mind with a degree of sweetness, "Fear not, little flock, it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom" (Luke xii. 32). She said, "Oh, if I were sure that I was one of His little flock!" This appears but the dawning of a good hope within her. While she lay awake in bed on the night of April 25th, these words were spoken so powerfully to her heart, that she asked her sister, who was sleeping in the same bed, if she did not hear them. On her sister telling her that she did not, and on asking her who spoke, and what He said, she said, "The Lord says He will never leave me, nor forsake me (Heb. xiii. 15). By 17 * We place but little weight upon the remarkable occurrence of Seripture to the mind, We have seen sad delusions built upon seeming applications of texts. The great requisites for salvation |