Only

begging yer pardon, we is richer nor ye. last night, when ye and yer company was feasting and singing at the Hall, father said he was amazed at the grace of God that made him and ye to differ. This poor cabin was a little heaven, sir, yesterday, when some o' the poor people left the foolish mass to hear father read how Jesus came to preach the Gospel to the poor, and to open heaven for them."

"Don't you think Dan would change places with me, boy-soul and body?" asked the squire, smiling. "What, sir! sell beaven and give up Christ? Och no, sir; ye haven't gold enough to buy the new heart out o' poor Dan O'Blane," answered the boy, folding the Bible to his breast.

"How can these things be!" exclaimed the squire. "Ye mind me, yer honour, o' the ruler o' the Jews, who crept to Jesus like a thafe by night. He too asked,' How can these things be?' when Jesus told him, 'ye must be born again,'” said Patsy.

"How can you prove, boy, that a man is born again, as you call the change you talk about ?" asked the squire.

"Jesus didn't try to prove it to the ruler, sir, nor will I to ye. If ye see a man walking on the highway, ye don't bid him stop and prove to you that he was ever born, for ye knows he was, or he wouldn't be there alive," replied Patsy. "So, when ye see one like father, once dead in sin, now alive and walking in the road to heaven, ye may know he's born again, widout him proving it to ye, sir.”

The scoffer's smile faded from the lips of the gentleman as he stood before this poor child, who evidently pitied him. "Pat," he said, "there was a time when I wanted this same faith myself; I had nothing to ask for here, but I knew I could not carry my treasures to eternity; so I wanted something beyond.

I asked God for this new heart, but He didn't hear my prayer, as your father said He would."

Och, sir, but ye asked amiss: all from selfishness. Ye was rich, now, and wanted to be so for ever. But ye warn't rich at heart, yer soul didn't cry out to have Him glorified! Likes enough ye went to God feeling that ye was Squire Phelan, and no mean man; and that it was great condescension in ye to seek His face. But ye'll never find the Lord so, sir," said the boy.

"How did you go to Him, Pat?" asked the squire. "Meself is it, sir? Like the poor sinful child that I was. 'I'm evil altogether,' I said, 'and has no claim on God's pity. If He send my soul to hell,' I said, 'He'll do only right; but it's to heaven I wants to go, where Jesus is, and where there's no sin. If ye take me, Lord, it must be just as I am, for I can never make meself a whit better." "

"Patsy, my boy," said the squire, you talk like a bishop; but after all you are only a poor herd's boy, and may be mistaken. What would you do then ?"

"Och, sir, that cannot be, for I have the Word o God Himself, and that can never fail," replied the boy. "But you may mistake the meaning of the Word on which you build your faith," suggested the gentle

man.

'Och, yer worship, when it's so plain, how could any one help comprehending it ?" asked the boy. 66 Sure, doesn't it say just here "—and Patsy turned the leaves rapidly over, till he came to the place he sought a wayfaring man, though a fool, shall not err therein'?"

"And how did you bring your mind to believe this first, boy?" asked the squire.

"Sure I didn't bring any mind at all, sir; I just read the words o' Jesus, and He gave me faith to

believe them.' I was lost, and He found me, and bid me follow Him, and so I did; and that's all I can tell about it."

66 And you feel quite sure you have a new heart, do you?" asked the gentleman.

"I feel it's another heart that beats in me bosom, sir. I hated everybody that was better off nor meself. When I'd be trudging cold and hungry through the bog, I'd often see your illigant young sons, and the heir o' Sir Robert, mounted on their fine horses; then the old heart in me would speak out almost aloud: Bad luck to the proud young spalpeens; why warn't I born the gintleman, and themselves digging ancle deep in the bog, or herding the cattle ?' And once, I mind me, I looked after them as they dashed down the hill, wishing the royal grey would toss your heir over his head, sir, and bring down his pride," added the boy.

"I never knew, Patsy, that there was so much malice in your heart," exclaimed the squire.

“Och, sir, and it's not all claned out entirely yet," answered the boy. “But I gives it no rest, for I'd niver shelter an inimy o' Jasus here in pace ;" and the poor boy smote his breast.

"And how do you feel towards my brave boys now?" asked the squire.

"How do I feel now, is it? Och, sir, but I love the very sound o' the horses' hoofs that brings them fornint me; I cries out, 'Lord, love the jewels! Give them every blessing thou hast to give below, but don't be putting them off with earthly good; give them thy grace now, and after this a mansion better nor the Hall, one that will be eternal in the heavens.' 'Deed sir, I'in just about the happiest lad in all Kerry. I don't envy the young prince, nor anybody else, but mind my cattle wid a heart full o blessed thoughts.

And, sir, if ye'r led to go to Jesus like the poor sinner, and not like Squire Phelan, He'll tak ye too for His own and then ye'll know what the new heart is like."-Christian Treasury.

[We feel there is much in the above that commends itself to us, and the whole tale is deeply interesting; but we could have been glad if poor Patsy could have given a clearer account of the way he was convinced of sin and led to Jesus. Dear children, you must be made sick sinners, and brought in your sickness to Jesus, the good Physician, and healed through faith in His atoning blood, or you can never see God with peace. The Spirit of Truth "convinces of sin," and "testifies of Jesus." Has my reader felt himself a poor lost sinner, and been led to Jesus the Saviour? If so, happy are you, for time and for eternity.-Ed.]

THE EDITOR'S ADDRESS TO HIS YOUNG FRIENDS.

MY DEAR YOUNG FRIENDS,-Once more, with the fruit of my gleaning rambles, I rap at your door, and hand you my bundle, leaving you to go over its contents. I trust my gleaning, like Ruth's of old, will not disappoint those who may take the trouble to thrash out my bundle. If you do not find "an ephah of barley," I believe you will find some genuine corn for the mind. You have bodies which must be fed, and so must your minds. If the body be not sufficiently fed it wastes and fails, and this is true of the mind; a mind left vacant, is a mind feeble. If the body be fed with unwholesome food, it cannot be expected to be in health; a mind fed with fictions, fancies, follies, and works of an infidel or immoral tendency, must manifest the evil effects of such diet. Your minds, dear young friends, are, during youth, either storing

food or poison; food that will make you useful and honourable in the world, or poison that will make you the opposite. The Gleaner seeks to furnish you with such moral lessons as may prove to be honey in your mental hive; but, dear young friends, the Gleaner has higher aims than these. The Gleaner seeks to "sow the Word," and rejoiced I am indeed whenever I hear, as in the course of this month, that God has blessed it so as to give me a soul for my hire. I try to imbue your minds with the truth of your fallen, helpless state as sinners against God; the holy, unbending nature of God's love; the necessity of regeneration by the Holy Ghost; of repentance_unto life, of faith in the blood and righteousness of Jesus, and of that holiness that springs from union with Jesus. These are truths that eternity will confirm. The reader of these lines will either feel them true here, to his soul's salvation, or, hereafter, in the horrors of despair. Oh! that the former may be your happy lot, is the desire of your willing friend,

THE EDITOR.

A FOOL ANSWERED ACCORDING TO

HIS FOLLY.

A

A GENTLEMAN travelling in a stage coach, attempted to divert the company by ridiculing the Scriptures. "As to the prophecies," said he, "in particular, they were all written after the events took place. minister in the coach, who had hitherto been silent, replied, “Sir, I beg leave to mention one particular prophecy as an exception (2 Pet. iii. 2), Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days, scoffers. Now, sir, whether the event be not long after the prediction, I leave the company to judge.’ The mouth of the scorner was stopped.