God's ministers, who thus are clear from their blood, who are stifling conviction, lulling the voice of conscience, and giving the rein to their mad passions, which are dragging them along towards misery here and misery hereafter! Dear young friends, it is solemnly true that the path of sin is the path to hell; that Jesus and none but Jesus is the way to heaven. To cling to sin is to cling to fuel for your everlasting burning; to cling to Christ would be to cling to a Friend that gives "salvation with eternal glory." How bad has the fall made man! It has made him love the way to woe, and hate the way to bliss. What a mercy for those to whom the Lord blesses the warnings and rich truths of His holy Word, to the giving them that heavenly wisdom that makes them fly the path that leads to the fire of hell, and seek and find the path that leads to the joys of heaven! Dear young friends; happiness in sin is your great enemy, and unhappiness about sin and for the want of Jesus is a friend. O that such unhappiness were given to thousands of my dear young readers, followed with the happiness arising from the knowledge of Jesus and His saving work!

You will not be able to say what thousands of ignorant children might say, you have never been told the truth. I tell you the truth now, in six solemn sentences. Oh, ponder them seriously!

1. You were born a guilty sinner, unfit to meet a holy God.

2. The holy law of God demands at your hands obedience, and declares all are cursed who continue not in all things written in the book of the law to do them.

3. This is a demand which, through your sinful state, you have no power to resist. "The carnal

mind is enmity against God: it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God."

4. Jesus has been made under the law to redeem those that were under the law.

5. This alone can make it manifest that He has redeemed you, your being brought to repentance for your sins, and flying by faith for salvation to the Lord Jesus Christ. "I lay down my life for my sheep," said Jesus. He says, "Them also I must bring." Being brought to Jesus is a proof you are a sheep for whom Jesus laid down His life. 6. Obedience to Jesus is the great proof that you have made no mistake, if you think you have, come to Him.

How do my dear young friends stand before these truths ?

We have only space to add a word about our "Clifton Hymnal." All who have not yet seen one of the thousand we have just had bound, will, we hope, send for one. Its strength and neatness is a great improvement on the first number bound.

THE TURKEY'S NEST.

"Two, four, six, eight, nine, ten, twelve of them! O, how nice! Just what I have been wanting! Ever since Johnny Mills' uncle gave him those ducks I have wished and wished for some turkeys. I'd rather have turkeys than ducks, because there is no water near our barn for ducks to swim in. Now, I'll take these eggs right home, and there's my old Speckle just ready to sit. How very fortunate! One step more, and I should have landed plump in the middle of the nest. Whew! what a pretty nest I'd have made of it. Ha! ha!"

This was the way Willie Taylor talked to himself one spring afternoon, sitting astride the top rail of the fence which divided his father's farm from that of his next neighbour, Mr. Johnson, and looking down upon a nest full of great speckled eggs that filled the fence corner on Mr. Taylor's side. Springing down, Willie began to gather them up, putting them in his hat in place of a basket, still talking to himself in a strain of exultation. Suddenly his thoughts took a new turn. Can any of you boys who read this story tell from whence came the questions that now seemed sounding in Willie's ear? Are they yours? and by what right?" Well did the boy know that the nest must belong to Mr. Johnson's white turkey, which he had chased through the woods just over yonder an hour or two ago. But," he argued to himself, "the eggs are mine, for I found the nest, and upon our land, too. Of course, if they had been on the other side of the fence it would not be right to take them away; but now there can be no doubt about it. How lucky that old white turkey should have made her nest on this side, for I should hate to have to leave them, after being the first to find them; but, of course, I would not steal them."

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Ah! was Willie sure about his right to the prize? Why, then, did he look so carefully around, as he gathered up the coveted eggs, and removed all traces of the nest? Why, then, did he steal along so cautiously under the shadow of the high wall, and quietly place his eggs under the sitting hen, instead of rushing into his mother's presence, as he was wont to do when he had made any wonderful discoveries ? Again, if Willie's conscience was perfectly at rest on that point, why did he start and stammer when

the Eighth Commandment came to him to recite in Sabbath-school the next Sabbath? And was there any reason why he should turn so painfully red, and grow confused, when, a few weeks later, Mr. Johnson met him and addressed him in his usual kind and cheery manner? There can be but one answer to these whys-eh, boys?

The weeks passed, four of them, and one morning old Speckle marched through the poultryyard with half-a-dozen or more scrawny, longnecked turkey chicks toppling and tumbling after Here was a mystery, but Willie had foreseen that questions would be asked, and had prepared his answer.

her.

"I swapped some of old Speckle's eggs for turkeys' eggs over at the Point," he said, looking boldly into his father's face as he uttered the lie. Mr. Taylor was satisfied, for he had never suspected his son of falsehood-how, then, could he suspect him at once of falsehood and theft? (There, boys, that's the right word at last; don't you think so?) It was the first lie, and how terribly he suffered-how he feared lest his sin should come to light-how he dreaded lest his mother should find it out. It was not punishment or reproach that he feared from her, but the thought of her grief was almost too painful for him to think of. Overwhelmed as he was with remorse, he grew to hate the sight of his turkeys, and wish them all dead. But in spite of all, they grew finely, and when Thanksgiving-day came a plump one was slaughtered, which mother stuffed and roasted, and father carved and served out in plentiful portions to all the hungry ones that gathered around the table. How delicious it tasted to all except Willie. To the astonishment of all, he declared his preference for chicken-pie

or roast beef! Willie did not seem very thankful that day. He did not enter into the after-dinner romps with his usual spirit. It may have been, as he said, because his head ached; or it may be that he had taken too much turkey! I cannot tell. I think that Willie Taylor felt more of happiness and of freedom than he had for months, when one day soon after Jerry Wilson came with his great market wagon and took the turkeys all away. Still the sting of remorse was left, pricking him like a great ugly thorn.

I am glad to be able to tell you that he did not grow up a dishonest man. He became an honoured and respected man, holding positions of trust and influence; but how gladly would he have wiped out the acts of that bright spring time so long ago!

Twenty years later he wrote a letter to Mr. Johnson, who was now a white-haired old man, remembering Willie Taylor only as a promising boy, and hearing with pleasure of his well-doing in the world of men. After this grown-up man had made his tardy confession, he continued:

"This fault of my youth has haunted me all my life. Sometimes, like a horrid skeleton, its memory has come to me in the brightest hours. All the way up to manhood I carried the weight of that sin with me, for months dreading discovery, and after that fear died out suffering acutely from the consciousness of having been guilty of a meanness. It was my first and last theft-the falsehoods growing out of it the first and last I ever uttered. I learned, through the severity of the lesson, the truth that 'the way of the transgressor is hard.' I learned, too, to shun the sin of covetousness, for it leads to dishonour, falsehood, and treachery. I wonder now that, having