STREET VOICES; OR, MEDITATION MATTER.

NO. I.

"You will always have your own way."

I AWOKE this morning with a desire in my heart to do something more to serve the Lord, and upon seeking His direction, it came into my mind whether the devoted Editor of the LITTLE GLEANER would accept me on the staff of contributors. All sorts of obstacles presented themselves at once, but the greatest was my own inability and unworthiness. Another difficulty was what to write about, and so the matter, for the present, passed away from my thoughts.

I went out for a short stroll. The sun was shining so bright and warm, dispelling the mists from the face of the ground. It was real enjoyment to rejoice in my Heavenly Father's handiwork, and my meditations of Him were sweet. Oh, dear reader, He has done much for my poor soul, which I should delight to tell you about, for that is the happiest employment I know of, because Jesus is so intimately connected with that subject, and I love to speak to His honour.

I met three lads driving their hoops, and they came to cross-roads. The two eldest turned down the road to the left, but the youngest appeared determined to take the upper one to the right, and was extremely annoyed that he could not carry his purpose. It was his manner and tone that arrested my attention. "You WILL always have your OWN way," said he, so energetically that I could hardly refrain from smiling, and immediately a multitude of thoughts occupied my meditation all the way home.

I thought, here is the gist of the matter. We all want, and are determined, while in a state of

nature, to have our own way. "We have turned each to our own way," "but all the way of death ;" and, though the fleshly mind of God's dear children may dislike the right way, "yet faith approves it well." Now, dear young friends, I fear I cannot talk to you all as the children of God. You love your own way. Alas! it is the broad way, and leads to endless misery. But you will have it. "The sinner shall be filled with his own ways until God of His sovereign mercy turns your feet into the narrow way, to hate every false way, and love the ways of Zion. Unregenerate Saul's way was to Damascus, to martyr those who delighted in the ways of Jesus. But Jesus stopped him and took away his determination to have his own way, though he thought it the way of salvation; and now he cries anxiously to be taught God's way66 Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?" What way are you pursuing? Are you determined to follow it, hoping it will turn out well with you? Alas! it is one of the ways that seem right, but the end thereof is everlasting death, unless it be God's way and not your own way. MARCUS.

A HUMBLE RECORD,

As district visitor I was asked lately by a poor woman if I would pay a visit to her daughter, who was on her death-bed, in a neighbouring town a few miles off, where business sometimes took me. She gave me her daughter's simple history, how she had married a very respectable young man, assistant to a butcher in the town, and become the mother of three little children, when, health having failed her, the fatal seeds of consumption showed themselves, and had now reduced her to the state in which she

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said I should find her. Wiping her eyes, she added that, in all her long life never had any trouble seemed so great to her as this. She had brought up a large family honestly and industriously, and had tried to teach them what was right. She had gone through poverty, sickness, and sorrow, with all of them, but she had never lost a child yet, and it seemed to her as if her grief was harder than she could bear. "She has a kind husband?" I inquired. "As good a man as ever breathed, ma'am. He was left an orphan early, and he says he was brought early to the knowledge of God. He taught in the Sunday-school for years before he married Mary, and he goes out sometimes to preach now, or to say a word in season, when he can, to those who need it." "And his wife is of the same mind?" believe so, ma'am. I know he has never given her a bad word since he married her, and they live very comfortably together; and she holds with all that he does." "And she knows she is dying?" I inquired. "She is quite resigned to God's will?" "I wish I could say so, ma'am," said the poor woman, beginning to cry again, "but it comes main hard to her to have to die and leave her children behind her. She cannot give up to it anyhow." "Well, that is a natural feeling, but God will teach her in His own good time, if, as you tell me, she has faith in His dear Son." "Oh, I hope He will, I hope He will!” she cried, breaking down. Do ye go to see her, ma'am, and tell her I'd be over myself but for the long distance, and my bad health; and it does hurt me so cruelly to see her as she is; but I pray God for her night and morn on my bended knees, and I shall know no happiness till He has spoken peace to her." It was more than a week after this conversation before I had the opportunity of going to T and seeing

Mrs. C. As I passed through the small strip of garden in the close street that led up to her door, my heart misgave me. What was I going to intrude upon? weeping babes, a broken-hearted father, a wan, despairing, earth-loving mother. But what greeted me instead? "Walk up, ma'am, pray walk upstairs; Mrs. C— will be rarely glad to see you; she knows you come from her village. Yes, she is very near her end, but you will find her very happy; her husband's sister is there with her, and I am minding the children downstairs here." A quiet, clean, nice-looking woman rose from her seat as I entered, and sat down again as quietly when I motioned to her so to do. Mrs. C herself was sitting pillowed up in bed. The sunken features, glassy eyes, and laboured breathing, all told the approach of the king of terrors, but she stretched out her hand towards me as I entered, a heavenly smile lighting up her countenance. I told her I

came from her mother, who was anxious to know she was happy. "Quite happy," she gasped, "I have no fear of dying, and God is so good to me." "And your children?" "I can leave them quite safely with Him, I take no trouble for them." "Your husband?" "He will come to me when God sees fit, and he will use means to bring the children to Christ." "And you have no fear in leaving this world?" "None; God has made all plain to me, and my blessed Saviour will receive me; I am only waiting His time to go; I thought it might have been this morning, but I must wait a little longer."

"She joined the minister in a hymn so sweetly, last night," said the young woman who sat beside her; "she mostly sings when she isn't praying, or gets breath to do it, but she never complains." "Can I do anything for you?" I said, turning to

her. "No, thank you," she whispered; "I am quite happy. Tell mother I am going to heaven, and I'll meet her there, if I don't see her again here." I stood transfixed. I had read and heard of triumphant death-beds, but I had never seen one before. The tears rushed to my eyes. The dingy cottage and the lowly bed grew into a glory not of the earth. I said to myself, "It is good to be here." I spoke aloud. "When God calls me to Himself, may I die the death of the righteous, and may my last end be like hers!" It was a glorious record to take back to that poor mother, but the truth had reached her some days previously. "They came over here and told me, ma'am," she said simply; "they knew how happy it would make me." "And how did this blessed change occur?" I questioned of her; and "Well, ma'am," she answered me, "it seemed for all the world like an answer to prayer. It went hard with her husband, you see, to have to give her up, but it was far worse to him that she could not resign herself to go. There was one night that he talked long to her on this subject, talked till he wore out his own heart in pleadings, but for no avail. I don't want to go, John,' she kept on saying; 'I don't mistrust Christ and His doing for me, but I don't want to leave you and the children yet;' so, on and on, till she fell off to sleep, holding his hand. Then he beckoned his sister to come up and sit nigh her, and, slipping his hand from her hold, he went into the next room, where the children slept. There he knelt down, with the moonlight, on the boards; and, oh, but he wrestled with God for the soul of my poor girl. She told me, that young woman, he went on and on speaking out, and wouldn't let go, so to say, till there was a heavy fall, and he down on the floor in a dead faint. He had taken no food