crosses, however heavy they may be. We are so apt to look all round first, and see who we can get to help us, and then, when they fail, to turn to the Lord. But the happy man is he who goes first to the Lord, and then waits to see how He will help. For though help can't come from a man, it can come through him; just as a rich man might send me ten pounds by a little child; the money would come through that little child, yet it is not the little child who gives it; she is only the messenger. And God has many messengers. There is nothing too little or too common for him to use for the good of those who trust in Him.

And I like to think that it's not only now and then that we ought to trust Him, or may trust Him. Not only when we're in some great difficulty, or some great trouble, or some great perplexity; but the command is, "Trust in Him at all times, ye people; pour out your hearts before Him: God is a refuge for us." Drop by drop, as it were, we are to pour out every little care, and trouble, and anxiety before Him, just as a little child turns to his mother with a broken toy, sure of her sympathy and help. A mother's love makes a mother's heart sorry for what would be nothing to a stranger. And if God thinks it worth his while to number the hairs of our head, what could befal one of his blood-bought children too trifling for Him to pity and to help?

But don't take it on what I say; don't take it on anything but God's own word. Look through the Bible, and find out why you're to trust Him, and what you're to trust Him about; and then put Him to the proof, and you will find that "it is better to trust in the Lord, than to put confidence in princes;" and "better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man." Do this, and you will be a happy man, and will be able with a glad and thankful heart to sing the first verses of the Psalm about which we have been talking, "Praise the Lord, O my soul; while I live will I praise the Lord; I will sing praises unto my God while I have any being. Praise ye the Lord!"

CHRIST invites you, not only to cast all your burdens upon him, but yourself also, which, to the real Christian, is the greatest burden: "O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me ?"-" Come unto me,-I will give you rest.'

Christ will certainly extend his acts of forgiveness as far as he commanded Peter, even to seventy times seven: this should encourage hope, not feed presumption.

A hungry man will be sure to find time for a meal; and a lively Christian will find time for devotion.

No man is willing to receive Christ and his salvation until God has made him so; if you are willing, God has been at work upon you: "It is God that worketh in you to will."

If you think you can come to Christ, or do any good thing, without the Holy Ghost, you have never yet been taught to know yourself: you are without strength.

Every thing around you, rightly viewed, would remind you of Jesus: he is the Way to God; the City of refuge; the House of defence; the Tree of life; the Plant of renown; the Rock of salvation; the Wall of fire; the Stone of stumbling; and the Gate of life.

Whatever God requires, intreat him to bestow: you should never read a precept without prayer: Ask, and ye shall receive."

66

If we are one in Christ, death cannot separate us.

What a sweet idea, Jesus thinks of me! I am never for one moment out of his thoughts: he says, "O Israel, thou shalt not be forgotten

of me."

How will my present employment appear on the bed of death, in the prospect of eternity!

Johnny's Flowers.

PRING sunshine glinted down into one of the dimmest of dim London courts. The narrow

strip of brightness that lay along the broken

slopes would not stay long, but the children playing about seemed bent upon enjoying it while it lasted. "Let's go and fetch lame Johnny out; he likes sitting in the sun!" exclaimed one of the girls.

"Oh yes, and I'll give him these," said another, holding up a bunch of faded primroses that she had picked up in the road that morning; and, as she spoke, she followed her companion into one of the houses; and the two carried out a boy, about ten or eleven, and seated him on a stone against the wall.

He was incapable of either walking or standing; but there was a look of peaceful resignation in his pale face, and now a bright smile parted his lips as he took the flowers from the girl.

"They are pretty," he said, trying to raise some of the drooping crushed blossoms; and he gazed at them tenderly and lovingly, while the rest recommenced their play. He was used to being left alone, and did not mind it—nay he rather enjoyed it just now with the sun shining down upon him, and these pale flowers to look at and think over. Strange, out-of-the-way thoughts came over Johnny sometimes in his lonely musings, and the sight of these flowers seemed to awaken some of these now.

His thoughts went back to the time when he was able to run about, and then to the accident that had nearly killed and quite crippled him. He looked over his bunch of primroses, and found one crushed and faded more than all the rest; and that, he thought, was like himself, only there was this difference between himself and the flower; that had helped some one to feel glad and happy-was making him and his companions happier still; but he had never been able to do any good in the world, he had only been a care and trouble to everybody for the last year or two. He had

only begun to think of this lately, for he had only just begun to learn that God loved him, poor little cripple as he was; but this seemed so wonderful to Johnny that he longed to tell others of it, and make them as happy as he sometimes felt. But it seemed impossible to do this, he was so poor and so helpless; and the children around him-poor little street children, who had little time for play-did not care to listen to his quiet grave talk. So Johnny had to keep his thoughts to himself, and long for the time when his father should come home, and he would be able to tell him what was passing in his mind.

He was still sitting against the wall, looking at the pale, delicate flowers, although the sunshine had begun to climb up the opposite wall; and he was beginning to feel cold, when the postman came down the court. It was not often that letters came for any one there, and Johnny lifted his head in surprise as he passed, and he turned to watch where he was going. To his own home! Then news had come from his father at last; and Johnny longed to get up and run to hear whether he was likely to come home very soon. Johnny's mother was dead, and his father had gone to Ireland about a year before, leaving his boy in the care of the woman with whom they had lived. She had been too kind to the little cripple from the first; and lately, Johnny having been ill, and given extra trouble, and the payments from Ireland not coming quite so regularly, she had often been very unkind, and reproached him for the trouble he gave everybody, and his uselessness in the world. It did seem to the boy that he was quite useless, except that he knew his father loved him; and now, at the thought of his father coming back, and once more lifting him on his knee, his heart beat with joy, and he called to one of the girls to help him indoors again, that he might hear the news; for the postman had gone back, and he knew that Mrs. Morris must have read the letter by this time.

"Did the letter come from father?" he asked timidly, as the girls put him down in his usual corner.

"You needn't be in such a hurry to hear the news," snapped Mrs. Morris; "it's none so good for me, seeing I ain't been paid for the last two months."

Johnny's white face turned whiter as he asked faintly, "Is there anything the matter with father ?"

"Matter enough I should think when he's dead,” said Mrs. Morris.

She did not stay to see the effect her words had caused, but went out to consult a neighbour what was best to be done for Johnny, or rather how she should get rid of him; while he, poor boy, overcome by the suddenness of the news, and the crushing of all his hopes, fell back almost fainting.

He was still in this state an hour or two afterwards, when Mrs. Morris came back; for she-determined to lose no time in ridding herself of the burden-had been to the workhouse with the letter, and now came back to fetch Johnny, as they had agreed to take him in at once.

"After all it may be better for him than his father coming home even," said Mrs. Morris, lifting him in her arms, and trying to rouse him. "I dare say he'll make friends there, for he ain't a bad boy, though a deal of expense and trouble sometimes."

Johnny had roused sufficiently to hear these words; but he did not ask where he was going. Now his father was dead, and he was of no use at all in the world, it did not matter much where he went, or what became of him. He did not speak until he was laid in the little bed of the workhouse infirmary, when he feebly asked, "Where am I?" as Mrs. Morris was leaving him.

"You'll be taken good care of, Johnny, never fear," said Mrs. Morris. "There's your flowers on the pillow; the nurse'll let em stay there, she says."

The next minute she was gone, and Johnny was alone among strangers-alone in the wide world. He had forgotten his flowers; but now he took them again, and looked at the poor, crushed, faded blossoms more tenderly