C. Because the seed is sown.

T. And does sowing the seed alone make them grow?

C. No;

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God sends rain"- God makes them grow."

T. Does God ever fail to send rain, and make the seeds grow?
C. No.

T. Can you find a text showing that God will make them grow to the end of the world, when man duly cultivates the ground?

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C. While the earth remaineth, seed-time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease."

T. Now find me another, to prove that God, in like manner, will not fail to give his blessing to proper Christian training.

C. "Train up a child in the way he should go; and when he is old, he will not depart from it."

NOTE.-Thelwall thought it very unfair to influence a child's mind, by inculcatiug any opinions before it had come to years of discretion, to choose for itself. I showed him my garden, and told him it was my botanical garden. "How so?" said he, "it is covered with weeds." "Oh!" I replied, "that is only because it has not yet come to years of discretion and choice. The seeds, you see, have taken the liberty to grow, and I thought it unfair in me to prejudice the soil towards roses and strawberries."Coleridge's Table Talk.

American S. S. Journal.

THE BIBLE PICTURE-GALLERY.

NO. VIII.-MOSES SMITING THE ROCK.

THE circumstances connected with this manifestation of Divine mercy and power are too familiar to our readers to require to be recapitulated. How long the stream continued to refresh the wanderers in the desert we know not; but there is reason to believe that it followed them for a long period, perpetually reminding them of their dependance upon their Divine guide and benefactor.

In spirit we may almost identify ourselves with the favoured tribes; but while they simply gaze, with mingled wonder and gratitude, upon the rock whence issues the copious and refreshing stream, we, aided by the teachings of the Holy Spirit, can see in that rock the type of One who, in after times, was smitten by the rod of Divine justice; and in that stream, our faith's clearer vision discerns the symbol of that "river of water," which has revived many a wearied spirit in every age, and shall continue to refresh the tribes of the Lord's inheritance, until they pass the borders of the wilderness, and, entering into possession of the promised rest, shall drink

"From out the Fount of immortality,
For ever happy, and for ever young."

ONE SIN.-Many afflictions will not cloud and obstruct peace of mind so much as one sin therefore, if ye would walk cheerfully, be most careful to walk holily. All the winds about the earth make not an earthquake, but only that within.-Archbishop Leighton.

Poetry.

THE SEVEN ANGELS OF THE LYRE.

BY CHARLES MACKAY.

KNOW'ST thou not the wondrous lyre?

Its strings extend from earth to heaven,
And evermore the angels seven,

With glowing fingers tipped with fire,
Draw from the chords celestial tones,

That peal in harmonies through all the starry zones.

An angel with a pensive face
Sits at the key-note evermore;
Not sad, as if a pang she bore,
But radiant with supernal grace:-

Her name is SORROW; when she sings,

The wondrous Lyre responds in all its golden strings.

The second breathes in harmonies,

A rainbow is her diadem,

And on her breast she wears a gem

That trickled from Contrition's eyes:

Her name is SYMPATHY; her tears

Falling upon the Lyre make music in the spheres.

The third is beautiful as she,

Unfading flowers her brow adorn,
And from her smile a ray is born
That looks into Eternity:

Her name is HOPE; to hear her voice
Belted Orion sings, and all the stars rejoice.

The fourth with eyes of earnest ken,
Surveys the boundless universe,
While her ecstatic lips rehearse
The promises of God to men:-
Her name is FAITH; her mighty chord
Reverberates through space the glories of the Lord.

The fifth is robed in spotless white,
And from the beating of her heart
Such heavenly coruscations start
As clothe the universe with light:-
Her name is LOVE; when she preludes,
The constellations throb in all their multitudes.

The sixth inhales perpetual morn:
Far through the bright Infinitude
She sees beyond the present good,
The better destined to be born:-

Her name is ASPIRATION; ever

She sings the might of WILL-the beauty of ENDEAVOUR.

Crown and completion of the seven,

Rapt ADORATION sits alone;

She wakes the Lyre's divinest tone-
It touches earth-it dwells in heaven:

All life and nature join her hymn

Man and the rolling worlds, and choirs of cherubim.

Know'st thou the lyre? If through thy soul
Th' immortal music never ran,

Thou art but outwardly a man;

Thou art not pure-thou art not whole

A faculty within thee sleeps,

Death-like, ensepultured, in dim, unfathomed deeps.

Oh, suffering spirit, hear and soar!

The angels wave their golden wings,
And strike the seven celestial strings,
To give thee joy for evermore :—
Ascend exulting from the sod,

And join, thou happy soul, the harmonies of God!

THE VALUE OF ONE ATTENDANCE.

A LITTLE ragged boy was one day seen loitering near the door of a Sabbath school. The teacher, with his usual kindness, invited him in, and set him down beside some other little boys like himself. He had never been at a Sabbath-school before, and seemed particularly pleased with the exercises. There was something serious in the aspect of the child, which g eatly interested the teacher, as he went on telling him of the blessed Jesus, who came from heaven to earth, and suffered a cruel death, to save such poor little boys as he was, and to take them to heaven to be with himself.

The tidings seemed strangely new to the child, and his young heart was touched. God the Spirit sent the arrow of his Word into a sure place, and none were able to pluck it out. The boy asked permission to be a scholar, and for this purpose gave his name and address to the teacher. On the following Sabbath the teacher looked for the little wanderer, but he was not there. Good impressions on young minds are easily effaced, and to this cause he imputed the child's absence. He intended to call and inquire for him during the week, but other cares and duties made it pass from his mind, and it was not till the second Sabbath, when he again missed him, that he remembered the circumstance. On one of the days of that week, however, he was found threading his way through the habitations of the poor, the vile, and the worthless, in search of the home of the little stranger. At last he found it in a miserable attic room,

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at the top of a long, dark stair. He had
been accustomed to scenes of misery and
wretchedness, but here there was some-
thing more than mere want.
The room
had the appearance of complete desola-
tion, which was rather enhanced that
diminished by the presence of a squalid
drunken-looking woman, the only living
being in the apartment. Does J-
B- live here?" said the teacher, as he
entered the dark abode of the little boy.
She turned round, and pointing to a
corner, shrieked out, "Ay-there!" evi-
dently with less of sorrow for the child
than a feeling of her own wretchedness
at the time. And there" the teacher
turned, and saw-not the beaming, intelli-
gent eye, which had interested him so
much a few days before, but his little
friend stretched on some straw, a cold and
lifeless corpse.

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Upon inquiry, he found the child had died of fever, caught a few days after the teacher had last seen him. During his illness he had talked frequently of the precious truths he had that night heard at the Sabbath-school, and greatly desired to see the teacher-a desire which either the carelessness or the apathy of his mother had never gratified. Oh, how gratefully would the sick child have welcomed the present visit, had it been a few days sooner! That had been the first and only time he had ever been at a Sabbathschool-but that short once, to him how precious! He had received so much of the Gospel as had, we believe, been the means of his conversion.-Bateman.

AFTER our creation, and before our corruption, we had power to do everything pleasing to God: but after our corruption, and before our regeneration, we have power to do nothing pleasing to him.-Beveridge.