TURNING THE LEAF. BY THE REV. JOHN MORGAN, FOUNTAINBRIDGE, EDINBURGH. HEN young people begin to learn to write, it is hard and trying work. The pages are often marred with blots and stains, and the little fingers are black. Long before it is time to turn over the leaf there are sad signs of failure; and often there is the happy feeling of relief when the page is finished, and it is time to turn over, and cover up the blots. How very clean all seems to be! How earnestly does the wish and hope rise that it may not be blotted like what has gone before! Is it not very much the same, dear young friends, in regard to a new year? We have come to turn over a new leaf of the book of Time, and the black and blotted pages of 1871 are covered up. How very pure, and clean, and white, does 1872 seem to be as now we are entering upon it! Let us pause at such a solemn season, and take a look both behind and before us. I. Let us look behind. We must not forget that the blots are there. They may be covered up, and by us be forgotten. Yet there they are. Recorded and remembered, they will be sure to come up again. "God requireth that which is past" (Eccles. iii. 15). Some old people talk of turning over a new leaf, and beginning to live a better life. They forget that the black part remains, and will be required. Surely it is good news we have to tell-that "the blood of Jesus cleanseth from all sin." It can wash out all the stains of all the past. Some time since I met a miner at a meeting in a village in the country. I held out my hand to him. He held up his black hand and looked at it, afraid to put it into mine. I said, "Never mind though your hand be black, if your heart is clean." Immediately the tears came, and made a white line down his black face, while he said, "Ah, well, once my heart was as black as my hand, but now I know that the blood-the red blood-can make a black heart white." Take a long lingering look, then, at the past. Let all the years be gone over, and gaze on the stains till they stand out, and grow very real, and very black. Then go with them all to Jesus. Spread out all the pages, and do not try to hide one of the blots. You cannot. No tears will wash them out. Nothing but blood will avail. Go now, and with your whole heart pray like King David-"Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow" (Ps. li. 7). II. But turn now and take a look forward. How fair and pure all the New Year looks. It seems like the beautiful snow. Yet when we walk through it, we leave dark footmarks. How shall we be able to go through this new year without leaving dark marks behind us? Some years ago I went into a beautiful mosque in Cairo, in Egypt. A man stopped me at the door, and took off my shoes. He then gave me a pair of soft silken slippers, and I walked noiselessly through one of the grandest places I ever saw. They were anxious that nothing should mar the beauty or the quiet of the sacred spot. Oh, if we could realize how sacred and solemn the days and years of human life are! How softly and tenderly we should take each new step! We can never return and put right what once was wrong. It must remain. Young friends, try to begin early to be wise; and thus you may make the young years of life very beautiful, and brighten those that are to come later. And the true way to do so is to live little bits of life at a time. Come every morning and receive each new day as a pure, white thing out of God's own hand. Try to watch and pray that a gift so fair may not be tarnished with sin, and soiled and blackened long before the night has come. And when the day is ended, bring the morning's gift, and give it back again to God. There will be some blots on the fairest page of any life; but if you live very near to God, his light will let you see them; and if you live very near to Christ, his blood will wash them all away. Never fall asleep at night without coming to God, and giving him an account of the day, and getting the stains forgiven and forgotten-washed out by the blood at once. And thus, I am sure, dear young friends, the days of 1872, lived for Jesus and given away to him, will form to all of you, what I sincerely hope and pray they may-a Happy New Year. 66 THE LAMP FOR LEBANON. WE learn from Mr. Young that there is quite a "rush" to have collecting-cards for the "New Year Offering," to set up a 'Lamp for Lebanon." From all we hear, our young friends seem to intend, as the sailors say, to " go at it with a will." So all the little builders who wish to have a stone in the church had better lose no time, lest they find the money raised at once, and they be too late! Mr. Young (Free Church Offices, Edinburgh) has plenty of cards, so all who wish to have them should apply without delay. ALONE WITH GOD! WHEN one has distinctly heard the Saviour's call, and deliberately refused to comply with it, he thenceforth experiences a craving for company and employment. He cannot endure silence or solitude. When he stands still, he seems to hear the throbbings of his own conscience, terrible as the ticking of a clock in the chamber of death. To be alone is unendurable, because it is to be with God.-Rev. W. Arnot. NO OTHER GLAD TIDINGS. IF thou hear not the voice of God when he saith to thee, "Trust Christ," remember he hath no other glad tidings.-C. H. Spurgeon. SATURDAY NIGHT. A TEXT FOR OUR TEACHER. January 1872. Jan. 6. I will fill their treasures.Prov. viii. 21. 13. Thou shalt be his witness ....of what thou hast seen and heard.-Acts xxii. 15. 20. The inspiration of the Almighty giveth them understanding.-Job xxxii. 8. 27. I am the Lord their God, and will hear them.Zech. x. 6. CAN YOU BENJAMIN WEST, a famous painter, was Philadelphia, United States, in While but a little child he began to show his great love for drawing and paint born near 1738. DRAW? and his mother gave him a bit of indigo blue; and as he could not in those days get a camel-hair pencil for a penny as we can, he made a brush from the fur which he had ing. When only seven he was found trying clipped from the back of the cat! He beto draw a likeness, with pen and ink, of his baby sister sleeping in her cradle. Here is a picture of him at work. Some Indians gave him red and yellow paint, came a great painter, and died in 1820. His best known work is "The Death of General Wolfe," a print from which is still seen in many houses. |