the first assurance his own lips had ever given in words, of peace in believing. The visitor was about to leave the neighbourhood; her next call was to be her last. It was the Sabbath-evening; Autumn was drawing on ; "the summer passed, the harvest ended," but by the tender mercy of God the sinner was saved, and soon to be "gathered as a sheaf into the floor." There had been a time when the poor sufferer dreaded this separation, but he leaned no longer on an earthly arm. No allusion was made to the subject, until the visitor said at departing, 'We shall not meet again on earth. I am obliged to go away.' The dying man fixed a look never to be forgotten on his friend; she saw his falling tear, and heard his blessing; and thus calmly they parted to meet no more, till beyond the dominion of suffering, of sin, and of death. It is not difficult to imagine the contrast of thought and feeling in the first and last sight of that lonely cottage: then viewed as the awful precinct of the grave, now as the portal of immortality. The record that God gave had been heard and received, and this is the record, "that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God, hath not life."

The sufferer lingered long in agony of pain that passes all description; still, to the last, enabled to express his hope of eternal life in and through his Saviour. The body has now found its rest beneath the clods of the valley, to awake to consciousness no more till the life of immortality invigorates its rejoicing existence. The spirit is with Jesus, who died to save it, then stooped to win it, by the assurance of His love, in the message that He sent even at the eleventh hour:-" The entrance of Thy Word giveth light, it giveth understanding to the simple!"

THE VILLAGER'S HYMN

TO THE SCRIPTURES.

WRITTEN FOR THE INHABITANTS OF THE HAMLETS THESE

PAGES REFER TO, BY ONE OF THEMSELVES.

LAMP of our feet, whose hallowed beam
Deep in our hearts its dwelling hath,
How welcome is the cheering gleam
Thou sheddest o'er our lowly path!
Light of our way, whose rays are flung
In mercy o'er our pilgrim road,
How blessed its dark shades among
The star that guides us to our God

Our fathers in the days gone by

Read thee in dim and secret caves,

Or in the deep wood, silently,

Met where the summer bough still waves,
To seek the hope thy record gave

When thou wert a forbidden thing,
And the strong chain and bloody grave
Were all on earth thy love could bring.

Our fathers in the days gone by

Read thee while peril o'er them hung,
But we beneath the open sky

May search thy leaves of truth along ;
Fearless, our daily haunts among,

May chant the hallowed lays of old,
Once by the shepherd-minstrel sung
When Israel's hills o'erhung his fold.

In the sweet morning's early prime
Thy blessed words our lips engage,
And round our hearths at evening-time
Our children spell the holy page,—
The way-mark through long-distant years
To guide their wandering footsteps on,
Till thy last, loveliest beam appears
Written on the grey church-yard stone.

Lamp of our feet, which day by day
Are passing to the quiet tomb,

If on it fall thy peaceful ray

Our last low dwelling hath no gloom. How beautiful their calm repose

To whom "that blessed hope was given, Whose pilgrimage on earth was closed By the unfolding gates of Heaven!

L. Seeley,

Thames Ditton,
Surrey.

THE END.