should be planted and flourish, and yield fruitage all the year round.

There will be need of the two bears—Bear and Forbear-in every home. Neither husband nor wife should be a fault-finder. They should be ready to cover rather than to expose each other's failings. They "should provoke one another to love, and love one another notwithstanding provocation."

It has often been noticed how husband and wife grow like each other. The clay that lies beside the ambergris absorbs its fragrance. Everything in a scented cabinet is redolent of the perfume. A tree trained up a crooked stick will be crooked, and water cannot run straight in a serpentine channel. The wife is commonly what the husband makes her; and the woman may say "If the husband is the head, I am the neck," for she may generally turn him whithersoever she will. The true wife will make her partner a "house-band," the true husband will be the stay and bond of the home. A man cannot look for respect where he does not yield it, nor for love where he does not bestow it. There can be no colour nor beauty without light; where the sun shines the flowers blow; where the husband

be

is loving, generous, and good, there it may expected home will be like a sweet-smelling and blooming garden.

It is a good thing for wife and children when the husband likes to spend evening hours at home. A prettier household picture cannot be drawn than that in which mother is seen sewing with father reading to her, or helping his boy with his school-tasks for to-morrow, or interesting himself in the paper models his child is attempting or the rude ship he is carving. Where the "big ha' Bible" is reverently read, and the morning and evening prayer rise like sweet incense upon the family altar.

In such a home, where love between husband and wife makes the moral atmosphere warm and bright, there will be found love among the children towards each other, and towards their parents. What the children see between father and mother they will surely remember, and most likely imitate. If there be discord between the parents, harmony cannot abide in the home. The jarring string, the rift in the lute, as to the heads of the household, will render the music of love impossible among its members.

St. Peter, a married apostle, prefaces his

directions to husbands and wives each with a "Likewise." There are mutual obligations and correlative duties, and the wife and husband must be, each to other, love, fidelity, and service. Let it not be forgotten that with every exhortation to wives there is also a "Likewise, ye husbands." (1 Peter iii. 7.)

"Didst Thou not make us one,
That we might one remain ;
Together travel on,

And bear each other's pain;
Till we Thy utmost goodness prove
And rise renew'd in perfect love

"Then let us ever bear

The blessed end in view,

And join, with mutual care

To fight our passage through;

And kindly help each other on,

Till both receive the starry crown."

IN

VII.

WORKERS AND DRONES.

N the great hive of society there are swarms of idle drones as well as busy bees. And sad it is to say that in this matter the church resembles the world. Not only are there the diligent workers who build the comb and make the honey, but there are plenty who, when they wake up to do anything at all, only feed upon the industry of others, or buzz and sting. The great Master has taught us in parable and precept that every member of His spiritual household must be a worker. He Himself has set the bright example, and He gives "to every man his work." To every one whom He calls He says, "Go work to-day in My vineyard."

It has been stated that only fifteen in every hundred members of Christian churches are engaged in active service for Christ. That

is, there are about six drones to every diligent worker. The idlers have plenty of excuses for their idleness. They have bought a field, they have oxen to prove, they have married a wife. Or, they have no gifts, or nobody ever asked them, or they have not been elected to office in the church. Ah, friend, these pleas may serve to lull your conscience, or may satisfy your fellow-men, but can you dare honestly utter one of them in the face of your Lord, who, asking, "Lovest thou Me," bids you prove your professed love by working in His pastures? "Only fifteen in a hundred at work! Oh, but we have so many teachers, and so many tract-distributors, and so many preachers beside.”

Yes, but how many of these devoted labourers combine in themselves the functions of some or all of these officers. As a rule, it is the same people who work in the different branches of service. We want every believer in Christ to ask himself or herself the question, "How much owest thou unto thy Lord?"

Especially in cities and towns where there are large masses of humanity, already too numerous for all existing agencies to reach, and year by year growing more numerous, it