at Bethlehem, at midnight or early morning. Some strange sort of consciousness he will have pervading his honest, manly heart, that he is like the Saviour in going to and from a life of painful labour—in ignorance (as far as experience is concerned) of the world's garish delights and ease. He will be ready even with a smile, or courteous word, while he ferries his load over the river. When he grasps the few paltry pence as the fare across the river with his horny hand, he will remember these blessed tidings, and wish an eternal

reward for those who treated him with such ready civility and blandness. He will thank God that his calling, laborious and precarious as it is, may lead him into interesting and profitable intercourse with strangers.

Surely, as well might we think lightly of the message of the angels to the shepherds near the city of David, as of that hard-labouring, unlettered man (of this nineteenth century) who, somewhat abruptly, showed his eagerness for information about the time at which our

Holy Lord was born into this guilty world!

VII.

Nature our Consoler.°

"The herbs we seek to heal our woe
Familiar by our pathway grow,

Our common air is balm."

CHRISTIAN YEAR.

@mongst parochial duties, this will often occur of having to administer religious consolation by the bed-side of a sick child. Information of the danger

c Reflections under the impressions made by a real case.

M

ous illness of a young person has in it something peculiarly distressing. This peculiar painfulness does not arise (God) forbid) from any uncertainty as to the future awaiting the child in mortal sickness. But the gentle ways of the little sufferer touch one to the quick, because we behold affliction in its most mysterious aspect-in the aspect in which the Mothers of the Holy Innocents beheld it, when they were massacred by King Herod. One is aware that now it is out of the child's power to express any particular wish for anything it may need.

Perhaps even it may not occur to so young a mind to send of its own accord for the pastor. Such considerations must certainly quicken the movements of any one summoned to attend upon a case of this kind. One feels under a special obligation to lose not a moment-even more so than when one's presence is requested for one of full age. It may be a festive season-such as Christmas or

Epiphany-when such an such an occurrence befals one. The outer world may present a contrast to the joyous character of the period in the Ecclesiastical year.