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to bed," said Marion, after their greetings were over. "You will have some supper with us, father ?-Mrs. Maple told me to ask you."

"No, thank you, my dear, I want to get home, and you girls don't need me now. I have told Kate she is always to spend the Sunday with us, the same as you do."

"Oh, yes, of course she will," said Marion. "You see that is one advantage of being in an oldfashioned shop like this; we have no Sunday work," she said, turning to her cousin.

"Mother will be glad to know that," said Kate. "Yes, you must tell her when you write," said her uncle, bidding her good-bye.

When he was gone the girls sat down to supper, and Kate tried to eat, but everything was so strange, and she had such an intense longing to see her mother, that she said "yes" and "no" to her cousin's questions, scarcely understanding what they

were.

The next morning, however, she felt a good deal better, and by the end of the week began to feel quite at home, for Mrs. Maple was not a hard mistress, and so Kate was able to give a good account of her home, when she wrote to her mother.

"What shall we do to-morrow-where shall we go? said Marion, on Saturday afternoon.

"Where do you generally go?" said Kate, rather timidly. "I have been going to ask you two or three times how you spend Sunday."

"Oh! I go home, and, if it's fine, Bella and I go for a walk, or a little way into the country. But you will want to see London, of course."

"Yes," said Kate, rather slowly; "I should like to see some of the grand places I have heard about, but-but, don't you think we might manage to see them another time? Don't you go to Sundayschool?" she asked, in a still lower tone.

Her cousin stared at her in blank amazement, for a minute or two, and then burst into a merry laugh. "Go to Sunday-school-a young woman like me?" she said.

"Well, not to Sunday-school, exactly: I did not mean that, but to church and Bible-class?" said Kate.

"Oh, yes, we go to church sometimes, for a change, when it's wet, and it's a good place to see the fashions, too, but I never went to Sunday-school in my life; mother said it wasn't genteel!"

"Mother liked me to go to Sunday-school, and I promised her I would find out a Bible-class, as soon as I could," said Kate.

"Well, so you can, I daresay, after a little while, but you must look round a bit first. Now where shall we go on Sunday? You see the fine weather won't last long, and there's such lots of things for you to see. Of course, you would like to see Buckingham Palace, and the Houses of Parliament, and the Albert Memorial, and Kensington Gardens ? But we can't see everything in one Sunday, so we had better make up our mind to go and see the Parks and the Memorial next Sunday.'

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Kate did not answer, but Marion chose to consider the matter settled. Later in the day, when they had time for a few minutes chat to themselves, Marion said, "You will soon forget your old-fashioned, countrified notions about Sunday-schools and Bible

classes. They were all very well, I daresay, for the country people could go out and get a breath of fresh air any day in the week; but you can't here, and so we are obliged to manage our Sundays the best way we can."

"Yes-but-but I should like to go to church next Sunday. Mother asked me in her letter this morning to tell her whether I had found a nice Bible-class, and where I went to church."

"Oh well, we'll go to church for once, just to satisfy your mother, Kate, only she can't expect us to go every Sunday."

Kate thought she had better be content with the small victory she had gained, and perhaps, by and by, she might be able to persuade Marion to go to Bible-class with her, and thus put an end to these Sunday excursions. In the meantime, she must go with her cousins for a walk or a pleasure trip on a Sunday afternoon, or else Marion would refuse to accompany her to school.

It seemed strange to Kate, at first, to be walking about in the noisy streets, or gazing at the fashionable, gaily-dressed people in the park, but she soon began to enjoy discussing this one's dress and that one's bonnet almost as much as her cousins did, and her younger cousin said, "You will soon wear off all your country rust, Kate. How could you have lived in that pokey place so long?'

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"Oh, it wasn't pokey a bit," said Kate, warmly; "I had lots of friends there, and that is what we are not allowed to have here. Don't you find that rule of Mrs. Maple's rather hard to keep sometimes, Marion?" she added.

"What rule ?" said Marion.

"About saying as few words as possible to the customers in the shop; Mrs. Maple told me she was most strict about it."

"Well, I suppose she is," said Marion, carelessly; "at least, just at first; " but they were joined at this moment by two young men, whom Kate instantly recognised as being frequent visitors at the shop.

She cast an inquiring glance at Marion, as one of them said, "This is the cousin you told me was coming to help you in the shop, I suppose?"

"I have been there all the week, and seen you several times, I think," said Kate, quickly, at which they all burst into a loud laugh.

A few minutes afterwards they were joined by some more friends, who were likewise customers at the shop, as Kate's eyes instantly told her, and she wondered whether her cousin did keep the rule about friends and customers, as strictly as Mrs. Maple supposed.

Before the next week was over, she found that these friends of Marion's came in for buns or pastry when Mrs. Maple was sure to be out of the way, and a good deal of laughing and chatting went on between them.

"Of course I don't keep such a stupid rule as that, Kate, how can I?" said her cousin, afterwards, when they were talking about this. "It would not do to laugh and chat with the old lady in the way, but where is the harm I should like to know?"

Kate shook her head. "Of course I don't understand business," she said, "but I thought it was a strange rule, myself."

"A strange rule! It's the most stupid and absurd one that could be thought of. Some people come

into the shop every day, and to think I am only to say 'yes' and 'no' to them is ridiculous."

"But all those young men you met on Sundaysurely you knew some of them in a different way than just coming into the shop?" said Kate.

No, I don't," replied her cousin; "I never saw them until I came here," she added, laughing.

Kate looked a little disappointed. "I-I thought you knew them so well, they seemed so friendly that they must be friends of your brothers-that your father knew their friends and all about them," stammered Kate.

"You little goose! what difference can it make to us, whether my father and grandfather knew theirs, or whether we met last week for the first time? said Marion, laughing.

But Kate was not satisfied. "I wish I could talk to mother about it," she said, half aloud.

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"For patience sake don't look so solemn and talk so seriously about a little thing like that, and as to telling your mother everything, why no sensible girl of any spirit would think of such nonsense, for she would know that her mother could not understand about things she had never seen or heard of. Now, don't be silly, Kate, and make your mother uncomfortable about you. We went to church last Sunday on purpose that you might tell her we had been, and after that she will be satisfied, unless you tell her something on purpose to make her anxious about you." And Marion went to serve another customer, feeling sure that Kate would not say anything about these acquaintances now.

Kate certainly did not want to say anything that would make her mother anxious. Only this morning she had received a letter from her mother saying she had lost almost all her fears concerning her welfare now, for Kate's letters had given such a faithful account of Mrs. Maple's strict ways, and the stringent rule about chance acquaintances, and her resolution to induce her cousins to go with her to a Bible-class very soon, that Mrs. Haydon grew almost as hopeful as Kate about the future.

And Kate was quite sincere in her desire to induce her cousins to spend their Sundays differently, and she thought if she went with them to see the various sights of London just once or twice they would be willing to go with her afterwards. The following Sunday morning when they were dressing to go out Marion said, "Where do you think we are going today, Kate ?"

"You said you would take me to Westminster Abbey or to St. Paul's," said Kate.

“Ah, yes, so I did; but a wet Sunday will do for those places, and they want us to go to Richmond or Greenwich Park. Which shall it be, Kate?" said her cousin, brushing her hair more vigorously.

"Who wants us to go?" asked Kate. "Oh, you know-the friends who met us in the park last Sunday."

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The young men who came into the shop on Friday? Wouldn't they go with us to the Abbey or to St. Paul's instead?" said Kate.

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Marion laughed. "I shouldn't like to ask them," she said; and pray don't say anything about Sunday-school before them."

"I am not ashamed of it, I can tell you," said Kate, in a half-offended tone.

"No, no, of course not; but then, you see, you are not in the country now," said Marion, "and things are different in London."

"I don't see why they should be; there are Sundayschools in London, I know, and I mean to find out a Bible-class, and then you and Bella shall come and see how nice it is."

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Well, there's plenty of time for that when the fine weather is all over," said Marion a little impatiently. "Now, Kate, be quick and decide where we shall go, for I expect they will meet us as we go home, and we must tell them where to meet us this afternoon."

"Well, I would rather not go at all," said Kate slowly, for she knew her conscience would not let her enjoy the most pleasant trip that could be arranged. Oh, nonsense, but you must come, I have promised for you; they particularly want you to go," said Marion.

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Kate could not help feeling pleased and flattered by her cousin's words, but she made another feeble protest.

"I would much rather go to St. Paul's," she said, "and if I go with you to-day you must promise to go to Bible-class with me very soon." "And now,

"Oh, I promise," laughed Marion. Kate, once more, where shall we go, for I promised you should decide this? I am a great mind to be jealous of you, my little country cousin," she added; Bella would be, I know."

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"I don't see what you have got to be jealous about," said Kate, yet still feeling pleased and elated, in spite of her better sense.

"Now let me give you a few finishing touches before we go," said Marion a few minutes afterwards, "and I will lend you my green brooch and a veil. You must let me alter your bonnet a little one night next week. There; now you don't look quite so dowdy," said Marion, as she pushed her cousin before the looking-glass after the "few touches" had been given to her bonnet and neck ribbon.

"What

Kate looked at herself complacently. would Esther Odell say if she could see me now, and Mary Green, too! I don't think Mary would be so pleased with her new place if she could see me going out like this," she mentally added.

"Come, Kate, will you take this parasol of mine?" said her cousin.

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Oh, yes, and I must take some money I suppose," said Kate, going to her box and unlocking it. She did not like her cousin to see what small store of money she had, and so she put the purse into her pocket as it was, but not intending to spend more than a shilling, for the little sum her mother had given her was to last three months for her extra expenses.

(To be continued.)

A SINGULAR LIBRARY.-A curious collection of books is contained in the library of Warstenstein, near Cassel, in Germany. These books appear at first sight to be logs of wood, but each volume is really a complete history of he tree it represents. The back shows the bark, in which a small place is cut to write the scientific and the common name as a title. One side shows the tree trunk in its natural state, and the other is polished and varnished. Inside are shown the leaves, fruit, fibre, and insect parasites, to which is added a full description of the tree and its products.

YOUR OWN BIBLE, AND HOW TO READ IT.

By W. H. GROSER, B.Sc.-No. III.

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These are twenty-seven in number, but with much less of variety of form than those of the Old Testament. There are four BIOGRAPHIES, one book of ECCLESIASTICAL (or Church) HISTORY, twenty-one LETTERS, and one PROPHETICAL composition, similar to those of the earlier dispensation already noticed. The biographies, though there are nominally four, relate all to the same Divine Subject, as every Sunday-scholar well knows, and hence they are often spoken of as one-a "four-fold Biography" of "the Man Christ Jesus." Nor need we wonder that the earthly life of our blessed Lord should have had four authorised narrators, beside the "many" who, as we learn from St. Luke (chap. i. 1), "took in hand to set forth a declaration " (though without any divine warrant) of such facts as they could gather concerning the same matchless history. For among the more distinguished of our country's celebrities, "in arts, or arms, or song," not a few have gained the honour of a double, treble, or quadruple biography; and of some even a small library of biographies might be collected. We need only mention Milton, Cowper, Newton, and Wellington, as examples; while the last few years has brought us two simultaneous "lives" of that Elizabethan genius, Sir Walter Raleigh. The character of a truly great man, as reflected in his earthly career, cannot be fully portrayed from the one standpoint of a single mind. Like some grand cathedral, it needs to be viewed in various aspects, and from different positions, in order to be fally appreciated. How pre-eminently necessary, then, would it be that the One Perfect Manhood, the one faultless Human Life, should be presented to succeeding ages in a plurality of aspects, and through more than a single human mind, however aided and enlightened from the Source of all truth. And so, ST. MATTHEW Views his Lord as the expected Messiah, in whom all Jewish types and predictions found their fulfilment the Prophet of His people and the glory of Israel. In MARK'S concise but graphic biography, Jesus is "the SON OF GOD with power"-God dwelling with man, and revealing Himself not so much by words of wisdom as by Godlike acts of mercy and of might. ST. LUKE exhibits

Him as the SAVIOUR OF THE WORLD, embracing Jew and Gentile in His vast redemptive work; Jesus the child, the youth, the man- the Type and the Restorer of humanity. ST. JOHN strikes the key-note of his "Gospel" in its opening sentence, "In the beginning was the WORD, and the Word was God," Jesus of Nazareth-the Divine manifestation of God to man, in power, wisdom, and love.

And yet, let it not be forgotten how far these four biographers fall short of their subject, since Matthew and Mark, Luke and John, though inspired men, were but men at the best. One of them, in a bold figure of speech, declares the impossibility of recording all the acts of the Saviour whom he loved so well (John xxi. 25); while his successor, the great Apostle of the Gentile world, records in one of his latest letters his aspiration, that he might attain to the knowledge of Christ, "the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings" (Phil. iii. 10).

The ACTS OF THE APOSTLES, which we have called a book of ECCLESIASTICAL history, is marked, like the Old Testament histories, by a strong biographical element. It is a history, first of Peter and John, and then of Paul and Timothy. It has also been strikingly named "the Acts of the Risen Saviour," a title which, besides expressing an important feature of the book, shows how closely it is connected with the four-fold biography which precedes it. St. Peter's memorable words at the great harvest festival (Acts ii. 33) should be kept in mind as a sort of motto of the entire history: "Having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, He (Jesus hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear."

The history of the Church of Christ on earth, thus commenced by Luke, has been continued by not a few uninspired writers in ancient and modern days, from Eusebius and Sozomen, in the fourth and fifth centuries, down to Neander and Milman, De Pressensé and Farrar, in our own days.

The BOOK OF THE REVELATION, also known as "the Apocalypse" (both words meaning an unveiling), is likewise a Church history, but it is a prophetic history a dim and designedly mysterious outlining of the events then or still to happen, until the close of the Christian dispensation. Many have been its professed interpreters, but their work has been a record of many failures and perversions, because-may we not venture to say?-the "unveiling" was to be gradual-lifting up the dark curtain by slow degrees. Thus future "times and seasons" would still, as Jesus told His disciples (Act i. 7), be kept in God's own hands; but as each predicted event occurred it would at once explain and confirm the prophetic word, and strengthen the Church's faith in New Testament prophecy.

Some few uninspired Christian poets have ventured to sing the future glories of the Saviour's kingdom on earth, and the brighter glories of the heavenly state; but their efforts are little known or admired, doubtless because the reader feels how utterly thought and

language fail to reach "the height of this great argument," and how far inferior are man's sublimest songs, when compared with the utterances of the Bible itself. Cowper's noble lines

"O scenes surpassing fable, and yet true," are sometimes quoted; but the once popular "Course of Time," by the Rev. Robert Pollok, though containing not a few sublime passages, is almost unknown to the present generation.

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The young readers who have accompanied me in this brief and very imperfect effort to view the Old and New Testament Scriptures as a library," whose AUTHOR is One and Divine, while its WRITERS were many and human, have at least gained, I trust, a fuller idea of the remarkable variety of form, as well as of age and length, by which they are distinguished. "And all," be it remarked, "are profitable," not equally so, nor to all persons alike, and at all seasons, without We are on much more familiar ground when we distinction; yet what God has seen fit to record and speak of the "LETTERS" (or "Epistles, as we must preserve for our benefit must be eminently worthy still continue to hear them called) of the New Testa- of our most reverent and persevering study. Let me ment. As already mentioned, there are twenty-one, emphasise that last adjective, and sustain the counsel The late eminent of which thirteen bear the name of St. Paul, three that of by weightier words than my own. St. John, two that of St. Peter, one was written by I cannot conceive an odder mistake in one who surgeon, Mr. James Hinton, thus wrote to a friend: the Apostle James the Less, and one by Jude or believes the Bible to be the word of God—a book not Judas. One is anonymous, the " Epistle to the Hebrews," or Jewish Christians, but we think the for one man or age, but for all-than to suppose that arguments in favour of its being the work of St. you should understand the meaning of every passage. Paul outweigh the objections which some critics learn to have patience with it. It is large and deep as You will certainly make a mess of the Bible till you have urged to the contrary. nature, and yet as simple, and must be dealt with in the same way."

That such "letters" should have been written by the early missionaries of the Cross seems most probable and natural, whether to private Christians or to the congregations gathered out of Jewish or Pagan communities by those "who preached the Gospel with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven." Nor need we wonder that it seemed good to that same Spirit to dictate, control, and preserve for us a portion of these apostolic compositions. For, in the judgment of wise critics, the mind and heart are more accurately and vividly portrayed in the letters which a man writes himself, than in any biography

which his nearest friend or kinsman can write for

him. Nor was this form of authorship any novelty in the time of Peter, Paul, and John. Before their day, Horace the poet and Cicero the orator had written " 'epistles," which have come down to us with other relics of Roman literature, and still are read with pleasure and admiration. And just as Horace wrote letters to Augustus the emperor, and Mæcenas the wealthy statesman, his friends and patrons, and Cicero addressed familiar epistles to the accomplished Atticus, so Paul of Tarsus poured out his tributes of affection and counsel to his beloved Philemon and his dear son Timothy, and the aged John sent greetings to the excellent Gaius and the Elect Lady," whom he does not mention by name, but only by character.

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Letters to Churches and Congregations, though peculiar to Christianity, do not usually come to form part of a national literature, yet they are, as we all know, by no means uncommon. The immediate successors of the Apostles imitated their example, and wrote to the often persecuted and suffering communities whom they had taught. We are told that Clement of Rome wrote epistles to the Church at Corinth, the martyr Ignatius to that at Antioch, and his fellow-witness, the venerable Polycarp (St. John's disciple) to the Christians at Philippi. And during later ages many have been the letters of affectionate instruction, counsel, and consolation which absent and sometimes exiled pastors and missionaries have addressed to the "flocks" over which God "had made

them overseers."

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Bible-reader to know that the holy writings were
It is scarcely sufficient, however, for the young
composed "at sundry times and in divers" places,
far removed from each other; it is desirable to form
a more definite conception "how far" these intervals
in order.
of age or distance really were. Let us look at each

By" various times" I mean not the number of centhat embraces the interval from "the creation of the turies covered by the events recorded in Scripture, since heavens and the earth" till the final consummation of all things, and he would be a much bolder chronologist than Archbishop Usher himself who should try to express that period "in terms of years!" John, or, let us say, from Moses to Malachi and from I speak of the Age of the Literature, from Moses to

Matthew to John.

Now, it is of little use to put this down in "B.C.'s" and "A.D.'s" or "A.M.'s," unless we realize what these letters mean. At one time, those letters in the margins of our Bibles conveyed little more information than the a's and y's and ab2 in the algebra when we first began that lively branch of study, except that perhaps we wondered how the Archbishop aforesaid could have hit the mark so nicely as to fix "the creation of the world at B.C. 4004" precisely! We have learned since then that, as Dr. Chalmers told his contemporaries, "the writings of Moses do not fix the antiquity of the globe." Will it take another century to discover that "the writings of Moses do not fix the antiquity of" the human race? Yet I think-mind, I am only speaking for myself—that the one statement is as true as the other.

Following the plan we have already adopted, let us first use the literature of our own country as a sort of rule or line for measuring the succession of the books of the Old Testament, in which, of course, we have to deal with far longer periods than the in the case of the deal with far longer periods than the in the case of the New. Let us try to place ourselves side by side with a Jew living in the days of Malachi, the last of the prophets and writers of the Old Dispensation. Just as we actually look back along the line of prose and poetic literature bequeathed to us by our forefathers. let us imagine ourselves able to look back along a

similar line of inspired Hebrew literature. Farthest away, at the distance of about a thousand years, are the historical and legal writings of Moses, not reckoning those older documents which he incorporated into the book of Genesis; and just so great is the interval which separates the Englishman of to-day from the "Church history" of the venerable Bede, when Egbert ruled over this island. Nearly as ancient are the laws which our Moses, good King Alfred, embodied in a code for the benefit of his subjects-about as remote from our time as the books of Joshua and Judges from a contemporary of Malachi. Similarly the age of the earlier Hebrew national historiesSamuel, Kings, and 1st Chronicles-may be compared to that of the chronicles of England written by Robert of Gloucester in the reign of Henry III.

The oldest Jewish prophet, Jonah, would be about as far back from Malachi as our oldest reformer, brave and true-hearted John Wycliffe, from the present day. Later prophetical writers-Joel, Amos, Micah, Hosea, and Nahum-would stand side by side with the great preachers of the Tudor reigns and the Puritan divines who immediately succeeded them. Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Haggai, and Zechariah, might be compared to Burnet, Stillingfleet, and Tillotson, and the great religious teachers of Queen Anne's reign. Lastly, Ezra and Nehemiah come in as contemporary, or, at least, quite recent authors, uniting the present with the far-stretching past.

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Let us now try another mode of reckoning. "Man is the measure of creation," someone says, and our best idea of time is gained from our own life-clock." Scripture fixes this scale of measurement at threescore years and ten. Applying it to the line of Old Testament literature, the distance from Moses to Malachi (or the distance from Bede to Tennyson) may be estimated as equal to the united ages of fifteen persons, each living to the full term of human existence.

Between the writings of the Old Testament and those of the New-between Malachi and Matthewcomes an interval which must never be lost sight of by the Bible student, of not less than 350 years. This was 66 THE AGE OF SILENCE," "there was no open vision." Remember that the blank page in the centre of your Bible represents a space of three centuries, as great as that which divides the defeat of the Spanish Armada from the battle of Tel-el-Kebir, while the date of Matthew's writing his Gospel would be some fifty years later on, altogether equal to five human lives in succession.

But the NEW TESTAMENT Writings, from St. Matthew to St. John, the first and last of the inspired Christian authors, cover a space of no more than fifty years, equal only to the lifetime of the parents of many who are reading these pages.

Adding the three periods together, from the oldest of the books of Moses to the latest of New Testament writings-the Gospel by St. John-we get a total of 1000+350+50-1400 years; a period equal to that which has elapsed since the last Roman soldier quitted the shores of Britain and made way for the wild rovers of the Northern Seas; or, by our other mode of computation, a period equal to twenty full human lives succeeding one another.

It will be worth your while to try and grasp the idea of time by the aid of such homely illustrations as

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