sent my messengers late and early, in cold and heat; ye spurned all my love; all things were made ready; ye would not come. What say you now?" Speechless all; not one excuse is found. "Depart, ye cursed." "These shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal."

AN aged and highly honoured minister of the Gospel, one who has had to pass through much trial, and has seen many changes in life, speaks thus with regard to God's faithfulness to these promises. His way of acting at such times is worthy of example. "I will tell you (said he) how I do when in perplexity about any change of path. First, I take my Bible and look at all the promises of direction in such a case as mine. Then I honestly pray for right direction. Then I try to examine the thing to the best of my ability, searching my motives for the change, and whether there is any one which I should not like to be known, or of which I feel ashamed myself. Then I try to get into a state of stillness, gathering my thoughts up before the Lord, and endeavouring to wait upon Him. Well, after this, sometimes I have had to make the decision without any light on my path to my own apprehension; but in not one case in my long life have I found that I had been left to myself, but I have been permitted to see that the step taken was in my heavenly father's ordering."-" Lectures on Prayer," by J. S. Sewell.

OH, what tales of sorrow should we hear told, even by some of the Lord's own children, if they were to make known but a small part of what they have had to suffer, when, having persisted unsubmissively in pleading with God for what He knew would prove a curse to them, He has taught them their folly by granting their request. Mothers who have prayed thus for the lives of their children, and afterwards have been ready to thank God when they have been taken away! Others, who have prayed for the removal of some trial, and have found that its removal brought something tenfold worse. Others, who have prayed that certain duties might not devolve upon them, and have continued to pray till they were unfitted to perform them, and for years afterwards have been like birds that have wandered from their nests. the Israelites of old, when they murmured for flesh meat, "the Lord granted their request, but sent leanness into their souls."Lectures on Prayer," by J. S. Sewell.

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LOST AND FOUND.

By J. LE GAY BRERETON, M.D., Sydney, N.S.W.

Is it that I grow selfish that my tears

Fall faster with the gathering months and years?
Is grief all sin? Doth God regard it thus?
Why did He weep then over Lazarus ?

I do not wish thee back,-my child, my child!
I weep, yet I am more than reconciled.

My tears and prayers from the same fountain flow;
I do not wish thee back, nor hence would go,

-Not e'en to sing with thee before God's throne-
'Till all He wills me here to do, is done :
Here would I live for Heaven, where thou art,
Thou severed portion of thy father's heart!

So shall we, parted, still not live apart.

Then welcome night, although thou bring'st not sleep,Welcome, kind night, when none can see me weep!

Bright with the morning touch of God's own hand
Our gentle darling sought the morning land.
Heaven speed the time when such sweet flowers may live
With us, and blessings take and blessings give!
For when they have their uses here below
More than above, Thou wilt not bid them go.
When go they must, we shall not miss them then,
When Thou hast made Thy dwelling among men;
For we shall see them shining where they are,
And hold sweet converse with their happier star,
Near, very near thro' Thee, albeit so far.
The veil that parts us Thou shalt rend in twain,
And what is one in Thee, in Thine shall one remain.

And yet how bright soe'er the truths we know,
How oft dark clouds engulf us from below,
Shutting out faith with demon shapes of woe!
Last night I stood upon the lonely wild

And groaned into the darkness for my child.
And when the tears broke forth, the bitter tears,

No hope there seemed for me through the long, lonely years.

"In the universe so wide

O shall I ever find thee?
I look up among the stars

Till their 'wildering mazes blind me.
I know 'tis bright where'er thou art

By the gloom thou hast left behind thee.

"The night is wild, the clouds drive past,
My tears flow fast and faster;
Danger I've braved by sea and land,
And many a fell disaster.

But the grief I never knew till now
My spirit could not master.

"Each day, each hour its loss brings round,

Keen arrows shooting thro' me;

All night, all day, O! cruel bliss,
Thy joyous smile doth woo me.
Smile on! Smile on, my angel child,
Until thou win me to thee! "

But when the morning breeze began to stir
About each glossy shrub and spikey burr,
A gentler voice in my sad breast awoke,

And thro' the morn, thy morning spirit spoke.

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Dark, dark the night your earth so long hath borne !

But Christ awoke the shepherds ere the morn,

And ere the daylight breaks I come to thee

To sing of sunshine that shall surely be.

I heard thee call upon me through the night,
But cannot speak through darkness: seek the light
That shines within on heaven's horizon-height!
Thy loss is thy salvation.

Lo the throng

Far up the heights of morning! Hear their song Of joyous greeting!"-"You have done us wrong; Thro' the long night you would not hear us sing; We come with songs of morning, flowers of spring.”

"Your long, long night of winter breaks at last,
For we can reach you now, and powers more vast
Shall follow in our wake: the night is past.
We are the buds you mourned, in our sweet prime
Of opening, snatched away before our time.
For you God took us; you he could not reach
Except through us; no other form of speech
Could catch your ears across the widening breach

Betwixt your land and ours. He drew us here
All bright and sinless from your sinful sphere,
Yet warm with love for those who love us yet,
Who called us by sweet names we can't forget.
For
you
he took us: heaven had been dull-
Your heaven-of that blush too beautiful

For sin to breathe on and not tarnish, save

That He, whose presence lights the caverned grave,
Took us while yet within our infant eyes
The undimmed radiance of lost Paradise
Shone, ready to reflect that brightest glow
Which angels can behold and God bestow.
The yawning chasm grows a shining lake;
Your children's heaven, for your children's sake
Ye yet shall seek, and, seeking, surely find;
And lost-long Eden, faded out of mind,
Again shall bloom upon your mortal shore,
And death be known among her sons no more."
One voice I did distinguish o'er the rest,
—A sweet sad voice, yet I was more than blessed.

"Father, the cloud that hides thy form,
And with dark spells hath bound thee,
On me, c'en here, its gloom doth cast,
And dark strange thoughts astound me;
Here, mid the flowery streams of heaven,
With happy voices round me.

"O, rather let thy darling's voice

Of thy best hopes remind thee!
Follow the path that leads to God,
And thou shalt surely find me!
Gentle acts and kindly words,
The track I left behind me.

"Narrow the frith that flows between,
Though to your eyes benighted
With earth-born fogs, it seemeth wide!
Soon, soon shall all be righted;
Soon shall ye blend your songs with ours,'
Delighting and delighted."

And other voices heard I, but their song
Rose into raptures all too swift and strong
For mortal words to follow. Like to one
Who from a mountain top beholds the sun

Fire all the sky beyond the boundary rim
Of sable hills, and bringing day to him
While yet the under-world is swathed in night,
Yet seeth not beyond his range of sight
More than the dwellers in the vales below
Fore-date the moment of their sunrise, so,
As from a sunlit peak, in that high state
Tho' almost looking in at heaven's gate,
I saw and heard that only which he chose,
Who did direct the vision, to disclose;
And only so much of the future's glow
As sheds its lustre on the present, know.

Enough I saw to learn that pain is good,
Yea, best unto the best, when understood.
That love is over death, and doth compel
Into her cause e'en the assaults of hell;
Nor shall she rest until she break the chain
Of thraldom even in its own domain,
Waking to music many a darkened plain.
She at the last shall open even there

A shaft of hope, and plant the heavenward stair,
Aye brightening upward,-every step a prayer.