TALES FOR BOYS.

EARLY AND EVERY-DAY TRIALS.

A Sketch for the Circumcision.

By trials we generally mean the outward afflictions of life. They are the trials seen of men, and therefore talked about and easily, so at least we fancy, understood; but there are trials known only to Him to Whom all hearts are open, and it is good that we should think of them; that we should learn to look upon every pang and weariness and sinking of the spirit as His messenger as much as we do sickness, pain, or bereavement. We may regard with especial reverence those who seem most deeply afflicted, and, if we are passing through life calmly, without the difficulties with which the path of the Saints is strewn, it is well that we should feel it as a proof of our own inferiority, and let the reflection humble us; but let nothing shake our confidence that the circumstances through which we are led are exactly those best adapted to our souls' good. He Who was lifted up that He might draw all men unto Him can draw us by those inner trials which lie deep within by the most trifling incidents of every-day life, as well as by more outward trouble, and we may rest in the blessed hope that if they have sufficed to wean us from earth and to make us desire nothing so earnestly as to be indeed His, they have done the work for which they were sent. We may not attain the brighter crown, the higher mansion of those who in outward as well as inward suffering have been more conformed to their LORD; but blessed, thrice blessed, if we may be admitted to the lowest place in that pure region where the least and lowest are holy.

Mary Grey was naturally a timid and very sensitive child, one of those children who are constantly misunderstood and who, feeling most keenly that they are so, shrink within themselves, and are often sad at heart even before life's cares have fallen upon them. One of Mary's first trials that can well be described was going to school, a day-school within sight of her own house. We are apt to take it for granted that dislike to going to school is a proof of dislike to learning; and it may be so in many cases, but it was not so with Mary. From the day she could distinguish a picture she was instinctively fond of books, and when she struggled against the great dread which such temperaments only can feel, and kept down the swelling of her little heart, so that there was but a rising tear when her impulse was to sob and beg a reprieve, yet was she called a naughty child for not liking to go to school; there was an intuitive sense of injustice mingled with

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the feeling that this was not the sort of naughtiness for which she was sorry when she said her prayers, and Mary was taking her first lesson in that habit of silent appeal to our Heavenly FATHER, which is the stay of so many otherwise lonely souls in their passage through this life. Mary in temper was irritable, inclined to peevishness; she was too submissive to be troublesome, but she had not that sunshiny good humour which enables its possessor, in the nursery, as well as in after life, to pass through little daily trials as scarcely feeling them. She was apt to think that few loved her, and as her elder sister was a remarkably clever child, she early imbibed the idea that she was herself of inferior ability. To her sister, whose open, fearless disposition was the very reverse of her own, she looked up with almost reverence, doing as she did, and feeling her presence quite a protection in every encounter with strangers. But her sister was early taken away, and more trying than ever was it for poor little Mary, for now she must go alone. I am not sure that her first being sent to boarding school was a greater trial than the day-school had been in early childhood, but she could remember more distinctly how utterly desolate she felt when the door closed upon the kind parents who had brought her, and she was left alone amongst strangers. It is difficult to say which she dreaded most, the ladies to whose care she was entrusted, and who seemed to her something quite awful; or the girls, of various ages, who could laugh and talk and appear at their ease in such a place. Mary's first consolation, and it was the consolation of all her school trials, arose from the thought which came to her in her sadness that she should not mind what she went through if her father—her dear father, who, from infancy she had always felt, loved and sympathised with her more than any one else—if he could but see her; then she thought she would cherish the belief that he did, and try and act as though it were so.

Mary, when, in more advanced life, she traced the inner feelings by which she had been led, saw in this the germ of that sense of God's abiding presence, which she was gradually enabled to realize. When her father was taken hence she felt that he was still near in spirit, and this communion with the unseen world was as a spell to wean her affections from earth, and draw them heavenward. Another of Mary's school feelings which she loved to think had been purified to higher, holier aspirations, was her continual longing for home. From the first day of her arrival to the last of her stay this was her one desire. It did not make her neglect her lessons; it did not, it may be, make her less enjoy an occasional holiday excursion; but the lessons were reckoned as so many steps in the way home.

In the Church of the village where Mary then lived the canopy of the font was an angel bearing the lid, suspended from the roof;

her seat was at the chancel end looking down the aisle fully upon it, and the thought of this angel embowered in Christmas (for her school was rather distant and her indulgent father, who had not resolution to send her in the depth of winter, undertook to teach her himself the intervening half year, so that her return was always at Christmas,) the thought of that angel was so connected with her school anticipations of home, that, though but a childish fancy at the time, it made it, to look back upon, a fuller type of the calmer, but not less earnest, longing with which her soul now yearned for its true rest. Mary's was a character especially to grow happier as she grew older. I say especially, for all who are really conquering self and increasing in holiness must, notwithstanding that the sense of their own sinfulness will deepen with the increase, become happier; but Mary's natural disposition was one to feel it most thankfully. The shyness, so painful in childhood and youth, had, as she had grown in humility, learned to look with more singleness of heart to Him Who was with her in society as well as in solitude; to pray for His blessing before she entered the former, and, when she returned to the latter to examine its effect upon her soul, that shyness had gradually worn off. As in the outward conflicts of life those who fear GOD most will fear man least, so it is in those minor and more hidden trials which affect the every-day happiness and the spiritual being of so many. The more we think of what we are in the sight of Him and of the cloud of witnesses who encompass us about and can realize their presence, the less we shall think of what we appear in the eyes of men. We shall grow calm and composed in the duties and courtesies of life, naturally; just as timid children, who are harassed by imagination in darkness, forget their fears in the light of day. To Mary this calm, quiet feeling was happiness. Her natural irritability of temper had been gradually subdued, very gradually; at first the hasty word was checked; then the sudden silence was overcome, and she was able to give the meek answer which turneth away wrath; till she was even surprised to find how little she was moved by what at one time would have sorely annoyed her. She grew less isolated too in feeling; she could sympathize more readily with others; she had learned from books, if not much from converse, that though apart she was not alone even on earth, and she loved to dwell upon that holy bond of Church communion in which so many souls were walking the same path, led by the same guiding Hand, sustained by the same spiritual sustenance. How might they in the blessedness of heaven compare their pilgrimage, and wonder how, while often so near, they had yet known each other so little.

Mary's greatest latter trial had been the want of more frequent participation in the ordinances of the Church; but she learned to regard this exclusion as a just retribution for the small value she

had felt for them in youth; especially for two prominent sins of this class, on which her conscience had slept for years, but which, since the Lent when they had been mercifully brought to her recollection, had been regularly confessed on every day of humiliation; she tried to cherish a firm belief that when she had grown fitted for such participation it would in some way be placed within her reach, and to let the sense of her present unworthiness be a continual lesson of humility: and when at last her daily, nightly prayer was answered, and she was brought into the unspeakable privilege of full communion with the Church, her trials were not ended; nay it may be they were increased; but we cannot doubt that He Who had sustained the sinking of her spirit when it was tempted to feel shut out from His presence, would support it when now it trembled to be brought so near that He, Who had so guided her that she could trace the Divine Hand working upon her dispositions, bringing good out of evil, and raising earthly heavenward, would guide her on in safety to the end.

THE YOUNG ESQUIMAUX.

IN the cold bleak regions near the North Pole, on a portion of land stretching downward to the sea, and rising behind into rocks covered with ice and snow, dwelt a small tribe of Esquimaux. One day an English priest came to this desolate spot. His pity had been awakened by the miserable account he had read of these poor people, and he had braved all hardships to bring to them the knowledge of the gospel. His teaching seemed to have little effect. The Esquimaux heard him and did not contradict, but they scarcely appeared to understand. There was one however who listened most earnestly. Poor and distressed amongst a people where all seemed poverty, the life of Melcolm was indeed a hard one. His father had died while he was quite young, his mother was a cripple, and she and a sister who waited upon her, were entirely dependent upon the poor boy for their maintenance. Very difficult it was for him to provide this. He had not strength at present to catch seals, so he could only help others. He was active and obliging, and most were glad to employ him; but, in those bitter regions, it was hard work. Others caught a seal and then rested till it was necessary to try for another; but he had to be out continually; thankful, if, when the party he helped had been successful, he could carry home a small portion as his share to his mother. Few pleasures had Melcolm; perhaps his greatest, next to the sight of his mother's joy, when he brought her an unusually large supply, was to watch the northern lights; and when, on a clear night, the whole sky was illuminated with their bright, chang

ing colours, the young Esquimaux wondered who had made them, and where they came from, and whether there was anything else beyond what he could see, as beautiful as they. When he heard the priest speak of a world above, he was very glad, and he came to him and asked, "Sir, can I go to that bright world?" and the priest looked at his eager tearful eye, and told him, that by God's help, he might; and from that hour the hut in which he spent most time was that of Melcolm's mother. What a different thing life now seemed to Melcolm. While it was his all he could not but feel it hard and dreary; but when he learned to look upon it as a passage to one where he should feel neither cold, nor hunger, nor pain, but where all were good and happy, his hardships grew comparatively little. He had to toil amongst the ice and snow as many hours as before, and their food was often as scanty, but what a contented home received him after his toil. His mother and sister, kinder and more thankful to him than ever, for they had imbibed the Christian doctrines, and could bear their privations more cheerfully, and very often the priest himself, waiting to read to them the Holy Book, to teach them, and to pray for and with them; and

when at the end of a few months he was admitted to the blessed Sacrament of Baptism and made a member of the holy Church he loved to hear of, and an inheritor of the bright home above, he thought that now he could meet all hardships and trials cheerfully. A trial he little expected came upon him soon. A neighbouring tribe with whom his own was at enmity, landed upon their coast, and the priest going to try and make peace was killed by them. A bitter trial indeed it was to Melcolm, not only had he lost his kind friend and teacher, he seemed shut out from the communion of the Church. Who was now to counsel them, to lead the prayers, to give them absolution for their sins and the solemn blessing? But though sorely grieved he did not despair; he could say the Belief and the LORD's Prayer, with a few verses of the Psalms, and he repeated these aloud daily, morning and evening, as well as continually to himself. They were his treasure. A year passed round and it was the time of the breaking up of the ice, when a dreadful accident occurred on the coast. There was a storm, and immense masses of ice were drifting to and fro with fearful violence. Occasionally two would meet with a crash, heard for miles around, and then grind upon each other till the fragments thrown upwards formed a rock of ice. A ship had been driven amongst these and a block of ice was bearing down upon it; in vain captain and crew strained every nerve, there was no escape; the ice caught the ship, and carried it forward upon the main ice surrounding the coast; there was a fearful crash, and when the moving mass was for a minute sent back by the shock, the crushed ship sank between the opening and was gone. Melcolm saw the accident from the shore and immediately hastened with his dog-sledge over the ice to help