do it.' Many a dutiful son, even when far advanced in life, has repeated with tears those beautiful lines of Cowper :

My boast is not that I deduce my birth

From loins enthroned and rulers of the earth;
But higher far my proud pretensions rise,
The son of parents passed into the skies.'

And as he has thus repeated them has resolved that he would not dishonour their memories by conduct which they would have condemned."

My father and mother both died before I was of age,' said Mr. Watson, with much feeling; "but I can truly say that what I saw of their simple-hearted consistent piety has been one of the strongest influences for good which I have ever known."

"There is just one thing more," said Mr. Ellis, "which I should like to mention. In the course of a good man's lifetime, what a number of earnest prayers does he offer to God for his children! He forgets them; but none of them are forgotten by God. These constitute a rich inheritance. Such prayers are often answered during the lifetime of the parents, and, in other cases, long after they have gone to their rest. I met with an instance of this only the other day in the life of the excellent Bishop Wilson of Calcutta. One of his sons had occasioned him much sorrow by his misconduct. Years after the sad disappointment of parental hope, his brother received intelligence from some place on the continent that he was drawing near to death. He went immediately, and to his great joy found him, though gradually sinking, yet truly penitent. It was doubtless, in no small degree, the answer to his father's fervent prayers. I could point to many good men, who are patterns of excellence the children of many prayers. I believe they are what they are, in no small degree, because of God's regard to those prayers."

Here the conversation was interrupted by the summons for domestic worship.

LITTLE JOHNNIE.

SOME years ago, one of the scholars in our sabbath ragged class, was little Johnnie. He and his younger sister, of whom he took most loving care, were some of the first

whom we gathered; they were so regular, quiet, and eager to learn, that we soon began to love them, and watch sabbath by sabbath for their coming. Their parents were very poor, but tidy honest people, and the children showed it. No shoes had ever guarded the feet of brother or sister, but their clothes were always beautifully clean and well mended; and on many a wet Sunday, when the roads were dirty, have we seen Johnnie stop with his baby sister at the spout near the door, and carefully wash her feet and his own, before entering the room.

How quickly Johnnie learned! The letters, never seen before, were play to him; and as he showed little Mary which was great A," and which "big, roundabout 0," we longed to make him monitor to some older boys, who seemed to think learning to read an utterly hopeless task. But when the work of the short lesson was over, and the sabbath story took its place, then Johnnie's eyes shone, his lips parted, and his cheeks glowed. The child's whole soul was in his face.

his

"Will you tell about Jesus to-day, teacher?"

"Would you rather hear about some one else, Johnnie?" "Oh no! Please let it be about Jesus!"

And then the little fellow would sit, his hands clasped,

eager face upturned all alive with interest, sometimes with eyes filled with tears, sometimes even laughing for gladness, until the lesson closed. His sister, who perhaps had been asleep with her little head upon his arm, would rouse up and look into his face, and with a kiss and a sigh, as though awaking too, he would say, "We must say goodbye to teacher now, Sissy, till next Sunday."

With any teacher, such a scholar would be a favourite; and our interest in the children was enhanced by the fact, that their parents were intending to emigrate, and we knew that in all likelihood our time for sowing good seed might be short.

They went sooner even than we had expected; and before they left we called and bade farewell to Johnnie's father and mother, his uncle—a fine clever lad, also one of our pupils-his little sister, and himself. We looked our last on the fair face, the waving silky hair, the bright| blue eyes, now dim with weeping; and commending our dear little scholar to better teaching than we could ever give him, we left the house.

Nothing, for some time, was heard of the emigrants; but about two or three months after their departure, in going along the street, my attention was excited by an old woman glancing at me, and then hurrying by with her face turned away, as though anxious to avoid me.

Looking after her, I recognised her as Johnnie's grandmother, whom I had once or twice met at the house, but who, being a zealous Romanist, had always kept out of my way. Of course, I instantly followed her, and asked if she had heard anything of her daughter and the family. She had just received a letter from New York, informing her of their safe arrival,

"And how were they all after their voyage?" I asked. "Did the children bear it well? How was Johnnie ?" "and the voyage had

66

They were all well," she said; done little Polly a world of good. ma'am, about Johnnie ?”

But didn't you know,

"What about Johnnie?" I rejoined.

"Oh," she said, "he never went away with the rest. He died, ma'am, more than a month ago, at my little house just by."

"At your house !" I exclaimed, "and you never sent for me, nor for Miss E-!”

Then followed a long string of apologies and assertions, the drift of which I well understood. Of the child I could learn nothing, save that he had received extreme unction, and that they had given him a grand wake.

When the old woman was out of the street, I returned, and got the news I wanted from one of her neighbours.

Johnnie and his friends had left for Liverpool on a cold wet morning, and the little fellow had suffered much from the weather; so much so, that on going on board the ship's doctor had noticed him, and said they must not on any account take him, if they had any one to leave him with. The child was sickening with inflammation of the lungs. The grandmother was with them, and in her care they reluctantly left their darling boy, who returned with her the next day to her dwelling. A season of delirium ensued, during which Johnnie was constantly singing, telling over his favourite stories of Jesus, and entreating to see his teachers.

His grandmother and the priest plied him with crucifixes and medals of the Virgin; but of all he seemed unconscious, only answering them with the continual request,

"Won't you send for my teachers, Granny? I know they'd come to see their little Johnnie." With the priest at her elbow, the grandmother could not, if she would, listen to his dying plea, and no teacher came to cheer Johnnie's bed of pain.

One morning after a short sleep he awoke, calm and bright, the delirium gone. He looked round at his grandmother, and at the kind neighbour who told me all this, and who was then watching with her.

"I should have liked to have seen teacher," he said; "but never mind now. Will you sing for me, Granny?" "How can I sing, child?" said the poor old woman, weeping.

"Will you sing, please?"—to the neighbour.

"I do not know your songs, Johnnie, my boy," was the reply.

"Then I must sing," said the child. Far, far away.""

"I want to sing,

He raised himself up on his low bed, and began,

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"There is a happy land,

Far, far away;"

but his voice faltered. "No," he said, "I can't sing it, and it doesn't matter. It isn't far away now, any more." Then the pale face flushed with sudden energy, the eye beamed, the little wasted hands were stretched towards heaven, and the clear soft voice rang through the room with the words, "I SEE JESUS!" The hands dropped, the light faded from the little face, and he sank back. They sent in haste for the priest, who came to perform the last rites of the Romish church over his unconscious form; but Johnnie was with Him in whose presence is fulness of joy.

Blessed child! Many a time amid the sorrows and perplexities of life, we have longed and sought, as did the Greeks of old, to " see Jesus."

"We would see Jesus,' the great Rock foundation
On which our souls were set by sovereign grace;
Not life, nor death, with all their agitation,
Can thence remove us if we see his face.

"We would see Jesus' this is all we're needing;
Strength, joy, and blessedness come with the sight:
'We would see Jesus,' dying, risen, pleading;
Then welcome heaven, and farewell mortal night."

My escape from the supper table had given me at least half-an-hour's grace before the solitude of the chamber would be interrupted; and I was glad to avail myself of the opportunity for reflection.

I had made an enemy of one who, before that time, had seemed disposed to be friendly and kind. I felt sure of this. I had previously heard some whispers respecting Mr. K-: how perseveringly spiteful and malicious he could be where he took a distaste to any who were under DECEMBER, 1865.