Scripture Exercise. 1. What is better than rubies? 2. A troubler of Israel. No. I. 3. One of the first workers in brass and iron. 4. By what brook was Elijah commanded to hide himself? 5. A woman who was asked by an angel, "What aileth thee?" 6. The friend of God. 7. One of the daughters of Zelophehad. 8. A god of the Philistines. 9. Who was delivered out of prison in answer to the prayer of the Church? Peter when he knocked. Saul of Tarsus, for, "Behold, he prayeth”? 12. What did our Lord, in the Sermon on the Mount, say our communication should be? The first letters of the answers form an exhortation to the discharge of two duties. 697 TEXTS FOR THE JANUARY-31 DAYS. Walk before Me, and be thou perfect (Gen. Be not conformed unto this world (Rom. xii. 2). 19 M MONTH. Blessed is the man whose transgression is for- By their fruits ye shall know them (Matt. The fruit of the Spirit is love (Gal. v. 22). 21 W Love your enemies (Matt. v. 24). 22 TH One thing is needful (Luke x. 42). A new heart also will I give you (Ezek. xxxvi. 17 S 18 5 3 S 4 5 M Tu W Ye are the salt of the earth (Matt. v. 13). Seek first the kingdom of God (Matt. vi. 33). Set your affections on things above (Col. lii. 2). Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ (Rom. xiii. 14). vi. 24). Ye must be born again (John iii. 7). He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting Whoso offereth praise glorifieth Me (Isa. 1. 23). Ye are bought with a price (1 Cor. vii. 23). The fashion of this world passeth away (1 Cor. We walk by faith, not by sight (2 Cor. v. 7). 29 TH It is more blessed to give than to receive (Acts 30 S xx. 31). Looking unto Jesus (Heb. xii. 2). A better country, that is, an heavenly (Heb. THE RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY. HOPE IN A HAT. BY THE REV. P. B. POWER, M.A., Author of "The Oiled Feather," etc. YING of fright!" | many straws to catch at, he thought this 66 Why," she said, "I goes about the country for the good of old England, and I puts up in all they puts upon me; and when navvies come on the road, I do what I can for 'em; and when they get into my debt, and go away and slope me, I bears it all, and I shan't go to the bad place." mon expression, "Why should you be kept from the and a real ex- bad place if you walk in the bad way, perience; thou- more than any one else? and neglect is sands of people a way there, depend upon that," said a have died from good man, once talking to a woman about fear. But one her soul. does not often hear of people dying from Hope which is the opposite of Fear. Many, however aye millions, I firmly believe, have been killed by hope killed in their souls; and by false hopes. Men have been saved by true hope- "You hope to go to heaven," said he lost by false hope. And as to another; "but why do you hope so ?" this matter is of such tremen-"Well," she said, "I've brought up my dous importance, and a mistake children decent, and I hain't been much must have such terrible con- trouble to the parish." But neither the sequences, a few moments will be well navvies nor the overseers of the parish spent in considering it. would have to settle the question of their If you had a sixpence that you were in souls' salvation hereafter-it was God doubt about, you would spend as long who would have to do this. And He it is looking at it, and turning it about, and who will settle this matter as regards us. throwing it down to hear what kind of Therefore it is all important to have God's ring it gave, as it will take you to read hope-which, in this matter between God these few lines-and they are about what and us, must stand good. is of more value than many sixpencesthe nature of your hope for happiness hereafter is it good, or is it bad? There was a certain Colonel Turner hanged for burglary in the reign of Charles the Second; and when he was at the gallows, he told the crowd that his mind received great consolation from one reflection-"he had always taken off his hat whenever he entered a church!" I dare say the colonel did not go to church very regularly, nor did he attend particularly to what he was about when he was there; but they say a drowning man will catch at a straw; and as he had not I think I have room to say a word about three different sets of people: The people with no hope-and those with a false hope-and those with a true hope. Now, first, as to the people with no hope. Some people have no hope, because they never had any fear. They never think about their souls one way or other; or if they do, they settle the matter offhand-"they have plenty else to think about;"" they don't want to be bothered about that now." And some are despairing. They would give all the world for a good hope; but they think that there is no hope for them. Remember you who have no fears now, that it does not follow from this, that you will not have plenty of them by-andby; and then Hope may refuse to come and dispel them. You are not so well off as you think. And you who are despairing - remember that God is a God of hope that though you have none in yourself, you may have it in him. His Son came to purchase it for you. His Spirit can shed it abroad in you. Look at your very own Saviour suffering all for you; believe on His Name, and come out from amongst the people who have no hope. Then come the people with a false hope, or rather let me say, with many false hopes. When a man first feels to want hope, Satan supplies him. He keeps a large and varied stock of false hopes of every kind. You see all sorts of lies in advertisements. One man will tell you he has the largest stock in the worldanother that he has the greatest variety in the world-a third that his publication has the largest circulation in the world: but Satan might truly say, I keep the largest stock of (false) hopes in the world-the most varied stock-and they have the largest circulation. Given away! Given away! I see at the head of some advertisements. Ah, yes! I read them at the top of his; but like most things which are so freely given away, I find that there is something behind-that the gift must be paid for in some way-and here-by the very soul itself. Here is some poor fellow who is in want of hope; aye, sorely in need of it, and really seeking it. "I have just the thing to suit you," says Satan. God's mercy-the true thing-He's too good and kind-hearted ever to condemn a poor weak man; so go on, just as you always did; and you'll find it all right at last." Ah, that won't quite do; the poor man feels he himself must be changed. "To be sure," says Satan; "who ever heard of a man's getting to heaven without being good? You just be good, and you'll be all right." "Ah," says the poor soul, upon whom God's Spirit is working, "I feel I can never be good enough." "To be sure," says Satan, "whoever said you could be. You just do your best, and then Christ will make up the deficiencies, He'll balance up for you." Poor soul! do not believe a bit of that. Your hope must be in Christ alone; and you must be holy, because you are His. But there are people with a true hope, a genuine thing, which is the work of the Blessed Spirit; and with which Satan has nothing to do. They take Jesus as their whole and sole Saviour. Their hope is a God-made one; and He says of it, as He said at the creation, "Behold, it is very good." This is a hope that maketh not ashamed. This hope is an anchor for the soul. It will do wonders. It will meet all your spiritual depressions and fears. There was a very holy man dying; and he did not feel any great ecstasies; but he kept saying, "I have a good hope," and he died happy in it. It will keep you from sin; for "every one that hath this hope in him, purifieth himself, even as He is pure. 2 It will comfort in losses and sickness, and encompass us when we come to die. And at last, O man of the real hope! our hopes shall turn to realities, and the realities will be better than the hopes, and so shall we be ever with the Lord. The very best hopes which you can have apart from Christ are no better than the man's ridiculous "A MAN'S A MAN FOR A' THAT." Ya, IKE a good many Scotchmen, Peter Macgregor had found his way into Yorkshire; but, unlike so many of his countrymen who cross the Border, he was not the steady man he ought to have been, indeed, he seemed to have left behind him in Scotland both his sobriety and his religion; that is to say, what he had of either. To hear Peter talk, you might think there was nothing in Yorkshire at all to be compared with what he had left in Scotland. The Scotch oatmeal was better than the English; there was not a mountain in England to be compared with Ben Nevis, or an English lake like Loch Lomond or Loch Katrine; there was not an English preacher worth naming along with preachers he had heard in Scotland; and of this he was certain-and the man was a fool who thought otherwise-that neither Shakespeare nor Milton, nor Tennyson, nor any other English poet, was fit to hold the candle to Robert Burns. There were some of his Yorkshire friends who now and then expressed their wonder that Peter should have ever left Scotland; or that, having found how inferior Yorkshire was, he did not go back again; but Peter always had his answer ready. There were so many clever men in Scotland, that there was no room for them all; and then, how poor England would be if all the Scotchmen left it. To which it was more than once replied, that if they were all such as he was, England might, perhaps, get along without them. Peter spent most of his evenings at the Rose and Thistle; and he was one of the landlord's best customers. There was many a week in which it took nearly half his week's wages to clear off the week's score for drink. Peter was fond of singing, and he was not a bad singer by any means. He did not confine himself to the songs of Robert Burns; but he liked them better than anybody else's, and he sang them most frequently. Nor was it only at the Rose and Thistle that you heard him sing them; but every now and then as he went about his work. Sometimes he would sing such snatches as these: He sang it at the Rose and Thistle; and sometimes he sang it when he was leaving it, scarcely able to walk straight home; which we are sorry to say, was very often. Peter was by trade a cabinet-maker, in one of the first establishments in Leeds; and there was not a better workman in the place; that is, when he had his wits about him, which was not always, for sometimes he was sadly dazed and muddled by the drink he had taken the previous night. It was said, indeed, in the shop, that he might have been foreman if only he could have kept himself from the drink. Peter himself had a suspicion of that; and he did not like Edward Powell, who had been "put over his head," any the better for it; still, if there was at any time a bit of work which required special skill, it was entrusted to Peter. Such a piece of work had been given to him one Monday morning, when, unfortunately, he was suffering from the effects of both the Saturday night's and the Sunday's drinking. It was a very beautiful and elaborate piece of lady's work, which was intended for a wedding-present; and the wedding was to take place in a few days. It had been sent to Peter's employers to be made up into an article of drawing-room furniture; and when the foreman gave it into his hands, he gave him also very clear directions about it; and at the same time the strictest charge to take the utmost care that it was done well. A little before the hour of leaving, Peter's work was completed, and he asked the foreman to look at it. What was the dismay of the latter to see at the first glance, that Peter had entirely mistaken his directions, and that, besides having done it wrongly, the workmanship was altogether discreditable. The lady's work, on which she had spent the leisure time of months, was, to all appearances, hopelessly spoilt. The foreman looked first at the work, and then at Peter, and his look spoke volumes. If Peter had been wise, he would have been silent, for he could not help knowing what the look meant; but he was in one of his worst and most perverse tempers. No wonder; for besides that his head still ached from the effects of yesterday's drink, he was vexed and dissatisfied with himself, and he could not but be dissatisfied with his work. "Well," he said, doggedly, "what are you looking at me in that way for? Is not it right ?" 66 Right!" said the foreman, indignantly. "It's the worst bit of work that has been done in this shop for many a long day; and you know it is. There's hardly an apprentice-lad in the shop who could not have done it better. Then, too, it is not as if you had spoilt a bit of our own stuff; it's the lady's work that's ruined. |