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And have not you found that too? I don't know how many times you've told me everything was going to wreck and ruin; and yet you've never lost either wife or child, and you've always paid twenty shillings in the pound."

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May be," replied John, "but there's no knowing how long I may be able to do it."

"Do I believe in God?" replied John; "of course I do: I should not be a Christian if I didn't." "And do you believe that He knows all about us, and that He is able to supply all our need, and that he loves us and cares for us?"

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Yes," replied John, but in scarcely the firm, decided way in which he had replied to the previous question.

"And do you believe that they are His promises which are written in the Bible, and that they are all true, and true for you and me, and that not one

"Thank God, my lad," said Thomson, "that you have done it up till now, and that you can do it to-day; and don't fret and worry about tomorrow. Isn't it quite enough to bear to-day's troubles-that is if we are in trouble to-day-of them can fail?". without thinking of to-morrow's and vexing ourselves about them before they come? You know that's what our Lord says: Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.' By the way, don't you remember a sermon Mr. Vickerson preached from that text a month or two ago?"

John shook his head: he did not remember.

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Ah, I recollect," said Thomson, "you were not there that morning; and right sorry I was that you were not. Well, there was one thing Mr. Vickerson said in that sermon which I thought very wise. It wasn't his own, however. I think he said it was good John Newton's. As nearly as I can tell this was it: Our troubles are like a large bundle of sticks which a man gives his servant to carry, but which he tells him to carry not all at once, but one to-day, and another to-morrow, and so on. In that way he would be able to carry them easily; but if he tried to carry the whole bundle in a single load, he would be very likely to break down. Now that he said, is how God deals with us. He sends us our trials one by one, but many a time, as if that were not enough for us, we look a-head and take up to-morrow's troubles and the day after to-morrow's troubles as well; and we find them too many for us."

John could not help feeling that he had done something very like that; but he did not say so. "There's another thing," said Thomson. "Don't you think that when we think about coming troubles we nearly always picture them ever so much bigger and ever so much worse than they really are that is, if they happen to us at all? I've heard more than one say so, and I've found it myself. It's just like what happened to me one day, when I was coming across the moors from Brightside. A thick mist came on; and you know how much bigger things sometimes look in a mist than they do in the sunshine. Just as I was going up one of the hills I saw a great big thing coming down, and I could not imagine what it was. My heart went pit-a-pat, but I stood still. As I waited and looked, it got less and less; and then what should it be but a man— -Willie Thompson, the pedlar?”

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"Yes," replied John again, but slowly and with hesitation; "anyhow we've no right to doubt it; but one's faith gets very weak sometimes."

"Aye, that it does," said Thomson. "But now I'll tell you what I've been thinking-that you would never have got flat like this if you had not lost sight of God and His promises and His love. Don't you think you've left Him out of the reckoning almost entirely?"

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Well, may be, I have," replied John; "anyhow more than I ought to have done. But what can I do?"

"I'll tell you what I do when I get a bit downhearted," replied Thomson," and I have done that more than once in my time. I just take my Bible, and I turn to some of God's most precious promises, such as I find in the Psalms and in the words of the Lord Jesus, and of the Apostle Paul; and as I read them one by one, I say to myself, 'Now, George Thomson, thou believes that, doesn't thou? It's thy Heavenly Father's Word, and thou art not going to make Him a liar, art thou?' And then I pray, 'Lord, increase my faith.' Bless the Lord! I'm never down-hearted long when I do that. Just try it for yourself, John."

John looked as though he felt the force of what his friend said to him, but he made no reply.

"There's another thing I do," said Thomson. "When things are dark and trouble seems to be coming that I don't know how to meet, I say to myself, 'Look back, George, and see what God has done for thee. He has given thee all sorts of mercies, and supplied all thy wants, and given thee health and comfort in all thy troubles, and He has never forsaken thee; and dost thou think He is going to forsake thee now? Nay, lad, He'll never leave nor forsake us, if we only trust Him."

Just at this point Mrs. Wilby, who had been visiting a poor sick neighbour, entered the room, and that put an end to the talk of the two friends.

Thomson had not said all he had in his mind to say; but perhaps he had said enough for once. John Wilby did not tell his wife just then what had passed, but he told her something about it afterwards. This she found out, however, at once, that her husband was a great deal better to do with," and far more hopeful, and she had no doubt in her own mind that John's talk with George Thomson that Sunday evening was one great cause of the change.

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often and carefully read; whilst Wilby hardly ever opened a book except his Bible. Still they were warm friends. They had this in common, that they respected and loved one another; and they were both true Christians. Wilby clung to Thomson because his sunny nature comforted and cheered him; whilst on the other hand Thomson was drawn to Wilby by his, wish to do him good. He is a happy man who has a friend like George

Thomson.

Thomson and Wilby went to the same church, and it so happened that they sat where they could see one another. Now though Thomson was by no means one of those people who hear for others instead of hearing for themselves, he did sometimes hear for his friend Wilby as well as for himself, and he had done so that morning. He thought the sermon a very good one, and he thought too that it was likely to be especially helpful to his friend John; but when he looked at him on the other side of the gallery he was disappointed to find that he was taking no interest in it. His thoughts were evidently far away; and he seemed sadly downcast.

"John's down in the dumps about something or other," he said to himself. "I must find out what's the matter."

He could not go in the afternoon, because he had a class of young men in the Sunday School. He hoped, however, to see him at church in the evening, and he would walk home with him.

But John was not there; and so George went to his house as soon as the service was over. John himself opened the door, and bade him come in. As it happened, he was alone.

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Thomson was not the sort of man to beat about the bush, when he had anything to say; and so, looking his friend straight in the face with a keen, searching sort of look, he said to him, "Now tell me honestly, John, was it your body that was 'not first-rate,' or your mind?"

John hesitated and for a minute or two he hung down his head in silence. At length he replied, slowly, "Well, may be, it was my mind, at any rate it was partly that. The fact is, I had a lot of things to bother me last week."

your shoulders and another a-top_of_it; and, instead of casting your burden on the Lord, as Mr. Vickerson was telling us to do, you thought you would bear it all yourself. Now where was the sense of doing that? And that was why you stopped away to-night instead of going to church -was not it?"

John could not deny that it was so; but he added that he had no heart to go.

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Well, now, John," asked Thomson, "where was the good of that? My notion is that when a man is downhearted and wants comfort, there is no place where he is so likely to find it as in the house of God. Anyhow, that has always been my experience." "Ah, but," replied John, "you see you hardly understand things. You've never been in business, and lost money, and suffered from bad trade, and such like."

"That's true enough," said Thomson. "I would have liked well enough to have been a master, but I never could get to be one. But have not I had my own troubles for all that? Why, I'm only time-keeper now, and I get five-and-twenty shillings a week, instead of two pounds, which I had when I was foreman: but, bless the Lord, I thank Him for what I have, instead of crying over what I haven't."

"Yes," said John, slowly, "but you see I have not told you everything. I am afraid there are worse troubles coming on. Trade is bad enough now, but they say it will be a good deal worse before it is any better. You know Murgatroyds are running short time; but I hear they are very likely to close entirely, and I have a lot of customers among their hands. Then that new shop can scarcely fail to run away with ever so much of the trade that may be left. Besides, you know Mary's in a poor sort of way, and I wish I may not lose her."

"You remember how dark it came on when we were at church this morning, don't you?" asked Thomson.

"Ah, it was dark," replied John. "I felt certain there was a heavy storm coming on, and that we should be wet to the skin before we got home."

"That was just what I thought," said Thomson; "and I dare say everybody else in the church thought the same; but for all that the storm did not come—that is, it did not come to us. It passed away along the tops of the hills, and though we He then went on to say that a man who owed heard the thunder rolling in the distance, we only him a good big account had gone down, and that he got the tail end of a shower, which did nobody any did not think he should get more than half-a-harm; and we had a fine afternoon and evening." crown in the pound; that several families who were in his debt had left the place in search of work; and that only the day before he had heard that a new shop was going to be opened in the village in his own line of business.

Thomson listened kindly and patiently to all this, and then said, " Aye, it is just how I thought, when I saw you at church this morning. You looked as though you had got the whole world on

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Yes," said John, a little bewildered, and as yet not seeing what his friend meant.

"Well," replied Thomson, "that's just how it often is with troubles that seem as if they were certain to come to us, a lot of them don't come at all. I have had my troubles now and then, and some of them were bad enough to bear; but I remember now some things that never happened troubled me a vast deal more than things that did.

And have not you found that too? I don't know how many times you've told me everything was going to wreck and ruin; and yet you've never lost either wife or child, and you've always paid twenty shillings in the pound."

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May be," replied John, "but there's no knowing how long I may be able to do it."

"Thank God, my lad," said Thomson, "that you have done it up till now, and that you can do it to-day; and don't fret and worry about tomorrow. Isn't it quite enough to bear to-day's troubles that is if we are in trouble to-daywithout thinking of to-morrow's and vexing ourselves about them before they come? You know that's what our Lord says: Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.' By the way, don't you remember a sermon Mr. Vickerson preached from that text a month or two ago?"

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John shook his head: he did not remember.

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Ah, I recollect," said Thomson, "you were not there that morning; and right sorry I was that you were not. Well, there was one thing Mr. Vickerson said in that sermon which I thought very wise. It wasn't his own, however. I think he said it was good John Newton's. As nearly as I can tell this was it: Our troubles are like a large bundle of sticks which a man gives his servant to carry, but which he tells him to carry not all at once, but one to-day, and another to-morrow, and so on. In that way he would be able to carry them easily; but if he tried to carry the whole bundle in a single load, he would be very likely to break down. Now that he said, is how God deals with us. He sends us our trials one by one, but many a time, as if that were not enough for us, we look a-head and take up to-morrow's troubles and the day after to-morrow's troubles as well; and we find them too many for us."

John could not help feeling that he had done something very like that; but he did not say so. "There's another thing," said Thomson. "Don't you think that when we think about coming troubles we nearly always picture them ever so much bigger and ever so much worse than they really are- —that is, if they happen to us at all? I've heard more than one say so, and I've found it myself. It's just like what happened to me one day, when I was coming across the moors from Brightside. A thick mist came on; and you know how much bigger things sometimes look in a mist than they do in the sunshine. Just as I was going up one of the hills I saw a great big thing coming down, and I could not imagine what it was. My heart went pit-a-pat, but I stood still. As I waited and looked, it got less and less; and then what should it be but a man-Willie Thompson, the pedlar?"

John laughed at his friend's story; and this time Thomson did not need to point out its lesson.

"But, now, John," said Thomson, "I want to ask you a question, and it is this, Do you believe in God?"

"Do I believe in God?" replied John; "of course I do: I should not be a Christian if I didn't.' "And do you believe that He knows all about us, and that He is able to supply all our need, and that he loves us and cares for us?"

"Yes," replied John, but in scarcely the firm, decided way in which he had replied to the previous question.

"And do you believe that they are His promises which are written in the Bible, and that they are all true, and true for you and me, and that not one of them can fail?"

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"Yes," replied John again, but slowly and with hesitation; "anyhow we've no right to doubt it; but one's faith gets very weak sometimes." Aye, that it does," said Thomson. "But now I'll tell you what I've been thinking-that you would never have got flat like this if you had not lost sight of God and His promises and His love. Don't you think you've left Him out of the reckoning almost entirely?"

66

'Well, may be, I have," replied John; "anyhow more than I ought to have done. But what can I do?"

"I'll tell you what I do when I get a bit downhearted,” replied Thomson," and I have done that more than once in my time. I just take my Bible, and I turn to some of God's most precious promises, such as I find in the Psalms and in the words of the Lord Jesus, and of the Apostle Paul; and as I read them one by one, I say to myself, Now, George Thomson, thou believes that, doesn't thou? It's thy Heavenly Father's Word, and thou art not going to make Him a liar, art thou?' And then I pray, Lord, increase my faith.' Bless the Lord! I'm never down-hearted long when I do that. Just try it for yourself, John."

John looked as though he felt the force of what his friend said to him, but he made no reply.

"There's another thing I do," said Thomson. "When things are dark and trouble seems to be coming that I don't know how to meet, I say to myself, 'Look back, George, and see what God has done for thee. He has given thee all sorts of mercies, and supplied all thy wants, and given thee health and comfort in all thy troubles, and He has never forsaken thee; and dost thou think He is going to forsake thee now? Nay, lad, He'll never leave nor forsake us, if we only trust Him."

Just at this point Mrs. Wilby, who had been visiting a poor sick neighbour, entered the room, and that put an end to the talk of the two friends.

Thomson had not said all he had in his mind to say; but perhaps he had said enough for once. John Wilby did not tell his wife just then what had passed, but he told her something about it afterwards. This she found out, however, at once, that her husband was a great deal better to do with," and far more hopeful, and she had no doubt in her own mind that John's talk with George Thomson that Sunday evening was one great cause of the change.

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The Eagle at the Rapids.

"Seek ye the Lord while He may be found."-Isaiah lv. 6.

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WANDERED where the rapids

With ever-rushing flow, Roll on above Niagara,

And then dash down below:

But soon I was arrested,

By a shrill bitter cryNot drown'd by roar of

waters

A scream of agony.

It seemed to come from
something
That floated
breast

Of those swift flowing rapids,
From object sore distressed.

When nearer it approached me,
I saw a bird was there,
The king of birds-an eagle-
The picture of despair.

When soaring in the heavens,
Above the ice and snow,
That eagle saw a carcase
Upon the stream below.
Then from his place so lofty,
High in the cloudless sky,
He darted on his quarry,

And clutched it eagerly.

And when upon the carrion
He'd feasted greedily,
And gorged his hungry gullet
Beyond satiety-

He yielded to the longing
Of rest, and idly kept
His place upon the carcase,
And there unwisely slept.
Sometimes he calmly rested,
Then suddenly awoke;
The weather's icy coldness
His heavy slumber broke.

Ah! then he saw the folly

Of slumbering that day, While the fast-flowing rapids Were bearing him away.

He spread his downy pinions,

And strove aloft to soar;

on the

The falls, he knew, were near him, By the tremendous roar.

But vain his ev'ry effort

To mount up to the skies-
His claws were fastly frozen,
And hence his piteous cries.
While he was calmly sleeping,
Too late, alas! he found
His talons to the carcase

The frost had firmly bound.
Nearer the current bore him,
And nearer still to death;
It bore him o'er the cataract
Into the depths beneath.

The sinner in that eagle

A picture true may see, Of what it is to loiter,

And fail from sin to flee!

The stream of time keeps rushing
With never-ceasing flow,
And bears him on its bosom
From everything below.

To death and to the judgment
It brings him on with haste
To answer for the moments

He doth in folly waste.
And sin keeps binding firmer
Around his feet its chains,
While to burst through its fetters
Diminished hope remains.

The frost of icy coldness
Doth o'er his spirits steal,
His heart, increased in hardness,
No more can keenly feel.

While he doth vainly promise
To-morrow to begin-
Death bears him to eternity,
To reap the fruit of sin.

Then listen to no voices
Which would your progress stay,
But now from Satan's fetters
Determined break away.

Be not beguiled to fancy
You'll profit by delay,
There is no future time to turn,
So easy as to-day.

The Saviour stands all ready,
The vilest to receive,
You've not a want or trouble
That He cannot relieve.

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