should be their meeting place; and when the hour came they had gone to different stations. Each set off for the great city, believing that something had come in the way of the other to prevent him. With the manuscript of his poem of the "Luggie" in his carpet-bag, and with a sovereign and a few shillings in his pocket, David Grey arrived at the metropolis. Though the month was May, the weather was damp and cloudy, and his first morning in London broke dull and drear. For hours he wandered the streets with his carpet-bag in his hand, chilled to the heart with noiinloves dos bloo Jad the sense of his yr et je n loneliness. Full of strange dreams, and re-ton calling all head knew of those of whose names are linked with that of the great city, he paced the streets all day long. At night, instead of seek ing out some lodging, he made his way to Hyde Park. It would save a few pence of his little hoard, to spend del vol Jaaiber Buchanan, and the two were Blodging together can add in what he calls is the dear old beghastlybankrupt garret," whose discomfort hardly have failed to aggravate the poorinvalid's dis80 ease. Everything on that friendship do obcould do, Mr. id Milnes did for the night there, and it would inde ord of mul base of dand the Scottish lad, be so romantic: a fit commencement of a poet's career in mighty London." DAVID GRAY'S MONUMENT. There seems every reason to believe that this exposure sowed the seeds of the disease that was so soon to cut him off, or, perhaps, rather wakened to life and activity the germs of disease already lurking in his frame. Within a few days he wrote home to his father that he had taken the worst cold ever he had in his life, and could not shake it off. After his arrival in London, he had sought out two or three gentlemen with whom he had previously corresponded. Among these, Lord Houghton, then Mr. Monckton Milnes, who, while doing all with a disinterested kindness that warms one's heart to read of it, for claim the lad had none upon him, and their sole connection had been through those strange impassioned letters which David had addressed to him before yet he left his northern home. The best medical skill was obtained, and many a time Mr. Milnes climbed the rickety stair that led to the old garret, carrying with him some little comfort or delicacy for the pale dark eyed boy. By-and-by, the home-sickness came upon David. Home he must be, and home he was sent, and tenderly and lovingly was he received. The barrier that had arisen between them was burst asunder, now that he had crept home sick unto death. The parents looked on his past waywardness with a new tolerance, and the son upon his parent's love with a new appreciation. This change in himself David was not slow to express, and he expressed it in words which many a careless son and daughter would do well to read and ponder over "O living sons with living mothers! learn Their worth, and use them gently, with no chiding: For youth, I know is quick of temper; stern Sometimes, and apt to blunder without guiding. So was I long, but now I see her move, Now that he was home again, it soon became apparent that he could not live in the keen cold air of the north. Natal was recommended as a place for the invalid to go to; Jamaica-Italy; but the great difficulty was, it was beyond the power of his parents to defray the cost of such a journey. Kind friends were not lacking, however. Mr. Milnes, Sidney Dobell, the poet (a friend he never saw), and others did their utmost to obtain such change as would be best for him. They came to the conclusion at last to send him to the Consumption Hospital at Torquay. Alas! the sight of others in all stages of decline was too much for his sensitive nature. Home-sickness came upon him again, nay, a longing that might better be called home-madness. He rushed from the hospital, and from the hotel, addressed to his parents as pathetic letter perhaps as was ever written. In it he says "O how I wish I saw my father's face-shall I ever see it? I have no money, and I want to get home, home, home! What shall I do, O God? Father, I did not use you rightly; my conduct to you all the time I was at home makes me miserable, miserable, miserable! Will you forgive me ? do I ask that?-forgiven, forgiven, forgiven. Get my own little room ready-quick, quick. I wish to snow, That cold soft revelation pure as light, A leper with no power but his disease. O river in the valley of my home, It was midwinter when he reached home, and he felt the cold keenly and cruelly. Yet feeble as he was and deathstricken, the end was not for a time. It was not till the beginning of December that the battle of life came to a close, and all that was mortal of him was carried from his home at Makland to its final resting-place in the "auld aisle." Meanwhile, all through spring, summer, and autumn, a wondrous Divine process seems to have been going on in his mind. Except his own writings, we have very little means of tracing the course of it. There is nothing to tell when or how he was spiritually awakened, yet manifestly he was awakened; nothing directly to show how spiritual life originated in his soul; yet, the undoubted signs of spiritual life are visible. In some way he began to see, not less of nature, but more of God, as his verse bears evidence. Thus he writes upon a winter day, when the snow lay white. around "Once more, O God, once more before I die, "I have not words to speak the perfect show; Of inspiration which oe'rflows the world, All around Is loving and continuous Deity; At first, the thought of death was very terrible to him, and all the more because of the light in which he saw his past life, of which he speaks as being so much lacking in what constituted true life, that it was "Rather a piece of childhood thrown away." Earnestly he prayed that more years might be granted him; that his life here might become more what with the new light that shone on it he wished it to be. He had entered upon the strife of which the apostle speaks, when he says, good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do," and moans forth his plaint concerning the "mystery of strife" wherein "The "Reason with Passion strives, and Feeling ever Battles with conscience." And as he looked from the strange chaos within, he saw the dread solemnity of death, and cried "O God, it is a terrible thing to die Then he checks himself, for his fears of death "Thus in false fear, I cried Forgetting that to abolish death Christ died." The fear of death passes from him, as he thinks of Christ, the life and resurrection "I fear not death but dying,'-not the long Thus his spiritual experience is mirrored in the sonnets which he wrote during that long year of slow dying. Of these, the last is the best, and the light that shines from it the clearest. There is no word of death in it. He has caught a glimpse of the beauty of holiness, and is looking towards God that he may be satisfied "O Thou of purer eyes than to behold Thus he drew nearer unto his change, and the hour when he should part from those friends he loved so well. His own than in his own words, wherein he tells experience can be no better described the experience of another, a relative, who had passed away years before himself— "Thus his time Narrowed to a completion, and his soul, During the months when he was slowly sinking, his friends - Sidney Dobell and others, had been arranging for the publication of his poems. On the 2nd of December, a specimen page was put into his hand. He gazed at it a long while with a sad yet tender smile on his face, and then put it aside. On the next day he passed away in peace, with these as his dying words "God has love, and I have faith.". Such was the expression of his hope, an expression true to the Christian faith, and so comprehensive, that it would be impossible, in fewer words, to express the hope of a Christian, and the foundation that it rests upon. He had known sin, and he had come to hate it and abhor it. That line wherein he speaks of he had come also to know his Saviour. Christ was to him one who had abolished death, and his soul yearned to behold the majesty of the great Fulfiller. Nor was the Holy Spirit forgotten in his creed. One entire sonnet, as we have seen, the last, is addressed unto the Spirit of God, and breathes forth the deepest desire that by that Spirit he might be purified and made holy. Thus earthly life closed on one greatly gifted, and he passed away in human incompleteness to find completeness in Him in Whom dwells all the fulness of God. He departed with the passionate thirst of his soul to drink of life at its fountain head. For, as he said in an epitaph which he wrote for himself (not that placed upon his tombstone, which was written by other hands) "There is life with God 99 Lessons for the Sundays of the Month. 9th Sunday after Trinity. 10th Sunday after Trinity. 11th Sunday after Trinity. 12th Sunday after Trinity. 13th Sunday after Trinity. AUGUST. 1 Kings x. to v. 25. 1 Kings xxii. to v. 41. 1 Cor. iv. to v. 18. 1 Cor. x. and xi. v. 1. EVENING. 1 Kings xi. to v. 15 or xi. v. 26. Matthew xvii. v. 14. 1 Kings xiii. or xvii. Matthew xxi. v. 23. 1 Kings xix. or xxi. Matthew xxv. to v. 31. 2 Kings ii. to v. 16 or iv. v. 8 to v.38. Matthew xxvii. v. 57. 2 Kings vi, to v. 24 or 7. Mark iv. to v. 35. For the Young. THE PISTOL: a Story of Disobedience. T is a densely hot August day, and the clock of the village church at Wethered is striking twelve in clear and sonorous tones. Before it is halfway through its task, the murmur and buzz of voices in the adjacent school house, is drowned in the general rising of the school from their seats, and in another instant the whole troop of boys and girls rush forth, rejoiced to escape from the hot room and the lessons-out on to the green, where they have the cool grass under their feet, and the thick shade of big elm trees above their heads. They have been sitting quiet for three hours in a close room, and are overflowing with spirits and fun at the prospect of two hours' freedom and scamper across the grass.. his hat, and slowly rubbing his hot forehead, with a large blue and white cotton handkerchief; "it must be nigh on fifty-six-no, it's fifty-seven years this autumn since I left off going to that school over there," and he nodded towards the school opposite to them; "fifty-seven years is a long time to look back upon, but I can remember it all as well as though 'twas but last week. I was a well-grown lad in those days, with a pleasant face and handsome blue eyes; and I was the best cricketer in the whole school, and had the sweetest voice of any of the boys or girls in the village. I was always the one chosen to lead the carols at Christmas time, or the harvest hymn, when the last loads were drawn in by the light of the great yellow harvest moon. I held a good place in the school too, and was mostly at the head of my class the last months. Oh, I was a happy boy in those days, but I did not always think so, and was often wishing for something I hadn't got. My father was a farmer, in a small way, you know, but he managed to live pretty comfortable, and to keep me at school till I was twelve years old. My great desire was to be a gamekeeper. I thought it would be so grand to have a velveteen coat, and carry a gun, and perhaps have a couple of lovely dogs trotting obediently at my heels, as I had seen the young retrievers and pointers trot after the squire's gamekeeper. Then I should have to go out with parties of gentlemen, and beat up the game; and altogether I thought it would be a most exciting and delightful life, and I made up my mind, without asking anybody, or telling anybody my longings, that I would be a gamekeeper. I knew very well that my father wanted me to be a farmer like himself: moreover, he had a great horror of boys using firearms-the only thing of the kind he had was an old horse pistol that hung over the mantel-shelf in his bedroom; sometimes be used to let me look at it, and even handle it, when he was cleaning it; but he had often forbidden me to touch it by myself. Now I knew I could never be a gamekeeper if I couldn't shoot, so I used to practise at aiming at birds with a crossbow that I had, and I used to knock down sparrows easily with my bits of baccy pipe; but somehow or another that did not seem to content me, and I used to hanker after that pistol, so that the thought of it was never out of my head for long together. I did so want just to try if I could kill a bird with it, and I thought and thought about it till at last I felt I really must try it. I "Let me see," he said thoughtfully, taking off knew I could manage very well without my father It seemed too hot to play. The sun was blazing down on the white road that ran past the village green with almost blinding power, whilst a still hot haze lay over the surrounding fields. The children, too restless to remain quiet long unoccupied, were beginning to wonder what they could play at until the bell rang for afternoon school, when they saw a funny little, bent old man, coming along the hot dusty road. They waited until he was close to them when a chorus of voices shouted out: "Good morning, old Timothy. How are you, old Timothy?" The old man stopped, turned round slowly, and looked at them. "Would you like to hear a story?" he asked. "Oh, yes!" shouted all the children at once, clapping their hands. "Would you like to hear how I got so ugly and crooked?" "Yes, yes, yes," again answered the children joyfully. "Very well, then. I'll tell you. be a warning to some amongst ye." Mayhaps it'll |