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finding me out. He had no suspicion of my longings and hankerings; poor man, he thought I was a happy contented schoolboy; taking a pride in my lessons at school, and having more freedom and pleasure out of schooltime than any other boy in the village. And I might have been right happy if that mad longing hadn't got possession of me, and I was too weak to fight against it. So I began to save up all my halfpence, and it took me nearly a month to buy a little powder and shot; but at last I had really got it, and had stowed it away safely in a box in my bedroom, though I was always in a fright lest mother should find it out. I used to take it out and look at it almost every night when I went to bed. I loved to feel the bright heavy shot run through my fingers, and rattle into the little tin box I kept it in. I was more than ever determined to go on with my plan every time I handled my powder and shot, but I wasn't half as happy as before I began deceiving and being secret. Well, at last, a day came that I thought would do splendidly. It was a fine mild Saturday about the middle of September. Saturday was the only day I could manage, because for one thing we had no school that day, and for another father always went to market at Maidenhead, and I knew mother would be extra busy, cleaning up and cooking for Sunday, so no one would notice what I was about, or if I was missed they would only suppose I was playing cricket on the green. I knew I was going to do wrong, but I felt sure no harm would come of it. I thought I was quite clever enough to fire off a rusty old pistol like that, and I had planned in my own mind, if I could shoot at all, to go at once to the squire and ask him to put me under one of his keepers to be trained. My father had been a good steady tenant of the squire's for five and twenty years, and I thought if I got the squire on my side, I could win father over afterwards. Directly after our early breakfast on this bright September morning, I went out on pretence of collecting the eggs from the hen house, but really because I was afraid father would ask me to go to market with him, and I had no excuse to give for not going. I might ha' said there was a cricket match, or something like that; but I loved my father dearly, and though I was going to give way to this temptation, which seemed too strong for me to resist, I didn't want to tell him lies to his face about it. I couldn't ha' done that. So I kept out of the way; and when I returned in with my bands full of fresh warm white eggs he was gone, and I could hear mother's pattens clattering about in the dairy, where she was busily scouring the milk pans. I slipped quietly upstairs to my little cupboard of a room, and got the powder and shot from my box; then stealing on tiptoe, like a thief, into father's room, I took the pistol off its hooks over the mantel-piece, and, hiding it under my smock, crept downstairs again, and passing out through the little front garden, where no one

was likely to be at time in the morning, I bounded away over the fields towards the woods, and never stopped till I found myself under the trees, and well out of sight of the old farm.

"I did feel pleased then. I forgot all about the wrong I was doing in the pleasure of examining the pistol, and I had plenty of time; it was still early, and so long as I put the pistol back before father came home from market it would be all right. So I lingered over my treasure, fingering it lovingly, trying the clumsy trigger, polishing the barrel with my sleeve, and loading it with great pride and delight. But I was soon to be punished, and heavily too. God is just," said the old man, pausing a moment and reverently lifting his hat; but He is also merciful, and heavy as my punishment was it might have been worse.

"When I was tired of twisting and turning my stolen treasure about, and had looked at it all over in every possible position, I got up and took my way over a stile, and down a lonely lane, with high sheltering hedges, where I had the wood on one side of me, and a wide cleared cornfield on the other.

"I was creeping along quietly, with my pistol all ready cocked, looking out for the chance of a thrush or blackbird, as more interesting than the sparrows. I had shot so many of them with my old crossbow, I didn't seem to care about wasting my precious powder and shot on such small birds, when suddenly through the hedge on my left, I spied a hen pheasant busily pecking up the grain amongst the stubble.

"How my heart did thump! I knew it would be poaching to fire at her, but, children, when you have given way to temptation once, the second time it comes much more easily. Anyway I fired, and I hit her, but I only wounded her. I think I must have broken her wing, for she ran off with a frightened cry and without flying. You may fancy I was pleased and proud, and so excited about the bird that no more thought of right or wrong, poaching or not poaching, entered my head. I watched where she went to, and began creeping round the field to get another shot, loading my pistol as I went, and I was in such a hurry and flutter that, having nothing to measure with, I put in powder and shot at random. In a few minutes I came up level with my bird again; she was crouching in the stubble, with one wing hanging loosely. I took aim once more through the hedge and pulled the trigger. A tremendous report was the result, sounding like a clap of thunder close to my ear, my face and body tingled all over with agony for a moment, and then happily I became unconscious. I remember no more.'

"What had happened?" asked several eager voices in a breath.

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'Why I had put too much powder and shot in, and the pistol being old had burst in my hand. I was soon found. Some keepers had heard my first shot and were looking about to see who it could be. When I became quite sensible again, I

was in bed, in a strange place, which I afterwards learnt was a hospital, and there I stayed for weeks and weeks, suffering such agony as I thought no one could live through. I did live through it, however, but when I returned home I was no longer a bright handsome lad. One eye was gone entirely, and my face was dreadfully marked with the shot, and besides that I had lost two fingers," and the old man stretched out his left hand and showed them that his third and fourth fingers were gone. "Then the pain and the long fever," he continued, "broke my health altogether. I never played another game of cricket. I was almost like an old man at fifteen."

and many a course which has led to ruin has begun in an act of disobedience. Many a disobedient child has had reason in the end to bitterly regret having yielded to the first temptation. Many an one who began a course of evil by disobedience would be glad to day if nothing worse than a disabled body had resulted from his first act of disobedience. The worst of disobedience, however, is not the bodily and temporal consequences that may spring from it, but the sin of it. Disobedience to parents is sin against God, and until repented of and put away brings loss of God's favour and friendship. This is worse than anything else that can befall you. Think of this, children, and ask pardon for every thought and act of disobedi

THIS word Jehovah expresses unchanging faithfulness, as in Exod. iii. 14, "I am that I am."

Jehovah-jireh, the Lord will provide (Gen. xxii. 14). To provide means to foresee in the sense of caring for those who cannot see for themselves, as when a father provides for the maintenance and education of his sons. The Lord, when He tries the faith of His children, always foresees and plans the way for their deliverance. "Man's extremity is God's opportunity." Abraham, in the sharp trial of his faith, believed that "He was faithful who had promised," and confidently told Isaac that God would provide a lamb for a burnt offering (Gen. xxii. 8). The substitute for his child was found and accepted (Gen. xxii. 13). When Adam fell through sin, God manifested His provision for the restoration of the race (Gen. iii. 15).

We have instances of the Lord's provision in the history of Noah (Gen. vii. and viii.).

Twice also in Hagar's life, under cir

cumstances of peculiar distress (Gen. xvi. 14; Gen. xxi. 19).

The life of the children of Israel in the wilderness was sustained by God's daily provision. (Exod. xvi. 13 to the end.)

Thus our Lord teaches us to pray. "Give us this day our daily bread" (Matt. vi. 11). "Jehovah-jireh" runs through Elijah's history from first to last.

Fed by ravens (1 Kings xvii. 4); by a widow woman (xvii. 9); by an angel (xix. 6).

Not suffered to die in the wilderness, as he despondingly asked, but taken to heaven in a chariot of fire (2 Kings ii. 11).

Our Lord Himself, as head of the human race, felt that all His life was prepared for Him. "A body hast Thou prepared Me" (Heb. x. 5). "Thus it behoved Christ to suffer" (Luke xxiv. 26).

He taught His disciples that the smallest events of their lives were under God's control (Luke xii. 6, 7); and He promised them that He Himself was going to prepare a place for them in His glorious home above (John xiv. 2).

MAGINE a man's having a bee always about him-a whizzing, buzzing, singing, stinging creature, now in his eyes, now on his ears, now about his nose a bee that seems about as near being everywhere at one time as is possible for any creature in this world. And imagine this bee with not one sting, but a thousand, so that he could shoot them into you by the dozen.

And, moreover, suppose you couldn't get away from him; but that he had made up his mind to give up all his time to you; and pretended never to hear when you politely hinted that you thonght "you'd like now to be a little while by yourself."

A bee, armed with all these stings, would make your life miserable, and even if you were six feet six high, and fifteen stone in weight, small as he is, would prove too much for you-he'd make you run.

But there are more stings in existence than bee stings, and I am going to tell you of one which was the plague of no less a person than an artilleryman-the little sting beat the man who could shoot with the great gun.

"I don't want to think of these things yet, I have not seen enough of life, I want now to enjoy myself."

"Ah, my friend, the pleasures of sin are on the surface, and leave only a sting

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behind; but the pleasure arising from peace with God is deep and lasting."

"Ah, well, I wish I could go out and enjoy myself, like my comrades, but I can't, I am neither one thing, nor another, my conscience is stinging me wherever I go, and so I can get no rest."

"Thank God, and may you never find rest, till you find it at the cross of Christ."

"I don't say so, I wish I could quiet my conscience, I would very soon, and chance the consequences."

So here, there seemed, so far as we can gather from this conversation, to have been, if not a pitched battle, at any rate a continual skirmishing going on between one of Her Majesty's troops, and something which nobody could see; but which somebody could most disagreeably feel; and which could sting morning, noon, and night; and that, ever so much worse than a bee. Bad as a bee's sting is, you pick it out, and can get rid of it, and sooth the swelling, and with a little patience the pain will soon be gone; but this conscience sting is worse, for you can't get at it, although you know only too well how it can get at you.

It was a private and personal quarrel between private Jones and his own conscience and such are all these conflicts -they are nothing to any one but your self; but oh! how much they are to you! When you think that it is your God who has put your conscience in you, and who has given it its commission to fight with you, it is a serious thing indeed.

Perhaps, you have nothing but hard names for your troubles; but that is because you do not know all about the matter; and because in this battle which you are fighting you are in the wrong. Your enemy is better than you think it is, in fact, your friend in disguise.

fort in sin. It cannot prevent his sinning, but it can prevent his sinning comfortably. As long as your conscience stings you there is hope of you. You are at any rate not insensible; you have some soft place, on which God's Holy Spirit can work. You know you have sin, which only the blood of Christ can wash out.

Do not try to conquer your conscience; if you won, the victory would be a terrible one for you.

There was once a general who won a great battle, but it was at such a tremendous sacrifice of his own soldiers, that he said, "Another such victory and we are undone." You perhaps have had some victories over your conscienceand "another such," and you, too, may be undone.

But do not. be afraid. Give in to conscience, and you shall be a real gainer. Go heart and soul with your conscience. Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace.

A great writer-one of the greatest ever known-calls conscience "the candle of the Lord" within us-its light shines upon a heavenward road.

I can imagine nothing more awful than a man's having to carry about an accusing conscience with him, wherever he goes in the land of woe. Only think of his never being able to get away from it-of its continually making him judge himself and condemn himself! Conscience and Remorse will be terrible companions in that woeful time.

God grant that the title of this article may not be your history hereafter

ing one.

Conscience will not allow a man com

"STUNG EVERYWHERE.”