He could climb the mast with the quickest,
He was calm in the wildest storm,
His heart was the heart of a sailor,
So manly and true and warm.
But they said, from one to another,
That Willie was somewhat odd,
No matter how wild his comrades,
He never forgot his God.

And the lad's prayers rose with Margaret's
Right up to the throne of grace,
That some day, here, or yonder,

He might look on his father's face.
Well, the oddest thing about Billy

Was this. Ile had found a chum,
At least so they called him, chaffing;
For if truth be told, there were some
Too glad to throw stones at Willie,
And said, if a lad began

To be frank and chatty and pleasant
With so reckless a sort of man,

There would soon be an end to his praying,
And he'd take a drop like the rest.
But Willie gave never an answer,

For he knew his own heart best.
And, besides, could so poor a reason
For a bond so strange be said?
That he drew to the drunken fellow
Because his name was Ned!
"Twas not that a runaway sailor,
Picked up at a port far east,
And taken aboard from pity,

Could be like their Ned in the least.

For the Ned that they sought was manly,
Or he never had won his bride,
And but for the cursèd drink,

Had been noble as none beside.
While this poor Ned -! But Willie
Ne'er filled the picture out.

He would like to forget the ill

For the good that was there, no doubt.
And still, as the ship sailed onwards,
It was easier to forget,

For Willie could talk with Ned

As with never a sailor yet.

The way it began was this:—

Young Willie was fresh from prayer,

And his soul had been soothed and calmed
By a breath of heavenly air.
The flash of his frank, bright eyes,
Was tamed to softer glow,

And his face had the smile of a child:
But Willie would never know

Why Ned, as he met him then

Grew pale, as his heart were faint; For Will never thought at all

That he wore the face of a saint. Then Ned, in a choking voice

Said, "Nelly! the very same!" And Will only cried in surprise,

"Why, that was my sister's name!"

Then he needs must tell him about her, And all of the tale came out,How mother was waiting and hoping, With never a touch of doubt, For father to come and find her At home, as he used to do. "But could she forgive him, Willie, My lad, it is never true!" "Why, mother has waited and waited So long that they call her mad, And most when I went to sea,

And my mother said she was glad! But she does not tell them that Willie Is wandering far and wide

To bring him, her sailor husband,
In triumph back to her side!
It is strange that they do not expect
That the Father should answer prayer,
That they think it were wiser and better
To give it up in despair,

When God's love knows no sounding,
And the sea of grace is wide,
And the sinsick soul may live
By a look at the Crucified."

*

*

*

*

So the good ship sailed still westward,
And the sands of time ran on,
And measured the days that must pass
Till one sorrowful life was done;
For Ned lay there a-dying,

And Will was his faithful nurse.
But death had no shade of terror,

For the Lord had borne the curse.
For ever since Will had spoken,

With a faith so strong and true,
Of the love that was seeking Ned,
It had been the talk of the crew-
How the strangest passing fancy

Had taken Ned's feeble brain,
That though he should die in the struggle,
He would never touch drink again.
And Ned kept true to his colours,
But the anguish, who can tell?
For it is not so easy a journey

Right back from the gates of hell! No wonder the frame, all shattered By the wild black waves of sin, Broke within sight of home,

Wrecked ere the ship came in. Poor Ned lay there a-dying,

And he said, as his voice grew low, "You must give me a promise, Willie, Quickly, before I go;

When your mother meets you to-morrow,
And asks you of Sailor Ned,

You will lead her back to the vessel,
And bid her look on the dead.
For to-morrow you'll see your mother!
Margaret! Oh! dear delight!

But I have Nelly to meet, my Willie,
To-night! To-night!" H. ACHESON.

OU often hear these words in daily life. A man goes on an excursion and gets a wetting, and catches cold, and dies; and when people talk of it they say, "Ah, poor fellow! it cost him his life." I need not fill up this little sheet by instances of this and that, which have cost people their lives; they are so common, that every reader is sure to know of some.

And often it is some very foolish, as well as some very small thing that costs a man his life; but the most foolish way of a man's losing his life that I ever heard of, I met with the other day.

There was a very dangerous and, indeed, deadly disease raging in a certain town on the Continent; and the necessity of destroying the clothes and bedding of those who died from it was well known.

But there was one poor old man who determined, in spite of this knowledge, to run the risk of saving his wife's few rags from the fire, and getting something for them. The poor woman had been attacked by the disease, and died; whereupon her husband, as quickly as he could get her few rags together, bundled them on to a wheel-barrow, and started for the next town to sell them for a few coppers —more, at the most, he could not expect to get for them.

The town to which he was going was only some six miles off-but alas! before he had got half-way, he himself was attacked by the disease, and died then and there upon the very barrow which contained the infected rags.

The dead man, and, no doubt, the cause of his death, lay there together.

Now you think that that man was a fool; it may be you say, "Served him right." What business had he to risk his own life, and that of other people too

-for he did not seem to care much whom he infected-if only he could secure his paltry gain of a few pence?

No doubt, the man acted like a fool; and, as is generally the case, the consequences of his folly rolled back upon himself; but the world is full of such fools, only because it is in spiritual things that they are showing their folly, people do not take much notice of it.

Now, I should like to say a word upon Who the fools are-and What the fools do-and How the fools end; and I am sure, good reader, that you will not be angry with me if I say, "and God grant that you may not be one of the fools."

If you want to go and look for a fool in the most important of all concernsthose of eternity-you must not go to an idiot asylum, or a madhouse, but you must just go out into the everyday world.

There are people who seem to have plenty of sense in their business, and all the common affairs of daily life, who are worse than babies in everything connected with the most important matters of all-those of their souls.

You would say that the man who did not know the difference between a sovereign and a farthing was a fool; and that the man who risked his life for a few halfpence was a fool; and that the man who went in the way of infection, thinking that he would escape, when hundreds of others had died, was a fool. And this is what the spiritual fools are doing; they are not seeing that their souls are worth more than all the world; they are, as they say, "chancing" the future for

some poor little pleasure or gain in the present; they are running the risk of infection with the worst of all diseases; and they catch it too-soul disease, and soul death.

Now what are the fools doing?

They are observing no proportion at all in the risks they run. Our Lord asks, “What shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?" But the question with most people is not the "whole world," but some little scrap of money, or pleasure, or whatever it may be perhaps, it is only just the false comfort of having a kind of peace which comes from not really finding out how matters stand. When men take a great risk they generally expect to make a great profit. A man will not chance his life for a couple of straws; but just for straws-for what is gone in a moment-men risk their

souls their all!

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And it is something worse than a risk. If only the fool would look and see it, there is a dead certainty against him. It is not "ten to one," or a thousand to one," but a dead certainty. The man is running head foremost against the law which God has made, as to what kind of people are to enter the Kingdom of Heaven; and unless he be stopped, the blow he will get must cause his death.

That will be the fool's end. This silly man who wanted to save the few halfpence for which he hoped to sell his wife's infected clothes lost his expected gain and lost his life into the bargain. Ananias and Sapphira wanted to keep some of their money, and to have the reputation of being like other Christians who were giving up everything; but they lost their money, and their reputation, and their lives too; and they made a bad business of it, as every one will do who wants to make the worst of all saving-keeping sin, and yet hoping, like a fool, to keep God too.

If there be any thing, any connection,

any pleasure, any way which is infected with sin, which you want to make the most of, and get the most out of, remember the man who would not part with the infected rags at once, and who was found on the top of them-killed by them-a corpse.

Again, dear friend, I would use the words which I have put at the head of this paper.

"It cost Him his life."

Sin cost the blessed and innocent Jesus His life. He took your sin and mine upon Him, and it soon brought Him to His grave. If He were to meddle with it, and redeem us from its curse, it could not be otherwise.

Your sin must go somewhere; you cannot throw it away and say: "There now, it does not belong to me.' When God comes to make inquiry about it, He will say: "Whose is this?" Remember this once a sin has been committed, you can never put it out of existence. must attach itself to somebody-somebody must bear it someone must be responsible for it. You can never shake it off from a person.

2

It

Well, Jesus takes it; the Lord lays upon Him the iniquity of us all.1 "Who His own self bare our own sins in His own body on the tree." Jesus takes them and they kill Him. They cost Him His life-that they may not cost you yours.

There are two things belonging to sin its guilt and its practice. Jesus takes the first; you must, by the help of the Holy Spirit, give up the second.

If you want to keep your miserable infected rags you will die. Let Him bear them away, and you shall live. Of even one sin unatoned for, one sin willingly practised, the record concerning you may be this:

"IT COST HIM HIS LIFE."