succeed to them, and settle down upon the face of nature. But, as we stand amid them, and give ourselves up to them, as their silent influences steal in upon us and take possession of our hearts, they awaken other and deeper affections. They blend themselves with all that is holiest in our human life. They throw a new feeling of tenderness and sacredness around the dear relations which connect us with one another. And they tell also of something beyond all this, of worlds in which these beginnings of love, so disturbed and imperfect here, may go on, under new and untried forms of being, to their full, harmonious, and eternal consummation? Over the earthly home, so rich in its affections, so endeared to us by the blessed charities of life, there rises, as we feel in our highest moments, a fairer and more blissful habitation, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens, where earthly disappointment and sorrow can never come, where weariness and pain shall be unknown, where soul, uniting with soul in perfect sympathy, shall find all its longings answered, and its desires at rest in the bosom of God's love.

Thus, almost of necessity, as we go out at the even-tide to meditate, do our thoughts insensibly rise above what is visible and material, and lose themselves in higher objects of contemplation. The world around us becomes but a token of the fairer world in which it lies embosomed. The sounds in nature that move us most awaken other sounds which seem as if they had been echoed back to us from higher worlds. And so we stand here, with our double nature, between two spheres of being, lending one ear to the voices that come to us from the earth, and with the other listening to that which is echoed back to us from the heavens. Happy, indeed, if we do not let the noise and cares of this life stifle altogether the still small voice that comes to us from purer realms. Happy if we also go forth at the even-tide to meditate and pray, to let the higher teachings of God through his outward universe find their way into our hearts, blend themselves with the dearest affections of life, and consecrate every day of our earthly being by solemn communings with him who is the life of our lives, and the only hope, and safeguard, and salvation of the world.

"And Elisha," we read, "prayed, and said, 'Lord, I pray thee

open his eyes that he may see,' and the Lord opened the eyes of the young man and he saw, and, behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha." So with every young man in every dark and solemn conflict of life, while there are enemies without and enemies within, if he is ready to leave all and follow Christ, if he has faith in God, his eyes may be opened so that he shall see heavenly agencies engaged in his behalf, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon him.

It will be a great thing for us if only we can learn to love him. more than all the rest, to follow him within the veil, and, in faith, lift up our eyes to behold the almighty agencies which are acting with us, under God, even in this lower realm of his universe.

J. H. MORISON.

A WAY-SIDE REST, AND THE FLOWER MISSION.

No one who, like the writer, has seen something of life in its different aspects, in several of our cities and large towns, can fail to have realized the urgent need there is of places of rest or recovery for their overtaxed workers. Not for the better classes; for their wealth can purchase leisure, or open the way for travel in "fresh scenes and pastures new," where wearied brain or languid body can draw strength from nature's health-giving fountains of the open air and genial sunshine. Nor for the very poor, who in many cases are too lazy, shiftless, or vicious to try to rise above their rags and discomfort by steady effort and honest toil: such find an easy entrance into our almshouses and pauper institutions. But for hard-working clerks, mechanics, and artisans, who in prosperous times earn good incomes, and too often spend as fast as they earn on furnishing their houses, or dressing themselves and their wives and daughters as stylishly as their neighbors do. For worn-out teachers, milliners, and book-keepers, whose only resource is their scanty earnings by the day or

month, and which stop the moment sickness or sudden calamity overtakes them.

But

A panic or overstocked market closes the doors of countingrooms, mills, foundries, and shops. Want and gnawing poverty walk into homes where plenty and comfort so lately reigned. Often illness comes when it is hardest to be borne. The father is stricken down, after weeks or months of weary, enforced idleness, in which he has not earned a dollar to supply the most pressing needs of the family. He may own his home and have credit enough to be trusted at the butcher's and grocer's. The hastilysummoned doctor will wait for his fee or give his skill; or medicines and attendance can be had from the city dispensary. the family purse is empty; the things most needed by the sick man to ease his pain, or hasten his recovery, cannot be bought. He must struggle through weeks of feebleness, and go back to his work with half-restored strength. Or, worse yet, the busy house-mother is the sufferer. A nurse must be hired to care for her, for the children are young and cannot even take care of themselves, or she must rely on the untrained care of some relative or helpful neighbor who can ill afford the time she freely gives.

What good Samaritan seeks out the lonely teacher or shopwoman, il in a noisy boarding-house, without relatives or friends near enough to supply her wants, or bring her broth or fruit to tempt her appetite, or even shake up her pillows and shorten the weary hours by a half-hour's chat? Now, thousands of like or sadder cases occur yearly in our cities, where a little timely aid or rest, or, more impossible still to such people, a change to the country for purer air and quiet, would help the exhausted father or mother to gain strength for years of fresh activity, and prevent their children from being scattered in strangers' homes and bereft of a parent's love and care. It would change some puny boy or girl, pent up in a narrow court or stifling street, and seemingly doomed to a short and suffering life, to a robust worker, ready and able to do his or her part faithfully in the world.

I would suggest two ways in which the need could be readily met. First, let Way-side Homes of Rest be provided in city or country. A few wealthy people, or two or more churches acting

together, could buy a roomy, sunny house a few miles out of town or near the sea. It should have some land attached for vegetable and fruit gardens, and a patch of woods where the inmates could sit under the trees all day and read or sew or play games. The land and house, with simple furniture, would cost anywhere from four to seven thousand dollars. A matron and two or more assistants would be needed. Some of the light work about the house and garden could be done by the convalescents. Medical advice could be had from a city physician or the doctor from the nearest town. Then let it be free to all persons of good character who desire to come for cure or recovery, or to prevent sickness simply by rest, nourishing food, and freedom to be out in the sunshine and healthful air. Two or three dollars a week could be charged to some; for the class to be benefited by such a resting-place have often a praiseworthy pride about accepting charity. This small outlay they would cheerfully meet at any sacrifice, or their relatives would help them to do so. And benevolent persons or churches, by paying a yearly sum, could furnish free-rooms for those who could not pay.

We would not call such houses "homes," because such a name for charitable institutions is too often a mockery; and we seek to make it broader than a mere "hospital." It is but for a few weeks or months those who go there will stay. So let it be rather a "Way-side Rest:" a shelter for the worthy sick who can get no care, comforts, or conveniences at home; a place where the half-sick and exhausted city toilers can be cured by quiet and change of scene. Its rules should be few and simple, shutting out only impostors and the depraved poor, whose coarser needs are abundantly provided for in our city hospitals.

The second branch of this charity can be more easily carried out, as it does not demand any great amount of time or money. It is for every church in the land to call on all those who worship with them to organize into a working band for benevolence and charity. The gentlemen to be pioneers, to seek cases in their own society or among their neighbors who have met with misfortune, or find life's burdens pressing too heavily upon them; those who are too proud to ask for help, and suffer in silence rather than let their poverty be known; or the sick and helpless among

the poor par excellence. The ladies to provide bedding, sheets, medecines, &c., and visit at the homes of those needing their care: each member to pay a small sum annually to meet current expenses, and stand ready, be he or she old or young, to do something, even so little a thing as reading half an hour a week to a bed-ridden patient, or making sure that Sally Jones has warm flannels to wear to keep the rheumatism out of her poor old bones, or Widow Brown's boy has a decent pair of shoes though times are hard.

Of course many cases would require nice handling, and the aid given, because unsought, should be bestowed without publicity, so as not to offend a right self-respect in the receiver, especially where money is given to lift them over a slough of debt sickness has brought in its train. Nor should the sick in jails and prisons be forgotten. It is a sad thought to many of us that the words of the Great Teacher would not apply to us: "I was sick and in prison and ye ministered unto me." ministered unto me." We call ourselves by his name, yet have so little of his spirit. And is not the alarming increase of sensation preaching and fashionable display in our churches owing in some measure to the fact that so many of our clergy have fallen victims to the modern love of notoriety, so common in all classes of society? Do they not seek to draw their hearers into the kingdom of heaven by the "pleasant words of one who has a lovely voice," instead of setting them to work more earnestly in the service of the Lord. They give us their views on the "C. O. D. in Religion," "Setting Snares," "Equal to Angels," "Satan and his Crew," which lull us into easy and complacent satisfaction with ourselves.

Not that we undervalue the wonderful influence of persuasive eloquence in the pulpit, or would have the river of God's word shut up in narrow channels, where it cannot water parched and thirsting souls and make them bring forth fruit abundantly. Only three short years did the Master preach, on mountain-top, by the sea-side, or in the temple, or telling simple stories to his friends as he walked through the fields, yet the divine lessons of love and truth and faith he uttered are echoing to-day in our ears. And now, as well as eighteen hundred years ago, a great soul aglow with love to God and man will rouse humanity to a nobler life.