too wonderful to be true, and therefore the easiest way was to disbelieve it at once, without inquiry or exami

nation.

Sarah afterwards became more guarded in talking to her fellow servants, but the mere fact of being ridiculed and disbelieved had a bad effect upon her mind, and made her, for a time at least, care rather less whether she spoke the truth or not.

One day when Rebecca and Sarah were engaged in dusting their mistress's dressing-room, the former accidentally threw down a small hand looking-glass, and on picking it up again, found, to her horror, that it was broken.

"Oh dear, oh dear! I shall never be married," she exclaimed, bursting into tears, "never be married, I know. What are you staring at me so for, Sarah? people never are married when they've broken a lookingglass, or, at least, have no luck for years and years to come. Sarah had been brought up by a sensible mother, and she therefore put no faith in this strange though still very prevalent superstition. "It's a great pity to have broken the glass," said she, "but I don't see what it has to do with not being married, Rebecca."

"I'm sure I wish it hadn't," said the housemaid wiping her eyes with her apron "for I don't want to die an old maid, nor to have bad luck neither, and they say breaking a looking-glass always brings bad luck, you know that surely, child, don't you?

"I don't see why it should though; mother says and so did Miss Caroline, last Sunday, that

"Well, what?" said Rebecca, seeing that she hesitated.

"That it isn't Christian to talk about luck, because Christians ought to think that every thing is ordered for them for the best, and

"Oh, that's what you mean is it? I've no wish to be preached to by you, I can tell you. I say, what'll missus say when she hears I've broken the glass? I've been so unlucky in breakages lately." She paused a moment, then added, "I'll just put the glass on the floor again. There!-now missus won't know how it's come broken."

"Oh Rebecca!"

"Nonsense child, what harm? If we make haste out of the room, and keep ourselves quiet about it, ten to one if missus suspects us. If I am asked though, I shall just say, I think Uncle Tom broke it; he was upstairs the other day, for missus drove him down herself."

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'But-but if I'm asked what shall I say?"

Oh, you must say the same as me, that's all."
No, I can't; it would be a lie and

'Very well then, you can harm me if you like, of course, but I can tell you though, Miss Sarah, this won't be the way to get yourself a good name with your fellow-servants; you'll have a hard matter to keep a place if you go on in this way, I know. And as for a lie, I can't see the harm of just telling one to save a friend."

Sarah began to waver a little, and Rebecca, perceiving this, proceeded to work upon her feelings and fears until she had extorted from her a promise that she would at least deny any knowledge of the accident.

Miss Wainwright was from home, so Sarah had not to endure the misery of being questioned by her, but it was bad enough to tell a falsehood even to her kind Mistress, and when towards evening, the latter asked her whether she knew anything about the broken glass, she could hardly refrain from telling all. Rebecca's presence restrained her, however, and she ended by involving herself in many falsehoods, even going so far as to say that she had (once) seen Uncle Tom," jumping from the toilet table.

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She afterwards felt very miserable, and conscience stricken, and lay awake some hours at night, crying and thinking of her mother. Rebecca, it may be hoped, was unhappy too, though she did not enter into the full extent of her guilt, nor think of applying to herself the awful words, "Whosoever shall cause to offend one of these little ones who believe in me, it were better for him that a mill-stone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depths of the sea."

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ON PRAYER.

(Extracted from Kingsley's Sermon on the Lord's Prayer.)

"Our

My friends, the longer I live the more certain I am that the only reason for praying at all is because God is our Father, -the more certain I am that we shall never have any heart to pray unless we believe that God is our Father. If we forget that, we may utter to Him selfish cries for bread; or, when we look at His great power, we may become terrified, and utter selfish cries to Him not to harm us, without any real shame or sorrow for sin. But few of us will have any heart to persevere in those cries. People will say to themselves, If God is evil He will not care to have mercy on me, and if He is good there is no use wearying Him by asking Him what He has already intended to give me : why should I pray at all?" The only answer is, "Pray because God is your Father and you His child." The only answer, but the most complete answer. I will engage to say that if anyone here is ever troubled with doubts about prayer, those two simple words, Father," if he can once really believe them in their full richness and depth, will make the doubts vanish in a moment, and prayer seem the most natural and reasonable of all acts. It is because we are God's children, not merely His creatures, that He will have us pray. Because He is educating us to know Him; to know Him not merely to be an Almighty Power, but a living, loving Person,-not merely an irresistible Fate, but a Father who delights in the love of His children-who wishes to shape them into His own likeness, and make them fellow-workers with Him; therefore it is that He will have us pray. Doubtless He could have given us everything without our asking, for He does already give us almost everything without our asking. But He wishes to educate us as His children-to make us trust Him-to make us love Him-to make us work for Him of our own free wills,

in the great battle which He is carrying on against evil; and that He can only do by teaching us to pray to Him. I say it reverently but firmly, as far as we can see, God cannot educate us to know Him, the living, willing, loving Father, unless He teaches us to open our hearts to Him, and to ask Him freely for what we want, just because He knows what we want already.

If I have not made this plain enough to any of you, let me go back to the simple, practical explanation of it which God himself has given us in those two words, "father and child." * * * You know that if you want really to have your child to please and obey you, not as a mere tame animal, but as a willing, reasonable, loving child, you must make him know that you are training him; and you must teach him to come to you of his own accord to be trained, to be taught his duty, and set right where he is wrong; and even so does God with you. If you will only consider the way in which any child must be educated by its human parents, then you will at once see why prayer to our Heavenly Father is a necessary part of our education in the kingdom of

heaven.

Now the Lord's Prayer-just this sort of prayeris man's cry to his Heavenly Father to train him, to educate him, to take charge of him-daily and hourlybody, and soul, and spirit. It is a prayer for gracefor special grace; that is, for help daily and hourly in each particular duty and circumstance; for help from God specially suited to enable us to do our duty. And the whole of the prayer is of this kind, and not, as some think, the latter part only.

It is too often said that the three first sentences are not prayers for man, but rather praises to God. They cannot be one without being the other. You cannot, I believe, praise God aright without praying for men; you cannot pray for men aright without praising God; at least, you cannot use the Lord's Prayer without doing both at once, without at once declaring the glory of God and praying for the welfare of all mankind.

(From the Church of England Sunday Scholars' Magazine.) SEVERAL years ago there was a bright little spinnerboy in one of the mills of Glasgow, Scotland. He spun all through the summer vacations to earn money to go to school in winter; and very diligent was he, both at school and in the mill. A great deal of knowledge he picked up, and the best of all was the knowledge of God. Then he wanted to become a missionary, and God opened the way when he was of age.

The Missionary Society sent him to South Africa. There he married a good missionary's daughter, and for a while staid with his father-in-law. But he longed to explore the heart of Africa. God opened this way also, and he started off alone-no, not alone, for God was with him. On our maps of South Africa there are large blank spots, denoting that we do not know what is there-sandy deserts, we suppose. But Dr. Living