boyhood. “ If that child is now alive,” he asked, “what would you think of his heart if he did not cherish an affection for his mother's memory, and if the sight of her poor tattered cloak, which she had wrapped round him in order to save his life at the cost of her own, did not fill him with gratitude and love too deep for words? Yet what hearts have you, my hearers, if over the memorials of your Saviour's sacrifice of Himself you do not feel them glow with deeper love and with adoring gratitude ?” A few days after this, a message was sent by a dying man, requesting to see the preacher. The request was speedily complied with. The sick man seized the minister by the hand, and gazing intently on his face, said, “You do not-you cannot recognise me. But I know you, and your father before you. I have been a wanderer in many lands. I have visited every quarter of the globe, and fought and bled for my king and country. I came to this town a few weeks ago in bad health. Last Sabbath I entered your church, where I might once more hear, in the language of my youth, the Gospel preached, and I heard you tell the story of the widow and her son." Here the voice of the old soldier faltered, his emotion almost choked his utterance; but, recovering himself for a moment, he cried, “I am that son!” and burst into a flood of tears. “Yes,” he continued, “I am that son! Never, never did I forget my mother's love. Well might you ask what a heart would mine have been if she had been forgotten by me! Though I never saw her, dear to me is her memory; and my only desire now is, to lay my bones beside hers in the old churchyard among the hills. But, sir, what breaks my heart, and covers me with shame, is this : until now, I never saw with the eyes of the soul, the love of my Saviour in giving Himself for me--a poor, lost, hell-deserving sinner! I confess it! I confess it !” he cried, looking up to heaven, his eyes streaming with tears ; and pressing the minister's hand close to his breast, he added, “It was God who made you tell that story. Praise be to His holy Name, that my dear mother has not died in vain, and that the prayers which I was told she used to offer for me, have been at last answered; for the love of my mother has been blessed by the Holy Spirit, in making me see, as I never saw before, the love of the Saviour! I see it, I believe it; I have found deliverance where I found it in my childhood—in the cleft in the rock, but it is the Rock of Ages !” And, clasping his hands, he repeated with intense fervour, " CAN A WOMAN SUCKING CHILD, THAT SHE SHOULD NOT HAVE COMPASSION ON THE SON OF HER WOMB? YEA, THEY MAY FORGET, YET WILL I NOT FORGET THEE." FORGET HER “ Arise, and take the young child and His mother, and flee into Egypt, and be thou there until I bring thee word.”—Matt. ii. 13. NDER a palm-tree, by the green old Nile, Lulled in His mother's breast, the fair child lies Brooding above the slumber of His eyes ; Lo! the dread works of Egypt's buried kings, Regal and still as everlasting things. Soft shadowed by His mother's drooping head, O'er the whole world like vernal air shall spread, " We must not hope to be mowers, And to gather the ripe gold ears, And watered the furrows with tears. " It is not just as we take it This mystical world of ours ; A harvest of thorns or flowers." Butler & Tanner, The Selwood Printing Works, Frome, and London, CONTENTS. 24 PAGE PAGE 42 179 Everlasting Life after Death 186 191 37 45 66 120 183 21 151 5 112, 128, 144, 160, 176, 192 Gleanings ....... .78, 110, 126, 171 74 God's Corrections 118 63 Gospel of the Children (The) 94 136 190 142 129 Helpless, Trustful, Loving 102 35 Here a Little, and There a Little 163 58 Hints for the Household...16, 32, 48, 113 64, 80, 96, 112, 128, 144, 160, 33 131 154 177 92 180 Humane Education of the Young 108 175 173 45 124 Ladies' Mothers' Meetings..... 103 88 Late Dr. James Hamilton (The) 70 167 187 143 38 Little Jamie and his Mother 85 30 36 Lost in the Snow; Found in 174 Christ 83 176, 192 |