VOL. V.

Advent Thoughts.

'Surely I come quickly; Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus.'-REV. xxii. 20.

HE Collect for Advent Sunday tells us, as you will all remember, not only of our Lord's first coming in great humility, but of His coming again in power and great glory to judge both the quick (that is, those who will be alive at His second coming) and the dead.

God has not told us when this great day of❘ Christ's Second coming will be, in order that we may be always ready for it. We know that if we do not live to see it before our death, yet that the day of our death will be the day of Christ's coming for us; and it is thus that we should try and look upon the day of our death, as the beginning, not the end, of life, as our heavenly birthday, the day when we shall see our dear Lord face to face, and when all trouble, and sin, and temptation, will be over for ever.

Nor has God told us how the Lord Jesus will come. Some think that He will come quietly as it were, to reign over the earth and draw to Him all who love Him before the general judgment. Others, that He will suddenly, with the voice of the archangel and the trump of God. But we must be very careful not to go beyond what the

come

No. 51.

One thing

Bible tells us in these matters. we know for certain, and that is, that when our dear Lord went away into Heaven, the angels that appeared to the disciples who were gazing after Him, said these words to them: This same Jesus which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven.' So we know and are sure that He is coming and that we shall see Him. And the great question for us all to ask ourselves is this: Are we looking for Jesus as for a dear friend?

We all know what it is to wait for and expect a friend. We know how we linger, and watch, and strain our ears to listen for every sound, how eagerly we try to finish any work we have on hand to show him when he comes; and all the time our hearts are beating and our hands trembling with expectation, and our thoughts are quite as much with the one that is coming as with the life going on around us. We know how we should get our house ready for our friend's reception, how we should put all the rooms straight and tidy, and especially the one intended for our friend and guest; how we should deck it with flowers and make a good fire if it was cold, or tidy up the garden if it was summer weather, tying up the plants, and trying to get rid of the weeds and water the young shoots and tend the little delicate buds.

Dear friends, are we thus waiting and watching for our Lord? Are we looking for Him every day? Are we eager about our work for Him? All our daily work is His work if we are doing it for Him. Are we trying to keep our hearts as a fit dwellingplace for Him, asking daily for God's Holy

coming to each one of us,-are we looking for Him and expecting Him as a dear Friend? are we watching and waiting for Him as those who love His appearing?'

M. E. T.

Him? Are our words gentler, our actions kinder, our thoughts brighter and holier for remembering that the Lord is at hand? Are we cultivating the sweet flowers of charity, and humility, and patience, and cheerfulness -the flowers that Jesus loves; trying to root out all the bad, poisonous weeds—the things which He hates, such as jealousy, and saying little unkind things of people, and pride, and tale-bearing, and complaining, and untruth, and the like?

Again, Jesus is our best Friend. Are we looking for Him with love? Are our hearts often with Him as we go about our common daily duties? We cannot always be praying on our knees; we cannot always be in God's house; but we can be constantly praying in our hearts, constantly thinking of the Lord Jesus in every little thing. We cannot always be near those we love on earth, and do not always know even that we are thinking of them, and yet the thought of them and the love of them is never really out of our hearts,-it goes on through everything, like the echo of a beautiful song, making sweet music in our hearts. And just so it should be with our love to our Saviour; if we do really love and thank Him for all His great love to us, we shall not be able to help thinking of Him very often in our daily lives.

Once more, dear readers, let us ask ourselves this question: We know that Jesus is

CONVERSATIONS BETWEEN A MOTHER

AND DAUGHTER.

By the Author of 'Thoughts on the Holy Communion,' 'Thoughts for the Sick,' &c.

M

VII.

AY we have a talk to-day about this text, mother: "Forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any; even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye."' (Col. iii. 13.)

'Ah! Amy, it seems to me as if those footsteps were almost the highest of any. There must be a weary climb up the mountain before we can reach them; and if Christ Himself had not gone before us, I hardly think anyone would ever do so.'

'I never knew what it was for anyone to be unkind to me, mother. But you speak as if you had found it hard yourself to forgive someone.'

'Yes, Amy; it is quite true, and I will tell you something about it. Years ago, when you were a baby, a man who had always been one of your father's greatest friends, did him a cruel injury. He spread a false report against your father's character in order that he might get for himself a post that would otherwise have been given to your father, are in this he succeeded. I shall never forget the day your father first told me about it: he ended by saying, "This is a beautifu opportunity, dear wife, for us to learn to for give." But, Amy, I felt as if I never could

forgive that man, and I said so. Your father looked at me more sorrowfully than I have ever known him do before or since, and said to me that none who were not willing to forgive should dare to call themselves by the holy name of Christian. Then he knelt down and prayed that we might follow Christ's footsteps and forgive as He forgave. It was weeks before I felt I could truly say I had forgiven, but, thank God, it did come at last!'

'Dear, dear mother,' said Amy, kissing her fondly, 'how good of you to tell me! I shall love you and dear father better than ever. But I can't think how you ever could forgive that bad man. Would you mind telling me how you came to be able to do it at last ?'

'Well, Amy, it was just the thought of Jesus, and nothing else. Day after day I thought and prayed over the story of His life and death, till at last I began to learn something of what was in His heart towards those who injured Him. Looking over my old journal the other day, I came upon some thoughts I had written down at that time. I will read them to you if you like.'

'Oh, thank you, mother! I should like it

so much.'

Mrs. Merton fetched the book and read as follows::

'I am going to write down here all that I can learn of Christ's forgiveness of His enemies, that I may read it over when I feel bitter and unforgiving. It seems to me that in order truly to forgive I must see the whole matter in a different light from what I do now the light in which Christ saw things, in which He sees them now. And that must be the true light, and I must be looking at them falsely. Oh! Spirit of Light and Truth, shine in my heart and show me the Truth!

I

may be quite sure that no injury done to me, or to anyone I love, can be so great as those done to the Lord Jesus by His enemies. They slandered His character, they tried to hinder and spoil His purposes of love and goodness, they brought cruel sorrow on His mother and His disciples, besides the agonising suffering to Himself, and they dishonoured His Heavenly Father. How then did Jesus think of these men? I read that He said to those who were insulting Him and trying to kill Him, "They will not come to me that they might have life." (St. John, vi. 40.) He must then, first, have been thinking and caring more about the loss and harm they were bringing on themselves than of the harm they might do to Him. Was not this thought also in His heart when He said, "Father, forgive them ?" (St. Luke, xxiii. 34.) He knew they were bringing God's anger upon themselves by their cruelty and injustice, and He longed to save them. And then, secondly, He looked on their sin as done against His Father rather than against Himself. It was God's forgiveness that they needed and that He asked for them. There was no self in His thoughts at all. If we can think of the sin as done against God rather than against ourselves, it will surely be far easier to forgive. Thirdly, Jesus said to His Father, "Forgive them, for they know not what they do." They did not mean to do such an awful deed as they were doing; they even believed they were doing right. We cannot help seeing that the things people say and do are wrong-even sinful, but we need not judge their motives; these are probably much better than they seem to us; God only can judge them, and He judges more mercifully than man, because more truly. Fourthly, Jesus did not look on His own

sufferings as their doing at all, but as His Father's will. "Thou couldest have no power at all against me unless it were given thee from above." (St. John, xix. 11.) "The cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it?" (St. John, xviii. 11.) Man had no power to harm Him, it was all God's will, and that will would bring nothing but everlasting blessing and joy at last, though it must needs come through sorrow, and suffering, and shame, and death. But Jesus was content that it should be so. It should not be hard to forgive those who we know are only carrying out God's will. And now let me do as Christ did, if by any means I may at last feel as He felt, let me pray for the one who has done us wrong.'

'Well, Amy, I did pray constantly that he might be forgiven and blessed. At first it was dreadfully hard work,-I felt as if I could not pray for him; but then I saw how very wicked I must be if I could be unwilling to pray for blessing and salvation for any soul "for whom Christ died," and I sought earnestly to be forgiven for that. And so, by degrees, by laying hold of Christ's footsteps one by one, I seemed to come nearer to His mind, and your father helped me all the while. At last one evening I knelt down in my own room and resolved not to get up from my knees till by God's grace the victory was won. I knelt for an hour at least, and I felt almost as if I was being torn in half, but I did feel willing that God should take all self away from me, and at last He gave me the victory.

'Was it not strange, Amy, that the very next morning a letter came from the man himself, saying that he was dangerously ill and could not bear to die till he had seen us both? I never saw such deep penitence as

his. We were with him when he died and I have ever since been so thankful that God gave me the victory before that letter came.'

'Oh, mother, dear mother, what a beautiful story! I am sure some day it will help me to try and follow your example as you followed Christ's.'

'Try, my child, even now to cultivate a forgiving spirit in all the little grievances that come in daily life; and then if ever a great matter comes, I trust it would not be with you so terrible a fight as it was with me to "forgive as Christ forgave."'

Birdie's Bonnet.

A TALE OF ELMSLIE VILLAGE. By M. E. TOWNSEND,

Author of Mother's Letter,' &c. &c.

(Concluded from p. 224.)

OME weeks had passed away since my visit to Ash Tree Farm. I had been

absent from home, staying with one of my sons; but every now and then my thoughts had gone back to the lonely old farmer, and I had pictured him still standing at the gardengate watching for his lost child. I often thought, too, of the simple unselfishness with which he had told his story and his evident desire to excuse and put out of sight his daughter's failure in duty towards himself. All his care seemed to be for her happiness, without one selfish moan over his own loss and the blank it had made in his own life.

The day after my return, I was tying up a creeper on my cottage wall, when one of the village girls, Elsie Gray by name, ran in to tell me that Farmer Johnson, at Ash Tree Farm, wanted to see me, and would I be sure to go up that afternoon? I said I would, and Elsie departed as quickly as she came, saying she could not stay a minute, but not before I had noticed a grave look on the girl's face,—a very unusual

thing to see there, for Elsie was one of the maddest and merriest of our village maids,—so winning and so pretty you could not help loving her; but so thoughtless and fond of admiration, you could not but tremble for her future.

It was rather late in the afternoon when I reached Ash Tree Farm. A warm, still autumn day it was, with here and there a leaf beginning to turn into gold. If the place had looked sad before, it seemed deserted now. The old farmer no longer stood at the garden-gate; I opened it and went up the path where the lilies had once bloomed so fair and tall. I knocked, and went softly into the wide kitchen where I had sat to hear the father's story, and there he sat again in the same place by the chimney corner; but this time his head was bowed in his hands, and he scarcely looked up as I approached. At last he rose and motioned me to my old seat in the window.

'Ah, ma'am,' he said, and his voice sounded altered and broken, 'she's come and gone since you were here that night.'

""Come and gone?" I repeated wonderingly.

'Yes,' he answered, slowly and very quietly; 'my Birdie died last night,-she came home to die.'

I was inexpressibly shocked; my eyes were full and no voice could I find to answer, but my tears seemed to soothe the old man more than any words could have done.

'God bless you, ma'am,' he said, 'you must not grieve for me! It's all well with her-she is at rest; and for me, I shall not be long after her. My poor Birdie! It was all just as I feared,her heart was broke at last. Nat got tired of her and treated her ill, as I knew he would, once

he had her in his power. I suppose he cared for her at first, too, in his way; but he was a cunning one, ma'am, and it was only by degrees that she came to know what he really was. It seems he came back to Northcote that same afternoon that she went away, after leaving her with his sister; and then, as soon as they were married, he took her up to some far-off place—

I forget the name of it-where she never got my letters. They were married at the registrar's office; and, oh! ma'am, that was a sore trouble to my Birdie; she didn't think of it at first so much, for she seemed in a dream like, but afterwards, when she began to think and to pray, then it came upon her how that her marriage had not had God's blessing on it, and how she had behaved to me, and the words of the commandment, "Honour thy father," seemed to be always in her ears; but she hadn't meant it, ma'am,' continued the old man eagerly; 'she had never intended to go away and leave me altogether. That wretch had persuaded her that once the deed was done and they were married, I should forgive her, and that he would bring her back to me at once and all would be well. He never meant it, ma'am,—not he! They were all fine promises, made to be broken, like everything else he promised her. She wrote to me now and again, and gave him the letters to post, -poor lass, she was that innocent, and she loved and trusted him still!

'Well, as I said before, he soon got tired of her, and then he showed himself in his true colours. He had taken good care her letters should never reach me, and so she thought I had thrown her off and began to fret and fret, and that made him angry. It's my belief he had good reasons for not coming back to this neighbourhood. I heard tales of the money not being right at Allen and Morton's after he left; but anyways, he got to treat her worse and worse, and then he took to drink; and at last, ma'am, he deserted her-left my child, all alone with her baby, in that great place, and went off, as she supposes, to America, for she has never had word or sign from him since.

'Ah, ma'am! I'm afeard she didn't tell me half the misery she went through. She did what she could to support herself and her child by dressmaking, for she was aye clever with her needle, as I told you. One of the ladies for whom she worked was good to her, but she had to leave the place after a bit, and so my Birdie was left without a friend. Early and late she