At the door of the dressing-room communicating with the apartment occupied by the baronet, Harold met his mother. From the morning of his arrest in the park, through all the anxious season of Sir Richard's illness, until this chance encounter, he had seen but little of her ladyship, never meeting her except in the dining-room, where the social thermometer fell below freezing-point, and conversation was limited to polite monosyllables.

Dinners at Chadburn Court were always occasions of state and ceremony; but matters were decidedly worse in the absence of the genial, good-natured baronet. Sir Richard cared more for well-cooked viands, seasoned with friendly chat, than all the impressive dignity of family plate and silent-treading footmen.

Lady Chadburn paused when she saw Harold, gave him a severe look from her handsome eyes, then asked coldly, "Where are you going ?"

"To see my father; he has sent for me."

Lady Chadburn's hand was resting on the handle of the door. She was about to pass on, but waited as if expecting Harold to say something. She looked a handsome, dignified woman, her stately figure making the most of its commanding height, Harold's eyes went up to his mother's face, a wistful, yearning look, that told how he was longing to meet there some softening expression which might reassure him of a chance of past errors being forgotten and forgiven. His heart had a deep well of unappropriated tenderness, ready to gush out at the first appeal; and, faulty as it was, his character had just the materials out of which, even now, a judicious, loving mother might have built up a manhood of usefulness and high promise. But Lady Chadburn realised nothing, only her one obstinate conviction, that the utmost to be expected from her younger son was that he might be kept from openly disgracing his family name. He had the misfortune to resemble, in her opinion, a despised female branch of his father's family, a race which she counted inferior both to the Chadburns and the Howards, which last was the favoured line, to which she gave the honour of her own descent. Harold saw a thoughtful little crease in the middle of her forehead, but the eyes were cold and irresponsive, and there was no relaxing of the proud lips. He saw it would be useless to appeal to her, and said slowly, "Yes, mother; I will be careful my father shall not be any worse for seeing me."

She inclined her head, as if silently accepting the promise he had given, and passed out without another word. The day would come when the pleading look in his eyes would haunt her; when she would grieve over the remembrance of her hardness to the prodigal, and the mute appeal from which she had so coldly turned aside.

(To be continued.)

OD'S peace has come upon thee full and sweet, O best beloved! thou canst not hunger more, Nor can thy soul thirst on that far-off shore; Sun shall not trouble thee, or any heat, And God shall surely wipe away thy tears. But I must lose the face that was my light, And stretch my empty hands out in the night,

Missing thy tender clasp through all these years;
Yet, when Death's angel comes to set me free,
I know that thou wilt listen for my feet,
Ascending up this golden way to thee,

And long, long woe will seem but moments fleet;
And until then I would, though desolate,
Strive to be patient, and God's will to wait.

HOPE DOUGLAS.

BY THE REV. P. B. POWER, M.A., AUTHOR OF

VER in daily life, and in the experiences of our own souls, do we find it true that the Lord's ways are not as our ways, nor his thoughts as our thoughts. An example we find here. Jesus awfully taking the Gadarenes at their word, moved towards the ship which had brought him to their shores. That ship had come full freighted with blessings; and now, with the exception of what might be left behind, in and through the demoniac, it was about to bear all away again.

There was one, however, from among the Gadarenes who willed not that Jesus should depart from those coasts; rather would he that Jesus should have tarried there for ever. Need we say that that man was so lately known as the demoniac ? "And when he was come into the ship, he that had been possessed with the devil prayed him that he might be with him.”

We can imagine the man's distress, perhaps his agony of mind, as he saw Jesus about to embark, and go whither he could not follow. As the boat receded from view, he at least would stand upon the shore, with his eye riveted upon it, until it faded from sight. His eye would strain to secure the last glimpse of the One to whom he owed all; and as His figure became lost amid the others, and the boat itself became indistinct, and disappeared, he would return home disconsolate and alone.

Those who belonged to Jesus were about to embark with him; and he who fain would be with him too must be separated from him, to go and live amongst those who would none of his Deliverer, and, it may be, of himself; for was it not partly through his cure that they lost their swine? To have sat at those feet, and now to see them depart, probably for ever from his shores-yes, to see them sent away, may have well grieved him to the very heart.

We need no great powers of imagination to picture to ourselves the feelings of this poor man as Jesus was about to depart. Love, reverence, gratitude, all the higher and nobler feelings of our nature, were probably putting forth their power in him who had so lately been the habitation of devils.

But other motives also may have had their place.

It was but a very little while before, and this man had been torn of the devils. His memory was charged with the pictures of what he had been.

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THE 'I WILLS' OF THE PSALMS," ETC. ETC.

He shuddered at the thought; and also, it may be, at the dread lest these evil ones should find him again; and so entering into the house now swept and garnished, make his last estate worse than the first.

We cannot wonder if this poor man were full of fears. He thought, perhaps, of the wondrous look of Jesus's eye, and of the sound of his voice, as he commanded the evil spirits to leave him, and that he would not be safe away from that eye and voice.

If such thoughts filled his mind, they were natural, though not of necessity true. And it may be observed, further, that the self-distrust which such a class of thought exhibits is far more safe than that overweening confidence which, amongst many now-a-days is, on their first reception of the truth, so common.

If the poor man before us now had such a thought as we have been speaking of, it was in its measure a true one; for no one is safe out of the reach of the eye, and ear, and voice of Jesus. Only, he knew no more than of the natural eye, and voice, and car; and if so, no wonder if he were afraid to be left behind, far away from reach of them.

It is our happiness to know that we can ever keep within reach of the eye, and ear, and voice of Jesus; it is our safety to live in the power of this truth. It is well for us to keep steadily in sight the One by whom we have been delivered-to have all our thought gathered in on Him-to expect that He who has acted against our enemies, will, if need be, do the like again.

The Church of God has this advantage over all who enjoyed the bodily presence for a season; Christ's people can ever be with him, and he with them.

The man had a purpose for himself-he besought Jesus that he might be with him; but Jesus had other purposes, and his and the man's were not the same.

No doubt he who has been acted upon strongly by Christ, becomes a man of purpose. New thoughts, and desires, and intentions fill his mind; he will do this and that, he will go here and there for Christ, but the Lord has often purposes for him other than his own.

And this is a lesson which we all need to learn, but more especially those who are just brought to Christ. The thought does not come to us naturally, we have to be shown it by God.

It is not of necessity sin that we make purposes

for ourselves, it is rather ignorance; we have come into a new sphere, where things are managed differently from what they were in the old one; and we know no better than to have our own yea, yea, and our own nay, nay, provided it be for God. The witness of sincerity is very precious, but we must not content ourselves therewith; we must seek to know the mind of God, rather than our We must put ourselves at his disposal, and not think of disposing of ourselves. For with all our sincerity we may go wrong. We may take the wrong turning altogether, or enter on a path, which shall not be the one in which he shall be most glorified.

own.

We ask ourselves the question as to whether any lack of tenderness can be discerned in Jesus, or any lack of appreciation, in thus sending this man from continual personal abiding with him.

What Jesus did here, he did, as ever, wisely and in love. He destined that man to a higher mission than always sitting at his feet.

It may be that He who saw farther than any human eye knew that the materiality of the position was not the best thing for that man's full blessing. At any rate it leads us to the thought that places of the greatest privilege, communion with particular persons, all of which we may deem to be essential to our spiritual happiness, or life, really are not so. In our spiritual life, what is, so to speak, material, may be too much to us, and too much for us. Whom not having seen, and whom not seeing, we love, is higher spiritual life than looking at the very body of Christ, and loving as we look.

The materialistic may take a degraded form, as in the power of the swine to hinder the Gadarenes from receiving Christ; it may take a higher and more refined form, as in binding this man, as the only place of safety or of comfort, to the human body of the Lord.

As Jesus now sustains his Church by his Spirit, and enables it ever by faith to see him, and repose and rejoice in him, though his bodily presence be removed; so, perhaps, he meant to sustain this Gadarene, and give him to be always with him, even through his earthly form had taken ship, and was gone.

If only we have faith and spiritual understanding, we shall see that though outward presences depart, Jesus himself is not, to us at least, really

gone.

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this grateful man to follow him, and show his love and admiration by so doing, we may think that the Lord did not appreciate the offer; and that it was hard not to grant the request. But we find the denial accompanied with a command, which shows us that Jesus did not sever himself from the man's offer of service, but accepted it, only in a different sphere from that which he himself had proposed. He would have been a disciple, but Jesus made him an apostle to the Gadarenes. The once demoniac received a commission from the Lord; he was left on his behalf a witness for him in the land where he had been rejected; the only human means through which anything could now be done for the people in those parts. All that could be known of his mercy and love, Jesus entrusted to that man.

In truth, the man who had had the devils now received a high commission from the Lord—one which would require as much spiritual strength from above to fulfil, as it needed strength from beneath to be what he had been before.

He was appointed to solitary testimony amid an exasperated people, and those, his own countrymen. He had aimed high, when wishing to be always with Jesus-and he is placed high by Jesus.

Though the Lord was going away, the connection between the Gadarene and himself was not to be severed. The former demoniac was to be appointed to a place of singular honour and responsibility-to that of solitary testimony. He, and he alone, was to be Christ's witness amongst his countrymen.

There is a peculiar power in the witness of a changed man in his own home, where he, and all about him, was well known. There are diversities of testimony-there is that of the man who, to all outward appearance, has lived blamelessly, and that of him who has been turned from the error of his way that of a John, who leaned on the bosom of Jesus, that of a Paul, who persecuted him.

Whatever power there was in the changed circumstances of this man, Jesus will have him exercise amongst his friends.

The Lord sends him back to the place from which he had specially fled. Thither, whence he had been driven forth.by the influence of the devils, is he returned by the influence of Christ.

neglect his sphere, Some of the highest been won in home.

And should the reader of these lines be appointed to a place of lone testimony amongst his earthly friends, when he would fain be always with the people of the Lord, let him remember the honour and responsibility of his position.

The Gadarene was left in that land where Jesus was not received, as in a measure the representative of Jesus himself. He-rescued, changed, a friend where he had been a foe-was the counteractive to the hard thoughts which may have kept possession of his countrymen's minds because of the loss of their swine.

Strange it may seem that Judas the traitor should be allowed ever to company with the Lord,

have been a faithful and energetic disciple, is not allowed, as he so earnestly longed, to be with him. But it teaches us an important lesson. It shows us how little we can argue from external privileges and positions.

Jesus takes ship and goes away-and the Gadarene returns to give testimony amongst his friends. We hear no more of him, but we may well believe that when the last glimpse of the ship was lost, and he turned his steps home to fulfil the mission with which he had been entrusted, he went in the strength of the Lord, and the remembrance of the power and love by which he had been brought, clothed, and in his right mind, to sit at "the feet of Jesus."

B

UT the sun shone when Gracie awoke the next morning, and all her resentment had melted away. On her knees she humbly asked for strength and guidance; and, though quaking a little at the thought of meeting Royston's reproaching eyes, she was at her post at the breakfast-table when the noisy hungry boys trooped in.

The scene of the previous day seemed to be forgotten by everybody but herself. One of the labourers had reported the presence of a huge pike in the stream that ran through the meadows, and Royston, bent on its capture, was discussing with Stephen the best way of effecting it. Gracie good-naturedly offered her assistance in disentangling a fishing-line; and when she heard the lad say he must walk over to the next village for some hooks, she remembered that she too had some purchases to make, and, ordering the pony to be put in the chaise, proposed to drive him there.

While the lad ran to the yard to hasten the movements of the old man who looked after the horses, Stephen, who had been writing a letter, closed his desk, and rose to go out; but at the door he turned back.

"Did I hear you say something about driving into Daleslea, Gracie? I'd rather none of you went there to day; I'll tell you why another time."

"But your brother explained.

says we are not to go," she

The lad's face reddened. "Nonsense! he knew I couldn't fish without hooks. He couldn't have said so."

"I don't think he understood that you had not any. Perhaps at dinner-time you can explain to him."

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But the hot-tempered Royston would hear no more. Stephen could not have said that I wasn't to go. I'll not believe it. It's your own ill-nature that's set you upon making up the tale on purpose to spite me."

"You have no reason to doubt my word," said Grace, quietly; "Libbie and Leonard can confirm it."

Libbie, who was playing with the great retriever, which she insisted upon bringing into the house, promptly responded, "Steve said his wife wasn't to go, but he didn't mention Roy's name.”

"Then I shall go," said the latter, sturdily. He snatched up his hat, but Gracie laid her hand on his arm, and begged him not to do so.

"Libbie says truly that your name was not mentioned; but Stephen distinctly told me that he did not wish any of us to go to Daleslea. You will not disobey him, will you, Roy?"

"I don't suppose you'll be sorry if I do," he retorted, aggravatingly ; "it will give you an excuse for getting me another thrashing."

"What! not ready!" he cried to Gracie, who was at the window watching her husband stride away; "what slow coaches you women always are. Do make haste."

minute she saw the obstinate lad striding over the uplands towards the village.

As she left the room, sighing over the wilfulness he had displayed, she heard Libbie's ill-natured comment upon her endeavours to dissuade him: