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WHO WILL BE A SOUL-GATHERER?

BY THE AUTHOR OF "THE CHILD OF THE KINGDOM.'

HAT wish springs first in your heart for this new year? This little book comes with only one wish for you, even that the Lord Jesus, the great reaper, may use you to gather souls in his vast harvest. If he does that for you, what will he leave undone ?

The sun rose late this morning. His faint rays scarcely warm you. They

do not even quite melt the frost work on the pane that lets them in. And yet, at this very hour, that same sun sheds summer through the south; making flowers to blossom and fruit to ripen, sweetening the juicy heart of

the pomegranate, and pouring down his rays through the branches of the palm. Men are hiding from his mid-day heat on the plains of India while we shiver with cold.

Is it thus also with your soul? As you creep along life's path, holding your way on its darker and selfish side, are the rays that reach you from Christ your sun slant and feeble? Do they only give you warmth enough at the heart to keep in the life, and is your hand too numb to work for him or point a fellow-sinner to the Lamb of God? Yet at this hour Jesus shines, the Son of the city on high. There is no night and day in the glory of his love; it is always at high noon. Are not his beams direct and mighty, pouring into the heart of your friend in the next street, the servant in your own house, the boy near you on the form at school? Jesus is shining over their heads leaving scarce a shadow of self on their path. Their fruit abounds and their graces have the bloom and fragrance of tropical flowers. How very, very sad for you to be chill and dark when Jesus shines on all around!

An old woman who spoke as if she feared the Lord, was asked if she had ever tried to bring others to him. "I'm afraid not," she said. "And are you happy in Christ yourself, have you known him long?" "Well, I may say I've sought him these fifty years, but I have not found him yet. Only, they say doubts and fears are good for people, and I just try to bear with them." Fifty years walking after the Good Shepherd, without ever coming up to him on the road! Could it be? The old woman had lived a winter in Italy, and she was asked if she had not seen, at Christmas time, the windows of the south room wide open, its inmates warm in the sunshine, the flowers sending in so sweet a smell? "Yes," said "And then across the passage within a step of that bright room, others sitting in the north room wrapped up, close by the fire piled with wood, throwing in a fir

she.

cone now and then to keep up the blaze?" "Yes," she said. "And so with you, dear friend, if indeed you be Christ's and do live in his house, you have got into a north room, away from the sun : and hard work you have to keep your fire in. Do we not bring a bad name on the the house and the service of our kind Master when we will live out of the sunshine in chambers dark and shuttered up!" Alas, for the ranges of cold north rooms that men contrive to build, where, sickly and weary, they pine under cold, and yet they are God's children all the while! (Psalm li. 11-15).

SCHOOLBOY,-You wept sore when Jesus took your little sister to be a jewel in his golden crown. But he meant to take you too-in answer to her prayer-to be part of the sickle he holds in his royal hand for reaping souls. A part of his church he already wears for a garment of glory, and of part he has made the great sickle gleaming in his hand. "But he won't have me," say you? "'Twas only last week I mocked a dear fellow who asked me to come to Jesus. He never can love the like of me. Say not so! The tear in your eye, the thought that wrings your heart, show that God is near. Bow your neck low in grief and shame; and even from the scorner's company, Christ will lift you weeping, to dry your tears and send you to-morrow to gather souls. That is how the great reaper whets his hook in our days. He takes scorners and idlers and makes them new creatures; and then puts them as the edge of his sickle to cut down the golden grain, confessors of his powers to save. Go back, my boy, to the one you mocked at last week. Say to him, "I'm so vexed at myself for what I did; but I'm going to be Christ's now, tell me how." So shall all the ill you meant him be soon undone; he shall have all the deep, deep joy of being your soul-gatherer. And now you will work with him for Christ. You saw the magnet gather

to it all the loose bits of steel, splinters that seemed nothing worth it drew, and they at once drew others. And so, over your weak, sinful heart the Lord will bend his sickle, draw you in, and straightway you too will be a soul-gatherer (Acts xxvi. 16).*

A Hindu Girl's Happy Death.

ABOUT four years ago, Ramee, a poor foundling Hindu girl, was brought to the mission boarding-school at Puna by the country police, who had picked her up in a destitute state about three months before. She told afterwards that she had been stolen from her parents by a band of Bisagies or gipsies.

She was then about eight years old, and was supported till her death by the Edinburgh Free Tolbooth Juvenile Association. She made good progress at school, showed

much interest in divine things, and was baptized about the beginning of 1862. About six months ago she was stricken with a loathsome disease. While in the hospital she was often visited by her young companions, by Mrs. Millar, matron of the school, and by Mr. Mitchell, who saw her the day before her death. Though then so weak that she could not sit up, she was calm and joyful, speaking much of the love of Jesus, and her willingness to depart to be with him. She died during the night, aged twelve years. The nurse said that Jesus was the

last word she spoke.

AFRICA.

A Caffre Conquered.

A FINGO man, who had relatives among the Christians, lived near the mission station at Lovedale. Though an industrious man, he bitterly hated the truth, worked on the Sabbath-day, and would never come to church. Once, when reasoned with, he said, "If I be so great a sinner, let God punish me."

God did seem to punish him. He fell from his waggon, injured his spine, and for weeks lay with the lower part of his body quite powerless. Mr. Ross, Miss Thomson, and Jacob Pinder, one of the native Scripture readers, all visited him, but his heart only seemed to grow the harder under his affliction.

When almost giving him up, Jacob Pinder was surprised by getting a message that the dying Fingo wished to see him. There was a great change. He seemed to feel his sin, and desired to receive Christ as his Saviour; he urged his heathen friends and neighbours who visited him to give up their opposition to the gospel, and charged his children to attend school, and learn to read the word of God. He lived, quite conscious, for at least a week after the change took place.

This death has made some impression in the neighbourhood. Large numbers now attend worship, and, in the course of a month, upwards of a dozen joined the Bible class.