knees, and spoke there to God as if he had never spoken before. Jeanie did the same. After a while they both rose, and Jeanie said, "Thank ye, Willie; it's a beautifu' beginning, and it wull, I'm sure, hae a braw ending." "It's cauld iron, Jeanie, woman," said the smith, "but it wull melt and come a' richt."*

THE FLOWERS OF PARADISE.
REV. DR. THOMAS GUTHRIE, EDINBURGH.

HEAVEN is greatly made up of little children-sweet buds that have never blown, or which death has plucked from a mother's bosom to lay on his own cold breast, just when they were expanding, flower-like, from the sheath, and opening their engaging beauties in the budding time and spring of life. "Of such is the kingdom of heaven." How soothing these words by the cradle of a dying infant! They fall like balm drops on our bleeding heart, when we watch the ebbing of that young life, as wave after wave breaks feebler, and the sinking breath gets lower and lower, till with a gentle sigh, and a passing quiver of the lip, our sweet child leaves its body lying like an angel asleep, and ascends to the beatitudes of heaven and the bosom of its God. Perhaps God does with His heavenly garden as we do with our own. He may chiefly stock it from the nurseries, and select for transplanting what is yet in its young and tender age-flowers before they have bloomed, and trees ere they begin to bear.

"Good Words" for February, 1861. London: Alexander Strahan & Co.

THE INTELLIGENCE OF A GLORIFED INFANT. REV. DR. ALEXANDER FLETCHER, LONDON.

HAS it never struck you, my friend-the glorious change which is effected upon the mind of an infant, the moment its disembodied spirit is admitted among the holy and intelligent citizens of the new Jerusalem? I have often thought of it with surprise and delight. In one instant, there is a greater influx, a greater communication of light into its glorified understanding, than all the accumulated light which glowed with splendour for many years, in the mind of the greatest philosopher, who has added lustre to his country, to his species, to the world. All the experienced Christians and divines whom that dear babe has left behind it, are as much behind it in the degree of their knowledge, and in the enlargement of their capacity, as they are behind it in place. Heaven does not exceed this world more in its grandeur and glory, than this glorified infant does the greatest, the wisest, and the best of human beings, living in this vale of tears. O, how much this should reconcile pious parents to the departure of their dear babes from a world of ignorance and of suffering, to a land of unclouded intelligence and unceasing enjoyment.

HEAVENLY RELATIONSHIP.

REV. P. B. POWER, M.A., KENT.

REMEMBER, poor mourner, that the child that hath left thy home hath found another home. Thy little one is not homeless: doth not that thought in itself

pour oil and balm upon thy heart? Think no more of the isolation and loneliness of the body's grave, but think of the companionship and joyousness of the spirit's home. Life, love, joy, warmth, all cluster themselves about the name of home,-let them cluster in thy thoughts around thy child who is at home. what loving care and thought were spent upon thy little one! and oh, bitter grief! thou canst spend them now no more; the departed one is out of the reach of thy ministry; that thou canst no longer do anything for it is part of thy bitter woe. But think!

"Thy flower hath found a home with One,

Who well its value knows."

A voice softer than thine whispers to it, hands more gentle than thine minister to it, eyes more loving than thine look upon it; if thou lovest as a parent should love, be content to be outdone; thou art conquered in life's strife only by beings of another world, and thy child reapeth the victory of thy defeat; thou wouldst have done much for it had it lived—they do more now that it is dead; thou wouldst have set great price upon it had it tarried with thee here—a price far greater still is set upon it by Him that has taken it to Himself.*

THE SORROWING MOTHER.

REV. DR. OCTAVIUS WINSLOW, BRIGHTON. Sorrowing Mother! "It is well" with the child. The spirit has returned to God who gave it, and now com

*The Lost Sunbeam. By Rev. P. B. Power, M.A., London: John F. Shaw & Co.

K

is

munes with its Creator, of whose greatness, and wisdom, and glory it knows infinitely more than the profoundest philosopher or the holiest divine. It is safer and happier with its Father in heaven than with you on earth. And who can tell from what evil it is taken, and from what bitter anguish you are preserved, anguish greater in his life than now rings your heart in his death? He gone where innocence has no snares, where there exist no temptations to beguile, and where no foes invade. Your child may have stolen your heart from Jesus, who did not intend that His precious gift should supplant Himself in your love. It is well with him: and is it not well with you? The vacant place is occupied with a sympathising Saviour-the stricken heart turns to Him who smote it and the ensnared and truant affections, severed from the idol they had worshipped, find their way back again to God. It is well that your heavenly Father has dealt with you thus. It is well that He condescends to instruct you, though it be by chastening, and to heal your heart wanderings, though it be by suffering. Twice gracious has thy God been to thee gracious when he lent the blessing-a little flower to gladden you awhile with its presence, and now to cheer you with its memory-and gracious in taking it away, transplanting it to a holier soil and sunnier skies, beneath whose influence its infantine faculties and young affections have expanded and ripened into more than an angel's intellect and a seraph's love. "It is well with the child."

THE FADED FLOWER.

REV. JOHN JAMESON, METHVEN, PERTHSHIRE.

So quickly, so lightly, and so placidly passed she, that ere we had the courage to think she was going, already she was not. With all the simplicity of an infant, she had said to her mother, the day before she fell ill, that she was going to die. Just as she was departing, she revived for a moment, gathered strength, and throwing one full look of kindness on her trembling parent, breathed her last. "That look," said her mother to me, “I can never forget; that look was all the portion she had to bequeath; and that look now lifts me up.” There was something very fine in the scene. Little Johnnie, heedless of his own grief-and he, too, had been crying bitterly when he beheld his mother weeping, sprung to her, clasped her in his arms, clapped her with all his gentleness, and kissed the tears from her cheeks.

This world of ours, my dear Mary, is just a greenhouse, where there are flowers of every standing. Those, generally, of a commoner and lowlier sort hang long, and from month to month, unfading still, deal out, with unchanging hue, their daily meed of fragrance -it may be, little felt and little noticed; but still they are there. Those, again, of grander flowering, with their bright and delicate and sparkling beauty, which rivets our gaze, soon, right soon, alas! fade away. There is a flower, they tell us, the most exquisite of all that blossoms, which blooms during night, as if day