who, by "patient continuance in well-doing," seeks eternal life; but she did not realise that her children were yet old enough to draw inferences from the lives of those around them. Besides, they had not as yet emerged from the routine of the nursery, and were little in their mother's society, except at stated times, when she felt able to have the merry, and often noisy, little group round her. Vainly on such occasions had she tried to rivet their love and interest in those unseen things by her wise, earnest talk; but she was sadly conscious that her efforts had failed and her prayers were still unanswered.

Had Mrs. Hepburn not forgotten that, after all, the work was not hers, but the Lord's? Truly, there are more ways in earth and heaven than our poor narrow faith ever dreams of by which the Captain of our Salvation gathers into His service His scattered soldiers to be.

And so it happened that, unknown to her mother, Lily Hepburn now understood for the first time, that if prayer is really worthy of the name, it must be the deeply earnest utterance of a deeply-felt need.

Long after the other curly heads were fast asleep, Lily sat up in her little crib and looked wakefully about. The candle had been taken away, but the embers on the nursery hearth sometimes flickered up for a moment, and the reflection of the flame kept dancing on the wall, and made the chairs and tables throw queer shadows all about. It lighted up the shelf where the nursery Bible lay, a big black book, which Lily knew well, for she used to find the letters of the alphabet there when she was quite small; and now she sometimes amused herself by getting it down from the shelf, to puzzle her little brothers and sisters with the great black letters at the beginning of the chapters. This was all the use that Lily had as yet made of God's Word; but to-night she wanted to look into it for another purpose. Those words which her mother had so earnestly spoken to God were surely to be found there? She fancied she remembered seeing them in one of the chapters, and wanted to find out

very much who said them, and if the person felt as sorry for being a sinner as her mamma did, though she was so good and gentle.

She glanced wistfully at the shelf, and then at the halfopen door of the inner nursery. Perhaps nurse might not be in bed yet, and how much astonished she would be if she happened to see anybody sitting on the rug reading the Bible at that time of night! It would never do, Lily thought with a sigh, so she lay down again and tried hard to sleep.

But sleep would not come to Lily; the thought of the earnest prayer she listened to that evening would keep haunting her till her lips quivered and the tears ran down her little face. Forgetting all about what nurse might think, she sat up in her crib, and, covering her face with her hands, said quite loud, "O God, help me really to pray to Thee as mamma does! Make me sorry for being a sinner, too! May I want more than to have the doll's-house, or anything else in the world-that the Lord Jesus Christ should be my Saviour! I do want it to-night; may I not forget before to-morrow!" And presently Lily was sleeping as soundly as any of her brothers and sisters.

Not long afterwards, Mrs. Hepburn left her home to seek health in sunny southern lands, taking a sad farewell of her merry boys and girls. They never saw their mother again. Before many weeks passed, Mrs. Hepburn laid down her weak, suffering body to rest in a foreign grave, and her soul went to the home of God.

I like to think that she knew and rejoiced with the angels over her Lily's prayers as they reached the Father's throne, and then she watched the little wandering feet led into paths of pleasantness and peace.

Many a year has come and gone since then, and Lily Hepburn is a middle-aged woman now. She can look back on the way the Lord has led her through these years "to humble, and to prove, and to know what was in her heart, whether she would keep His commandments or no." Many

a picture from that wilderness journey can never be forgotten by her; but among them all there is none more vivid than that early scene when she knelt by her fading mother's knee the last night she "said her prayers," the first she ever really prayed.

The Master's Footstep.

LL people who call themselves Christians acknowledge that when serious illness comes, or when we grow old in fact, when death is evidently

near at hand-it becomes, at last, really necessary to attend to the things that belong to our salvation. Thus far, all are agreed, even the most careless amongst us.

But there is one very great mistake into which a large number of people fall. They think that when that time comes, and when all further possibility of evading the question is taken from us-when it becomes so absolutely necessary that we should be prepared to meet our God—we can still be able to make the preparation on which eternal life or death must depend.

Those who risk all on this imaginary chance of recovering all at the last are acting like a foolish schoolboy, who fancies it will be time enough to begin learning his lesson when the master is coming into the room, and is about to call upon him to say it. No doubt he may think himself quite able to understand something of the lesson from a mere glance, even at the last minute; he may take it for granted that the task is an easy one, and that it cannot signify very much whether he really learns it thoroughly or not. But he finds too late that he has deceived himself -that the lesson was by no means so easy as he had fancied. Not that it would have been at all too difficult had he applied himself to it in good time, but it is far from possible to understand it at a glance. What, then, but punishment can the boy expect who is only beginning to open

his book, in order to find his place in it, when the master's footstep is heard drawing near? Can it indeed be possible that such a boy should dream of expecting to receive a prize?

Yet this is exactly what so many people do concerning the lessons which God sets before us to learn. They neglect them during all the time appointed for learning, and yet fancy that, by beginning to look them over at the last moment, they may receive the great prize of eternal blessedness!

I entreat such people to listen to a few words from one who knows something about what it feels like when we hear our Master's step approaching, and His voice calling upon us to come and say the lesson He had given us to learn.

I have had illness myself, and I have seen others suffer, and I have seen people die, and all that I have observed proves the same thing-namely, that a severe illness is not the time for any great effort of the heart or mind; on the contrary, the more ill people are, the less they are able to think.

It may happen-and, thank God, it often does happenthat some illness which takes us almost into the "valley of the shadow of death" is sent by way of warning. So gracious is our Master, even our Lord, who hath compassion on our infirmities, that sometimes He will call upon us then to come and show whether we have learnt our lesson. Then, when we mourn either that we had not learnt it all, or-having in some measure tried to do so, but without applying ourselves to the task as we should have done we grieve sorely that we do not know it as we had hoped to do, He will sometimes, in His loving mercy, give it back to us again, that we may learn it better. This further opportunity God does grant, not unfrequently, thanks be to Him, in cases where He sees that the heart is yet capable of being fully aroused. But let those whose lesson has been given back to them beware how they trifle with it any further. The fact, however, that many such

learners are even now diligently applying themselves to the work which God has once more set before them does not in the least alter that other fact of which we have been speaking—namely, that a last illness is very, very rarely a time when people are able really to turn to God, and still more rarely is it a time when there can be any certainty that such repentance is true.

When those who have never really drawn near to God, through faith in Christ, are told that they are going to die, they may be frightened; but that is quite another matter. More frequently, however, they feel too weak and ill to care deeply about anything. The hour has come when they are being called upon to say their lesson; and not only the time for learning it is past, but the power of attending to it has gone too.

And though there may have been some few exceptional cases in which people have repented with true repentance, even in a last illness, most assuredly it may be said that this has never been known, for certain, to have been the case with any one person who had wilfully put it off till then.

However, supposing that there were very many more such instances than there can possibly be, and supposing that any one of us could make sure of being amongst them, would it not be all the more basely ungrateful to delay turning to God until that last hour-till it is too late to serve Him? What should we say of a man who behaved so to ourselves?

Let me ask you, whoever is reading these words, to imagine for a moment that there was some person who expected to receive a very great favour from you- the greatest possible obligation, and that meanwhile you intrusted him with some work to do for you-something which would prove his fitness for the position in which you were willing to place him; suppose, also, that you gave him a sufficient sum of money for carrying out your plan: if that person, because he did not care for you in the least,