meaning cavalry or riders. Then the meaning is, they hired 32,000 auxiliaries, who usually were mounted on chariots or horses, but who sometimes fought on foot, which makes it agree with the latter text, in which the Syrian auxiliaries are stated to amount exactly to 32,000, besides 1,000 whom they hired of the king of Maachah, and who very likely were footmen.

SUBSTITUTION,

"Nor consider that it is expedient for us, that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not.”—Jour xi. 50.

A CERTAIN town, called Ekrikok, was devoted to destruction for high treason. But it was allowed to redeem itself, partly by a fine, and partly by one life being offered in expiatory sacrifice for the whole, which was accomplished in the person of a new slave, bought for the purpose. Mr. Waddell, the missionary, remonstrating on the subject with "Old Egho Jack, the head of a great family," that personage asserted that "it was impossible the affair could be settled without a death, for Egho law was the same as God's law to Calabar, and he pointedly asked me if it were better for all Ekrikok to die, or for one slave instead to die for all the town? I thought of the words of Caiaphas, and of the value of life as substitution and atonement for sin. A poor slave, bought in the market for a few hundred coppers, by his death redeemed a town, for which many thousands of money would have availed nothing.”—Miss. Record of the U. P. Church.

THE KIND SHOEBLACKS.

"Silver and gold have I none; but such as I have give I thee."ACTS iii. 6.

A SHORT time ago I was passing along a busy thoroughfare as two boys of the Shoeblack Brigade were eating their dinners. With the causeway for their table, and a couple of thick slices of bread and meat each for their portion, the poor lads seemed thoroughly content, and ate with a relish which many a rich man would have given pounds to possess. When they had about half done, one of them made a sudden stop, as something attracted his attention. Whispering a few words to his companion, he gathered up the remaining half of their dinners, and running after a poor beggar man, generously gave it to him, and then, with happy face, returned to his lowly occupation.

A PARTING WORD TO THE
CHURCH'S CHILDREN.

CHILDREN of our own and of the Church, dearly beloved and longed for, our joy and our crown, you are round us now in church, in school, and on the household hearth; but we must soon bid each other farewell. We must watch your dying bed, or bid you a last adieu as you wait around our own. If any of you be taken from us, we must know the deep anguish of a father's heart, as he cries with David, "I shall go to him, but he shall not come to me!" And, oh, in that hour of sore trial, may we have the comfortable recollection of past fidelity, and the scriptural ground of hope that we have trained a child for God.

The hand of time, scattering snow over the heads of some of us, warns us that we must soon go. Our years are gliding away, our eyes are becoming dim, one bond after another is broken, but still we cling to our chil dren: to country and early friends, to earth's riches and pleasures, we can say farewell. The recollections of early days, the absorbing thoughts of busy life, fly at the approach of death; but our heart still lingers by our own fireside, and the affections and fond remembrances, and all the domestic tenderness of our homes and our families hover round us still. We desire to treasure up now, in our dearest and best beloved, hope for the day when flesh and heart shall fail-hope that our memory, as the memory of the just, shall flourish in our family; and that one Name as ointment poured forth shall be the savour of life unto life to the sons of coming years. With a patriarch's piety we desire to command our children and our household after us, that with a patriarch's faith we may bless them.

By our teaching, example, and prayers, dear children, if you bow, abide in strength, and the "arms of your hands" be made strong by the hands of the mighty God of Jacob, then with confidence we commit each of you to the orphan's God, saying, "Even by the God of thy fathers who shall help thee; and by the Almighty, who shall bless thee with blessings of heaven above, blessings of the deep that lieth under, blessings of the breasts, and of the womb; the blessings of thy father hath prevailed above the blessings of my progenitors unto the utmost bound of the everlasting hills; they shall be on the head of each young Joseph, and on the crown of the head of him who was separated from his brethren.”

These words of mine are spoken to the young, the

strong, and yet the weak; the living, yet the dying; in the morning of life, so full of confidence, yet so full of danger; the time of folly, yet the time of temptation; the unsuspicious time, and yet the time of false friends and cunning foes; the time of lusty, cheerful life, and yet the harvest-time of death-the rank grass waves over many little graves; the decisive time of life-for, as life decides for eternity, so does youth for time; the time for defeat or victory-the battle lost or won for evermore.-DR. EDGAR.

AN EVENING PRAYER.

O JESUS fold me in thy gentle arms,
And guard thy little lamb from all alarms
Through this dark night.

O Jesus, do thou pardon all my sin,

And in thy precious blood wash me quite clean,
And set me right.

O Jesus, bless my friends so kind and dear,
Take care of them, and be thou very near
To all this night.

THE JUVENILE REPORTER.

THE REPORTER is not well enough to write much just at this moment but he cannot refrain from saying, however imperfectly, how thankful and delighted he is at the results of this year's work. The Mission Fund is closed for the year, and it amounts to the goodly sum of

when he said it was Now we have got to

£320 4s. 7d. The REPORTER felt quite sure that his young friends could and would do it possible to raise the fund to £300. a respectable sum beyond this amount, which is about £26 more than we raised last year. To every one who has assisted in this work he would say,-May the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, for the spread of whose Gospel the money has been gathered, bless you all with his own rich saving grace, and enable you to abound more and more in this noble work of well-doing. The REPORTER would now beg for the exercise of a little patience on the part of his young friends, until he can find room to print all the lists, as it is not possible to acknowledge them all in one number, nor perhaps in two. But they may all rest assured that no time shall be lost on his part.