A RAILWAY JOURNEY: A STORY FOR GIRLS. laid aside, and her heart was yet sore from loss of home, and the breaking up of early ties. Presently their eyes met, and a kindly smile encouraged Maggie to chatter on, as she was evidently disposed to do. "I have been visiting my eldest sister," she said; "she was married in the summer, and I have been to T was a cold, wintry day, and the face of her new home in S-shire. I have had a delightful the country looked dreary from the plat-time, and I have been away from home for nine weeks. form of a railway station, where two This morning I had such loving letters from them all young girls were walking in earnest con- at home, and we have a little baby niece who lives with versation. One of them was a pale, slender us,-oh, I do long to see her. She is my brother's girl in deep mourning, with such traces of little girl, and her poor mamma died when she sorrow and care in her face, that a third was born. They tell me she can walk now; oh, she lady who passed and re-passed them as she is such a pet." walked quickly up and down to keep herself warm, felt strangely drawn by sympathy and pity to the lonely young stranger, who was evidently only exchanging a passing greeting, and giving some explanations to her young friend. Miss Martyn caught snatches of their conversation as she passed, and gathered some of the scattered hints from which she was given to build up fancies and imagine stories about chance fellow-passengers. She hoped this sad-looking young girl might travel with her, and was beginning to plan how she might try to reach her with sympathy and comfort, when the train for which they were waiting came up. For a few minutes all was bustle and confusion. Many had reached their destination, and there was the search for luggage, and the rushing to and fro of anxious ladies; distracted mothers with their babies in their arms, and tiny children round them, and people of all sorts, bent on business or pleasure, made a confused and noisy throng. Then there was a lull, and other passengers took their seats. The young friends parted with a kiss. "Good bye, dear Maggie." Tears were on the pale young face, and her veil hastily drawn down; but, to the disappointment of her intending comforter, she was left standing on the platform, keeping guard over her box; and the lady found her bright young companion was her only fellow-traveller. She watched her with admiring and sympathetic glance, taking in the happy story told by the sweet young face, the pretty, warm attire, and all the possessions she was arranging so carefully; a plant, guarded from the frosty air by matting, a bird in a cage, with an eider-down cover, at which she peeped lovingly; and all the little comforts that betokened tender care, and watchful love. A few words of courtesy about the intensity of the cold, and the foot-warmer they agreed to share, soon paved the way for conversation. Miss Martyn said, "I fear your friend was in trouble. I was quite sorry we had to leave her standing there alone." "Yes," said the girl, with a quick change in her expressive face; "she has lost her father lately, and is going into a situation as governess. I was very, very sorry for her to-day. She does not know the place or the people where she is going, and she seems so sad. It is so different for me; I am going home to my dear mother and father, and all my brothers and sisters.-Oh! I am sorry for Nellie." There was silence for awhile; and they watched the falling snow, as the train sped on; stopped at a little station, and then started again. Miss Martyn's eyes were full of tears. She was no longer young; but the mourning for her father was not "I can quite fancy how you love her," said Miss Martyn: "I am going now to my sister, who has three dear little children, and I long to see them. But I have just come from a dear old friend who is dying, and iny thoughts are full of her to-day." The two ladies had books; but they had put them aside, and neither seemed to desire any other entertainment than conversation; for they had quickly become interested in each other. The young girl listened, as to a story, while her new friend talked as the wintry afternoon darkened into evening. "I have just had such a strange bit of experience," said Miss Martyn. "From the midst of a busy life, I was suddenly called to sit, several hours in two or three days, in the hush of a sick room; watching one I remember as a brilliant woman, courted and admired in society, now in the last stage of mortal weakness and suffering. Does it interest you to hear about her?" "Oh! very much," said Maggie, drawing nearer. "She has travelled a great deal," said Miss Martyn. "After a girlhood spent in a quiet country village, she went, after her marriage, first to America, then to India, where she lived for many years; and since her husband's death, she has lived for years in Germany. As I watched her yesterday evening, I could not help thinking of the various scenes she had witnessed. She has stood behind the falls of Niagara, sat on the top or th car of Juggernaut, been carried by native bearers nearly 2000 miles from the North of India to Calcutta, sometimes being set down by the roadside while they ran off into the nearest village to buy food; and, as they often changed, she sometimes did not understand a word of theirlanguage. She has climbed the Pyramids, explored the Black Forest, and knows many continental cities and towns as well as her native place. Yet now she is dying alone in lodgings in a little English town, with hardly one of the friends of her life near her. As a girl, she was unusually accomplished, gifted, and admired; but oh! what would it all be to her now, unless she had a happy simple trust in Jesus as her Saviour and her all ?” "She is happy then?" said the young girl softly with a sigh. "Yes, she is quite happy now" said Miss Martyn. "But she lived for some time with very sceptical friends, and their influence had shaken her trust and sorely distressed her. She came back to England feeling that she must, for very life, return to the old strongholds. A house built upon the sand may do for a few brief bright days, my dear; but when the clouds gather and the storm comes, then we know that nothing will do but the rock. This dear friend of mine knew in Whom all her dear ones gone before had trusted; and she felt that she too must be leaning only on Him, to meet the end." A wistful look had come into the merry, brown eyes, and Maggie sat pondering the story for a while. Then suddenly she said, "Now I am in my own country! I always feel, when I get here, that I am near home." A little lively talk followed, in which Maggie told the number of her brothers and sisters, and some of the eccentricities of a certain dearly beloved uncle, whom she expected to find at home. The daylight had faded away, and the dim rays of the lamp in the railway-carriage only served to shew the intensity of the darkness outside. The guard who came to look at their tickets was white with snow; the frost crusted over the windows. They were nearing the outskirts of a great town, and beacon lights shone out from many a home. "My dear," said the elder lady, "we shall very soon have to part: I get out at the next station." "What a pleasant time we have had together!" said Maggie. "I am so very glad that you spoke to me, and that we have been talking all the time; instead of sitting in our corners without exchanging a word, as people so often do." "I wonder if we shall ever meet again. I am sure I should know you," said Miss Martyn, pleased with the sweet cordial frankness and loving look of this dear girl, the acquaintance of a few hours. "Pardon me, my dear, I am quite a stranger to you, but I cannot tell you what a rush of memories of my own girlhood it has brought to me this afternoon, to see your happiness in going home. It seems such a little while since I was a happy girl myself in a large family, just as you are: and now, now they are all gone;-my dear mother, and father, and one dear sister, in Heaven; the rest, all scattered and gone. I do not want to sadden you in your brightness: but let me say this; remember how this sweet time of home-life will glide away. Make the very best of it while you have it; do not be a bit afraid of loving them all too much: but remember, that to be a really good daughter and sister, you must know the Zord Jesus-trust Him-follow Him-draw strength and grace from Him. Tell me, is it so? Is He dearest of all to you?" No answer came but tears, and the pressure of a little hand. The train rushed into a long tunnel and out into a brilliantly-lighted station. A word of kindly farewell, and warm shake of the hand, and they parted. Miss Martyn drove away in a cab. Maggie had to go on for another half-hour alone. Probably her thoughts went out for a little while to the lady who had been talking so earnestly to her; and then, the anticipations of the home welcome, and its speedy realization, would for a time put everything else to flight. They have never met again; but her fellow-traveller has never forgotten Maggie. Many a time she has prayed that the little seed, sown that afternoon, may have its harvest; that some deeper purpose, some more earnest longing and striving after the present friendship of the Lord Jesus, and heart preparation for the one unchanging Home, may have sprung from that wayside talk. of the chances and changes of this mortal life; of its inevitable sorrows; the heart ache, the loneliness, the calls to new and untried paths of difficult duty, that may lie so close to the happiest life. What would it be to you to face these without Jesus? What will it be to them? Many of them are waiting the guidance of a loving hand, the prayerful heart-felt words of one who knows the path of peace. Oh, by all the love that lights up your own pathway, I charge you do not be afraid or ashamed to tell them the secret of true life. And you who are living securely and at ease in happy homes, satisfied with the pursuits and pleasures of the quickly passing days; knowing that the great questions of eternity hang over you still unfaced, unanswered, yet putting off their solemn consideration for the distractions of study, amusement, and the various claims of social life-think of it. As surely as the river swiftly glides on to the sea, so surely, whether you think of it or not, is your life rushing on to changes, sorrows, calls of duty, and needs for strength and grace of which you do not dream now. Lonely Nellie, starting in solitary sadness to meet an untried life, is no rare or remarkable figure in this sorrowful world. Not to shadow the joyousness of your hearts, or cloud the brightness of your summer morning, do we send you such messages as these, dear girls; but we, who have gone a little farther on, look back and cry to you, "Lay hold of Jesus for your life: His hand is outstretched to help you; oh grasp it now. Rejoice in your youth, in your health, in your unbroken circle; for God would have you to rejoice and be glad: but let His love be the sunshine of your bright days, that it may be your sure refuge and comfort in the time to come." J. E. B. What are Christians for? A CHRISTIAN lady, who was engaged in work for the poor and degraded, was once remonstrated with by one who was well acquainted both with her and with those whom she sought to reach, for going among such a class of people. "It does seem wonderful to me sit beside these people, and talk with them in a way that you can do such work," her friend said. "You that I do not think you would do if you knew all about them, just what they are, and from what places they come." THE religion of many persons begins too high up Dear Christian girls, when you come in contact the ladder; the first rounds are omitted-sin, convicwith other girls as you cross and re-cross their pathway tion of sin, humiliation before God. But at the end of in the busy throngs of daily life, do not fear to speak life, conscience demands a hearing; unforgiven sin to them of Him whose you are, and whom you serve. starts into unwelcome prominence, and the sun often They need Him: they will yet need Him more. Think goes down in a thick bank of anxiety and fear. Second Week. "An inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time."-1 Peter i. 4, 5. Third Week.-"Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me? hope in God: for I shall yet praise Him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God."-Psalm. xliii. 5. Fourth Week.-"Thy sun shall no more go down; neither shall thy morn withdraw itself: for the Lord shall be thine everlasting light, and the days of thy mourning shall be ended."-Isaiah lx. 20. eyes of men are ever irresistibly drawn to the wondrous Person of the four Gospels, it tells us also that we are in an age af restlessness, when men have become widely discontented with the thoughts of their fathers, and when no man is content with the thoughts of any other man. Some of the "Lives of Jesus Christ which have appeared in this country or on the continent during the last forty years, we do not like at all; and many-we fear we must say the majority, even of those which contain much that is good, contain also a semi-rationalistic element which we think fitted to do evil. In presence of these facts, we are glad to be able to say that we like the present volume for the believing spirit in which it handles the sacred theme: it does not distress us with rationalistic explaining away, minimizing, or ignoring, the supernatural in the Redeemer's person and life; nor yet by an attempt to separate the human from the Divine life in thought and treatment, as if explicable and comprehensible as a life by itself. The author tells us that his aim is to unfold the inward and ever lasting significance of the outward facts of the great Life, finding the Godhead as well as the manhood in them all, and finding also one unchanging purpose of dying for the sins of men, consistently The method of treatcarried out from the cradle to the cross. ment is popular and practical, but very fresh, and the style very pleasant. Of course it will be to no Christian a substitute for the Divine four Gospels; a theme so high, a subject so vast, who can expound or summarize as it deserves? It is much to say that this book is safe and pleasant, and will, we hope, be profitable. Garden Graith; by Sarah F. Smiley (London: Hodder & Stoughton). These are delightful and profitable "Talks among my Flowers." Miss Smiley not only observes well, and describes well, but does so with meditation and prayer. A former book of hers we had occasion to commend highly on purely religious grounds: this one, breathing the like religious spirit, and inculcating excellent spiritual lessons, has the great superadded charm of accurate and graceful rural description. There is much new information about flower-culture to be got here, and that information is so utilized in a spiritual way, that we recomend the book as a very suitable present--especially for young ladies. Floral Scripture Leaflets. A Packet of 50 Handbills, in elegant Floral Designs, beautifully printed in Colours, with Scripin Sabbath Scho tus in clear type. Suitable for distribution for general circulation. Price 6d. per packet, post free. Also, the above, with the Texts printea GAELIC. Price 6d. per packet, post free. Beautifully printed in Blue and Gold, on Card. Price 2s. 6d. per 100, or 18 for Sixpence, post free. No. 1. Six Short Rules for Young Christians. By Brownlow North, Esq. 2. Rules for Daily Life (in verse). 3. 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