-His grace is sufficient for all. If you are poor, come to Him who, though He was rich, for your sake became poor. If you are homeless, make a refuge and a home of the bosom of Him who, while the foxes had holes, and the birds of the air had nests, had not where to lay His head. O, if I could but persuade only one to take up the cross of Christ, how happy I should be! For I should then feel that something had been done by the blessing of God upon these simple words, not only towards rescuing an immortal soul from death, but to the bringing about of that glorious time when the murky clouds of iniquity shall give way before the rising of that bright Sun of Righteousness, on whose broad face shall be written in letters as vivid as lightning, and as with a pen of fire-Here is at length the Jubilee of the World-here are the triumphs of the Son of God!

THERE are some people who are always fancying that they have something very grievous the matter with them-who never can be reasoned out of the belief that they must assuredly die in the course of next week-who are never at peace unless a doctor is feeling their pulse-and who are always requesting every one who comes near them to look at their tongues, although they have not the slightest desire to be gratified with a sight of it. If you tell such people as these that they are looking much better than when you saw them last, they will feel quite insulted. They will exclaim, with a sort of sinking languor, "Better, sir! I never was worse in all my life, although I have been a great sufferer for the last fifty-seven years. I never felt so ill as I do at this moment. The flush upon my face, which you mistake for the bloom of health, is nothing but the hectic glow of a consuming fever; and the lustre of the eye, which may look to you at first sight like reviving spirits, is only the last struggling upleaping of the flame ere it goes spark out for ever."

There is nothing more easy than thus to delude ourselves that we are the hapless victims of some incurable malady, and to worry ourselves and other people with the incessant story of our ills.

Go some autumn or winter season to Buxton or Bath, to Cheltenham, Leamington, or Harrogate, or any other of these delectable resorts, where would-be invalids are always bathing in dirty water, and drinking unheard of quantities of liquid which once upon a time might have been water, but which a certain coterie of learned physicians have, by their chemical experiments and sage practical operations, long ago changed into a cesspool of magnesia and chalk; something, both in composition and colour, like London milk. Go, I say, to one of these chosen retreats for gouty old half-pay officers, and dropsical dowagers

of the ginger beer persuasion, and there you will have an opportunity of beholding some of the fashionable ailments of humanity. Early in the morning you will meet young ladies of sixty-two, and old boys of eighty-four, flirting, and ogling one another out of Bath chairs, in the Pump-room, where they drink enough of the before-mentioned dirty water to float a seventy-four gunship. About the middle of the day you will see the "old boys" through the window of the Athenæum glaring at the columns of the Times, to see if any more imbecile old women have been added to the pension-list, or received commissions in the army. The paper shakes in the old boy's quivering hand, as though his doctor had ordered him to imbibe something more than he got at the Pump-room; for, being an old soldier, of course he would not act without orders. And at this time of the day, you will see the mincing young girls of sixty-two reclining in their wheeled chairs, pretending to read Tennyson and to admire nature, but in reality darting spiteful glances at each other, and venting the ill-temper-which the paint upon their cheeks, and the cosmetique upon their eyebrows, and the false teeth, the false curls, and the false smile, cannot quite conceal-upon poor little buttons," who propels the load of vanity from behind its locomotive throne, like first childhood trundling second childhood to the churchyard in a wheelbarrow. Again, in the evening you will meet all this bewitching society congregated together in the Assembly Rooms, where the gouty old boys and the charming occupants of the Bath chairs, are sitting at little round tables, playing whist and ecarté; while the more juvenile portion of the party, those varying from forty-nine to seventytwo, are ambling and whisking about the room, under the firm impression that they are dancing a quadrille.

If you ask these people what ails them, they will tell you a most appaling story. The rickety old carpet-knights who wear regimentals, and who regularly receive their half-pay at the expense of an ungrateful country, but who never saw a battlefield except in a picture, and never beheld a fight except upon the stage, and never went further than Paris and the Rhine from their native shores these valiant veterans will tell you some such tale as this :-"Ah, sir, if you had seen as much of the wear and tear of camp-life, as I have if you had spent seven years amongst the wilds of India, as I have if you had sat all night watching for the attack of the barbarians, by the light of the camp-fire, as I have-if you had led on a regiment of soldiers to the charge, through prairie and morass, through brake and bog, as I have-if you had been knocked about in all weathers,

and in all climates, as I have-you would not be surprised at my being a little in want of rest and doctoring." Now, if the old hypocrite spoke the truth, he would say:-"If you had led a lazy, good-for-nothing life, as I have if you had spent the best part of your existence in guzzling and boozing, as I haveif you had been a pampered and licentious rake, as I have—if you had gone to bed beastly drunk three times a week, for fiveand-thirty years, as I have you would not be astonished that my hand should sometimes shake a little now, or that my nose should be a little purple at the tip, or in short that I should be verging towards my last legs." But on the matter of their ailments people seldom are thoroughly straightforward and honest. Even the faded spinsters who jog in and out of the pump-room in their wheel chairs, as though they never could contain themselves except when they were troubling the waters or the waters were troubling them-even they will ascribe their fancied indisposition to the most romantic and poetical causes conceivable. They will tell you that their souls are too large for their bodies, whereas no one in his senses would ever suspect them of having any souls at all. If you look incredulous, they will refer you to the medical man, Dr. Lollypop, in support of their assertion. Dr. Lollypop is a tall, slim gentleman, who carries a black cane when he walks, and drives a black mare in a black gig when he rides, and wears a black coat, a black wig, and prescribes black draughts, whether he rides or walks. Let us accompany him on one of his professional visits to the stout old lady in the green turban, whom we met at the pump-room in the morning. The worthy lady is just undergoing the process of having her cheeks painted with a most juvenile bloom, out of a small paint-pot which contains "the dew of her youth," when she hears the doctor's gig drive up to the door. She hurriedly dismisses the maid with the hare's foot and the paint, and snatches up a handsomely bound copy of Longfellow's "Hyperion," and gently and gracefully reclining upon the sofa, she turns the book wrong way upwards in her confusion, and waits in a studious agitation the doctor's introduction. At length the door flies open, and the maid, who has just locked up the paint-pot, cries out, "Dr. Lollypop, your ladyship!" (Enter Lollypop with his most approved professional smile, and his head respectfully bent forward.) "Ah, doctor," says the languishing beauty, "is it you? I scarcely expected to see you to-day; you have taken me quite by surprise." (Of course the old hag has been expecting him the last two hours.) "You know what a little thing upsets me." "Has your ladyship been to the pump-room to-day ?" asks

Lollypop, with another bland smile. "O, dear, yes! and drunk my usual seventeen tumblers of the delicious water." "Good; it appears to have imparted quite a glow to your ladyship's countenance." "Ah, I fear that is the excitement occasioned by reading this delightful book. I have read 150 pages this very morning," &c., &c., &c. So they go on. The doctor knows how to play his cards, and so he compliments the lady upon a roseate tint upon her cheek which was not there two days ago for a very good reason, because the perfumer had not got any rouge or red paint, and the bloom could not be put on-he discerns a gloss about the hair which he says is a sure sign of returning health, and is the effect of the seventeen tumblers of dirty water every morning-well knowing that the fair creature is as bald as a Dutch cheese, and that the luxuriant ringlets belong to her newly-imported wig from London. These are a few of the ways in which people will coquet with death; these are just specimens of the barriers they will build to screen themselves for a little from the sound of his step, and the sight of his leering grin. But if stern truth were to answer the question "What ails thee?" what would be its reply? Would it talk about a shattered nervous system, debility, depression, excitement, and all that nonsense, and conclude by prescribing tumblers of water and Bath chairs? No; it would say, you are dying, and will ere long be in your grave. You may try to cheat yourself, but you cannot cheat death, even with a daub of paint and a wig. You may have the nose of your own dead body painted blue if you like, but death will have you, paint and all. And if you want a prescription from me, I say, get ready for what must come. Prepare to meet thy God. If you want a beauty-spot to deck you out for death, seek for the beauty of holiness, which can deck you out for immortality. If you want water, seek for the water of life which the Great Physician has prescribed, and after which you shall never thirst again. If you want a chair, seek for a chariot of fire which shall carry you to heaven, and a throne on which shall shine the brightness of the smile of God. If you want a doctor, go to Him who can dispense the healing balm of Gilead. If you want prescriptions, go to the Bible, and take the promises of the Lord of Hosts to bear you up in the Dark Valley of the Shadow of Death.

But poor people have their ailments as well as the rich. It isn t quite so easy for them, either, to shut out the face of the destroyer. Go to the poor man's home; see a whole family "cabined, cribbed, confined," within one narrow room. The air is hot and close, and smells as if it never came from