for my family, instead o' givin' it to gin mills. And now I've got a comfortable, happy home, an' my children's got a bed for the first time in their lives, an' I'm clean inside an' out, bless His Holy Name! O, why won't you all believe?'

'That was the way with me,' said another equally eager. 'I said the fellows here made a soft thing out of it, an' it paid 'em well to lie; but I found plenty of 'em givin' up thievin' that brought 'em plenty of money, an' goin' hungry rather than steal. I wasn't a thief, but I was a roarin' tearin' bully, knockin' round the ward here, cursin' and swearin', an' ready for any mischief, an' Jesus took hold o' me; an' here I am, saved.'

'It is time now to change the meetin',' said Jerry, who had stood some moments waiting. 'There are men here who work hard all day, and I'm bound to let 'em out at nine o'clock. We've no time for long speeches, but I'll tell you again, what I'm never tired of tellin', and may it save some soul here to-night, that this blessed Jesus saved me. There's no sham about it. I don't tell you I was a thief and a drunkard and a fraud to glory in it, but I want you roughs to understand what Jesus has done for me. Yes. When I was such a mean, nasty wretch of a sinner, that I hadn't a home or a friend, this dear, blessed Jesus picked me up out of the mud, and saved me from wantin' to do such things. Who wouldn't love the name of Jesus? There was a time once when I'd cut a man's throat for a five dollar bill and kick him overboard. An' then there was a time when I'd plenty of money and rode behind my own fast horse, but it all came the same way. Do you suppose I'd do it now? Eh? Why not? Because I've got the grace of God in my soul. me, and He can save any man. He says: "Him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out." Jesus that hasn't got any home to-night. Him save you? Won't you come now? O, do!

Jesus saves

died for every poor fellow here Won't you come to Him and let

'We're goin' to have prayers now. Who'll stand up for prayers? There's one; there's two; three; there's another. The devil tells some of you not to do it, I tell you the devil ain't much of a friend. He goes round puttin' up all sorts of jobs on sinners, and he makes it pretty hot sometimes. You can't get the best of him, nohow. You've got to cry to God for help, an' keep cryin' till He gives it. He won't be long about it. "Ask, and you shall receive." That's what He says.

'You hear some people say the Bible is a sham, and religion a hoax. Well, it may be to them; but its God's own power to me. Why! Look at me, friends. Eleven years ago I was a loafer and a rough. Head on me like a mop; big scar across my nose all the time. I

wonder I've got a nose when I remember all the licks it got. There ain't a drunken rowdy round the corner worse lookin' than I was, nor worse deservin' punishment. I cursed God! I held up my hands and cursed Him for givin' me life. Why had He put me in a hell on earth! Why had He made me a thief and a rascal, while He gave other people money and fun! And then it came across me that He hadn't done one o' these things. It was me that had brought myself to what I was. I had made myself a drunkard and a thief, and then blamed Him for it. Where was my common sense? If you want some-and who don't-ask Him for it.

'Some say: "I'm too bad." O, what a mistake! God will take what the devil would almost refuse. Didn't He save the thief on the cross? I know a man that came into this place to lick another for having said, "Jesus saves me." Well, Jesus saved that very man himself. He came along, looking for fight, but the starch was knocked out o' him. He went away like a cur in a sack, tremblin' all over; and now he is a good man. Jesus is waitin' for every one o' you. O, won't you stand up to be prayed for?'

The strong yearning, the deep earnestness of his appeal found its answer. One after another came forward to the empty bench, whose use I now understood. The people rose and sang a hymn, and as the refrain sounded full and clear:

the most hardened looking of the men burst into tears and buried his face in his arms. Mrs. M'Auley left her place and kneeled by him; and, as all knelt, prayed a prayer of such utter faith, such happy surety, that then and there it would be answered, as my ears had never heard. I forgot to protest. Some strange, invisible presence was at work; a sense of expectation was upon me, and when M'Auley spoke low: 'Now let these poor souls pray for themselves,' I knew some

answer must come.

'O, Jesus,' said the weeping man, 'you know all about it! I'm sick of my sins. I want to be decent. You can help me. Don't let me get into the mud again.'

'I'm too bad. I'm afraid to.'

'Just say,

'I can't pray,' said the next one. 'You can't be too bad,' said M'Auley's earnest voice. "God be merciful to me a sinner!" and once more the publican's prayer went up from sinful lips. I had seen the excitement of campmeetings in years gone by, but here was a hush, a power deeper than anything I had ever known. One by one trembling voices made

their first petition-seven men, straight from the slums; and then they took their places on the bench, and for the first time I saw M'Auley's full face, as he asked one and then another what they had resolved to do. No tenderer soul ever looked upon human pain than that which now shone in his eyes and glorified his coarse features-a look more convincing of the power at work there than years of argument could have been. A deep stillness filled the room, broken only by a murmured 'Thank God!' as one after another avowed his determination to lead a new life.

'We'll pray for you. to give,' said M'Auley.

You shan't want for all the help we've got

Keep coming, and we will do you good.' It was nine o'clock. The men rose and all sang, 'Praise God, from Whom all blessings flow!' Mrs. M'Auley passed down to the door, and stood there to shake hands and give some word of help or greeting to every one who went out; and I stood watching the hearty way in which all were talking together, and the crowd who surrounded the new converts. In all the faces, I saw but two who seemed to me frauds; and as it afterwards proved, only one of them was really so.-Canadian Methodist Magazine.

T

POET-TOILERS.

BY THE AUTHOR OF CRABTREE-FOLD,' ETC VII.-ANNIE KEARY: THE WRITER, THE HOME-KEEPER. `HERE is an old fable that some spirits once returned from Hades to this world to find again a body and a sphere of energy. 'One entered a king's body, and did a king's work. Another, a poet, and did a poet's work. When Ulysses came he said, "What is left for me? All the grand work is chosen. There is no body for me." On the contrary, he was told the best was for him. "And what is that?" demanded Ulysses. "The body of a common man," was the reply, "doing a common work for a common reward." That was the portion of Ulysses.

And that, one may be sure, would have been the choice of ANNIE KEARY. The common life of woman, the common rewards of woman, were dear to her: the keeping of the home, the gentle ministries to old and young and those who went forth to labour. Only she was a poet-soul, and whatever cottage of homely common duty she abode in, was wreathed, summer and winter, with lovely climbing plants, the growth of a most delicate and fluent fancy. The happiest portion of her gentle, thoughtful life was a period of six years, during which she was called to be a mother to three little

nephews. These were golden years, in which every part of her was satisfied for mother-nature was stronger in her than any other nature.' The children were the centre of her life, and whatever new thing she learnt of bird or flower or insect she took straight to them, as a mother bird carries treasure to her nest. It was during these years that she began to write, and some of the prettiest of her children's stories were familiar to this nursery before they were made known to others. She loved to realize her hearers;' and never shaped her dreams so freely or happily for the great outside world as for that child-audience she loved so well.

Her own child-life was singularly rich in imaginative delights and in loving companionship. The nest into which God laid down her babyhood was well lined with love, and what she received there she gave out to others a hundred-fold.' Love was the very bread of life to Annie all her days; and 'you and me,' or 'all of us together,' expressed the early impulses of the little one who came on a March day of the year 1825 to a Yorkshire parsonage, the sixth child of her parents.

Very different these parents seem to have been, yet both had the art of the story-teller, and supplied their daughter with a fund of material on which she drew in after years for her books. The mother, a squire's daughter, was a true Yorkshire lady: self-contained and keen-sighted, able to draw portraits full of humour of the picturesque Yorkshire folk, and vivid sketches of the fragrant old-world life she and her sisters lived in their country home. The father was an Irish gentleman: 'a gentle, sensitive, affectionate, enthusiasticallyreligious man, endowed with all the graces that belong to the best of the Irish race, and with some of the weaknesses also.' He had served through the greater part of the Peninsular war in his youth, and after taking orders became known as an eloquent preacher, a student of theology, and the author of several controversial and religious books. 'Between him and Annie, even the child Annie, there existed always a tender affection and a full confidence.' There was ever a comradeship between them, and the little dreamer had a rooted fancy-which her father humoured that she had been his companion in arms in his soldier-days. Yes,' she would muse, 'it was papa and Annie who fought under Wellington together, and now they sit by the fire in cosy winter evenings, the two old comrades, and live the campaign over again;' while the father would end his talk with: This you and I did and dared together, Nannie. 'Twas you and I held fast side by side through that stiff march across the common in the heat. We two stormed Badajoz together, child.' Or the tale would be of the Irish home, amongst the blue mountains

of Connemara, in that Joyce country so terribly known to us now; and Annie would run barefooted across the bog with papa and his merry little foster-brothers and sisters to fish in the mountain lough, or to partake the potatoes and milk in the cabin. She would hear the soft clatter of the Irish tongue, and see sweet, misty pictures of frowning mountain-heads, and delicate purple distances, and soft, green levels shading into the blue of river and lake.'

The child-life of Annie amongst her brothers and sisters suggests and contrasts with that of the Bronté children in the grim, lonely parsonage of Haworth. Mr. Keary removed from his wife's native village to the town of Hull, when Annie was an infant; and for the pasture and garden, the pony and pet animals the older children had enjoyed, Annie, and the brother and sister next to her, had no field for fancy save the nursery or school-room, the garret or cellar of a moderate house in a most unromantic town. But these were quite enough, for the busy imaginations that could see in a dwarf woman passing along the street one rainy day under a big green cotton umbrella-and never visible before or since a 'Mrs. Calkill,' a fairy 'very good, very clever, and very powerful, who had a fairy palace somewhere, and governed the whole world by a system of rewards and dreadful punishments.' Mrs. Calkill-so named by Arthur -became a most real personage, and a journey to her palace a delightful employment for a rainy holiday when big brothers and elder sister condescended to 'do as we think proper' with the little ones. On these occasions, and on those others when father and mother were occupied outside with parish business, and Nurse Bream was in a benignant temper, the dull commonplace house used to swell into a magical land, a kingdom where all manner of delicious adventures were possible. Stairs became precipices and mountain sides, cellars were caverns, and trickling water-taps running streams. The familiar parlour became a wonderful palace, where the little discoverers unbandaged their eyes and looked round in awful delight.

There are other 'ploys,' as the Scotch say, quite as fascinating. Annie turned Mrs. Sherwood's Infant's Progress into a play, and at holiday times, when the brothers were at home, it was acted, with great vigour. After that, Mrs. Sherwood's Nun came into the hands of the little magician, and inspired a new fancy. 'There were Roman Catholics in the town, we knew. Father Render, the head of them, held a controversy once with our own father, in which, of course, he had been worsted. What more likely than that he should burn to revenge himself on somebody! He would probably take a nun and shut her up somewhere;...and when we came to think of it, what was there above the trap-door in the housemaid's closet?' So the