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situation, and was earnestly entreating the manager to take the lad back again.

"What has he done to merit this dismissal ?" asked the father. "I thought that when once he entered an establishment like this his success in life was secured."

"So it would have been," replied the manager. I have been here since I was a boy, and I certainly would not wish to be in the service of a better firm, and your boy has only himself to thank that he has lost his situation."

"But has he committed any serious offence? What has he done that he was not allowed to remain here?"

"Oh, ho! We believe him to be quite honest, and there can be no doubt as to his cleverness, and he is most gentlemanly in his bearing, but he has one great fault-he is too much of a genius for his position here. In a large business such as this, it is necessary that every one engaged in it should keep steadily, hour after hour, at his work. I have done so for forty years now, until there is scarcely anything so enjoyable to me as to be employed at my books. Now the great fault with your son is that he can't plod. It is the plodder that we want here. The genius may find a field for himself somewhere in the world, but he is out of place here. Unless a boy or a man is willing to stick closely to his work, and during business hours to mind his business, steadily, manfully plodding on day after day, he will not do for us. I have had experience enough of men and boys during my business life to be able quickly to judge whether or no they will do for us, and my opinion of your boy, after the few months he has been with us, is, that he can't plod, and therefore we have dismissed him."

"Well, it's very hard," replied the father.

"How am I

to alter the boy's disposition? Cannot you try him again ?” "I do not think the alteration rests with you," said the manager; "it is a matter for the boy. He must try by God's help to overcome his restless ways, and endeavour, like a man, to do the duty God has allotted him. However, as you seem desirous that he should continue here, we will

give him another trial, but only on condition that he is willing to keep at his post. We want no geniuses here, except those who have the genius to plod."

The father expressed his thanks, and the boy came back, and by God's help became a faithful and valued servant of the firm, and is still thankful for the lesson taught him by the painful experience of his early dismissal.

A young man had come to stay for a few days with a friend who had recently been appointed as the clergyman of a parish in the north of England. They had met in a

room upon the walls of which were hung certificates, medals, and many other evidences of the young clergyman's successful career at school and college. On the table and bookshelves were many handsomely-bound volumes, whose inscriptions told of their being the rewards in hard-fought competitions. As their owner, with excusable pride, showed these prizes, his friend exclaimed:

"What a genius you must be to have gained all these!" "I don't know whether you call it genius," was the reply. "As far as I know it is all the result of hard head-work. There is not one of these prizes that you see round the room which did not cost me weeks of constant study. God has blessed me with a sound constitution, and has maintained my health, and thus enabled me, early and late, to prosecute my studies. I do not think that genius will account for any successes I may have gained, unless genius means the power that God has given me to make full use of all my opportunities and steadily plod on at my books, resisting all counter attractions. Depend upon it, there is no royal road to learning. It is the man that steadily and undeviatingly plods along the road of daily duty who wins the prize in this and in all other spheres of life."

And now, turning to matters of spiritual life, we find the same rule which applies to our temporal affairs applies with equal force in higher and heavenly matters. It is by faith and patience that we inherit the promises, it is by patient continuance in well-doing that we show that we are truly

seeking for glory and honour and immortality, and that we at last obtain eternal life.

"It's of no use for me to try to be good," said a working man to a minister who had called upon him. "I have been to church often, and heard the minister telling us we must give up our sins and do what God wants us to do, and then I have come home and made up my mind to be better, but before the day has gone I have done something that was wrong, and forgotten all about my good intentions. It's no use my trying to be good, so I have given it all up."

"Ah, my friend," replied the minister, "you did not begin in the right way. I quite agree with you that it is of no use for you to try in your own strength to be better You must manfully struggle against your desire to sin and pray for the help of God's Holy Spirit, who will come and help your spirit in this conflict with spiritual foes who are trying to draw you away from the service of God. But it is only a coward who will give up; a true, brave man will steadfastly resist the temptation, and in God's strength will be certain of victory."

The Christian has been frequently compared to a soldier, and such he should be. First of all must come the enlistment-the sorrow for past sin; for past service of the Evil One, for past fighting against God; and then the giving up ourselves to God, the cry for forgiveness, for the blotting out and taking right away from God's book of remembrance of all our wrong-doing, because we have cast ourselves upon the righteousness of Jesus Christ. He died instead of us; he bore the punishment which was due for our sins instead of our having to bear it ourselves. Having, then, accepted Jesus Christ as our Saviour, and having our sins blotted out for His sake, we are enlisted, as it were, in the King's army, with the banner of the cross flying over us. comes the time of conflict with daily, hourly temptation, and manful resistance in the power which God has promised to give us.

Now

Some, by their lives, appear to think that having made a profession of their belief in Jesus, they have done all that is required of them. But this is a fearful mistake. When we have got rid of the consequences of our past sins, it is needful that we should get rid of the sins themselves. There must be no geniuses here, no excited endeavours to gain perfect holiness all at once; no giving up of the ordinary avocations of life and vainly endeavouring to hide ourselves away from its temptations; no dallying with worldly pleasures and sins; no restless, uncertain living between God and the Devil, a few days or hours of doing right and then whole weeks or months in which God is forgotten in sinfulness. No, the victory now is to the plodder, the one who will with steadfast determination meet every temptation, and in God's strength say that it shall not cause him to sin, but shall be resisted and overthrown. If there is any specially easily besetting sin, then we must prayerfully work to crush it out, and not give up the effort because of seeming failure. Each day must begin with prayer for help, each temptation must cause our cry to rise silently to Heaven for Divine assistance. Like the lad in the office, and the student at his books, we must ploddingly go on, day after day, fighting against the sins which do so easily beset us, striving against all that would entice us away from the paths of holiness, hearing continually the inspiring words, "Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee the crown of life.”

HENDERSON SMITH.

They Wait for Me at Home.

Two

'wo lads were passing near the tree,
By which last night I stood,

Along a shady path that skirts

The border of the wood.

I heard them as they passed me by
Upon the woodland way,
And one desired to hurry on,
And one was for delay.

He urged his friend to stay with him,
And through the forest roam;
"No, no," said he, "that cannot be,
They wait for me at home."

66 They wait for me at home," he said,
"And so it cannot be."

I marked the word, a lesson this
Most surely is for me.

For sometimes from life's pathway I
Have tempted been to stray,
And sometimes lured by earthly wiles
Have loitered on the way;

To pluck of fruits that pall full soon,
And flowers that bloom to die,
Forgetful of my home afar

With God beyond the sky.

Thus many a time I've tempted been

To turn aside to wrong,

Forgetful that the time is short,

And that the way is long.

Now thanks, young friend, for thy brave words,
When thou wast asked to roam,

Thy answer to the tempter, "No,
They wait for me at home."

Be such my answer, these thy words
I never would forget,

But watch against the sins that do
Most easily beset;

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