of your need of grace, to seek Him with your whole heart. And from such devoutness during the ordinary service I would beseech you to go on to a higher act of faith; I would beseech you to make a still nearer approach to your Saviour by partaking of His Body and Blood in the blessed Sacrament of His Supper. Are the farmers of England, as a body, Communicants ? I fear not. Or are you?

8. In speaking of Sundays, let us not think that some two hours in Church make up the Sunday. This two hours' attendance in Church is often used as a sort of beginning and end of the religious part of the day. After Church many a farmer, though his men are at home and his ploughs stand still, continues to farm, that is, his mind, his heart is there. He goes and looks over his stock and over his fields, and though his hands are in his pocket, he is in his heart as busy in his farm as if he were really at work. Now I pray you to turn your whole heart away from worldly business on the Lord's day; turn away your heart from your stock; if you take a walk, go any where but over your own fields or among your own cattle. They may become tempters to you in your Sunday path and draw your thoughts away from the things of God.

And now let me speak of those whom you employ, of your farm-servants, your labourers, whether in the house or out. O how much a Christian farmer may do among the labourers of the farm! How much he may influence them for good, lead them towards God, check evil habits, keep them out of harm's way. O how very much needs to be done in farm-houses, how little have the labourers been overlooked; how low have been the morals of farm servants; how unwillingly would any careful Christian mother trust her girl in such a place. If times are bad with farmers, have not farmers had something to do with it themselves? Have they not failed to rule their households in the fear of God? Have they not kept but slight oversight of their dairy-maids and plough-boys as long as their work was done. Mend your household and your farms will mend. Think more of your duty as a Christian master towards those whom you employ. This is my most earnest counsel ; may not agricultural distress have come as a chastisement for the neglected duties of agriculturists ?

If you ask what is to be done to mend your labourers' ways, I will speak my I will speak my mind. Why should you not, once in the day at least, we will

say in the evening, gather all your household together, and read some short portion of Scripture and make them all kneel down in prayer? Then you might have good books for their use, which your clergyman might help you to get. In winter evenings much foolish talking might be stopped, much time now idled away might be profitably spent, if good books were put into your servants' hands; some might be read aloud. Then you might speak to them about their private prayers, which so many of them are apt utterly to neglect. On Sundays there might be opportunities of giving them instruction, or of persuading them to seek the clergyman's aid. You might also take care that both your indoor and out-door labourers should be regular at Church. You You might check ill words and oaths, and be careful of the words you use yourself; you might check drinking, and do much to stop visits to the public house.

In many such ways you might be your labourer's friend, a friend of his soul; and believe me, a farmer who is a labourer's friend, is a friend to himself. Many points will suggest themselves to you in which you might shew regard for the salvation of those who are under your rule. I will not go into further particulars.

After all, if you rule yourself after Christ's law, if you are yourself seeking to be saved, if God is in all your thoughts, you will find many occasions every day of acting upon your household. Warmed yourself with a love of God, you will yourself be like leaven in your house. A more Christian and religious tone will gradually diffuse itself through your home; a more Christian spirit will manifest itself in all that is done, in all the common actions of the day. Happy and blessed is that farm-house where the things of God are in great esteem.

Such then is the advice of "a farmer's friend." I end as I began. Give more heed to godliness; live better as well as farm better; you are seeking to improve your land that it may grow more grass and corn, seek also to be more fruitful in good works; improvement is wanted. within as well as without. Let not your farm be your god; let not your heart rise or fall with the weather glass, but be anxious about your salvation. The time is coming when you will have to leave your oxen, your stacks, your barns, your sheep. All, all must be left; naked you came into the world, naked will you go out.

JOHN HENRY PARKER, OXFORD AND LONDON.

HAVE YOU CEASED TO COMMUNICATE?

It was a fine Sunday morning and James. Hill was in Church as usual. If you had watched him during the latter part of the sermon you would have seen that he was uneasy and uncomfortable in his mind, that something in the sermon seemed to touch him, and that his conscience was disturbed. Yes, his conscience would not let him sit at ease, and some of the Rector's words went like an arrow to his heart.

Now let me tell you something about this James Hill, and then you will see what cause he had to be pricked by the latter part of the sermon he heard that Sunday. James Hill about two years before had had a long and dangerous sickness. The sickness doubtless was sent in mercy to his soul. During the long hours that he lay upon his bed he began to commune with