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respecting which our yea must be yea, and our nay, nay. Prevarication and a double sense in matters of truth and honesty I abhor; but in matters of literature, such as the title of a book or an article," we must have some latitude, and there can be no harm done when due notice is given beforehand of what is meant and intended, as in this case. I meet with a milestone on the road, but a man in the street may meet me. In either case there is a meeting, and this is all that is necessary.

I have met with many very good Christians, the hem of whose garment I should have felt honoured to touch, and the greater part of the Christians I have met with have been of this description. I do not believe in the cant of a censorious world, that nearly all professors of religion are hypocrites and deceivers. I have found them otherwise, humble, devoted, self-sacrificing men and women who have borne the image of their divine Lord, and have walked with God as Enoch did. I wonder, indeed, when I consider what a religious life implies and demands, that there are as many such as there are. We have all to come in daily contact with the world. Our employments and associations are not always-not often, in factvery elevating and inspiring. Labour to many of us is drudgery rather than work, and the reward we get is often a bare subsistence. Constant anxiety oppresses the mind. How to make ends meet is a problem which multitudes of people endowed with spiritual affections and the finest sensibilities have daily to solve. They live among the rude, even the brutish, yet have they to nourish a spiritual life from the putrid and stagnant elements by which they are surrounded. They would have become philosophers if they had had a fair chance in the world; they have become saints even amidst all their disadvantages; but how they continue such with all their exhausting toils, their racking cares and heart-breaking trials, passes my comprehension, except on one condition, and that is the mastering power of the grace of God in the human soul. Surely, my friend, they have more grace than you or I, more worthiness in the sight of God, more real dignity of character, or they would not be what they are.

You, my friend, sit down in your easy chair at night after the toils of the day are over, and it is easy for you to be thankful. Is not your larder well supplied? perhaps your wine-bin, if you own such a piece of furniture? Are not your wife and children nicely, perhaps even stylishly, dressed? and have you not man-servants and maid-servants waiting to do your bidding? Your bed, when you retire to sleep, is soft and warm, and though you have your cares too, yet you can see your way before you for months and years to come. The warmest words you can utter at your family altar would fail to express the sense of gratitude you ought to feel for your most desirable position. But how about that Christian washerwoman who has helped your domestics during the day, or that Christian hand-labourer, who at the wheel or the forge has

sweat and toiled with no higher prospect than to go home to a large family, who do not perhaps actually want, but have perplexities to distress them of which you and I know nothing. How about these ? Oh, then, you say, you are a socialist, a leveller, a red republican, are you? By no means. I would not have another take from you what is your own, or even make himself unhappy by envying your more fortunate position. But it does make a difference in serving God, growing in grace, and cultivating the finer graces of the Christian character, to be thus fortunately situated on the one hand, and unfortunately situated on the other; and when I consider these things I wonder that many professors of religion are as good as they are; and when [from this merely negative view I pass to another-namely, that nearly all the spiritual work in the Church is done by these very persons-prayer-meetings, class-meetings, and Sunday schools all carried on by these hard-working and tried servants of the Lord-I am the more grateful to the God of all grace that he so raises them up and strengthens them in their position that they can labour for Christ and patiently bear the cross. But I meet with some professors who are not of this stamp. They are not very like their divine Lord. They are not kind, they are not gentle, as he was. They do not renounce the world, as he did, nor are they pure in heart, as he was. At home they are cross, unkind, and undevout. Religion is with them a matter of show and pretence. All their good is put outside, "to be seen of men,' verily they have their reward. They have no inward peace, no well-grounded hope, and they have but little influence in the world. In the Church they sometimes have, because they may be rich, and every one dreads to offend them for fear they will not " subscribe." Oh that all men were sound at heart, then we should have a happy world and a happy Church!

"and

I meet with some very nice boys and girls, who are a credit to their parents, and whom it is a pleasure to behold. Those boys and girls are likely to do well in the world, for they love and obey their parents, are clean and tidy in their persons and dress, are punctual and respectful, and above all they love the Saviour. They have learnt how to pray and to read God's word, and they are treasuring it up in their hearts and minds. If I wanted a boy or a girl to help me in any business I should look out for just such as I have named, for I should expect them to be honest and industrious, and truthful and good.

On the other hand, I meet with some children of a very different character. I have heard boys swear and take the name of God in vain. Girls I never did hear use profane language, but I have boys. What a pity it is that there are so many boys of this description! Sometimes these children are the children of pious parents, and I often think what a grief they are to them. Their mothers nursed them, kissed them, and were proud of them when they were babies, and hoped they would live to repay them for all their care;

but now they seem determined to break their mother's heart, and to bring down their grey hairs with sorrow to the grave. I hope there is not one boy or girl of this description among our Sunday scholars, or if there are any such I hope God will have mercy on them and change their hearts.

I have met with some strange things this last month. I have met with a London fog, the strangest thing I ever saw in my life. I happened to be in London on the 9th of November, the Lord Mayor's day, and I doubt if there ever was such another day since the plagues of Egypt. I could have imagined that the darkness "which could have been felt" had come on us again. The darkness could be felt: I felt it, I ate it, drank it, breathed it, and was enveloped in it. It produces the strangest sensations ever experienced. A man while in it hardly knows whether he is dead or alive, whether he stands on his head or his feet; and he is so distressingly under the sensation that he is lost, that he dreads taking the next step lest he should drop into some hole or dangerous place in the street from which he will never be extricated alive. The following conversation actually took place between a gentleman and a policeman in this fog:

GENTLEMAN (meeting a policeman whom he recognized by the light of his "bull's-eye"): "Can you tell me where I am? I have lived in this neighbourhood twenty-five years, and know every turn about it, but I can see nothing I can recognize, and I really do not know where I am."

POLICEMAN: "You are in

Street," naming it.

GENTLEMAN: "I know I am somewhere about or in that street, but I want to know where I must turn to get to my house; can't you go with me, and show me with your lantern ?"

POLICEMAN: 66 No, I dare not, for if I do I shall lose my beat; and if I lose it I shall never find it again this night."

GENTLEMAN: "Well, I shall be right if I keep feeling the railings on my left hand till I get to such a corner, and then I can find my way home."

POLICEMAN: "Yes, but there is an open drain about forty yards lower down, and if you go that way you will be sure to break your neck."

GENTLEMAN: "Well, then, cannot I go this way ?" pointing in the direction of another street.

POLICEMAN: " 'No, if

the river and be drowned."

you go that way you will walk right into

GENTLEMAN: "Well, then, what must I do? Here I have my little girl with me, and we cannot stay in the streets all night such a night as this."

POLICEMAN: "There is a public-house right over there, but you cannot see it, neither can I, but you are not above forty yards from it. If you step over the road you will probably find it.'

GENTLEMAN: "Then you stand where you are, so that if I do

not succeed we can find each other again by the sound of our voices."

The policeman soon heard the words "all right," and travelled, or rather groped, on his beat, leaving the gentleman and his little daughter with the assurance that at all events they could have warmth and shelter during the night.

At this public-house there was a cab standing, driver, horse, and cab all bewildered together, and unable to proceed anywhere. Here was another conversation.

GENTLEMAN:

such a street ?"

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Cabby, cannot you drive me to my house, in

CABBY: "No, I cannot drive you anywhere, for there is nowhere, and I am waiting for a break in the fog, and then I am for home. I have had enough of it this miserable night.”

So the gentleman had to wait till there was a break in the fog, and he arrived at his home at one o'clock in the morning, and the distance from his place of detention to his home was less than a mile! Now that is a fact, and that is a fog! It could hardly have been worse in Egypt. This was on the night preceding the Lord Mayor's day.

We have met with many persons lately with very large noses and fat cheeks, both of which were of a purple colour. Their lips were blue, their eyes prominent and watery. In three months many of these people will be dead, and why? Because they are bloated drunkards. Their blood is poisoned, their heart is diseased, and everything about them indicates dropsy or apoplexy, and a premature death. Oh, boys, this accursed drink, what harm it is doing every day! Never taste it, boys, and you will never want it. So says your friend, OBSERVER.

LETTERS TO THE YOUNG.—I. .

I WANT to have a talk with you, boys and girls, every month for this year of our Lord, 1871. An old gentleman at No. 4, London House Yard will charge you a penny a month for these talks and other matter inserted in the JUVENILE INSTRUCTOR. Well, there never was anything cheaper; it's as cheap as toffy, and will last much longer, unless-which I hope you won't do you put the INSTRUCTOR in the fire.

My first subject will be a sermon, or whatever else you choose to call it, on three small words, I, IF, AND.

There is no word smaller than I. There is no thing larger than I. I is first, and I is last all over the world. It is a bigger thing than we or they. Every man is looking after I, or, as we sometimes say, Number One. Lawyers are pleading about I; preachers in the pulpit often show a great deal of I; I believe printers require more I's in their " case "than any other letter. We are all so full of this I, and think and write about it so much, that special provi

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sion has had to be made even by type-founders to satisfy the want. The creatures below us are full of it as well as we. Look at the little bantam, it is all I; look at the little poodle-dog, it is all I; in fact, the less we have in us, and about us, the more we compensate ourselves with I's. I have heard little boys go on so in a house that there was nothing to be heard but I. Mamma, I want this; Mamma, I want that; "and poor mamma can hardly hear herself speak; in fact, is almost crazed with this eternal sound of I. The big war going on between France and Prussia is all about I. There was nothing to fight about, but two big men got vexed at each other, and one said to the other, "I am insulted; I will fight you." The other said, "I don't care; " and so the war began. Many thousands of lives have been sacrificed in this war for nothing, at most nothing but I.

But while I is a little word of one letter, much abused by some people, it can be put to a good use, and I will try to make the most of it for our profit. But the text is so short that I shall have to borrow a verb to say something. We may repeat I for ever so long, but if we say nothing else we advance no thought. logicians say, we have a subject, but no predicate, and therefore say nothing to any purpose. I will borrow a verb, and make my first division into-I am.

As the

Yes, every reader is. The lowest, the most degraded, neglected, and miserable of the unhappy young people we come across can say, must say, "I am." And what a world of meaning there is in these two words, I am. The heavens are over my head; the sun by day, and the moon and stars by night, are shining over me. I am surrounded by the great powers of Nature, by mountains which tower high above me, by mighty rivers which bear along the commerce and the fleets of nations, by great cities, by wonderful mechanical contrivances which drive ships and loaded trains, by the great ocean itself, by storm and tempest, by thunder and lightning, by the great and strong among the brute creation; and yet it has pleased God to put me, this little me, in the midst of all this grandeur, and these great forces-me, who am but a speck, a grain of sand in comparison with the objects by which I am encircled, here I am!

Yes, my young friends, here you are; and there must be some purpose-surely, some great purpose-in putting you where you are. You were put here without your consent: you were literally "thrown upon" the world. You did not choose your parents, your place of birth and residence, or your station in life. All these came upon you- unasked by you; and as you grow older you may be tempted to regret that ever you were put here. Many have so regretted; but in the meantime you know you are here. You almost think, perhaps, you are an intruder. You may be ready to suppose you have no right to be here; and when you see the envying, struggling, busy, wicked world around you, you may