tinctly hear the whirring of the wheels of the machine; and Polly Simms, his cousin, said she could catch a glimpse of the vicar working away in his shirt-sleeves! One Sabbath evening the parson was crossing the street to the church, and he paused by a knot of idle men who were leaning against the wall. "Come in, my friends," he said, cheerfully, pointing at the open door of the building. "Come in! It is now, in the time of our health and strength, that we should remember our good Father in heaven." No one answered him in words, but John Bonner burst into a scornful laugh as the parson moved away. "What makes them so rude, I wonder?" said the vicar, half to himself and half to the clerk who walked beside him. He sighed heavily as he spoke; for it was very discouraging to him to meet with such conduct from men for whose souls he toiled and prayed. He expected no answer, but the clerk said, hesitatingly, "Please, sir, I think a great deal of it is along of that mowing machine!" "That what?" said the vicar, stopping short in his astonishment. "Your mowing machine, sir," the clerk replied, in a firmer tone; for he had heard and believed in the parson's Sabbathbreaking, and it "riled him to hear him attempt to throw dust in his eyes," as he said afterwards. "I don't understand you," he The vicar shook his head. said; "but it is service time now. Come to me this evening and explain." But there was nothing to explain, the clerk thought. The people were surprised at the parson talking so much about keeping holy the Sunday while he broke it himself for the sake of his garden. That was all the clerk could tell; and it didn't want much explanation. "But I haven't such a thing as a mowing machine belonging to me!" said the vicar. "And as for working in my garden on Sundays, why, I have not time to pull up half a dozen weeds on that day, even if I wished to do so, and that you know yourself, Jacobs." The clerk looked grave. "It wasn't for him to judge," he said; and then he began to put away the books, and leave the vestry in order. The vicar was utterly perplexed. He made inquiries, but no one could or would tell him more than the clerk had done. At last somebody said, "It was certain that the parson had a mowing machine, for Johnnie Simms had heard it, and the Misses White had seen it !" A light broke over the vicar's mind. 66 White!" he cried. Oh, I remember now!" "The Misses If no one could tell how the story got about the village, no one could tell either how the explanation of it all was made public. The vicar never took the trouble to contradict one word beside that first contradiction which he had given to the clerk. But somehow it soon became known to everybody that the whole thing was a joke between Miss White and her sister. They had called at the vicarage and seen a little red calf cropping the grass on the lawn; a poor little sick calf of Farmer Golding's, which the parson had taken in to let it eat his short, sweet grass. Its small hoofs did the lawn no harm, and as it munched away the parson had smilingly said to Miss White that it was his "mowing machine.” This was the cause of the whole scandal. This was what had kept the gossips busy in every street of our village. I had helped them. I say it with shame, that I too had wondered and speculated about our vicar's conduct. Oh, I will try to be a "gossip" after the olden fashion! I will not be like those who "spend their time in nothing else, but either to tell or hear some new thing." I will pray David's prayer: "Set a watch, O Lord, before my mouth; keep the door of my lips!" And if people repeat some unkind and ill-natured “fact” about my neighbours I will remember the story of our new parson's mowing machine. I BURIED my anger late in the year, And peace then filled my breast; I had suffered wrong, and my heart a strife But oh! I was glad I had buried them all I buried my anger late in the year- An unquiet guest it is at best, With unholy companions near, And ne'er should abide in the erring heart I buried my anger late in the year; At its birth Time's youngest child And I vowed and I prayed, God helping me, Should ne'er be dimmed with a tear by me, The Try Company. CHAPTER I.- -UNCONSCIOUS INFLUENCE. low our words sometimes come back to us in a most unexpected time and way, just to give us a glimpse of our unconscious influence, and to show us how words and actions live and go floating on through time and space, and through the thoughts and lives of others, and by-and-by will surely meet us again with a harvest of our own seed-sowing that we are not prepared for. Shall it be for good or ill, to our blame and shame, or our comfort and rejoicing in the presence of our Lord? We are sometimes a little vexed to be reminded of our words; to be told by a child, "But you did say it, you did promise it," about something that we had forgotten, or, at any rate, hoped the child had forgotten; something perhaps that we had said in a moment of haste, not noticing the presence of the child, but which is brought forward to our confusion, it may be, before the very person of whom we spoke, or the very one perchance whose good opinion we value, while we may be injured by the knowledge of those inconsiderate words. Or to have recalled some promise to the child, made possibly as a little bribe to goodness, or with such a remote contingency of circumstances ever favouring its fulfilment that it is most inconvenient to be reminded of it. How often, too, we see the half-enunciated thought of some one of old who has been groping after truth, or catching at a glimmer of light as to some new discovery in the world of science, nature, or art, living on to be patiently worked out and plainly put down by the thinkers of aftertime. These snatches of thought, these broken reflections, these reachings out after progress and better and holier things leaving their influence on those who follow in the track. Unconscious influence! It is an awful talent to hold in one's hand. In our way through life unconscious influence meets us at every turn. Such an one has done this or that, why may not I? And the spirit is roused up to nerve itself to the determination that what has been done shall be done again, and that we will fight our way even through difficulties and dangers, and never give in : "Lives of great men all remind us We can make our lives sublime, But, alas! sometimes the unconscious influence is for evil. We see some one just going as close to evil as possible, and, as we think, getting no harm, and we are tempted to try the same experiment, and it may be with a bitter result as to the danger for ourselves. The eyes of the world are upon us: closely united as we are to one another, we cannot act as separate beings; we cannot get rid of our individuality, neither can we of our responsibility. You have thrown a stone into the water and amused yourself with watching the ever-widening circles produced by the disturbance. Did you ever think that was a picture of your influence? You cannot stay to watch where those circles end, for they go on and on in larger sweep till they touch the opposite shore. So, neither can you say where ends the influence of a word, an act, ay, even a look of yours. You may have thought nothing of it, but some one has noticed it, and been affected by it, and its influence spreads on and on to eternity. The force of your example has told, and how? For good or for evil-which? As in The Old Man's Story, these thoughts are expressed under another figure: "How many men, in ages long gone by, Had lived their life upon these uplands dry; His work emblazoned through eternal days Remorse eternal, or eternal praise." You have cast a word into the air; and those who have studied the science of sound tell us that it is something the |