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"You see we didn't go to sleep, Auntie," cried Lizzie, winking very hard to keep herself awake.

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'I won't slide on the banisters any more, Auntie,” said Harry.

Hark, children, there are the bells; it is striking twelve. The old year is gone, the new year is beginning. God bless you, my darlings. Auntie wishes you all a Happy New Year.''

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THERE is no moment of time more thickly sown with seeds of life or death, more full of eternal possibilities, than when one is brought in close personal contact with a soul, and one, above all, whom the Spirit has wounded. The still parlour, or the pastor's study, or the quiet walk in the fields, or even the corner of the crowded city thoroughfare, becomes the centre of attraction to at least two worlds. There may be strong reasoning, and wise persuasion, and solemn warning—there must be the clear truth, and faithful pointing out of the narrow way of life, to the balancing and hesitating soul.

But even the truth should be presented with a feeling heart, one made fine by the love of Christ, one that has lost all its pride, formalism, and bitterness, that is overrunning with a Christlike sympathy. One must truly love sinners before he can convert them. As one who is himself raised from the death of trespasses and sins by the blood of Jesus, he must talk to the dying soul of that dying and yet risen Redeemer, with words of faith, and feeling, and power. He will thus be the means of kindling in these dark, despairing souls, the feeble, it may be, yet immortal hope of Christ. They will awake to his affectionate and earnest entreaties, and the Holy Spirit will use him as a powerful instrument to apply to their hearts the renovating word.-Rev. J. M. Hoppin.

IN a town in Massachusetts there is a young man of fine talents for active life, who for years has been a cripple, a paralytic, and so helpless, that he would starve if left alone. As a friend was pitying his condition, he slowly raised his withered hand, "God makes no mistakes." How noble the sentiment! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?

ANERLEY NEW CONGREGATIONAL CHAPEL. THE annexed engraving represents the new chapel about to be

erected by the Congregationalists of Anerley, an important and growing suburb of the south of London. The Church was originated in 1856, by a friendly secession from that at Sydenham, then under the pastorate of the Rev. T. C. Hine. A small but neat edifice was erected for its use, and for some ten years was found adequate to the requirements of the neighbourhood. The congregation enjoyed no settled pastoral oversight till 1862, when the Rev. W. Hickman Smith (now Aubrey) became the minister. From that time to the present there has been a constant accession to the population, rendering necessary, first, enlargement of the present building to twice its original size, and erection of school-rooms, at a cost of £1500; and now the much larger extension projected in the erection of a new and far more commodious edifice, to seat some 1250 persons. A commanding site in a main thoroughfare has been secured, the first freehold purchased under the provisions of Mr. Osborne Morgan's Site Bill, passed during the late session of Parliament. The Church has hitherto had to contend against the serious drawbacks to progress involved in an obscure and unsuitable situation. Thanks to the energy of our Nonconformist M.Ps., and the growing liberality of sentiment in both Houses of the Legislature, it will shortly take a position second to none in the neighbourhood. The cost, exclusive of ground and extras, is estimated at £8000. The style of the building is Romanesque, in red brick, relieved with white brick and Bath stone dressings. The interior is elliptical, with concentric pews, and a slightly rising floor. Altogether, we believe the new edifice will be an ornament to the locality, and a credit to the denomination. The architect is Mr. George Elkington, of Cannon Street, City. The present pastor is the Rev. Joseph Halsey, late student of Hackney College, who has just completed the sixth year of his ministry in Anerley. He will thankfully receive contributions to the Building Fund. The amount at present promised, including loan from the Chapel Building Society of £300, is something over £3500.

BELIEVE all the good you hear of your neighbour, and forget the bad.

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DR. LANDELS ON RITUALISM.

THE evil of Ritualism is one in which we cannot afford to

part with one atom of our strength. The Ritualists are men whose efforts no wise man will despise. They bring to their work an amount of zeal, of energy, and some of them of talent and oneness of purpose, which makes them formidable foes; and they are engaged in an attempt which ought to rouse the active hostility of every man who has a regard to his rights as a citizen and a man—an attempt, which if successful, will reduce Britons, who have so long boasted of their freedom, to a fettered herd of superstitious slaves, grovelling at the feet of a ghostly hierarchy.

Is it possible that England, the herald of freedom to the nations, the guiding star to which long-oppressed nationalities have looked in their struggles to be free,—is it possible that she will descend from her proud position at the bidding of a bastard Popery? Shall she prove herself unworthy of her martyred heroes by despising the heritage which their blood has bought? Shall she, the liberator of the nations, spend her revenues in forging fetters for her sonsfetters more intolerable than ever galled the limbs of slaves, fetters which enthral the soul? By the memory of our martyred fathers, by the testimony borne to God's truth on the scaffold and at the stake, amid suffocating smoke and scorching flame, by the heritage they have bequeathed to us, and by the example they have set us, let the answer from every one be "No." Unanimous voting will not suffice; laudation and tall talk will not suffice; but by the enlightened exposition and application of the principles of God's Word-by such a representation of those principles as will commend them to the attention of intelligent men,-by this alone, with God's blessing, can success be expected.

Never, however, were the prospects of victory so bright as they are to-day. The Establishment which has been so long the greatest barrier to progress, is falling into pieces through internal strife, and if testimony is now borne against the evil it will not be unheeded. At all events, it will shame Evangelical Churchmen out of the false position they have occupied, and the temporising policy they have pursued so long, on pain of their sinking beneath the contempt of the civilised world. The dial of the world will not move backward; God's truth is mighty, and will prevail. Amid the confused dia

I can hear a voice rising loud and clear: it is the voice of one crying in the wilderness-" Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God;" but above that there rises a voice mightier and more majestic far: it is not the voice of the herald now, but the voice of the King, who, speaking in the plenitude of His power, says, for the encouragement of His witnessing Church, "Behold, I make all things new!" O brethren! it comes, and it is not far distant.

"I feel the soul in me draw near

The mount of prophesying;
In the bleak wilderness 1 hear
A John the Baptist crying;
In the far east I see upleap

The streaks of first forewarning;
And they that sowed the light shall reap
The golden sheaves of morning."

NOT HAPPY IN HEAVEN?

BY AN EX-MISSIONARY.

"RULE Britannia, Britannia rules the waves; Britons never,

never, never, shall be--"

"Good-morning, sir."

So said John Gardner, of No. 2, Little Harp Court, as my appearance at his open door suddenly cut short his vocal solo, as described above.

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Good-morning," said I in reply. "I hope you are well, this bright morning?"

"Much better in health than in temper, sir."

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Indeed!" said I. "One might have supposed you were very happy, by your singing so merrily.”

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"Happy, sir!" replied he. Happiness does not belong to poor people who have to work hard for a crust, as I do, without proper tools. We are no better off than slaves."

"But," said I, “you are a Briton, and I think if you had finished the sentence which my abrupt appearance so suddenly terminated, it would have been, 'Britons never shall be slaves.' If so, your song and your sentiment do not agree."

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'But," said he, as I did not compose the song, I am not responsible for it. I know what my feelings are upon the subject."

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