erty flies away; or when sickness enters your dwelling,, and your friends die; or when you are called upon to lie upon a dying bed -you have sources of comfort and of joy which the irreligious man knows nothing about.

It is in the world to come that you are to reap the full enjoyment of serving God. There, in brighter spheres, among the suns and systems with which God has strewed infinity, with a perfectly holy heart, with angels for your associates, and with God's glory all around, you will rejoice in untroubled and eternal rapture.

But here is your state of trial and discipline. You can find no path through life in which you will not meet many sorrows. Be prepared, then, for these troubles. Know that they are your necessary lot. Try to make them the means of your spiritual improvement. Then you may

learn the meaning of the poet

"Heaven's favors here are trials, not rewards,
A call to duty, not release from care."

Afflictions fall upon all the penitent and the impenitent, the sinner and the saint. But while those who are regardless of God are growing harder in heart and more wicked under their trials, and while they have no consolation to support them in adversity, the disciples of the Savior are deriving the most precious advantages from

all their sorrows; their hearts are growing better by the discipline, and they are fast preparing for endless joy in heaven.

With whom, my young reader, will you cast your lot? You find many motives urging you to be a Christian. The Spirit of God, with its still, small voice, probably often strives with you to lead you back to your heavenly Father's service. A faithful conscience often tells you your duty. The voice of the gospel preacher, the instructions of the Sabbath school, the sacred silence of God's holy day, the mournful tones of the funeral bell, often remind you of the world to which you are going, and solicit you to prepare for its awful scenes. These are the means which God is ever using to lead you to him.

On the other hand, there are many temptations, seducing you to postpone repentance and neglect God. The natural heart feels a strong repugnance to the duties of self-examination and persevering, secret prayer. Thoughtless associates stand in the way of the surrender of your hearts and lives to God. You fear singularity. You are apprehensive of ridicule. Indolence suggests to you to remain contentedly as you are, without engaging in the struggle against sin.

Thus you, very probably, halt between two opinions. Like the Israelites of old, you hesitate in choosing whom you will serve. How

immense are the consequences depending upon the decision! - no less than eternal holiness and happiness, or endless sin and misery. The Bible declares that good angels and lost spirits watch the progress of the struggle, which is, perhaps, now agitating your mind. The devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about seeking whom may devour ; and there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth.

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Choose the Lord for your portion; consecrate your all to his service, and you will be indeed happy. You will have consolation in life's troubles, support in the hour of death, and eternal happiness in heaven.

COMMENCE life with the fixed determination, ever to give your voice and your influence in behalf of that which is right. Be ever ready to make sacrifices of your own rights and your own convenience, to promote the welfare of the community. Let the principle be planted in the depths of your heart, that you are not to live for yourself alone, but for influence in the world, for usefulness. Be ever ready to deny yourself in all needful ways, that you may make others happy, and that when you die, you may feel that you have not lived in vain.

You have probably, often seen, upon the playground, the differences between selfishness and benevolence. Look, for example, at the frontispiece. There you see a party of boys peaceful, obliging, and, of course, happy. How pleasantly the hour of play glides along! Let one selfish, quarrelsome boy enter this scene, and how soon would he destroy all its enjoyment! The selfish boy is alone, without a friend. He is solitary and joyless. His countenance looks dark and

troubled. He feels dissatisfied with himself, and with every one else. How different the aspect of the generous-hearted, benevolent boy! Every playmate greets him with a welcome. By making others happy, he lives himself, as it were, in an atmosphere of joy. His frank and openhearted countenance makes friends for him

wherever he goes. And when he becomes a man, in all the relations of life, as a father, as a neighbor, warm hearts cluster around him, and he finds, by most conclusive experience, that happiness can in no way be so effectually secured, as by cherishing a spirit of disinterested benevolence.

And indeed it is always thus, that our happiness is promoted, by living in obedience to the principles of the gospel. Self-denial, for the sake of doing good, always, in the end, confers the richest enjoyment upon the one by whom it is practised. The missionary, who leaves home and friends, and all that is precious in refined and Christian society, to pass his life with a tribe of savages, under the rule of a barbarian tyrant, finds, even in the loneliness of his lowly hut, a rich recompense for all his sacrifices. The philanthropist Howard, when going from dungeon to dungeon of the prisons of Europe, to alleviate the miseries of the guilty, probably found in his self-sacrificing toil, far more enjoy