kindness and love; but now we owe him this in particular. The evil which he did is now particularly to be overcome by our good to him. If a fellow being asks us for bread the duty to give him lies heavier and more directly on us than it did before; so when one does us evil that act of his fixes on us directly the duty to return him good. His doing us evil is the same as if he came to us and asked us to do him good.

Who is sufficient for this? How sweet to the old nature is revenge. Ah, nature cannot do it. It requires grace-a high degree of grace. Our blessed Saviour did it. Eminently pious persons have attained to this grace. It is the duty of all. It is my duty -it is your duty. There it stands as in letters of fire: "Overcome evil with good!"

How is this to be done? What course of conduc tmust we pursue toward those who do us evil in order that their evil may be overcome by us? Our duty in this respect is plainly pointed out by our Saviour.

If it be with words that they do us evil, then here is the rule: "Bless them that curse you.' To bless is to give them good words-words born in good wishes, and redolent with the savor of prayer. We are to meet them with that soft answer which turneth away wrath.

If their evil against us be in the form of dead, silent hatred, that must be overcome, not so much by kind words as by kind deeds: "Do good to them that hate you.' While evil words are generally born in a flow of wrath, and need therefore only be met at the time with meek words, settled hatred of heart needs a remedy more deep and steady than words. Here the quiet power of kind acts, of good deeds, is needed.

If their evil take the form of positive acts of injury, then their wrath has risen so high and become so impetuous as not to regard our meek words or kind acts. What then? We turn from them to God: "Pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you." Instead of still attempting to prevail upon them, we now seek to prevail upon God. He only now can overcome their evil; for he - holds in his hands the hearts of men and can turn them as the streams in the south. This was our Saviour's course in the same circumstances. He met their evil words and evil hearts with kind replies and acts of love; but when their evil took the form of violence he resorted to prayer: "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do." So must we do. The answer to our prayer will not only arrest his evil against us, but will also stop his evil against himself; it will reconcile him not only to us, but. also to God. One, whose heart-hatred reaches this pitch of violence, needs more than we can bring to allay his wrath; he needs resignation of heart, which God alone can bestow, and which he will give in answer to prayer.

Here, then, is the course. Do they speak evil, speak thou good. Do they silently and sullenly hate, do thou let kind acts, like a warm sun, shine steadily upon their wrath-beclouded hearts. Do they rashly assail you in acts of injury, do thou turn to God in prayer for them; for he can prevail where thy words of meekness and acts of kindness fail.

What is the wisdom of this mode of overcoming evil? The command itself is proof of its adaptation to the end. Yet it is well to see how beautifully it accomplishes its purpose.

Our returning him good for evil will cause him to see and feel how superior grace is to nature. It will show him that a Christian can do what he feels to be right but is not able to do. Saul sought David's life; but David saved Saul's life when he might have taken it. This overcame Saul that he wept, and confessed to David, "Thou art more righteous than I: for thou hast rewarded me good, whereas I have rewarded thee with evil." Saul felt that the pious heart of David had done a noble act, of which his own natural heart was not capable. This is the best way to convince the wicked that religion lifts the heart above the selfish and revengeful spirit of unrenewed nature.

If we return them good for evil we cause them to become conscious of their own guilt and vileness. As long as we resist them with weapons like their own they regard themselves on a level with us; and they feel as if it were an honorable as well as a brave warfare. But as soon as we begin to change weapons, and do them good for evil, they sink in their own estimation, and the feeling of bravery gives way to a sense of sin and shame. A man who has any human feelings left will always hate himself after he has acted revengefully; and the more so when he sees that the object of his revenge has shown the contrary spirit. A sinner never feels his vileness so much as when he sees most clearly God's love to him. Nothing leads to repentence so effectually as the goodness of God. Sinners never mourn over their sins so deeply as when they look upon him whom they have pierced. Judas never felt his guilt in the betrayal of Jesus as he did when he saw him, with lamb-like innocence, receive the sentence of death! Nothing so deeply cuts a sinner's heart as to see the object of his hatred meekly endure his injuries.

By doing him good for his evil we use the most effectual means for reconciling him. It he sees in our spirit a superiority to his own, and if our conduct towards him has the effect of causing him to grow tender under a sense of his own vileness, the strongest obstacles in the way of his reconciliation are already removed. This is the true sense of "heaping coals of fire on his head." It makes him uneasy and unhappy, and drives him to peace. It melts his spirit, and, like a furnace, separates the dross of wrath and

revenge from the better feelings which have been covered and smothered.

"So artists melt the sullen ore of lead,
By heaping coals of fire upon its head.

In the kind warmth the metal learns to glow,
And pure from dross the silver runs below."

We must study to do this. It is a delicate duty. We may do it in form and not in spirit. We may show kindness to one who has grieved us in a way so officious as to provoke him the more. As in giving presents, we may do it in such a way as will offend instead of win; so in this duty we may seem to him to be either overbearing or mercenary. We must study such modesty and humility as to be discovered in what we do, rather than discover our own acts of kindness to him. What we do must not be ostentatious, but so veiled in quietness as that he himself will discover the silent flow of our goodness to him with a surprise. This will cause him to feel that it is done in sincerity and not merely for effect. The coals of fire must not be put upon his head as though it were for revenge, but for mercy and for love.

Thus it is to be done; but what a task! Yes, to nature it is a task-a hopeless task. But grace can attain to it-and only grace. It must be earnestly resolved upon. It must be attempted in faith and with prayer. The absence of this spirit is so far a fearful sign of a low state of grace, or even of its entire absence. A Christian must aim at it, and in a degree at least approximate to it. How greatly would the general observance of this law promote and hasten in fully the reign of peace and good will.

WHO ARE YOUR COMPANIONS?

It is said to be a property of the tree frog that it acquires the color of whatever it adheres to for a short time. Thus, when found on growing corn it is commonly of a dark green. If found on white oak, it has the color peculiar to the tree. Just so it is with men. Tell me whom you choose or prefer as companions, and I certainly can tell you who you are? Do you love the society of the vulgar? Then you are already debased in your sentiments. Do you seek to be with the profane? In your heart you are like them. Are jesters and buffoons your choice friends? He who loves to laugh at folly is himself a fool. Do you love and seek the society of the wise and good? Is this your habit? Would you not rather take the lowest seat among such than the highest among others? Then you have already learned to be wise and good. You may not have made much progress, but even a good beginning is not to be despised. Hold on your way, and seek to be the companion of all that fear God. So you shall be wise for yourself, and wise for eternity.

ONE SQUARE ON SATURDAY EVENING."

BY SELDOM.

NEVER have I been so much alone as when mingling with the thronging crowd of a populous city. In the calm solitude of the country, among nature's own works, where every object has a familiar look and a home-toned voice, there cannot be the same sense of loneliness. Where every face in a selfish crowd is cold and forbidding-where one heeds not the other, but each passes hurriedly on, intently bent on his own selfish purposes-there we feel alone. We have not been alone, however, in the exercise of that feeling, when we found ourselves like the poet's hero, who

"Sat himself down on a hot-frozen stone,

With ten thousand around him and himself alone!"

More than half the world, we are told, know not how the other half lives. This remark is doubtless true in more than one respect. So much of the outside of life only appears that we judge vastly amiss if we form our conclusions from these appearances. It requires something of the Gnotico's isoteric view of men and things in order to reach a true interpretation of either or both.

Ours is not the most public thoroughfare in the city, though there is enough there ordinarily of the web and woof of individual history and experience to fill the eyes, and head, and heart of any one who will give it attention. If you could spend half an hour with me on Saturday evening, you would be abundantly convinced of that fact. As you cannot do so bodily, let me at least engage for a short time your thoughts. With your permission we turn down this street.

Here is a scene, not just the counterpart of Burns' "Cottiers' Saturday Night," but had Burns engaged his thoughts upon it he had doubtless produced an equally fine poem. The multitude, in moving, changing, formless mass, means nothing and affords but little to interest the eye. It is only when we single out specifio characters that we reach history in individual traits and personal experience. Let us now take the first marked characters we meet.

In that crowd of hardy sons of toil, returning from their week's work, we notice the first one, whose whole appearance bespeaks the character of a father. "Hard times" is written on his care-worn brow. In his hand he holds the tin bucket that did contain his keenly relished dinner. Labor has left its marks upon his wellbuilt frame. Now he is going home to the family he loves, from which he separated at early morn; his hand in one pocket seems clenched with determined grasp, for it holds his hard-earned wages. Six o'clock is never more welcome any other evening than the one

on which he draws his week's pay. Oh, there will be a happy family at father's return! One of the children will be sent with a basket to the grocery, another to the bakery, while, perhaps, another goes to the shoe store, the bonnet-maker's, and a few other places; then all will be ready for a pleasant Sunday morning. The joys and sweets of life palliate much of its sorrows and bitterness. By this time the man we first noted is lost in the moving crowd. Many others pass along carrying buckets and wearing almost the same appearance-differing in age, from the spare, thin boy, to the stout youth, the strong man, and even the aged and deformed one bending towards his mother earth and the opening grave. Toil on, nobly, faithfully-the work will soon be done. Brave spirits are needed here, and heroic efforts alone will triumph in the end.

There goes a seamstress with an armful of made up clothing. She is taking them to the store of some Shylock, who imagines he is doing her great service in keeping her from starving. Five chances to one, however, she will not get the cash pay for her work, to meet her week's expenses. What shall she do then? Her worn out frame will not hang together much longer at this rate. Over-tasked nature will give up the determined effort before long. See how thin and wan and sallow she looks. Hear that peculiar cough, brought on by her continual bent posture over her needle. When she dies there will be other victims ready to take her place, and feel thankful that they have at least something to do. She, too, has already disappeared, but we need not be wanting long for another object.

"Please, sir, will you buy some sand, gentlemen?" That is the little "sand girl." She has not sold all her sand to-day. She carries on her shoulder a number of little bags, as thick as your wrist and about half a yard long, filled with sand. She goes from house to house selling it out "by the small." When she fails to bring home her usual amount of money in the evening, her unnatural mother cruelly punishes her. Her little gains her mother spends for strong drink! "What, crying again?" "Yes, sir, it's getting late and cold, and I havn't sold my sand." And if she does not sell it all she must sleep out or get a beating-in anticipation of which suffering she is now crying. God have mercy upon such poor children! With such treatment and training, it will be a miracle indeed if they reach their heavenly home. We, whose condition is far better, what do we not owe in gratitude and service to our heavenly Father?

Reeling and staggering along the sidewalk, there goes a miserable victim of the bowl. He has stopped work early, drawn his earnings, and has just come out of that saloon with less money and more misery than when he went in, a short while ago. What he is pleased to call a "glorious drunk" does not look very glorious if he is a fair specimen of its operation. Mistaking the true source