git off the cars. There was a man got his head broke in that way about a month ago, I see, in one o' them papers upstairs. (She didn't see, though, that the paper was three years old.) An' that gas, too, you'll blow it out if you don't mind. An' don't be a-drinkin' too much of that water. You never kin tell what's in that city stuff. There never wuz any water like that out of the ground, to my thinkin'."

All these little warnings from the child-like and unworldly old grandmother were soothing to Tirzah. Two years ago they would have annoyed her. That was when she was a restive bird with untried wings. She was thankful now for anything that bore the semblance of protection, even the warnings of an old woman, who knew but little of the world.

A dirty-faced boy knocked on the door just then.

"Please, miss, old Witch Barnum wants you to come over to-night before you go away."

Tirzah looked ruefully at the packing to be done before the early morning train to-morrow.

"Why didn't she come over if she wants to see me, I wonder?" "Please, miss, she's sick a-bed." "Oh! All right, I'll come. sorry she's sick."

I'm

"You better go before dark, then," said granny, who had her own ideas about Witch Hill. "You'd better go right off, and mind her now. She's queer."

It was about the middle of the afternoon when Tirzah entered the narrow, dingy little hut on Witch Hill. There was only a little light from the small window in the end, half-filled with balls of yarn, sheep's wool, medicine bottles, and other such like bric-a-brac. There was a mixed odour of everything that gathers in a filthy house. In the dim light lay the figure of poor old Witch Barnum on her bed of rags. She held out her hands-her bony, yellow hand, to Tirzah. It was the death look in her eyes.

sin, sin, all over me. Look here," and she drew back the bedclothes and revealed the snake-skin cut open and showing its stuffed interior. "It never had any power to foretell the future. I lied! I lied! I have lied these many a year for my bread, and now I can't swallow bread. But I'd never 'ave done it if it hadn't been fur him. They killed-they hanged him-my poor boy. Oh, my boy! My boy! If ever you have a child of your own, girl, you'll know what a mother feels." A sob that was almost a scream came from the parted lips.

"After that I didn't care what I did. The world had used me tough, an' I was bound to get even with it. An' nobody said to me, Woman, you've got a soul to save.' Nobody cared, not even Mr. Clifton. But you remember how you carried that basket up the hill for me I thought of it as I laid here. Nobody ever does me kindness, an' I thought maybe you could do some'at fur me now. Do you think He'll take me, child-I mean Christ ?"

And Tirzah talked of the sinner on the cross, that beacon-light that has guided so many dying wanderers to life.

"Pray again, child, pray again."

And as she prayed, the peace that had never come to the young lord of Glendonan overspread the haggard face on the pillow.

White as snow-white as snow," she murmured.

And on her knees, by the wretched bedside, the rich young voice broke out with

"O think of the home over there."

The quavering voice on the pillow took up the strain after her. "The home over there! the home over there! Oh, praise God, I can go too!"

There was a few minutes' silence. "Look, child, bring me yon red mitten from the cupboard."

Tirzah brought it and looked on wonderingly as she pulled forth shining gold pieces.

"He gave me that, your man that died, to tell you a fine fortune an' make you believe you wuz to be mistress of the big house across the sea. Take 'em, child, they are yours."

"Oh, no, I couldn't bear to touch them."

She was not going, then, without some attempt to garner for her Saviour-this poor old body, that every one looked upon with superstition and horror.

The sun was sinking low, and the shadows began to thicken in the corners of the old hut. So Tirzah had only time to rearrange the bed and make a little gruel for the neglected woman. She decided, however, that she must sacrifice a little more time and go down to the village to get some one to stay with her that night. For she saw well that death was likely to come before dawn.

It was nearly dark when she crossed Parson's Lea, on her return home. Just for a moment she lingered there where they had parted. Was it the night wind made her shudder? But the wind never brought that look of bitterness to her face. “Oh, if—”

But no! Life was not given back to her to waste in sighs.

She paused but once more on her way home. It was at the fir-tree nook. She bowed her head again there where she had first learned to pray that another might do good. Thank God, she could still pray for him. She had been cruel-ruthlessly cruel. That one little word sounded in her ears day and night. Cruel! Cruel! Cruel ! But there was at least prayer left to her.

But the darkness was coming on, she must hurry home. The cat the Grays had left behind them, and which Granny Hurst had adopted, was sitting on the gate-post as Tirzah entered. She was not particularly given to cat nursing, but an impulse seized her to take that cat in her arms, and cuddle it with all sorts of endearing terms. She did not hear a step on the path behind her.

"Good evening, Miss Auldearn." "W-Walter Gray!" She stood gazing in amazement. "What are

passion of weeping she threw herself upon his bosom.

"O Walter, I'm not cruel! I'm not cruel!"

Yes, Tirzah Auldearn, the passionless, white-robed singer that faced the Boston audience scarce two years ago, acting like this! Then the thought of it came over her. She drew back, drooping with shame.

"Oh, forgive-pardon-excuse. II don't think I'm quite in my right mind. I had a fever last spring, you know. Please overlook my strange actions. I think my head must be affected."

For answer he drew her gently to him.

She was the first to break the silence.

"O Walter, I am not the same Tirzah-I am changed."

"I know. Do you think I would have called you by that sacred name if I had not known ? But come into the house. Your hands are like ice. What has old Witch Barnum been doing to you?"

They were a jolly party at tea that night, old folks, and all. The cat came mewing to the door.

"Do let that cat in," said Walter. I have the greatest respect for the animal. It made you betray yourself even before I spoke. I shall keep it in a glass cage when we have a house of our own."

"A house of our own," re-echoed in Tirzah's ears.

"I'm afraid his catship will object to such an honourable life."

The light shone late that night from the old log house on the hills. Mrs. Holmes was alarmed when she wakened up and looked out, toward midnight.

"I believe the ole man's tuk bad again," said she. "I've a good mind to get up an' go an' see if I can help 'em any."

The next morning dawned gloriously fair. Mrs. Holmes was up and knitting, white Jussira made the fire for breakfast.

"Look! Look, quick, Jussira! There's a-goin' to be a weddin' at Hursts'. See, there's a white pigeon on the end o' the roof. There, it's flying toward the risin' sun! That's a sign it'll be a sudden one."

lead his wife and mother to their new home a home where the poor little ones of the city got many a Christmas treat, and in whose big, cosy old drawing-room the students of the college were many an evening kept out of the path of temptation.

Tirzah, with her sweet voice and musical talents, had a wonderful influence with those homeless boys. Few, indeed, among them who would not have done almost anything for her.

Perhaps the secret of it was that she was not one of those women who cease all improvement with marriage. She moved among the students as one of themselves, a student with them, and thus, in some measure, her ambition to take a college course was fulfilled.

But her time was not to be all her own. Little fingers were coming to caress the dimples in her face. Little voices were to re-echo through the halls. And thus we leave them, one more home, with the golden ladder connecting it with heaven. Sweet happy home, adieu !

The End.

Oh, for fitting language

The story to unfold!

Oh, for a pen that would transcribe
The tale in lines of gold!

That all the world should listen,
That none could fail to see
The mighty love that took for them
The path to Calvary.

Love of Christ so boundless,

So strong, so high, so deep!
It reaches to the last descent,
And climbs the crowning steep
No sin-stained soul there liveth
That can have sunk too low
For that great love to follow it
And make it white as snow,-

--

And lift it up to heaven-
Yea: even to God's right hand-
Pardoned and unreprovable
In His pure light to stand!

THE CHINESE QUESTION.

The Chinese question is increasing in magnitude, and while the fact is that the Legations and the other foreigners in Pekin are yet alive, they are either in a state of siege or held as hostages by the Chinese officials. These officials, with

Li Hung Chang at their head, are greatly opposed to the advance that is being made by the allied forces on Pekin, and threaten to withhold their protection from the besieged foreigners if the Allies do not cease their march. The Allies have determined to put no trust in the promises of these Chinese officials and have sent a

large army to rescue their Legations. Europe, however, is filled with gloom, for the Chinese question is complicated; the jealousies of the Western nations involved are very keen and active, and the end seems far away.

BAD FOR THE DRAGON. From News of the World (London).

As to China herself, she appears to be thoroughly aroused, and no wonder. Her pride is unbounded, her people regard themselves as heaven-born, superior to all other races of men, and they believe that their civilization is higher than that of any other nation. Yet for sixty years this people have been flouted and insulted and bullied and fined as no other nation has ever been humiliated, and that by peoples deemed immeasurably beneath them, save in the power given by ships and guns. Since the opium war ending with the treaty of Nankin in 1842, which ceded Hong Kong to Great Britain, opened five ports to foreign trade and promised a money indemnity, down to the demand of Italy for Sanmun Bay last year, the history of the relations of the western nations with China has been one long series of aggressions by the former powers. The destructive war

begun by England in 1857, ending in the treaty of Tien-Tsin, was of this character, as was also that begun by France in 1882, both ending in the acquisition of Chinese territory by the foreign Governments. But the aggressions of Europe previous to 1895 were infinitesimal as compared with those that have followed the war with Japan. Impressed with the belief that China could not or would not fight, the nations have treated the empire as dead, and openly discussed plans for its partition, some of which they have practically carried into effect. Russia, with the assistance of France and Germany, interfered after the treaty of Shimonoseki to deprive Japan of the fruits of her victory, securing in return the virtual cession of the great province of Manchuria. France recouped herself by "rectifying" the boundaries of her Tonquin colony, Germany by the seizure of the Kiao Chau peninsula, with an expansive hinterland, and England by a second "rectification in Burmah and the opening of the Yangtse-Kiang to foreign navigation. Finally, in 1898, Russia forced from China the cession of Port Arthur and Talien-Wan, with connection with the East Chinese Railway, which brought her down to the Great Wall. But a belated demand last autumn by Italy, which has been left out of the division, for Sanmun Bay, with a sphere of influence in the province of Chekiang, met with something like contumely. The mighty empire has begun to assert herself. The Chinese soldiers have shown more bravery and skill in using the many munitions of war which they have acquired than was anticipated, and instead of the dragon of the superstitious past meeting modern civilization, it looks more like the soldiers of the west being confronted with their own arms and tactics.

THE CHINESE WAR AND CHRISTIAN
MISSIONS.

The saddest part of the war in China is the interruption it has caused in the work of the Christian missionaries. At the outbreak of the war there were six hundred ordained Protestant missionaries and about two thousand other Protestant mission workers labouring in China. Their work radiated from nearly five hundred mission stations and they had between eighty and ninety thousand communicants.

PRINCE SHENG.

The Roman Catholic Church had, it is said, over two hundred missionaries and one hundred and fifty thousand converts in the Pekin district alone. With religious hate against any foreign religion and patriotic zeal against foreign devils," the Chinese have wrecked many of the mission stations, killed many of the missionaries and converts, and those who have escaped death are either held as hostages by Chinese officials or have taken refuge in fortified centres under foreign protection. Our own Canadian Methodist missionaries, Dr. V. C. Hart; George E. Hartwell, B.A.; H. M. Hare, M.D.; O. L. Kilborn, M.D.; W. E. Smith, M.D.; R. B. Ewan, M.D., and their wives and children, and Wellington Stephens, M.D.; Miss Minnie Brimstin, Miss Lottie A. Brooks, Miss Mary A. Foster, Miss Anna Henry, M.D., and Miss Maud Killam, M.D., succeeded in reaching Hankow on August 10, from which place Dr. Hart sent a cable message stating that they had arrived safely and were all well. For this we are thankful, but we hope and pray that the war may soon be brought to an end, so that these noble missionaries and their Christian labourers may return to their work of spreading peace and blessing through the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

TREATMENT OF THE REBELS.

CO

Now that the war in South Africa is ng its close, the question that is ng the keenest attention is the

treatment of the rebels. Many are calling for the severest measures, and there are not a few who are demanding the most lenient. Recently this question caused a most spirited debate in the House of Commons, in the course of which Liberals again aired most of the old charges against the Colonial Secretary, Mr. Joseph Chamberlain, and indulged in criticisms of the war in South Africa. Finally, Sir Wilfrid Lawson moved a reduction of Mr. Chamberlain's salary as a mark of censure of his policy.

Mr. Chamberlain, replying, welcomed the issue raised by the motion, which he declared meant that the war was wrong, and that, consequently, annexation of the South African Republics was wrong, and their independence should be restored to them. In his opinion, however, the war was just and righteous, and should not be judged by its consequence in loss of life. John Bright had defended the civil war in America as just and righteous, although the loss of life was as thousands to units as compared with South Africa.

Mr. Chamberlain combated the Liberal assertion that the Afrikander Bond had remained loyal, and ought to be consulted with regard to the settlement. He charged the Radicals with condoning rebellion. The policy of the Government, however, was not vindictive, and instead of subjecting the rebels to the death penalty or