tell you he bitterly repented his wasted life. But, besides that, he confessed to me that it never was a really merry life. He saw his pleasures would not bear thinking about, and when reflection came he was wretched."

"Now, Martin," resumed Rider, after a short pause, "tell me honestly, do you feel specially merry to-day?"

Martin was obliged to confess that he did not.

"Your head aches, and you are altogether out of sorts," said Rider; "but that is only a small part of the matter; you are vexed and dissatisfied with yourself-now are you not ?"

Martin's silence was an admission that what his friend said was true.

"So then," said Rider, "this is how it is: you may shorten your life if you go on as you have done, and at the most you will only make a very little bit of it merry. The Bible says truly that the pleasures of sin are but for a season;' and then it says, too, that the end of those things is death.'"

"But a fellow ought to have a bit of enjoyment in life," objected Martin.

"And God intends us to have a great deal," said Rider. "If you would only try you would find that there was no life so happy as a life of love to God and of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. I've tried it, and I know."

Just then, to the surprise of both, the bell rung for begin ning work again; and the rest of the men came pouring into the shop. Of course, for the time, that put an end to their talk.

What sort of a life have you been living, reader? Have you been trying to make it a "merry”—that is, a trifling and sinful life? It has not made you really happy, and it never will. Ask God, first of all, to forgive you all your sins; but be sure you ask Him believing in the Lord Jesus Christ. Ask Him, too, to change your heart, by the power of His Holy Spirit. You will then be able to serve Him, and you will find His service an everlasting joy.

ERHAPS some of the readers of the Tract Magazine may think it would serve me very rightly if nobody read this paper of mine at all! "What business has any one to call other people gossips?" some may say; and they may further choose to disavow the name by leaving my "word" unread.

Ah well! pardon me if I have done amiss; and let me say that it is only because the incident I am about to relate did me an immense deal of good in the way of cautioning me to beware how I speak words which may, or may not, be true, that I venture to write it here and dedicate it to the gossips.

Gossiping means scandal-mongering now; and it is a rather alarmning thing to reflect that a word which once had a welcome and friendly sound should have gradually gained a meaning which nobody admires. A gossip in the olden days meant a near friend, a comrade-one who would stand by your side in weal or woe. It means, now, one who chatters here and chatters there, and generally chatters no good. And, as I say, it is sad and frightening when a word of our English language changes its meaning so decidedly for the worse.

Few men, women, or children, would unblushingly acknowledge that they are prone to tell lies. A lie has an ugly look; it is a disgrace; it is a cowardly and sinful thing and this every one agrees in. But there are plenty of kinds of lies; and some of these touch us all more nearly than we are ready at first sight to believe.

"A lie which is wholly a lie can be met with and fought outright; But a lie which is part of the truth is a harder matter to fight."

So the poet Tennyson says; and his opinion ought to be worth something. And it is of a lie which was partly the truth that I'm going to speak now.

Our village is, like many other villages in the northern counties of England, outgrowing its name. Much smaller places are called "towns" in the south; with sessions-houses, and country banks, and sundry other glories. But our

village is a village still, although its inhabitants number many thousands. Large factories are in its streets, and

long rows of "villa residences" stand on its outskirts.

Our old parson died not long ago. He was a kindly man, who had long been ailing in body and failing in mind.

He was unfit to do any work for years before he died, yet we missed him when he was gone; and many tears fell upon the churchyard grass the day he was buried.

The new parson is a contrast to him in every way. He has thick black hair instead of the few lines of silver which were on dear old Mr. Langdon's head. He has a clear, ringing voice, and a brisk step, and he seems as if no work could tire him. He preaches in the streets on week-days; and he is always in the cottages, or in the lanes where the work-people loiter about after work-hours, speaking to allto hardened drinking men, to weary women, to idle, thoughtless children—and bidding all come to the dear Saviour who can alone make the sons of men happy and restful and satisfied.

Of course many find fault with him. Some think him meddling with the affairs of others. Some say he has "opinions." Some dislike him, and are offended at his words. But it appears to me that if the apostles Peter and Paul themselves were with us now they would be found fault with in just the same way.

The parson has his admirers too; and they are some of them—as ill-judged and unwise as his enemies. They talk of him in terms of extravagant praise, and this only makes the other party more bitter against him.

Curiously enough, it was from one of the staunchest of his friends that this story about him took its rise-as follows. A family party were sitting round the tea-table discussing the events of a late call at the vicarage.

"How fond the vicar is of his garden, to be sure !" said one. "He came in all hot and flushed from digging and working there himself. I wonder he doesn't keep a man-servant to attend to it, and to do other odd jobs. Mr. Langdon did."

"Yes, but Mr. Langdon had private property, and this vicar has only his living," said Mr. White, the father of the family.

"And he gives so much away," added Mrs. White, in an admiring tone.

"If he does not keep a man he keeps a mowing machine. We saw it at work; didn't we, Mary ?" said the eldest of the young people, turning to her sister.

Mary looked puzzled.

"Oh, don't you remember it, Mary? It was at work on the little strip of lawn at the side-door. Don't you re

member?"

"Ah, yes," and Mary laughed as she replied; "of course I remember! A large mowing machine too: and would you believe it, mamma ?—it works on Sundays!"

"Nonsense, Mary," said Mr. White. "Don't say such a silly thing."

"But it is true, papa,” said Mary, laughing still; and her sister agreed with her.

"That I will never believe," declared Mrs. White. "However fond the vicar may be of his garden and his flowers, he would never break the Sabbath in such a way as that; he is far too sincere and too good a man !"

How it got about the parish nobody ever could tell, but certainly a few days after this little conversation at the Whites' tea-table, all the world of our village was talking of the vicar's mowing machine that was kept going on Sundays!

"I don't blame him," said Timothy Rye, the leader of much of the ruffianism of the place. "I don't blame him. If he chooses to work all Sundays, why shouldn't he? 'Tis a free country."

"But I do blame him," said John Bonner, Timothy's chosen companion. "Why should he come preaching and jawing at us, making out that he is so good and we are so bad, when all the time he does exactly as we do when the doors are locked and he thinks no one can see him? a humbug-that's about what he is !"

He's

And so the talk went on. And the "fact" of the Sunday mowing told very heavily against the parson.

Little Johnnie Simms said he listened outside the vicarage gate on Sunday afternoon after service, and he could dis