was for my 'respect.' I must walk on them to show that I accepted the honour." Lord Lindsay, in his interesting Letters, gives us a still more pleasing instance of the custom referred to. He says:"On approaching Bethlehem, the aged inhabitants, with tears and lamentations, came out to meet me, to beseech my intercession on the cruel oppression then inflicted on them; and, eighteen hundred years after the memorable record of that custom, they strewed their abayes and garments in my path, which, with my suite, I literally rode over; while my heart beat, and my eyes were bathed with tears, at such a memorial of past ages amidst such a scene of present wretchedness." The inhabitants of this town appear about the same time to have repeated this Oriental mode of showing honour. Dr. Robinson, in his admirable work on Palestine, relates the following circumstance :-- "At that time, when some of the inhabitants were already imprisoned, and all were in deep distress, Mr. Farran, then English consul at Damascus, was on a visit to Jerusalem, and had rode out with Mr. Nicolayson to Solomon's Pools. On their return, as they rose the ascent to enter Bethlehem, hundreds of the people, male and female, met them, implorimg the consul to afford them his protection; and all at once, by a sort of simultaneous movement, 'they spread their garments in the way' before the horses. consul was affected unto tears, but had, of course, no power to interfere."

The

John vii. 24.-"JUDGE NOT ACCORDING TO THE APPEARANCE, BUT JUDGE RIGHTEOUS JUDGMENT."

1899. Appearances sometimes Deceptive.-The Cruel Fowler. -I remember a pretty apologue that Bromiard tells :-A fowler, on a sharp frosty morning, having taken many little birds for which he had long watched, began to take up his nets, and nipping the birds on the head laid them down. A young thrush, espying the tears trickling down his cheeks by reason of the extreme cold, said to her mother that certainly the man was very merciful and compassionate, who wept so bitterly over the calamity of the poor birds. But her mother told her, more wisely, that she might better judge of the man's disposition by his hand than by his eye; and that if the hand do strike treacherously, he can never be admitted to friendship who speaks fairly and weeps pitifully-Bishop Taylor.

John xiii. 38.-"JESUS ANSWERED HIM, WILT THOU LAY DOWN THY LIFE FOR MY SAKE? VERILY, VERILY, I SAY UNTO THEE, THE COCK SHALL NOT CROW, TILL THOU HAST DENIED ME THRICE.

1900. Cock Crowing as Marking Time.-The cock crowing also regulates the time of night in Samoa. They speak of the "first cock-crowing," meaning by that a little after midnight. And then again they have "the cock-crowing," meaning by that the approach of day. A cock which crows about eight or ten o'clock at night they call a foolish crower, and use the expression, in comparison, for a man who talks at random.-Turner's “Polynesia."

Exodus xxi. 26.-"AND IF A MAN SMITE THE EYE OF HIS SERVANT, OR

THE EYE OF HIS MAID, THAT IT PERISH; HE SHALL LET HIM GO FREE
FOR HIS EYE'S SAKE."

1901. Slave Rights.-"We have heard," says Cruickshank, in his "Eighteen Years on the Gold Coast of Africa," "a slave argue for his emancipation on the score of the accidental loss of an eye, in his master's service, from the recoil of a branch of a tree, and appeal to a traditionary law which entitles him to this compensation."

AND HE

Luke xvi. 6.-" AND HE SAID, AN HUNDRED MEASURES OF OIL.
SAID UNTO HIM, TAKE THY BILL, AND SIT DOWN QUICKLY, AND WRITE
FIFTY.

"

1902. The Dishonest Steward.-A case occurred lately in the court of this country (Scotland), in which a proprietor, who had lost very large sums by the unfaithfulness of his agents, prosecuted the parties for restitution on the ground of the agent's bad faith in the transactions. The case was protracted, and I lost sight of it before the solution was reached; but it is enough that a plea was actually raised to obtain from one debtor the price of a hundred measures of oil, instead of fifty, which he acknowledged, on the alleged ground that the absconded steward had corruptly, and for his own interest, sacrificed the rights of his employer.-Arnot's "The Parables of our Lord."

Gems.

25. The Only Rebel.-There is no creature on earth that does not fulfil its mission except man; none but what promotes God's glory except the one that boasts his image. All God's works praise Him. The song of birds, the lowing of cattle, the chime of the sea waves, the sighing of the wind; all creatures, all sights, all sounds, are full of worship. Man, once the high priest of creation, the mysterious yet glorious link between the material and the spiritual, has put off his Eden robes, and no longer ministers a holy Levite before the Lord.-Rev Henry Gill.

26. "Forgiveness," said a little boy, "is the odour which flowers breathe when trampled on."

27. Reasoning.-A deaf and dumb child was once asked, "Does God reason?" He wrote on the wall, “God sees and knows everything; reasoning implies doubt and uncertainty, therefore God does not reason."

28. Opportunities.-Many do with opportunities as children do at the sea-shore; they fill their little hands with sand, and then let the grains fall through, one by one, till all are gone.-Rev. Thomas Jones.

29. Bad Characters.-The completely opaque mineral, such as coal, transmits not one ray of light, and all within is of course entirely concealed-fit representative of a character thoroughly bad, within and without; the only thing about it that we like is that there is no attempt to assume a borrowed dress in order to conceal the deformity within; the principles are bad, and the conduct is bad, and nothing but divine grace can transform the dark and shapeless mass into order, transparency, and beauty.-Hitchcock.

30. Conscience, Seeking to Stifle.-In times when vile men held the high places of the land, a roll of drums was employed to drown the martyr's voice, lest the testimony of truth from the scaffold should reach the ears of the people; an illustration of how men deal with their own consciences, and seek to put to silence its truth-telling voice.-Rev. William Arnot.

31. Likeness to Christ.--A Christian's life, without any occasion for his lips telling it, should proclaim him to the world a child of God; so I have known an infant bear such striking resemblance to his father, that what his tongue could not tell his face did; and people, struck by the likeness, remarked of the nursling, “He, is the very image of his father.”—Dr. Guthrie.

32. Jesus in this Life.-"I want," said a young corporal one day to Hedley Vicars, "to have more of Jesus in this life." Christ crucified is not a mere fund in reserve-a kind of extreme unction to help men to die in peace: it is the power which is daily to move the life, that they may live in holiness.