on her bed, weary with coughing, her thoughts were anything but cheerful.

"What good am I?' she said despondingly to herself. I am fit for nothing; and I lie here and see so much that is going on wrong, and I can't do anything to stop it.' She thought of the neglected Sundays, and of her poor father and mother, who hardly seemed to have a thought beyond this present world. And then there were the two poor boys, growing up with so little knowledge of better things. Richard was always kind and gentle in his ways, and would have gone to church and school, she knew, if some one would have set him an example and made it easy for him. Clothes were always his great difficulty, and his wages were scarcely more than enough to feed him. The family, except the father and Tom, were none of them strong, and the children needed all the food they could get to keep them in health. The mother, too, being an untidy woman and a bad manager, this buying of Sunday clothes was always a real trouble. Richard, not naturally clever, was becoming dull and stupid from never having been taught anything. Tom, though brighter and sharper, was very idle and difficult to manage: when he once now and then attended the Sunday-school, his teacher was struck by his intelligent answers, and if he had only taken pains he might have become a fair reader; but he gave great trouble at school as well as at home, and led other boys to behave as badly as himself, often laughing and making others laugh when serious things were spoken of. He was reckoned by most folk a very bad boy, but Rhoda knew that there was a better side to his nature, and a soft place in his heart. His father would beat him when he was angry, but harshness could never soften such a nature as Tom's.

O those two boys! what a weight they

were on Rhoda's heart, as she lay awake on her bed! The younger children were not such a care to her, as they went pretty regularly to school, and had the advantage. of discipline and a good mistress, but it was different with the poor boys. But as she sighed, the verses of holy writ came to her mind, Cast thy burden upon, the Lord, and He shall sustain thee;' and, 'Casting all your care upon Him, for He careth for you.' And she laid this trouble before the Lord, and strength and comfort from Him found their way into her heart. And when the last ember died out, and the cold misty moonlight stole into the cottage, it showed the poor tried maiden peacefully sleeping.

(To be continued.)

THE GENEROUS SLAVE.

N 1640, Peru, then a colony of Spain, was governed by a viceroy named Count Cinchon. He resided at Lima, the capital of the country. A terrible and most fatal fever frequently prevailed in that city, to which the gravestones of hundreds in the cemeteries bore witness.

In the year 1640 this disease raged worse than ever; but like the destroying angel in Egypt, who passed by the doors of the children of Israel, choosing his victims only from among the people of Pharaoh, so here the fever spared the natives, but smote the whites with tenfold power. The Spanish settlers died in such numbers that the ships which constantly arrived did not bring near enough to fill the wide gaps which death had made.

This caused great joy among the Indians. "The tyrants are all dying; what our arms

could not do, the climate is doing for us!' exclaimed the enslaved Peruvians to each other, when they were out of the hearing of their oppressors.

On the other hand, deep sorrow reigned among the whites. The Viceroy was not free from the calamity which visited all. His wife, an angel of goodness and gentleness, lay dying. For a long time the fever had been consuming her strength; now Death stood, as it were, at the threshold. The Viceroy's heart was deeply afflicted. He had greatly sinned by severity and cruelty; the dying lady had, by her merciful gentleness and goodness, healed many a wound caused by him. The certainty which dawned on him that his good angel was about to depart, troubled his conscience and made him wretched.

Within the walls of the palace a second. life was ebbing away also. In a silent, solitary chamber, in a remote wing of the building, forsaken and forgotten by all, lay a young female slave. Condemned to live among the enemies of her people, she must also share their fate; the fever had not passed her by. The poor girl was with her whole soul devoted to her mistress; neither colour, nor race, nor prejudice could destroy this affection, which had grown up of itself. And those who in life had been so faithfully devoted to each other, it seemed as if death could not separate; the two lives were about to end at the same time.

Night, meanwhile, had come down on all this tribulation. The wax-lights in the chamber of the Vice-queen burned lower and lower, and the life of the sick lady, too, it seemed would soon come to an end.

Round the palace glided along the dark figure of an Indian. Soft and silent was the footstep of the brown man; sharp, penetrating the darkness of the night, was his look. No evil purpose had brought

him here at this unusual hour; it was the love of a father for his child which had urged him through the night and the darkness into the dreaded and dangerous grounds of Count Cinchon. The dying slave was his daughter.

Father and child-what was able to keep one from the other? Soon the Indian stood by the bedside of the dying girl. Quickly, hurriedly, dreading each moment discovery and capture, the Indian pressed a dried and hollowed gourd into his child's hand. The gourd contained the bark of a tree reduced to powder which he had fetched from the mountains. Take,' he said, 'this powder; eat it, and you will live: but be silent as to what I have told you, for the tyrants must die.' The father knew that his child was saved; noiselessly as he had come he hastened away.

The slave began to reflect: at once she thought of her mistress. With the last remnant of her strength she rose from her bed and tottered into the Countess's sick

chamber. The physician did not believe her words as he took the powder from her hand. But the Viceroy ordered that this last means should be used, and—his wife was saved. The noble slave? she, too, was cured: there was enough of the medicine to preserve two lives.

They searched for the origin of the powder. Soon the secret which protected the Indians from the deadly influence of the fever, the healing bark of the life-giving tree, was discovered. It was called, from the white lady whose life it had first saved, Cinchona, but now more frequently Quinine. It has been a blessing for all mankind, for the deadliest fevers are subdued by that bitter powder of the Peruvian bark, and travellers and soldiers in Africa and the East now always take care to have with them a supply of Quinine. J. F. C.

ON CHRISTMAS EVE.

HE holy Christmas Eve had come. The white soft snow lay in the streets and on the roofs of the houses. Here and there the lights of the Christmas-trees shone from the windows, and the bells of the parish church played the hymn-tune,

'Praise God, good Christians, with one voice,
On His exalted throne,

Who bids you all to-day rejoice,

And sends you down His Son.'

The weather was not so very severe this Christmas, yet people were hurrying along the streets to get home to their houses. was Christmas joy which urged them on.

It

In a little garret in the Kloster Street at Berlin, two children stood at the window and gazed silently out into the snow-covered street, where the lamps were already lighted. The bells were just ringing in the Christmas feast. The eldest was a girl of eight. Her little brother, who stood beside her at the window and had placed his hand upon his sister's shoulder, was six, a few weeks before. In the background of the dark room, which was scantily furnished with only the most necessary furniture, sat a young woman, who was preparing a meagre supper. She was the mother of the two children at the window.

But, mother, the Christmas Man will come to us too; won't He ?' asked the little boy, suddenly.

The woman looked up when she heard her child's question. She was silent for a time, then she replied in a voice full of emotion,

"Yes, my Paul; the Christmas Man will

come to us too; He comes to the rich and to the poor, and certainly He will not forget us.'

"He will bring me something with Him; won't He?' inquired the boy further.

The mother sighed deeply and sadly. Then she said,

Certainly, my dear child, if you are good and gentle. He brings us all something with Him, and we should heartily rejoice in His gifts.'

"What will He bring me, dear mother?' asked little Paul, with delight.

'Don't you remember,' replied the mother, 'what the angels on the holy Christmas night told the shepherds on the field of Bethlehem?'

'Oh, yes; that I know very well,' cried the boy, cheerfully. The angels said, "Behold, I bring to you tidings of great joy which shall be to all people, for to you born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord."'

is

'Well, my Paul, you then can rejoice too that you have such a dear good Saviour, and that now His happy birthday comes round again when He was made a little child for us, and laid in the manger at Bethlehem.'

But won't the holy Christmas Child bring me something else?' asked the boy. Then the mother got up, went to the window, clasped both her children in her arms, and exclaimed with tears,

'No, my little son, He won't bring you

anything this time. Perhaps if father

comes home,if he has been successful in his long journey,-but if he does not come home, or if his journey has not been successful, then we must content ourselves with this Christmas joy above.'

This indeed did not seem enough for the two children. They looked down sadly and silently. But one tear after another ran

down from the mother's eyc. She went away in order to dry them unnoticed by her children in the dark room. While she was thus employed the two children came to her and begged her to take them with her to the Christmas market. The mother, who though she could give the poor children nothing herself was able at all events to grant them this pleasure, soon consented. Not long after all three left the room together and walked along the snowy streets till they came to the Christmas market, which was held in the Palace Square, and in the broad street close to it.

Poor Frau Zöllner,- that was her name, - had not wept without cause. During the last few years she had suffered many grievous troubles and endured many an oppressive anxiety. Her husband had once been a well-to-do shopkeeper. They had food and clothing for themselves and their children, and nothing which belonged to the necessities, even almost to the luxuries, of life had failed them. But in this unfortunate year, when the commercial world had passed through a great crisis, and one house after another had failed, their prosperity also came to a speedy and unexpected end. Through the ruin of several commercial houses, Herr Zöllner had suffered considerable losses. One blow after another had fallen upon him. But as he was careful and industrious it might have been possible for him to recover himself, and to carry on his business, though with. smaller means and on a narrower scale. But his creditors were very pressing; one especially, the rich merchant W———— Hamburg, was very hard and unreasonable towards him. He demanded immediately the payment of his debt. But as the poor man was not in a position to pay it at once, he was obliged to shut up his business and declare himself a bankrupt. Since that

in

time he and his family had been in a sad and needy condition. He had indeed found employment at a small salary in the office of a Berlin commercial house, and he could just manage to support his wife and children. But still his debts for his former business weighed upon him, especially the large sum of 1500 dollars which he owed to that merchant in Hamburg, and which he would have suffered any privation to be able to pay like a honest man so as not be constantly pressed as he now was by his creditors. By diligence and selfdenial, he succeeded by degrees in paying off 300 dollars of this debt. But he had still 1200 more to pay the hard man.

A week ago he had started on a journey to visit several commercial houses, through whose bankruptcy his fall had been caused, and which, as he had heard, were now flourishing again. He wanted to try whether they would not restore him some of the sums which they had formerly owed him, that he might therewith satisfy his creditor. This Christmas Eve he had wished to return in order to keep the great festival in the circle of his family. But he had not come yet, perhaps he might arrive later in the evening. So his wife set out with the two children at once in order to show them the Christmas market and give them thereby a little pleasure before he came. We will leave her now to go on her way, and will seek for her again after we have observed a man who is walking close behind her and seems to be attentively listening to the conversation of the mother and children.

(To be continued.)