and he knew that he had a wretched time of it never enough to eat; never anything much but cuffs, and blows, and hard words; never clothes enough to keep out the wind, which blew so keen and chill. He did not know that the good God was looking down upon his misery; he did not know that that same good God was putting kind thoughts for him into the hearts of the little children in one of the houses near, who begged their mother to let him share their dinner.

Mrs. Warner was only a working woman, but she managed so well that there was always plain food in their home, though not too much of it. She was kind-hearted, too; so when Jessie and little Will pleaded for the ragged urchin, she got up and called him in, putting a plateful of food before him.

Jim needed no second asking-just for a minute he stared with surprise at such unexpected good fortune. Then he sat down and cleared it up in quick time, and setting down the empty plate he thanked them again and again for his dinner.

You don't often get a dinner, my boy, I should think?' said Mrs. Warner.

"No! I haven't had anything but bread this long time. Mother's not had much work, you see, and there's such a lot of us, and we've lost father.'

'Poor little boy! Well, I'm only a working woman too, but thank God I can get enough for my little ones, and I dare say we'll spare you a bit now and then. Can't you work, too, and help your mother?' 'No one 'll have me,' said Jim. tried and tried, but no one wants any boys like me.'

I've

'Well, suppose you go to the shop over the way and ask there. They did want a boy awhile back to run errands and suchlike: it's worth asking.'

'If He did,

'He don't care,' said Jim. He wouldn't let us be so hungry.'

'O Jim! He does care. Can't you think of any of the kind things God has done for you many a time?'

'He gave me my dinner, I 'spose,' said Jim; and then he told how the little children and their mother had treated him.

Well, that was God's doing, Jim: it wasn't chance took you there, and it wasn't chance which made them see you, and be kind to you. He put it into their

hearts.'

'I wish He'd tell some one to give me work, then,' said Jim.

'Have you asked God to do this, Jim?' ‘N—no, I haven't, exactly. He knows

I want it bad enough, though.'

'Yes, He knows it all, but He likes to hear us ask Him; He likes to see us tell Him all our troubles, and believe that will help us out.'

It was a new thought to Jim, and from that time he took to his prayers again, which he had forgotten from neglect; and when after a little while success came at last, and he got to work and times were better, he always believed, and rightly too, that it was God's answer to his prayer.

RHODA GRANT.

(Continued from p. 3.) RS. GRANT was a weak, kindhearted woman, very fond of her children; but not showing her love for them, by trying to correct their bad habits and tempers. She was often foolishly inAdulgent, and when their father was angry she took their part against him in a most unwise way. The clergyman and district-visitor had for years urged her to send her children to school, and to attend church herself, without any effect. Always civil and goodnatured, she had some excuse ready; and her well-wishers could not but feel what a hopeless case it was. 'Richard has no boots, sir,' she would say; or, 'He has no clothes fit to go with other boys to the Sunday-school;' or, "Little John says he won't go to school, ma'am, and I can't make him; I can't bear to see him cry.' And with regard to her own church-going she used to say, "There, sir, I can't; I haven't been inside a church for years, and I can't begin now; and I'm sure Grant will never go. And then, sir, the church is so far off, it's so hard for poor people to go such a long way; and Grant will always have his bit of hot dinner on Sunday; and then, it's the only day the boys are at home, and I don't like leaving them.'

But even afterwards, when a school-chapel had been erected at that end of the parish, and the poor heard the sound of the churchgoing bell close by, Sunday after Sunday, and had the gospel brought to their very doors, the Grants never entered the new place of worship, though they had no longer the excuse of distance to give to the clergyman.

It is to be feared that the whole family would have grown up in a state of ungod liness, if Rhoda had not happily begun a better state of things as regarded herself; and her example was not without its influence. She had gradually persuaded her mother to send Sarah and two younger ones to the day-school; and though they did not always attend regularly, and were sometimes kept at home with no good reason, they were on the whole getting on well. She also did her best to send them off to the Sunday-school, and even coaxed her brother Tom to accompany them now and then; but this was a hard matter.

Rhoda was not without kindly visitors, and many people were interested in the case of the young girl, wasting away in consumption and yet bearing her troubles with so much sweetness and patience. The clergyman, Mr. Monsell, often visited her, and the lady in whose district the cottage was; her Sunday-school teacher, too, came in to talk and read with her. These visits, however, comforting as they were, only formed a small part of her life; and though the recollection of a kind word, or look, or pressure of the hand, was soothing to her, it was not enough to keep her cheerful through the long, weary days and nights. She suffered much from weakness, and at times could hardly bear the noise the children made, and the loud voices of her father and brothers. The floor, too, was sometimes damp, and cold draughts found their way into the room, and its untidiness| was distressing to her. If she had not found a heavenly Friend, she would have indeed sunk into dejection; but she had learnt to lift up her eyes to the hills from whence her help came, and she had never lifted her eyes in vain. Still earth-born cares would arise sometimes and hide her Saviour from her eyes; and now as she lay