M. having given his name, gently pushed past the astonished proprietor, who would have opposed his proceeding. When he stood in the door-way, the sight of the squallid groups, the sound of their untamed voices, the smell of spirits, were inexpressibly disgusting: but M. commanded his feelings and his countenance, and stood waiting till his presence was perceived. There was presently a sudden hush in the place, and then he said in a mild, distinct voice, as he looked slowly round,

"Edward Harris, it is you I want."

Till he fixed his eye on a party of card-players in the furthest corner none knew to whom he spoke, for the frequenters of such places are not known by their own names. Ned himself had almost forgotten his. He was evidently startled by M.'s appearance, and threw down his cards; but at the instigation of one of his companions, he took them again, and held them up as a sign that he could not leave his game.

"I am in no great hurry," said M., descending the steps. "Give me a seat, and I will wait till your hand is out."

No one offered any opposition to his seating himself on a bench in the midst of them. He drew a candle towards him, (for no daylight penetrated here,) took a book out of his pocket, and began to read. He had not to wait long. His presence was a restraint which the people round him were eager to get rid of. If his manner had been any thing but what it was, they would have turned him out; as it was, they urged Ned to go with him and see what he wanted, and to come back as soon as he could.

"Are you ready, my boy?" said M., when the cards were again thrown down and the lad followed him passively, as he made his way to the door, taking not the slightest notice of the parties on either hand.

"What do you want with me?" said the boy. "You are not going to have me taken up?"

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'No," said, M., "not till I see that you know what the law is, and that you break it wilfully.—I am come to take you home. There stands your father. He has been working laboriously all the week, and it is hard that his rest should be broken to-day by toiling and fretting after you." "He lets nobody have any rest at home," said Ned; nor my mother neither. He would flog me this minute if you were not here; and he will as soon as your back is turned; so I shall not go home."

"I am going with you," said M.; "and as for flogging you, it is not the time for it when you are doing what he wishes. And as for peace and comfort, there can be no comparison between dinner and a good fire above ground, and the cold and dirt of yonder cellar. Fire warms one better than spirits at any time."

By this time Ned saw with surprise the blaze of a good fire through the window of his home. His mother was tidily dressed; Willy had his face washed and his hair smoothed, and the furniture was all in its place. In consequence of a sign from M., both father and mother refrained from any notice of the boy's absence and return. They presently perceived that M.'s coat was wet with the heavy rain. He took it off, and gave it to Ned to dry, and calling little Willy to him, he asked him if any body ever told him tales to amuse him and presently interested him in the story of Joseph. He was not a little glad to see that Ned nearly let the coat burn while the narrative went on, and to hear Harris observe to his wife that they had once had a picture of that story, if they could but find it up to show the child.

M. said that his children had pictures of it: and he told little Willy that if his brother would bring him to his house in the afternoon, they might look at them. He directed

Ned how to find the way, and begged of him not to disappoint the child. Then seeing that the hungry boys were eyeing the boiling pot which contained their dinner, he rose to go.

"It is not for us to ask whether you will take a bit with us," said Harris.

"Some day I will," replied M., "but now I have to go further; and I must be at home when your boys come." "You will come again, Sir," said the anxious parents in a low voice, as he crossed their threshold.

Certainly; next Sunday or sooner." And he felt pretty confident that Mrs. Harris would now finish her week's work on the Saturday night.

"What has been done in this case, as in others," said M., when, a few weeks after, he made his report to those under whose authority and by whose support his mission was conducted, "what has been done appears trifling in the detail, but I am sure it is important in reality. We have no sudden reformation to boast of. These people have not yet attended public worship; they have not yet taken to reading the Bible, and I have not seen them in such a state that I could mention prayer to them. If they had, like others under my charge, needed assistance from our purse, the work would have been quickened; but it is proceeding. It is something that they make a friend of me. It is something to have engaged them in any kind of observance of the Lord's day, and to have united the family in any common interest, if it be only listening to the Bible stories I relate to the child. I have further reason to hope that the season of greater progress is at hand."

"What reason?"

"Last Sunday, having gone early on purpose, I rose to depart when the first bell sounded, saying that the time for

service was too precious to be always sacrificed. I thought they looked wistfully after me, and I believe a word from me will ere long make them follow me. And so convinced am I, from the changed tone of our intercourse, that any remarkable occurrence which may befall them, be it prosperous or adverse, will induce an expression of good feelings which are now strengthening in silence, that I watch in their case with peculiar interest, for the arrival of one of those outward changes which happen occasionally to all. If we could but gain tidings of the daughter * * * ***” "It is not impossible. Devise the method, and the means shall not be wanting. You have done so much that it would be sinful to despair of the rest. Why should we not remind one another that our office is that of the apostles of old? It will strengthen us to proceed upon their principle, — that it is ours to plant and to water, trusting to God to give the increase."

TRUE WORSHIPPERS.

FAR among the hills of a northern county lies a village whose inhabitants, being secluded from intercourse with any society but their own, retain a primitive simplicity of manners. Tidings of what is passing in the world reach them only when the agents of the factors by whom some of the people are employed pay their periodical visits of business, or when the carrier's cart returns from its weekly trip, bringing a store of the few comforts and luxuries which they cannot produce among themselves.

One frequent guest was, indeed, made welcome among them for many a year; but his visits were too short, and his conversation was too precious to be much devoted to

secular affairs. His connexion with the inhabitants was singular, but a source of great and permanent advantage to them and satisfaction to himself. Edwards was a poor man, engaged every day and almost all day long in the same employment as his friends in the village; but his education had been somewhat superior to his circumstances, and he had improved to the utmost the advantages he had enjoyed. He had a clear head and a warm heart, and the ardor of his mind was early directed to the most important subjects in which the understanding and the affections can be engaged. From being a religious man he became a religious teacher; and, destitute as he was of all pretensions to learning, far as he was from claiming any superiority over his hearers except in experience, his devotional services were not only acceptable to the people, but were attended with a very remarkable success. Early in the morning of every Sabbath he arrived at the village, and collected the people for a short service. At noon, they assembled again, and in the evening, Edwards was preaching for a third time at a town five miles distant. For many years his sabbaths had been thus spent, and as he grew older his zeal did not relax. Before any symptom of infirmity appeared, he began to look around and ponder how the religious instruction of his people should be provided for, when he should no longer be equal to his present exertion. The village contained neither church nor chapel; no Methodist ever had set foot in it, and its very existence was known to few. Edwards was as modest as he was zealous; and he shrank from making known what his exertions had been, and from bringing strangers to witness the extent and rewards of his usefulness: but, at length, remembering that at seventy-three it was presumptuous to reckon on a prolongation of bodily and mental vigor, and that his duty to his friends in the village required him to