verge of manhood or womanhood, to whom life looks bright and beautiful, that life is over for them, so far as any active participation in its joys and labours are concerned? They may live ten, twenty, thirty years-may live to a ripe old age, but only to suffer. All that tenderest care can give them or wealth procure may be theirs, yet their case is a hard and most pitiable one still.

But what of those to whom life is but a struggle at the best-whose friends find it hard work to make ends meet and keep their sick one? Perhaps to add to this affliction the stricken one has been the mainstay of home, or helped to supply many little comforts, and the brave independent spirit shrinks back appalled at the prospect of being dependent upon others.

How many such painful facts as these came under the notice of Dr. Andrew Reed it would be hard to say, but certain it is that some such cases must have suggested to him the need there was for a haven of refuge for those bereft of all earthly hope-a hospitalhome for the incurable-which led at last to the foundation of "The Royal Hospital for Incurables," at Putney.

I went a short time since to see this home -for it is a home. I must confess to having had a certain shrinking at the thoughts of encountering what I supposed must be inseparable from a "Hospital for Incurables," but before I had been long in the house I had decided in my own mind that it was an error to call this a hospital. It is a place with the individual freedom which we associate with home, almost with health.

made me at first feel that my visit was an intrusion. They were gathered in separate groups round a table or couch, some working, some reading, some gazing wearily through the windows. It was a most touching sight, and I paused for a moment, feeling that I scarcely dared to enter. I was introduced to one sitting in a wheeled chair, and she quickly put me at my ease by the welcome of her manner. She chatted with me about the work she used to do a little while ago, but which, alas! she can never do again.

Her neighbour was a young girl, but looked only a young child, for her deformity had stunted her growth, and as she sat with her wealth of dark curls, her natty white dress, adorned with its pretty bows of bright ribbon that yet added but a small charm to the owner's bright face, she looked one of the most diminutive little fairies I have ever seen. "Let me show some of your work," she said to her companion, and then I was told she was everybody's helper and comforter, although scarcely ever free from pain.

Other groups were whiling away their long day with reading or Berlin work, knitting, and crochet; even those who still retained the use of only a couple of fingers on one hand were yet diligently plying their needles, being evidently determined to make the most use they could of them while they were able.

Under a broad verandah at the end of the house were gathered a few more-the noisy ones, I was told-and truly to see their bright faces and hear their merry little jokes upon each other before they were aware of the presence of a stranger, it was difficult to believe that they were all incurable invalids. Then we went up-stairs to the chambers above, each with its two, four, or six little

In this pleasant many-windowed room were gathered the less disabled of the incurable inmates, some lying on couches, some sitting in wheeled chairs, which they could in some instances themselves propel, while others were quiet fixtures, unable to move hand or foot. There was a hush, a quietness, an air of subdued resignation about them all, that

cases vacated now, but in others never, never without its occupant. "I have been here fourteen years," said one. She had been brought up in affluence, and her father had once been mayor of a well-known town. In another chamber sat a young creature in a perfect bower, the window being filled with plants of her own rearing. "I am so glad I can be up and attend to my flowers," she said. "I am so fond of flowers!" a needless assurance, seeing what it cost her to attend to them; for she was never free from pain pain that even this slight exertion must have increased.

In the next room sat a bright, cheeryfaced woman, and I should like to see the

individual who had the courage to put a flower-pot in her window, and shut out the scene in which she took delight. In answer to my question asking how she was, she said, "Pretty well-though I'm rarely free from pain. But don't you see how the animals enjoy this lovely day?" I had not seen the animals, but I now noticed that this window commanded a view of the paddock, where a horse and some cows were, and pigs-just then unmistakably enjoying themselves.

"They are the most intelligent pigs," she said, "and those cows are so good-natured! and when the little pigs are asleep you will see the horse step past them so carefully. I never saw such animals as these are." I can well believe she never did, for life was too much a prison and a death to her until she came here and was able to indulge her love for animals by watching these from her window She had grown to have a personal interest and pleasure in the doings of each of them.

--

And here let me remark what struck me as the crowning glory of this most noble institution, and made it what it is a Home to so many-I mean the wise, loving sympathy displayed, suiting the rooms to the tastes of the different sufferers in grouping. into little communities that can naturally harmonize and be helpful to each other.

"Changes have to be made sometimes,". I was told. "When a fresh patient comes in she is, of course, a stranger, and it may be that the place assigned to her is the wrong one. We soon find this out, and who had better take her place, and which room she had better go into."

The happy consequence of this arrangement is, that in this Home of 178 invalids there is seldom a jar or angry word; and the kind-hearted, sympathetic matron, to whom all this is due, spoke in the highest terms of the patients' care, and tender forbearance with each other. In one of the smaller rooms lived two governesses. "I had this room to myself when I first came, and it was such a trouble to me when I heard that some one was coming to share it with me, for I have always been used to be by myself, and I cannot mix with so many. Well, I just made it a matter of prayer, and on Sunday our vicar, Mr. Henley, preached to us from the words, 'Bear ye one another's burdens,' and that helped me to feel a little better, but still I thought it would be a hard burden. But Mrs. Darbyshire brought me such a companion that I would not be without her for anything now. We have lived together two years."

The whole moral atmosphere of the place was one of gentle, considerate love; for the nurses had caught the tone of the place, and moved about lightly as well as briskly, knowing, doubtless, that to many a sensitive patient noise was agony. Not at all the regulation kind of nurses one so often meets with in hospitals, were these bright young damsels. Perhaps, too, the absence of all attempts at uniform in nurses as well as patients gives them the free, cheery look of a genuine "Clara" or a real natural looking "Lydia,” so much more refreshing to weary patients whose lives are perforce passed in much monotony.

"I should be so thankful if God called me to-night," said one silver-haired, happy-looking old lady-"so glad if it came to-night; but we must wait God's time. His time is always the best time."

Into each room I entered I was sure to be informed, "This is the best room in the house-you know it has such a lovely view;" and certainly every window afforded a sight either of bright flower-beds, the green slopes of the Wimbledon hills, or wooded pasture land.

In one of these pleasant rooms sat a young girl the daughter of a clergyman now dead, who had come here because she could not endure being a burden to them at home now that she is quite helpless. Quite helpless ;- but it is hard to realise it looking at that sweet, brave face bending over the stand fixed to her wheeled chair, and on which are spread colours and brushes and card-board with outlines of Scripture texts, which she will beautify with the most exquisitely painted flowers by means of her one movable finger. Only one finger of the ten is movable now, her hands and the rest of her limbs being rigid as stone. Another room is occupied by three sisters, each struck down in turn, on the verge of womanhood, by paralysis. The eldest, now little over thirty, has been in the hospital ten years. She is now busily crocheting a Shetland-wool shawl. She is unable to move in her bed, so are both her sisters, being from the waist downward quite powerless. The second sister was unable to speak. Her sufferings were great. In the third bed lay the youngest; and a sweeter, more peaceful face than beamed from beneath the pretty white draperies I have rarely seen. We had a pleasant little chat, exchanging confidences, in the course of which she told me she often beguiled the sleepless hours of the night by composing poetry, and after a little pressing gave me a copy of very sweet verses breath

As we entered another chamber a sufferer said quaintly, "I am afraid, Mrs. Darbyshire, this flower gives me rather a laid-out kind of look, but you see it is so sweet, and I get the scent of it."

A deep-hued carnation lay upon the bosom of her white night-dress. Her whole body lay rigid as if carved in stone, and so she had lain for ten long years unable to move even so much as a finger. A light-framed lookingglass in a high stand was near the foot of the bed that the invalid might see the view from the window reflected there. "And I can remember how it feels to move about, you know," she said, "for I could jump about anywhere when I was a child, and walk till I was seventeen. I could move myself a little until I was nineteen." As a bustling, energetic girl of nineteen she had heard that until death she must evermore be a prisoner to her bed.

But perhaps the most sadly touching case is that of a woman deaf and dumb, blind and paralysed, who was yet one of the most cheerful and happy of this suffering sisterhood. Her only means of communication was through Mrs. Darbyshire, who, seating herself on a chair by her prostrate form, took the yielding hand, and at once a beaming look of joyful recognition came into the sufferer's face. Then I was introduced by a series of finger touches rather complicated to the beholder,

paralytic, who held up her other hand for me to take. She held mine for a minute or two -critically, I could tell, as if reading me through my hand. Afterwards I heard that this poor woman had been well brought up. By the death of her parents however she was left without a single relative in the world except a brother, who was in Australia, and without the aid of this institution she would be destitute, save of the cold, hard charity of a workhouse. With all that the loving sympathy of a most noble-hearted woman can devise for the comfort of these suffering ones, making herself as she does the personal friend of each that she may know how to minister to all, their lot is hard enough, their sufferings at times beyond what we can imagine.

Besides sympathy and advantage of situation the place is full of various mechanical appliances that the unfortunate inmates could not possibly have, even in a tolerably comfortable home. Many of these, and especially the wheeled chairs, have been presented by the liberal treasurer of the institution, Mr. Henry Huth. The cost of one of these chairs is about £25, and he has presented upwards of seventy, besides adorning the walls of every room in the house with neatly framed chromo-lithograph prints and pictures. The only fact that I have to record with regret is that the institution greatly needs funds. Many suffering candidates are waiting for admission.

EMMA LESLIE

SUNDAY EVENINGS BY THE REV. JOHN EDMOND, D.D.,

FIRST EVENING.

Opening Hymn :" Joyfully, joyfully, onward we move." Lesson: Kings xvi. 1--16. Concluding Hymn: "All praise to Thee, my God, this night."

N°

WOW let me tell you about one of the beautiful sights which an angel showed to St. John in a vision, to make him glad when he was a lonely prisoner. It is in the book called the Revelation that we are told of it, and this is what is said: "And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God, and of the Lamb." (Rev. xxii. 1.)

We will first talk about the beautiful water 'pure as crystal."

It has always been matter of great importance to find for cities a good supply of

as at Rome, or New York, or Glasgow. In the last of these cities there is now a copious supply of soft pure water brought from a Highland lake many miles away, on the other side of big mountains. The bed laid for the pipes that convey it cost wonderful toil to make. It had to be bored through solid rocks and built over deep chasms. Some twenty years ago the good Queen went, when the works were finished, to open the channel, and bade the healthful stream flow on to gladden and bless half a million of her subjects. It was an act fit for a royal hand, that often writes kind words and does gentle deeds. The part of London where I live has what is called the New

another river which is very far from pure, and the two can be seen flowing side by side, till the bright water conquers the dark. The brightest of earth's rivers could, however, hardly be described as this is, clear as crystal, though when the sun shone on them I have seen rivers gleam like silver. I have seen streams of light, too, among the clouds at sunset which have seemed like the crystal river. What is taught us by the water of life being so clear is this: Christian life is holy and gladsome; it shines, it sparkles, it rejoices. You know water can be analyzed, shown in the several parts that make it. Now I have something like a statement of what the water of life is when analyzed. Here it is. "The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance." Must not water made up of these things be sweet? Would

heavenly city is a river. Multitudes may drink from it, and it will flow on full as ever. It cannot be otherwise, for the living water, as we have seen, is the love and grace of the Holy Spirit, who is God. There is no fear that this stream can be dried up, as some earthly brooks, like that from which Elijah drank, have been, as even some earthly rivers have failed. All may come, many, many times, and drink to the full, and still the river will flow on for ever.

But of this I shall have something more to say, when I come to speak of the source of the river.

In the meantime, hear this voice: "Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters." This little sermon has tried to bring you a cup filled from the river. But the river is in Jesus himself. Hear Him: "If any one thirst, let him come unto Me, and drink." JOHN EDMOND.

not the world be happy if it flowed everywhere, and men would drink of it? Then the

The water of the crystal river is3. Abundant.-A pool soon dries up, if not freshly fed. A cistern gets empty. The water in the bottle which Hagar and Ishmael carried into the desert with them soon was spent. But streams, as a rule, flow on. You go again and again to a well, and still can draw water out of it. There is difference, too, between a brook, which is small, and a river, which is large. Whosoever will may go to it. The cattle go to it. The people of the town go to it. There is enough for all. Now the water in the

SECOND EVENING.

Opening Hymn:"A little Ship was on the Sea." Lesson: John iv. 1-14. Concluding Hymn: "All praise to Thee, my God, this night."

Last Sunday we were talking about the beautiful river, with its pure crystal waters, which the angel showed to John; now let us speak of the source of the river. Where does it flow from? The Bible tells us, and here is what it says: "And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God, and of the Lamb."

When I was a boy I lived by the side of a little brook, of which I was very fond. I liked it in winter, when it swelled and foamed, and tossed its brown waters, like an angry thing. I liked it in summer when it crept clear and gentle down its pebbly bed, singing a sweet hush-song as it flowed. At first it was a mystery to me where it came from, except that I knew it was sent from the mountain near the skirt of which my home stood. But it was a joy to me to go at length to the very cleft where the first waters of the brook trickled from the rock. Let me pass from the little to the great, and say that you must have often heard of Burton, and Livingstone, and Stanley, and Cameron, and others, who have been travelling of late years in Central Africa. Well, one great object of their toilsome marching was to find out the sources of the great River Nile; and it is thought a grand thing that by their search we now know where the wonderful