I

may have the second birth; that with me "old things may pass away, and all things become new!"

"Oh make this heart rejoice or ache

(Decide this doubt for me); And if it be not broken-break; And heal it if it be!"

Righteousness of Christ.

HE righteousness wherein we must be found, if we will be justified, is not our own, therefore we cannot be justified by any inherent quality. Christ hath merited righteousness for as many as are found in Him. In Him God findeth us, if we be faithful; for by faith we are incorporated into Christ. Then, although in ourselves we be altogether sinful and unrighteous, yet even the man who is impious in himself, full of iniquity, full of sin-him, being found in Christ through faith, and having his sin remitted through repentance-him God beholdeth with a gracious eye, putteth away his sin by not imputing it; taketh quite away the punishment due thereunto by, pardoning it; and accepteth him in Jesus Christ as perfectly righteous, as if he had fulfilled all that was commanded him in the law. Shall I say, more perfectly righteous than if himself had fulfilled the whole law? I must take heed what I say; but the apostle saith, "God hath made Him to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him." Such we are in the sight of God the Father as is the very Son of God Himself. Let it be counted folly, or frenzy, or fancy whatsoever, it is our comfort and our wisdom; we care for no knowledge in the world but this, that man hath sinned, and God hath suffered that God hath made Himself the Son of Man, and that men are made the righteousness of God.-Hooker.

Dick Wilson's Home, and what changed it.

ON'T, Dick, don't! They don't deserve that to-night, at any rate!" and the mother held out her arms imploringly, to shield the little ones, for whom she was pleading, from the sharp cuffs which were being freely dealt out to them by their father, along with the gruff words, "Be off with you! What are you messing about for at this time of night?"

66

He had just come home to his tea, between six and seven o'clock, as cross as a bear," as they say; for the only crime the five small, night-gowned children, so white and thin-faced and wretched-looking, were guilty of, was that of sitting in a row on the hearth in front of a bright little fire; enjoying the blaze and the warmth; for it was bitterly cold.

"Say good-night, children, and off to bed quick. You'll soon be warm if you lie close together. Father's tired;" and the mother tried to speak cheerfully.

And off they were creeping, glad to get out of the way, when the youngest stood still suddenly, and said, “Oh, mother, I haven't said 'Gentle Jesus.' You know father just came in." And without a word down she went on her knees, and with her hands folded and her eyes shut, she said, softly,

"Gentle Jesus, meek and mild,

Look upon a little child.

Pity my simplicity;

Suffer me to come to Thee.'

Bless daddie and mother, and Joe, and Alice, and Lizzie, and Mary, and little Tiny, and make us all so good, for Jesus Christ's sake. Amen." Then off she ran with the rest, who had stood waiting for her; their hungry eyes looking wistfully at the herring and tea their mother was putting on the table before her husband.

"I've nothing for you to-night, my little ones," the mother said, in a very low voice. "To-morrow, if all's well, you shall have something." And she coughed quickly, to send down the big lump that was rising in her throat. There came rather a sad "good-night" from the little ones, but without another word they hurried upstairs.

"I didn't mean to interfere with you, Dick, before them, too," the woman said, quietly, when they were gone; "but I couldn't help it-it seemed so hard for them, poor little things! They have had no fire, and nothing to eat all day except a piece of dry bread each I gave them this morning;

and they have been out in the snow, in those thin frocks of theirs, picking up the sticks and bits of cinders and coals, that there might be a bit of a blaze against you came home; and so, when they were undressed to-night, I said they might sit until you came and warm themselves. I don't generally keep them up till you come; and I won't again, as you don't like it."

The man had sat down to the table sullen and ill-tempered after his slaps on the little ones; but when "little Tiny," as she called herself, said her prayer, he lifted his eyes for a moment to watch her, and a peculiar expression came over his face-peculiar, at least, to him, insomuch as it was slightly a softened expression-one which his dark,. sullen, drunken-looking face seldom wore. Perhaps it reminded him of a time when he had knelt as a child at his mother's knee-only his had been a happy childhood. Then he noticed the hungry look which they had cast at his tea, simple though the meal was; and the whiteness and thinness of their cheeks struck him for the first time, and how small and stunted their bodies were-five of them, and the eldest only eight years old. From them he glanced at their mother, and saw that her face looked even whiter and thinner than theirs, and that there were deep dark rings round the eyes, and such a sad, pitiful expression in them. Yes, he had noted it all, and a sort of shiver had passed through him; and now here was his wife apologising because she had let them sit round the fire a few moments to get warm.

"Lucy," he said—and his voice was husky and lowwhy don't you call me a fiend and a brute ?" "Because I don't wish to do, Dick," was said, softly "No, please God, I'll never get to calling you names; 1 never have done yet, as I can remember. You haven't al ways been what you are now. You were as good a husband as ever lived for the first five years, till--till you took to the drink. Don't you remember how you loved me and the little ones then, the three of 'em? You'd take 'em on