HEN sinless man in Eden reigned,

Not force but love his power
sustained
Monarch of earth, he moved along,
Nor fearing nor inflicting wrong.

Each creature to his presence came,
To court his eye and learn its name;
To natural submission stirred,
Soon as the voice of man was heard.
When God made known His holy law,
And Sinai bowed with trembling awe,
Not for mankind alone He cared,
Oxen and birds His notice shared.

The rule of gentleness and love
Was taught 'mid thunders from above:
"Rob not the ox that treads the corn;"
"Hurt not the nesting bird forlorn."

beautiful

the eye.

When on this earth our Saviour trod,
The "wild beasts" owned the Son of God,
And oft across the evening sky

The homebound birds would draw His eye.

And when His zeal for God's house burned,

And traders' tables overturned,
With softened tone He bade remove
The unoffending turtledove.

Oh, let us learn the Saviour's mind,
And be to all His creatures kind!
Nor on them lay one needless wrong
Who yield us service, food, and song.
The child that holds her caged bird dear,
Or for her pet lamb sheds a tear,
Reflects a ray of love from Him
Who dwells between the Cherubim.

HAT would the country be with-
out its birds? Their innocent
notes gladden the ear, and their
forms
forms and plumage delight

But they have a useful mission as well. They clear the ground and trees of insects, which would otherwise destroy our fruit and grain. A pair of robins

has been supposed to consume two thousand caterpillars in one week; and what amount of service to that farm was that one week's work? It is true the songsters take tithe of the ripening produce of the field and garden: but, in their case, as in ours, a fair day's work is worth a fair day's wages. Then don't kill the birds,

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INTRODUCTION.

OGER," I said one day, to my old friend, as we sat talking together in the porch of his pretty cottage, just outside, our park gates,-"Roger, I do think I must write your story, that others may hear it as well as me."

The idea pleased the dear old man, and he was delighted to watch my hand as I took down from his own lips this little history.

His wife sitting by, knitting rapidly with her long thin fingers, would also put in a word here and there of approbation; and when the whole was finished, and read aloud, I was indeed thought a wonderful person to have so reproduced the story of Roger's carly days. I omitted provincialisms of the east country, but the homely though lucid style of the narrator is I hope unchanged.

I wish I could convey to the readers of the story any idea of old Roger as I knew him.

He

A beautiful childlike faith characterized him: God's way was his way. Although he touches the trials and sorrows of his later life gently in these pages, they were many and great. But his faith never wavered. seemed to feel the Guiding Hand, which had led him by a way he knew not, and which would lead him safely to the end. And it did lead him gently through the valley of the shadow; for he died with a smile on his face, and those who watched him could not tell at what moment the message came.

I shall never forget the delight old Roger showed when one of my little girls repeated to him a hymn, which seemed to me to express so precisely the experience of the life which I knew was just hastening to its close.

"But, said the child, if this my dress,

Be soiled and crumpled in the press,

"Life may be sad or may be sweet;

God knows the troubles I shall meet,-
He smoothes the way for little feet.
"Nay, said the child, the life God planned,
I neither know nor understand;

He loves me, and I hold His hand."

And I think dear Roger's Amen to those three lines was the most emphatic testimony to the security of those who, with childlike confidence, feel their hand safe in God's. That Guide will not err, that prop will not fail-and clothed in the garments of Christ's righteousness, we may look forward to an entrance into the Home where we shall be no longer strangers and pilgrims, but fellow-citizens with the saints for ever.

CHAPTER I.

A CHANGE.

THE road seems very short when you come to look back upon it.

It seems but the other day, that I was a little chap running down the lane to church behind my father.

What a lot of primroses there were in that lane in spring, to be sure! The hedges were yellow with them; and just by the lych-gate there was an old elm, with great roots swelling out of the earth, and all covered with moss. That was the place for the first primroses: they've come out many times there before the snow was well gone from the hills. They used to seem to me like the smiles and pretty ways of children as they gather round their grandfathers.

Seabourne Church was very old, and I have heard tell there's scarce a stone left standing now. There's a new church built close by, and Tom Mansfield's wife, who comes from those parts, says it's an uncommon handsome one, and that there's a spire which you can see out beyond Yarmouth Roads, if you know where to look for it.

My father was the parish clerk, and as soon almost as I could walk he would take me to church, and make me stand up on the seat

about with the parson, and gave out the hymns at the end of the Prayer-Book. My father was something of a scholar for those days; and when I had learned to read, I was astonished at the way he read all the hard names just as well as the parson him. self.

My mother was always a weakly woman, and I don't remember her ever walking about like other folks. She was mostly lying on her bed; but she did a deal of needlework, and knitted all the stockings my father and I wore. She had a wonderful gentle voice! I often hear it in the dead of night now, though I don't seem to see her face as plain as I might; but I should know her voice amongst a thousand. I believe the neighbours, what few there were, thought she held herself high; but folks are apt to say that of them whom they feel are better than they are themselves.

Our cottage stood at the end of the lane, and there was only one house near us, and that had a wall running across the road, as much as to show that there was no passing that way, and indeed, no one ever thought of it. In this wall there was a door made in an arch, like those in the church; and when that door was opened, there seemed to me always sunshine behind it. Why most likely the house and little garden fronted south, and that was why sunshine favoured it: while our windows were turned almost due north, and the icicles hung to the eaves in winter, and the frost drew all sorts of pretty patterns on the panes of my windows.

I always looked at that gate in the wall, with a sort of longing to go in. I would sit and watch and watch in our porch, in the hope of seeing the lady come out who lived there. She very seldom came out on weekdays; but on Sundays, quite as regular as my father and I set out, when the bells began to chime, so did the lady open the gate in the wall, wait till her little maid had passed through, lock it by a key she wore at her belt, and then walk, with a sort of gliding motion, just before us down the lane. She always bent her head as she passed, and said, "Good morning, Beckinsall," to my father; but she never smiled. I remember my father saying

great sorrow and trouble, and that was why she kept herself so close.

The church lay-the old church of my young days-nestled down amongst grassy hills, and you came upon it quite sudden-like. Many strangers turned out of their way to see the church by the sea, and to look at some monuments to two sons of a gentleman in those parts who were drowned close by. The elder of them could swim, but the young one could not, and he went back for him, and they both sank. "They were lovely and pleasant in their lives, and in their death they were not divided," was on the stone.

One day I was in the church, waiting for my father, who was talking to the parson in the vestry about something written in one of the big books there, when the door of the porch softly opened, and the tall lady came in. She did not see me, but I saw her; for I was close under the monument, watching a family of mice which lived in a hole in the stonework, and came dancing out every Sunday just by the clerk's desk. Well, the poor lady walked straight up to the monument, and, thinking she was alone, she burst out: Lovely and pleasant in their lives, and in death not divided! Oh, happy mother of such boys! Oh, happy mother," over and over again. I was staring up at her, and she never noticed me; but presently the parson's voice was heard speaking to my father as the vestry door opened, and they both came out. Then the lady moved away as quickly and noiseless-like as she had come, and I went to my father.

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It was a bright spring day, just at the end of March. I mind it all as if it was last March. Father and I went home together just as we had gone a hundred times, and yet how different we were to feel from that day forward! That day was one of the milestones .of my life. I was chattering like a jay as I trotted along, telling about the poor lady, and how she had talked to herself, and how she had cried as she stood by the monument; then all of a sudden I darted up the bank to gather a big bunch of primroses for my mother, and came rolling down head over heels, my father laughing at me, and saying I was like one of the tumbling men