"You won't like me to say what I want to say."

"Yes, I will," said Tim.

66 And won't be angry ? "

you

"Not a bit," promised Tim. "All the same, you women don't understand these things as we men do, you know. But you may have your say."

"I don't know as it is quite right to be wishing to be somebody else," said Mary.

"Don't you? Well, I do," said Tim.

"There ain't one bit of harm in it whatsoever. I'd change this minute, I tell you, with any one of them fellows, and lots besides, if I had the chance. Ah! if I only had."

"Don't you think we'd ought to be contented ?" asked Mary, who could be very meekly persistent in her ideas, when she knew them to be right.

Maybe," said Tim. "If I'd anything to be contented about, I'd be contented fast enough. I haven't, though. Things all seem wrong and of a muddle this year."

"I shouldn't wonder if they was all to come right by next year," said Mary hopefully. "And somehow we do get along, you know, Tim."

"Things won't come so right as we shan't have trouble," said Tim. "Never has yet, and never will. I just want an easier sort of a life,-like what others have."

"I shouldn't wonder if folks hadn't so easy a life as you think, after all," said Mary.

"I shouldn't wonder if you don't know nothing about the matter," said Tim.

Mary took refuge in silence after her usual fashion, and Tim gradually came round to a pleasanter mood.

"There's old Mr. and Mrs. Berriman as have made their fortune and retired," said he. "Do you mean to say folks such as them haven't an easy life,—and that you and I wouldn't have it if we was in their shoes ?" "I don't know how I'd like it without

tionably the worthy couple alluded to had a remarkably easy life to live.

"Well, and I wish we had the chance of trying," said Tim.

But that was just where Mary could not think Tim quite right, and her face showed it.

"Not as I'm thinking now of folks being all on an equality," explained Tim. "I've given up thoughts of that, since the queer dream I had.* But I don't see no harm in just wishing I was somebody else."

Mary did see harm, but she found some difficulty in explaining how or why.

"Folks ain't all equal, nor they ain't all equally happy," said Tim. "And if I'm one of the least happy ones, why mayn't I wish I was one of the more happy ones?"

"Seems to me a bit like coveting," said Mary, bringing out the word which had long simmered in her mind."

"No, it isn't," said Tim. "Coveting isis-wanting to take something away from somebody else. I don't want that."

"But if you exchange-if you stand in their shoes-wouldn't they have to exchange and stand in yours, Tim ? "

Tim hesitated,—rather at a loss.

"But I don't want that. I only want to be in the same sort of position."

66

"Only if everybody wanted that, and got it, everybody'd have to be equal; wouldn't they, Tim ?"

It was very provoking to have such a mild, gentle, logical, unanswerable little wife. "I say, Mary, shut up!" said Tim.

Mary was quite ready. She never minded holding her tongue, therefore when she did speak she usually spoke to some purpose. Tim put back his head against the mantel-shelf, folded his arms, shut his eyes, and pretended to be fast asleep. Of course the pretence very soon became reality.

But Tim's thoughts were not asleep. Whether it was that he had eaten too much that day, or whether it was that he had eaten too little for a week previous, or whether it was that his own allusion to that strange past

"Tim Teddington's Dream." Our readers who do not possess the volume of Home Words for 1873, can obtain Miss Giberne's Tale in a cheap and separate form from the London publishers,

It was very silent,-very still. Tim tried to move, and found that he could not stir. He wanted to put up his hand to rub his eyes, and try to clear off this strange dimness; but he found that it was apparently glued to his side. Tim's heart began to beat most unpleasantly fast,-thump-thump -like a hammer.

Suddenly a cold damp breeze seemed to pass over his face, and he felt the chair on which he was seated sinking downwards, downwards, through the floor. Never in Tim's life before had he made so unenviable a descent. He was perfectly helpless himself. The boarded flooring just parted to let him through, and closed again, and Tim wondered what sort of sensation he should create in the room below; but all was dark and still as night. Tim could not think where he was going. Cold drops broke out upon his brow; but still his hands remained helplessly glued to his knees, and his tongue seemed to be paralysed; and the chair went sinking slowly down through the next floor, and down through the ground floor, down through the kitchen, and down into the cellar below.

There it stopped. Tim gazed round him, aghast and bewildered. It was a low damp miserable cellar, with a table in the corner, and an old man on one side of it. He was the very queerest old man that Tim had ever seen, with a long grey beard, and a fine wrinkled forehead, surmounted by a cocked military hat, while his swallow-tailed coat and brass buttons and green tights were just like certain costumes of a hundred years ago, which Tim had recently seen depicted in a magazine.

The oddest part of the matter was that the cellar, instead of being empty, had shelves all

big shoes and little shoes, old shoes and new shoes, black shoes and brown shoes, white shoes and red shoes, handsome shoes and ugly shoes,-nothing but shoes of every description, including not only the numberless varieties of English wear, from a farmer's substantial foot-gear to a lady's Parisian slipper, but the doll-like covering which graces the tiny foot of a Chinese dame, the wooden sabot of the French peasant, and the sandals of tropical countries. Added to this the old gentleman himself bore a huge and well-filled blue bag, from the top of which peeped out a toe of shining leather.

Tim looked hard at the old gentleman, and the old gentleman gazed still harder back at Tim.

"Well?" said the old gentleman.

"I-I-should be very glad if you would let me get up," faltered Tim, who was no doubt at this moment suffering under a severe attack of nightmare, though relieved to find that he could speak. But the sensation of being helplessly bound down, whatever may be the cause, is never pleasant.

"Business first," said the old gentleman curtly. "I believe you require another pair of shoes."

"Shoes!" said Tim. And looking down he perceived that his feet were bare. "Dear me! I must have dropped my own." "Shoes!" reiterated the old gentleman. "You're not particular about the fit, of course."

"I-a-ha-hum-I beg your pardon," faltered Tim, in consternation. "I-a-really -most sincerely-beg your pardon-but may I ask-who are you?"

"Shoemaker and Cobbler in Ordinary," said the old gentleman, with polite responsiveness, "Now then!"

"I-a-hum-ahem-don't quite understand," said Tim.

If Tim didn't understand, the old gentleman evidently did.

"Pair of shoes-heavy, thick, strongHarry Perret's; yes. Sebastian Smith's first mentioned, but not available at present moment. Harry Perret's-that's it!" exclaimed the old man triumphantly, and he held a pair aloft. "I believe these are what you

If we had never known Jesus, we could never have known how tenderly our Father in Heaven loved us. He is the Image of the Invisible God. So that when we see Jesus day by day going about doing good, healing the sick, comforting the sorrowful, forgiving the sinful, and showing kindness to all, we know what God is, and how He loves and cares for us in spite of all our unworthiness.

Then again it was by the work of Jesus that the Father opened a way by which He might freely pardon and bless us.

If the course of a mighty river were blocked up by the fall of a great mass of rock or soil from the mountain-side, it might be needful, at the cost of great labour and expense, to cut out a fresh channel, and then it would flow forth again, bringing fertility to whole valleys and countries. Thus man's fall and disobedience, so to speak, blocked up the channel, and put a hindrance in the way of our rejoicing in God's love. But He still loved us, and opened a new and blessed way by which His love might again be poured forth in abundant measure on the children

of men. He gave Jesus to die. He reconciled us to Himself by the blood-shedding of the Saviour on the cross. The Father freely gave Him for us, and spared not His only-begotten Son. Jesus freely gave His life for our salvation. So it was alike the love of the Father and the Son by which sin is forgiven and the sinner is saved.

his anger or displeasure. Jacob sent to his brother Esau a gift of two hundred shegoats, twenty he-goats, and other animals, and these were intended as a propitiation to turn away his brother's anger. Abigail, the wife of Nabal, brought wine and raisins and sheep to David, hoping in this way to make a propitiation for the ingratitude and surliness of her husband.

But what propitiation could we offer to God? Our utmost efforts, our best works, our greatest sufferings, our richest offerings, could not in any way remove the least of our sins, or be any makeweight in the balances of justice for the evil that we have done.

So our Father provided the propitiation Himself. He saw we could not do it, so He did it for us. He gave us that which we could present to Him as the answer to every sin. He laid our sins on Jesus, and was pleased to bruise Him for our sakes. And now He bids us all make use of Christ's death and sacrifice as our allsufficient plea. He has made the promise that if we will only come to Him in Christ's Name, if we will only present to Him Christ's blood, Christ's finished work on the cross, as the only ground of our hope, He will accept us as His dear children, and our sins and iniquities He will remember

no more.

So that we see our Father's love in the death of Christ more than in any other way, because He has thus opened wide to every one the gate of everlasting life.

Dear reader, always remember it. The Father is Love; for He so loved the world as to give His only-begotten Son. The Son is Love; for He freely gave Himself, His life, His precious blood, to redeem and save us. So, too, the Holy Ghost the Comforter is Love; for He teaches us to know and believe the love of the Father and the Son, and writes on our hearts love to God

"I really-I-don't exactly know," said Tim, whose only free member was his tongue. The old gentleman wheeled round and faced him with a most portentous frown. "Don't know! What did you say? Don't know! Are my ears deceiving me? DON'T KNOW! "

"I don't exactly," murmured Tim. "Don't know! Didn't you distinctly state that you desired to be in Harry Perret's shoes? Did you, or did you not? Speak the truth, man.'

"Oh, to be sure-I-ah-oh yes," exclaimed

Tim, in great alarm. "By all means,-oh yes, indeed, just what I wanted."

"Put them on!" said the old gentleman, with such an air of command, that Tim felt perfectly certain he must have been a general officer long before he took up the profession of cobbler. And all in a moment Tim's arms wer free. He picked up the shoes which were flung towards him; pulled them slowly, on, and

What had happened now? Where was he? Poor Tim! No wonder he felt bewildered. No wonder his head went round.

N crossing the Channel many years ago, I had a conversation with a fellow-passenger who argued very strongly against the doctrine of Christ bearing our sins. The chief reason for his objection seemed to be that he looked at it in a wrong light. He had regarded the doctrine as teaching that the Father was One whose only attribute was justice, and then that the Saviour came and by His death turned away the sword of Divine vengeance and obtained for us God's love. I tried to show him that this was quite a mistake. I told him that we were not to regard the Father as a stern and angry Judge, holding out in His hand the rod of punishment, and then the Son coming between and moving the Father to lay aside His wrath and to forgive us our sins. I told him we must cast aside this idea altogether. The whole Bible reveals to us that "God is Love." This blessed truth was seen in Paradise, and on every part of that fair creation

page of the inspired Word. It is proved by every blessing which we daily receive from our Father's hand. We may learn it from His patience and forbearance towards sinners. No words could set it forth more clearly than the story of the Prodigal. When the wanderer was yet far off, ere a word of confession had been uttered, we read that "the Father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him."

Yes; our God is indeed full of mercy and compassion towards sinners. It is true that He is holy, just, and hateth all that is evil. Nevertheless He is not will. ing that any should perish. He hates the sin, but is very pitiful toward the sinner. He is the Source and Fountain-head of all grace and salvation. So, out of His boundless love, He sent His only Son to live and die and rise again that we might have eternal life.

Christ did not come to make the Father love us, but because He loved us. He did not come to purchase God's love for us,