while it is day in His vineyard, for the night cometh in which no man can work. T. J. B. The Prisoner and Lina. INA was a girl who was compelled to pass through a great many trials for one so young. Her mother had died several years previously, and she had kept house for her father ever since? and it must be said in her favour that she did the very best she could. Her father was a rough man, and often spoke very harshly to her. He appeared very hard-hearted, and I am really afraid that he had very little sympathy in his nature. Lina might prepare his meals with great pains, and take very good care of the house, but when he would come home at night from the factory, instead of being glad to meet her, he would swear at her, and, to his shame be it said, he would often whip her without a cause. She was very unhappy, and her father, instead of growing better, appeared to grow worse. Sometimes she would run to him, and put her arms round his neck, and kiss him, and beg him to be a good father; but it would have very little effect. Not an hour might pass by before he would scold and treat her as bad as ever. He went by the name of "Mad Kell" all over the village. But you must not think that because people called him Mad Kell, he was out of his mind. He had his reason as much as you and Ithat is, what little he did have. But people called him by this name because he was so seldom known to be in a good humour, and used often to quarrel and fight with his best friends. One day he whipped Lina very severely, and all the reason he had for it was that she had permitted the beef, which was being roasted on the stove, to burn a little on the top. Instead of thanking her for doing the best she knew how, he treated her severely for that slight neglect. Lina had tried every means in her power to conquer her father, but at last she said to herself, "I cannot do it. I am afraid he will drive me crazy." She went to see the Mayor of the town, and informed him of her father's brutality, which was very hard for her. But what else could she do? It was not because she did not love him; for never did daughter love a father more than she did. But it was for his sake, as well as hers, that she gave information to the Mayor about his conduct. One night, two policemen came to the house and arrested him, and put him into prison. The next day he was brought before the Mayor, and examined concerning his conduct. Lina was sent for, and was required to give in her testimony about his conduct at home. It almost broke her heart to say a word about her father in public, and if she had thought that her application to the Mayor would finally come to that, she would never have said a word about her father to him. She would sooner have died from bad treatment than have him thus exposed to the world. But now she could do nothing else than answer all the questions that were asked her the best way she could. The result was that he was cast into prison, and sentenced to confinement for eight months. He was taken to prison by the policeman, and put in a cell which was not any more that seven feet square. There was nothing in it except a mattress, a wooden bench, and a tin wash-basin. When he found himself locked up in that cold place-for there was no fire, and it was in the midst of winter-he gnashed his teeth in anger. The fare on which he lived was very scanty, and coarse too. beyond description. It was wretched The condition of Lina at home, however, was even more wretched than his, for her father was not there, and, unkind as he was, she would have been willing to receive any treatment at his hand rather than be away from him. She wept bitterly from night to morning, and half the night she would lie awake and grieve. On the second day after her father was in prison, she made enquriy of a person whom she thought would be likely to know about the prison and what kind of food the prisoners got, and she was informed in reply that it was very poor indeed, and that the prisoners were almost starved. This made her feel a great deal worse than she had done before, and then she resolved to provide her father with food, in case it could be given to him. She made application to the prison -keeper, but he told her roughly that the prisoners got all they needed, and that she would not be allowed to give her father anything. In the bitterness of her sorrow, she asked God to so order it that she could be permitted to give her father some good food once every day. It seemed at first as if the heavens were brass above her head. The Lord appeared not to give any reply whatever to her prayer. She was very sad-far more so than when her father was in the habit of whipping her. But she took up her Bible and read some passages which had been taught her in the Sabbath-school. One of them was about Paul's being tempted with "the thorn in the flesh." She thought it a strange thing that, so good a man as he was, he should have to pray three times to have it removed, and then not to have his prayer answered. "But then," she thought, as she read further, "God did answer his prayer in giving him grace to bear his affliction, and in perfecting His strength in Paul's weakness. If we were never weak, then we should never see how strong God is. Perhaps, in this very weakness of mine, God's strength will be made perfect! Perhaps, after all my thinking over how I could get my father some good food to eat, God may be intending to give his soul the beard of life." Those were good thoughts, and they came from God. Lina had taken the proper course, and, instead of trying to bear her burdens alone, and carry out her plans by her human strength, she had taken them all to God. The end of my story will show that with Lina, as with all good children, "they that put their trust in the Lord shall never be confounded." The Power of a Hymn. N China, a gentleman who was intrusted with packages for a young man from his friends in the United States, learned that he would probably be found in a certain gambling-house. He went thither, but not seeing the young man, sat down in the hope that he might come in. The place was a bedlam of noises, men getting angry over their cards, and frequently coming to blows. Near him sat two men-one young, the other forty years of age. They were betting and drinking in a terrible way-the older one giving utterance continually to the foulest profanity. Two games had been finished, the young man losing each time. The third game, with fresh bottles of brandy, had just begun, and the young man sat lazily back in his chair while the oldest shuffled his cards. The man was a long time dealing the cards, and the young man looking carelessly about the room, at length began to hum a tune. He went on, till, at length, he began to sing the hymn of Phoebe Cary, beginning, 66 One sweetly solemn thought 66 The words, says the writer of the story, repeated in such a vile place, at first made me shudder. A Sabbath-school hymn in a gambling den! But while the young man sang, the elder stopped dealing the cards, stared at the singer a moment, and, throwing the cards on the floor, exclaimed, -"Harry, where did you learn that tune?" "What tune?" Why, that one you've been singing.” The young man said he did not know what he had been singing, when the elder repeated the words, with tears in his eyes, and the young man said he had learned them in a Sunday-school in America. "Come," said the elder, getting up; "come, Harry; here's what I won from you; go and use it for some good purpose. As for me, as God sees me, I have played my last game, and drunk my last bottle. I have misled you, Harry, and I am sorry. Give me your hand, my boy, and say that for old America's sake, if for no other, you will quit this infernal business." The gentleman who tells the story (originally published in the Boston Daily News) saw these two men leave the gambling-house together, and walk away arm in arm; and he remarks,-"It must be a source of great joy to Miss Cary to know that her lines, which have comforted so many Christian hearts, have been the means of awakening in the breasts of two tempted and erring men on the other side of the globe a resolution to lead a better life." It was a source of great joy to Miss Cary, as we happen to know. Before us lies a private letter from her to an aged friend in this city, with the printed story enclosed, and containing this comment,—" I enclose the hymn and the story for you, not because I am vain of the notice, but because I thought you would feel a peculiar interest in them when you knew the hymn was written eighteen years ago in your house I composed it in the little back third-story bedroom, one Sun |