me!" he repeated. What! did God see him at that moment? He could see himself in the large looking-glass, and he could not turn away his gaze from it. 'There was he, in the

midst of the sweetness, and cleanliness, and purity, a wretched, begrimed, vile object, not fit for his own eyes to look upon. Wherever his hand fell there was a stain upon the whiteness. The pillow upon which his head had rested-how different it was to the other pillow which he had not touched! He was disgusting, even to himself. He wished he could not see his own face and form in that dainty room. And was it true that God saw him-just as he was, degraded below the beasts? Did God see that wretched hole of his, where his poor wife and children lay on straw and rags, while he had been sleeping in such luxury? Had God's eye been upon him last night, when he had made a wager how much beer he could drink? He could not endure the thought of it.

Just then he lifted his eyes to the wall above the glass. There hung the second text. "God is love!" he read aloud. "What!" he cried; "love! Is God love? Does he love me? Oh no; that would be impossible. I hate myself; the children hate me; Jenny hates me. And they may well hate me. If God sees me, he cannot love me. Oh! if he would but love me, or turn away his eyes from me, that he may not see me! I cannot bear to think that he sees me. 'Thou God seest me!' 'God is love."" The poor fellow was half distracted with the multitude of his thoughts, and the idea of getting up and making his escape did not once cross his mind. He could not have done it, for the key of the door lay at the bottom of Mrs. Burton's pocket. She was dressing by this time, anxious to see how her painting of the last day was drying; and as soon as she was ready, having scrupulously read a psalm and engaged in prayer, she hastened to her best bedroom, opened the door solemnly, and entered with a careful step.

It would be impossible to describe Mrs. Burton's first emotions. Marshall, who had lain down again, lifted himself up upon hearing the door opened, and met her horrified

gaze with one equally aghast. Neither of them could speak for a minute or two; and then she saw him slowly drag himself out of the white bed-linen, and stand trembling before her, the most abject, wretched creature she ever remembered to have seen.

"I don't know how ever I came to be here," he said; "I know no more than this bed-post; but I'm an honest man, missis, I am, for certain. I don't mean no harm !"

"Harm!" gasped Mrs. Burton, who had not yet recovered her speech.

"I wish I wasn't here, I do," he continued. "I didn't mean to do it, I'm sure. Please to forgive me, missis, and I'll never do it again as long as I live."

"Why!" cried Mrs. Burton, "when did you get in here?" "I was very drunk last night," he stammered, “and I must have turned in unknownst to myself."

"Drunk!" she exclaimed; "a drunken vagabond in my best bed! Whatever shall I do? I shall never fancy it again. But you shall go to jail for this, I promise you. Martha, Martha ! Run for the police."

"Oh no, now!" cried Marshall; "forgive me this once. I've a poor wife and family at home. If you send me to jail they must go into the house, and we shall all be ruined." "I can't forgive you," said Mrs. Burton, with tears in her eyes; "you've ruined my best room. I shall never have any more pleasure in it. You must go to jail for it, or I shan't have a moment's peace. No, no. Don't speak, you drunken brute, you! Whatever can I do? whatever can I do ?"

I

"Well," he answered, despairingly, "if I go to jail for it suppose God 'll see me there too."

The heart of Mrs. Burton always echoed to that name, and her conscience smote her. She looked steadily at her strange guest, and followed the direction of his eyes, which were turned upon the text on the wall. "Thou God seest me," she said, half aloud, and involuntarily.

"Is that true?" asked the man.

"Yes," she answered; and her conscience reproached her again.

"Is the other true ?" he asked, pointing to the second text.

"Oh yes! that is true," she said, warmly.

"I wish I could believe them!" cried Marshall. แ "Are they both true for me?"

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"Yes, yes!" she exclaimed. "God is love.' He sees and loves us all. Yes. He sees and loves me; and he sees and loves you. Yes, yes; I was forgetting that. It's very hard, very hard indeed, for me to see my best room like that. Yes, it is. He knows it's very hard. I shall never fancy it again. But I won't send for the police. You may go away now." With a very abject look Marshall slunk downstairs, and out into the streets. He did not care to go home, but he wandered off into the meadows, where the dew was still sparkling on the grass. He could not get his adventure out of his head; though whenever he thought of himself as he appeared in the large looking-glass, he felt a desire to creep away from the miserable grimy creature he had become. To think that God's eye dwelt upon him was almost insupportable; but whenever this thought grew too terrible to him, the other words came back to his burdened mind. The clean, decent old lady, whose house he had made so vile, had told him they were true; and there was something within which also testified that they were true. He did not try to put them away from him, and the two verses passed through and through his mind.

It was soon after mid-day that Marshall presented himself at Mrs. Burton's door, with a paint-pot in his hand. Martha answered his hesitating knock, and opened the door wider for him to enter.

"You're the painter, I suppose ?" she said.

"Ay!" he replied.

"And sadly you're wanted," she continued. "There's finger-marks everywhere-door-posts, chimney-piece, and

lots of places. To think of such a thing! Missis is almost crazy.”

Marshall said nothing, but taking off his boots at the foot of the stairs, followed Martha meekly. Mrs. Burton sat in the middle of the room, a picture of dismay and grief. She uttered a little scream when she saw him enter.

"Please, ma'am," he said, "I'm a painter by trade, and I'll do my very utmost to make it all sweet and clean again. I'm very miserable, ma'am. I'd do anything to make you amends."

"You cannot make me amends," answered Mrs. Burton. "But you'll forgive me, won't you, ma'am? And you'll let me paint out my marks ?" said Marshall, in an earnest

tone.

“I can hardly forgive you,” she answered; "but I suppose I must. Yes; I know I must. 'Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us.' Yes; I must. Man, I forgive you."

"And you'll let me paint out my marks ?" he pursued.

Mrs. Burton only nodded her head in answer; and Marshall proceeded with a most careful touch to efface all the marks of his grimy fingers. He felt very sad and humbled, and he often looked up to the verses upon the walls.

"I've finished, ma'am," he said, at last; "but I shall never forget this job. And I shall never forget those words, 'Thou God seest me,' 'God is love.''

He went home, but the words went with him, in his heart and in his mind. He did not try to shake off the impression, but took every means in his power to deepen it. Poor Mrs. Burton, as soon as she could recover from her vexation, sought out him and his family, and became their friend and teacher, striving her best to bring them to realize more strongly than she had done herself, that God both saw and loved them. Her pride in her best room was greatly diminished, and she could never enter it without feeling again the shock she had suffered; but her heart was made larger. It had been no bad lesson for her.

Some few years after this Marshall invited Mrs. Burton to take tea with him and his family, on the occasion of entering into a new house. It was not as large as her own, but it was as exquisitely clean, and Marshall himself was a man who would no longer shock her fastidious neatness. In the sitting-room, where the family usually assembled, he had painted upon the walls, in letters of many colours, his two favourite texts, "Thou God seest me," and "God is love." "Ah!" he said, "I never knew those words till that morning I saw them first in your best bedroom."

Yes, yes; God

"Yes," answered Mrs. Burton; "and I never understood them so well before that time as I do now. sees us all, and God loves us all."

FTER many days." Yes the word of God holds true, and we have only to wait patiently for its accomplishment. "After many days." There may have been no sign that the seed is germinating, is taking root downward to bear fruit upward, to the praise of the glory of His grace, but suddenly perhaps the loosened soil discloses the first faint effort of life, and presently the fruit of the long waiting appears. husbandman hath long patience." He knows the need of it, but he also knows he shall not be utterly disappointed. Even though all the seed sown do not spring up to reward the effort, there yet will be an abundant harvest.

"The

We are too often like children expecting to see the flowers as soon as we have sown the seed, forgetting that we must wait God's time; wait for the "early and the latter rain," the blessed sunshine and refreshing showers. If we look around we see on every hand proofs that the work is going on, that the seed sown is bearing fruit, some thirty, some sixty, some an hundredfold." True, the "many days" may outrun the limit of our "life's little day," and the

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