performance of lowly and self-denying tasks, even to the " sweeping of a floor" if need be,* will fall very far short of the heroism and magnanimity required for the sacrifices and the services which they think themselves prepared to offer. On the other hand, the missionary will be all the better fitted for his noble career, if he has been faithful in the daily mission of life; the martyr will not suffer with less fortitude, because he has long taken up meekly the daily cross. Heroism, in fact, is rarely understood to be, simply,uncompromised duty! Heroism, which is not duty, is but a dream of the dark ages. Duty that is not performed with the spirit of a hero, is but the mortar and the brick of hard bondage. The hero understood this, who proclaimed to his heroes, no premature pæans of secure victory, no highly wrought representations of martial glory, but the simple words, " England expects every man to do his duty!" and the aggregate of individual duty was triumphant heroism. In the daily walks of life unseen and unadmired, there may exist the truest heroic elements; and

"All may find, if they dare choose,

A glorious life and grave'

in the sphere of commonplace duty. It is not very long since a prince in Israel went from amidst his peers, and his "glorious life" was lived in a grocer's shop. We think that none can rise from the perusal "He that sweeps a floor as for God's law,

Makes that and the action fine."--HERBERT.

of the "Successful Merchant,"* without feeling the strength and the stateliness of that spirit of grace, which can shed beauty upon what might else be unseemly, and stamp nobility where the world had not bestowed it.

It is a common idea, and we may venture to say, a common mistake, that attention to every-day affairs, is incompatible with genius. Now it seems to us that the highest attainment and ambition of this rarely understood gift-especially in woman-ought to be the power of performing all duty, from the highest to the humblest, with energy and success, so that its possessor may bestow happiness, soothe sorrows, inculcate truth, and accomplish the tasks of Life more successfully than they from whom it has been withheld The genius which turns in disgust from what is plain and homely, and confines itself to the ecstatic regions of sentiment, is a spurious or at best a defective quality, and lacks the unity and enlargement of true power.

Look around then, you who are yearning to be employed in the service of your God, and try to realize what He has given you to do to-day, and do not look beyond it. Strength is promised according to your day, but not according to your morrow. Every-day work requires every-day grace, and every-day grace requires every-day asking. Just try the experiment then, for once,-no matter what your * Or Memoirs of Samuel Budget, Esq. By William Arthur, A.M.

occupation may be,-no matter how distasteful to your natural disposition,the more distasteful the better, so long as it is your duty. It may be the arithmetic lesson taught to the little wayward child —or the wearisome drive with the complaining invalid-or the petty and fatiguing duties and arrangements attendant upon your household concerns, or the routine of the shop, or the counting-house, or the writing-office; whatever it is, take it first to God. Before you begin, kneel and implore His blessing; ask Him for a fresh, diligent spirit; ask Him for a spirit of patience and meekness in contending with all the little wearisome difficulties and annoyances connected with it. Then put your whole might into it, the might that you have borrowed from a mightier than yourself, for that is the secret of real work. Do it as if your Master were standing before you, do it as you would have cast the net into the sea, as you would have fastened together the tent, as you would have laboured in the carpenter's shop,—had you lived in the early days with Christ and His apostles. Do not offer to God the blind, and the lame, and the maimed things of your mind; do not offer a spirit dreaming of the great things which you could do, or may do at some other time, but offer to Him your wakeful, rejoicing, present energies, and you will find how brightly the day beams upon you,— how sweetly the night gives you sleep,-and how gratefully your heart swells with a sense of the

B

tenderness of God as a Father, as well as His benignity as a Master.

We think it was John Newton who went one day to visit a Christian brother, and found him busily engaged in his occupation of tanning. The man attempted to apologize. "Just so, my friend," said his pastor, "may your Lord find you when he comes; it is the work he has given you to do, and he expects you to do it diligently."

IV.

SOCIAL WORK.

"Let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us; and establish thou the work

of our hands upon us."-Ps. xc. 17.

"Adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour in all things."-TITUS ii. 10.

"I ask thee for a thoughtful love,

Through constant watching wise,
To meet the glad with joyful smiles,
And wipe the weeping eyes:
And a heart at leisure from itself,
To soothe and sympathize.
Wherever in the world I am,

In whatsoe'er estate,

I have a fellowship of hearts,

To keep and cultivate.

And a work of lowly love to do,

For the Lord on whom I wait."

THERE are few trials so grievous to the Christian as the necessity of being much in uncongenial society; even if his natural temperament is not entirely opposed to it, his renewed one revolts from it altogether. If this is your position, dear friend, we can imagine your heart fainting, and your spirit failing within you. When you would love to be still and silent, with your heart lifted up in blessed communion with your Saviour, or taking "sweet counsel" with His people, or when you would fain be employed in