gentlemen, and you take much trouble for us poor people. So I'll tell you whence the money came. Yes, I have known want; food has been scarce with me many a day, and it will be so again, as I grow older. older. But our gracious Lord watches over us. He has helped me to bear the troubles which He sent. He will never forsake me. My husband has been dead this many and many a year. I had one only son ; and my John was a fine stout fellow, and he worked hard, and he would not leave his old mother. He made my home snug and comfortable. Then came the war with the Danes. All his friends joined the army; but the only son of a widow, you know, is free. So he remained at home, and no one said to him, 'Come along with us,' for they knew that he was a brave boy, and that it broke his very heart to stay behind. I knew it all. I watched him when the people talked of the war, or when the schoolmaster brought the newspaper. Ah, how he turned pale and red, and how he looked away, and thought his old mother did not see it! But he said nothing to me, and I said nothing to him. Gracious God, who could have thought that it was so hard to drive our oppressors out of the land? Then came the news from Fredericia! That was a dreadful night. We sat in silence opposite each other. We knew what was in our hearts, and we hardly dared to look at each other. Suddenly he rose and took my hand, and said, 'Mother,'-God be praised, I had strength in that moment ‘John,' I said, 'our time has come; go in God's I know how thou lovest me, and what thou hast suffered. God knows what will become of me if I am left quite alone, but our Lord Jesus Christ will forsake neither thee nor me.' John enlisted as a volunteer. The day of parting came. Ah, I am making a long story of it all! John stood before me in his new uniform. Mother,' he said, 'one request before we part—if it is to be '-John,' I said to him, I know what thou meanest,―O, I shall weep, I shall weep very much when I am alone; but my time will come, and we shall meet again in the day of our Lord, John! and the land shall be free, John! the land shall be free!""

name.

Heavy tears stood in the poor old woman's eyes as she repeated her sad tale; but she soon collected herself, and continued: "I did not think then it would be so hard. The heart always hopes even against hope. But for all that "and here the old woman drew herself up, and looked at us like a queen "I have never regretted that I bade him go. Then came

dreadful days; but the most dreadful of all was when we read that the Germans had betrayed the land, and that they had given up our land with all our dead to the Danes! Then I called on the Lord and said, O Lord, my God, how is that possible? Why lettest Thou the wicked triumph and allowest the just to perish?' And I was told that the Germans were sorry for what they had done, but that they could not help it. But that, gentlemen, I could never understand. We should never do wrong, nor allow wrong to be done. And, therefore, I thought, it cannot always remain so; our good Lord knows His own good time, and in His own good time He will come and deliver us. And I prayed every evening that our gracious Lord would permit me to see that day when the land should be free, and our dear dead should sleep no more in Danish soil. And, as I had no other son against that day, I saved every year what I could save, and on every Christmas Eve I placed it before me on a table, where, in former years, I had always placed a small present for my John, and I said in my heart, The war will come again, and the land will be free, and thou shalt sleep in a free grave, my only son, my John! And now, gentlemen, the poor old woman has been told that the day has come, and that her prayer has been heard, and that the war will begin again; and that is why she has brought her money, the money she saved for her son. Good morning, gentlemen," she said, and was going quickly away.

But before she had left the room, an old gentleman said, loud enough for her to hear, "Poor body! I hope she may not be deceived."

"Ah," said the old woman, turning back, "I know what you mean; I have been told all is not right yet. But have faith, men! the wicked cannot prevail against the just; man cannot prevail against the Lord. Hold to that, gentlemen; hold fast together, gentlemen! This very day I begin to save up again."

Bless her, good old soul! And if Odin were still looking out of his window in the sky as of yore, when he granted victory to the women of the Lombards, might he not say even

now:

When women are heroes,

What must the men be like?

Theirs is the victory;

No need of me.

GROWTH.

BY HENRY DRUMMOND.

(From "Natural Law in the Spiritual World.")

(HENRY DRUMMOND, Scotch theologian and scientist, was born at Stirling, August 17, 1851; died March 11, 1897. He studied at Edinburgh University, and was professor of natural science in Glasgow. His "Natural Law in the Spiritual World" and "Ascent of Man" are attempts at bridging the chasm between the material and the spiritual universe. "The Greatest Thing in the World" is very popular. His "Tropical Africa" is a very readable and valuable book of travel.]

WHAT gives the peculiar point to this object lesson from the lips of Jesus is, that He not only made the illustration, but made the lilies. It is like an inventor describing his own machine. He made the lilies and He made me- both on the same broad principle. Both together, man and flower, He planted deep in the Providence of God; but as men are dull at studying themselves He points to this companion phenomenon. to teach us how to live a free and natural life, a life which God will unfold for us, without our anxiety, as He unfolds the flower. For Christ's words are not a general appeal to consider nature. Men are not to consider the lilies simply to admire their beauty, to dream over the delicate strength and grace of stem and leaf. The point they were to consider was how they grew-how without anxiety or care the flower woke into loveliness, how without weaving these leaves were woven, how without toiling these complex tissues spun themselves, and how without any effort of friction the whole slowly came readymade from the loom of God in its more than Solomon-like glory. "So," He says, making the application beyond dispute, “you careworn, anxious men must grow. You, too, need take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat or what ye shall drink or what ye shall put on. For if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall He not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?"

This nature lesson was a great novelty in its day; but all men now who have even a "little faith" have learned this Christian secret of a composed life. Apart even from the parable of the lily, the failures of the past have taught most of us the folly of disquieting ourselves in vain, and we have given up the idea that by taking thought we can add a cubit to our stature.