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HE COMETH!
The day of Christ?When will it dawn?
The glad Millennium.
When shall we hear the Saviour's voice,
People of God, I come!
Roll back, roll back, thou mighty tide
Of folly and of sin;
Ye gates of glory, open wide,
And let the Saviour in.
He comes to reign, the Prince of Peace,
His praises shall resound;
The suffering earth arise and sing,
And Satan's power be bound!
Marllnton, W. Va. ?Mrs. Anna L. Price.
HOW AIT.SIE SAVED THE BIBLE.
It was in the year 1555, when Queen Mary
sat upon the English throne and filled the land
with trouble because of her terrible persecution
of the Protestants. In the west of England was
a little village called Ilarrant. At one end of
the hamlet standing apart from the few dwellings
scattered along either side of its single
street, was the blacksmith's shop, with its small
house just back of it, and a tiny garden in the
rear.
The smith's wife was dead, but his bonnie,
blue-eyed little daughter kept his house. When
lonely, she pushed aside a small panel in the
end of the shop and crept in and stayed with
. him, unless the sound of voices or hoof-beats
on the road drove her away, for she was a shy
child.
One day when she had stolen in, her father
was standing behind the door.
lie had a sliver in his big hand, with which
he touched the side of the great black beam in
the corner. Suddenly a block of wood fell forward,
disclosing a small opening. Into this he
thrust a dark, leather-bound Book, and quickly,
but carefully, fitted the chip into the place, so
that no sign of the hidden space remained.
Seeing his child, he started and said sternly:
"Ailsie, child! how dare you spy upon your
father?"
"O father! I am not spying!" and the blue
eyes filled with tears.
"Of course, you were not. I was wrong to
say so, child!" said the smith remorsefully;
"but you saw what I did."
"You put the Holy Book into the beam, father.
It is a fine hiding-place, too, for neither priest
nor soldier can find it there."
"I would you knew not its place of conceal
ment, for the knowledge may bring you into
danger, lass. You must never betray it. When
Parson Stow went away to foreign lands, he
gave me the sacred Word, and told me to keep
it as my life. For, by the queen's orders, all
the Bibles have been gathered up and burned,
and we are forbidden to read from its holy
pages. This is the only one between here and
the sea, and it is more precious than the crown
of jewels. You are fifteen, Ailsie, and old
enough to understand, so I told you all."
"You need not fear, father," said Ailsie, firmly,
"I will not tell." But the rosy cheeks grew
pale as she remembered all that her promise
might mean.
Now there was a certain priest that came
sometimes to Harrant to preach to the villagers.
But, being all Protestants, they would neither
listen to him nor pay him tithes. He was very
angry at their behavior, and spied about until
he became sure there was a Bible among them;
and he knew that it was in the blacksmith's
possession, because he was the only man in the
village who could read.
After trying in vain to find the Holy Book,
fit %
PRESBYTERIAN OF T H ? SC
Readings
lie went to the nearest town and lodged information
against the village officers there; and
one day, when the smith chanced to be away
from home, an officer and six men marched into
Ilarrant.
They called upon the cottagers to surrender
their Bibles; but one and all declared they had
none. Then the soldiers searched every dwelling
and threatened to burn every one, unless
the Book was found.
But that did not suit the priest at all. He
would get fewer tithes than ever if the village
was destroyed. So he told the soldiers to let
the rest of the villagers alone, for the Bible was
in the blacksmith's possession. It was getting
late, and the soldiers were in a great hurry to
be gone. So they resolved to burn the two little
buildings, and thus destroy the Book quickly
and surely.
At the first sight of the strange men, Ailsie
had fled through the gardeft, out upon the moor,
and hidden among the furze bushes. She was
terrified, for she feared they might find her and
aemana ine mamg place 01 tne precious rsiDie.
It was growing dark when she saw a bright
light against the sky, and sprang to her feet.
Her father's house was on fire! The sight made
the shy child a heroine. Forgetting all about
her danger, she only remembered that she must
save the Bible at all cost.
Swift as an arrow she sped homeward.
The soldiers were intent upon piling straw
round the burning buildings, and did not see
the little figure that darted in between the
house and the shop, whose thatched roofs were
all ablaze. Breathless and determined, she
pushed aside the panel and stumbled through
the blinding smoke.
. The hungry flames scorched her dress and her
hair, and burned and blistered her hands and
face before she secured what she sought. But
at last she reached the Bible and fled out into
the open air.
No one had noticed her in the darkness, and
she crept safely into the little garden, and sank
down choked and suffering among the vines.
But she felt that the Bible was in danger
even now. She slipped off her woolen petticoat
and wrapped it around the volume; then, digging
with her little burned hands in the soft
soil, she buried it under an immense cabbage.
Then she crawled upon her hands and knees to
the spring at the foot of the garden, where her
father found her, an hour later, half unconscious
with pain and fright. He never ceased,
while he lived, to praise his little daughter for
her brave deed of that day.
The Bible always remained in the family, and
years and years afterward Ailsie's great-granddaughter
carried it when she followed her Puritan
husband across the sea, to the lonely coast
of New England.?King's Builders.
The Christian at Work says:
It was the late gifted Dr. Guthrie who spoke of
a shipbuilder who paid him the greatest compliment
by saying: "During the preaching of most
ministers, be they short or long, I generally contrive
in my own mind to lay the keel and build
the ship from stem to the stern; but during your
sermon I cannot lay a single plank." There is a
i sight of business done sitting in the pew, and he
is a rare minister who can drive dollars and cents
out of the head of Mr. Onepercent while preaching.
I I) T H [ August 2, 1911
PREPARING FOR SUNDAY.
"It is so bard to get ready for church on
Sabbath morning at our house!" exclaimed "one
of the best mothers in Israel"?or so at least
Mrs. Dixon was rated in the neighborhood.
"Tell me some of your hindrances," said her
visitor, who was of a generation older than the
little woman who was sincerely regretting her
own irregular attendance at church.
"In the first place, breakfast is very late."
"Mistake number one!" said Mrs. Sutherland.
"Breakfast at eight would allow a Catholic maid
her early mass; which, by the way, is a reflection
on your church-going, is it not?"
"Yes, it is," allowed Mrs. Dixon, with flushing
face. "If a Roman Catholic maid cannot have
her ten o'clock mass, she will cheerfully go at
seven or even at six o'clock, and we cannot get
ready to go at the eleventh hour! I never
thought of this so directly before."
"Well, my dear, Norah has shown you how
cheerfully one may give up the Sabbath morning
sleep. A little extra rest is quite sensible,
but if church-going were as interesting or as
important to us as business or sight-seeing or
shopping, you could manage it; don't you think
so?"
"Oh, dear Mrs. Sutherland! You make me
feel positively ashamed. But breakfast is not
all that hinders. One or two of the family, or
more, must have their bath."
"Not must have on Sabbath, unless it is a
daily custom?"
"Why, yes, to change underwear," Mrs.
Dixon explained.
"But why not before retiring on Saturday
night? or before dressing on Sabbath morning,
by some good-natured arrangement between Mr. 1
Dixon and your sons ?''
"I suppose they might," said Mrs. Dixon,
sighing; "but they don't."
"Certainly, 'cleanliness is' only 'next to godliness'?or,
as I should render it, one form of
godliness?and church-going is another form;
but as the bath can be taken any night or any
other morning, I should advise my dear ones to
do without it, if there were not time for it on
Sabbath before ten o'clock."
"Oh, dear, you make it seem absurd; you must
reason with papa and the boys. While they
were little fellows, we always went to morning
service!''
"They all have Saturday afternoon free from
business, I think?" queried the earnest old lady.
"Certainly; but they go elsewhere?they must
have some recreation."
"I see! But must the recreation always be
sucn as prevent* Saturday from being the
.' Preparation Day 1' If the recreation is of so
fatiguing a nature as to make it necessary to
spend Sabbath morning, up to a late hour, in
rest, is not such recreation itself a form of Sabbath-breaking
t"
"Give the boys that idea! But there are other
things that turn up almost willfully, one night
say?a spot to be cleaned from somebody's suit;
a button comes off a glove. Henry says those
things are akin to the beast in the ditch; that
was taken out, aunty,"
"Now, if you won't mind plain speaking,
Janette, I think you forgot to use Saturday as a
preparation-day for the first of the week."
Not a word spoke Mrs. Dixon, but she bent
over her needle-work industriously.
i * Vnn mov T*nmnrYiV?rt>i J
^ iimtmuci ottturutty aiiernoons,
when you were a girl, my dear, when you used
to call for my girls?"
"No!" interrupted Mrs. Dixon. "To be'
honest, they used to call for me, and hurry me,
sometimes help me, to go for a ride or a visit!.
They were always ready on time."
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