public well doing, by wearying in secret well doing. They had left their closet, before they forsook their post in the School, or in the district, or in the Committee.

Do not abandon your post of usefulness, whatever it be. You cannot afford to do so; for you cannot go on in piety, without help from God and how can He help you, if

you cease to help others? Feed his lambs, if you would have the good Shepherd keep you in his fold, or lead you to green pastures and still waters.

No. VII.

DEVELOPMENTS BY OBSTACLES.

DID you ever mark the peculiar beauty or point of the command, "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven?" I refer chiefly, now, to the emphatic expression,

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so shine." Some make their light shine so, that men neither glorify God nor admire them, when they see it. It is so evidently paraded for the sake of shining, that it disgusts the attention it draws, even when "good works" are the brightest rays of it. Ostentatious benevolence, and consequence-seeking zeal, and selfish urbanity, and all rivalry in well doing, defeat themselves, so far as the glory of God, or the

credit of the practitioners, is concerned. The poor, indeed, are benefited by the alms, and the ignorant by the instruction, and the neglected by the attentions, of the aspirants for compli ment and popularity; but whilst their pensioners and protégées applaud them to the skies, spectators see through them, and rate them very

low.

The opinion of mere on-lookers is not, indeed, of much importance, in one sense. The selfish and the slothful are but too ready to suspect the motives of the liberal and active, in order to rid themselves of self-condemnation. Strangers themselves to all the fine impulses derived from the cross of Christ and the crown of Glory, from the love of God and the worth of immortal souls; they take for granted, because these high and holy considerations have no constraining influence upon their own minds, that no mind is influenced by eternal things.

Hence, there is always a class of spectators around the path of the devoted, actually upon the out-look for something to palliate their own idleness and by them the modest are confounded with the vain, and the simple-hearted with the self-complacent, and all the benevolent with the ambitious. This is very pitiful. It is often spiteful. But still it is not exactly right to despise the opinion of even such on-lookers. Neither their suspicions nor their insinuations of base motive should, indeed, divert us from the open and onward path of duty: but that path, be it remembered, leads towards them, as well as towards those we already care for and assist. It is as desirable to disarm their prejudices, and as necessary to try to win their souls, as it is to act for the good of the more deserving and candid.

Do look into this much overlooked fact. It involves the salvation of more than one, perhaps,

in your own circle. If you are trying to benefit the poor and the ignorant in your neighbourhood, some of the selfish are sure to look with both a jealous and a jaundiced eye upon your humble efforts. You have, no doubt, found already, that your movements are watched, and your motives criticised. You have good reason to think, that you have not credit for all the disinterestedness or singleness of heart, which you feel. A bad construction is, perhaps, put upon your best efforts for the cause of God and Humanity, by some one who cares for neither. Now this is certainly trying to both patience and temper for it is at no inconsiderable inconvenience or expense you endeavour to be useful. It is, therefore, not a little mortifying, as well as discouraging, to have your very motives and designs called in question, by those who give nothing to the poor, and do nothing for the perishing. Such people might, at least,