In conclusion, I would quote the words of the apostle, "Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord." And, "I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope." Brynmawr. TENDER AND TRUE. "STRONG and manly, and true as steel." It was the remark of a gentleman standing near me. I did not hear the reply made by his companion, who was a lady; but, from something in the manner of the gentleman, I concluded that her idea of the person referred to was not in full accord with his. At the lower end of the room a beautiful young woman stood leaning on the arm of her husband, into whose face scarcely any one could look without admiring its manly beauty and signs of intellectual strength. It was, moreover, a true face; and yet, as my eyes lingered upon it, and then turned to the sweet loving countenance of the bride, a shadow crept over my spirits. Strong and manly, and true as steel." Yes; you saw that in the finely cast face; in the full lips; in the large, wide eyes and nostrils; in the ample forehead. 66 Strong and manly, and true as steel." Even so. And yet, looking still into the tender, almost dreamy face of the bride, I could not feel at ease touching her future. Grant Baldwin I knew well. We were old friends. His bride I had not seen until this evening. There was something more than beauty in her face-something that held your gaze like a spell. Her eyes were of a deep hazel, large and soft; her countenance very fair, almost to paleness; her form slight, and her stature low. I noticed that, as she stood by her husband, she leaned towards him in a kind of shrinking, dependent way, and every now and then glanced up into his face with a wistful sort of look that I did not understand. I met them not long afterwards in their new home, and was more than ever charmed with Mrs. Baldwin. She was pure, and sweet, and gentle, and he was strong and manly, and true as steel-meet complements of each other, one would think; and yet, as on that first evening, I felt the lack of some element to give a complete harmony to their lives. It troubled me. I knew my friend well -knew him to be a man of high honour and strength of character; a little cold and undemonstrative, as we say; rather more inclined to hide what he felt than to give it free expression. It happened that I did not come very near them again for several months, and then I noticed with pain that an invisible barrier had grown up between them, and that neither had found the sweet satisfaction anticipated. During the evening I spent with them, I saw the tears spring to the eyes of Mrs. Baldwin more than once; and I noticed in them a hungry kind of look as they rested now and then on her husband's face. I was puzzled. What could it mean? A few days afterwards, meeting Mr. Baldwin in the street, I asked after his wife. "Well," he answered. But in the tone of his voice my ear read, "Not well." "How does she like her new home?" I inquired. He had brought her from a neighbouring city. My friend sighed involuntarily. "Not too well, I'm afraid," he answered. "She still feels strange." "The tenderer the flower," I remarked, "the more difficult to transplant." "Yes," in an absent tone. "I should say," I added, "that your wife has a highly sensitive spiritual organisation." 66 Undoubtedly that is true," answered my friend. "But are not persons so organized difficult to understand?" "Sometimes." "Always, I should say," he returned. I did not know what reply it was best to make, and so kept silent. After a little while he said with some feeling, "I would give all the world to make her happy!" "Happy?" My surprise expressed itself in my voice. 66 "Yes, happy," he said, with emphasis. "My wife is not happy, and it troubles me beyond measure.' I "Do you make no guess at the cause of her unhappiness?" asked. "I am at sea. Sometimes I think she doesn't really love me. No, no!" he added quickly; “not that. I am sure of her love." "Is she as sure of your love ?" said I. The question seemed to hurt him. "Have I not chosen her from among women to be my wife?" he answered with something of indignation in his voice. "Am I the man to say, 'I love,' and not mean it? Did I not promise before God to love and cherish her till death? Sure of my love! If I have any element of character more strongly developed than another, it is the element of truth. When I told her that I loved her, I told her an abiding truth. She is as dear to me as the apple of my eye. The very thought of doubt on her part hurts me like an accusation of wrong." A light came into my mind, bringing a revelation of the real ground of trouble, and I said, "Have you been as tender to your wife always as true?" His eye flashed, but the fire went out of them instantly. "Mere truth in character is often reserved and proud," said I. "True steel is all well enough. But steel is hard and cold, and chills by con tact." Baldwin looked at me strangely. "Tender and true, my dear friend. Tender and true! Love will have nothing less," I ventured to add. "Good morning," he said, in a voice that I scarcely recognized, and turning from me, he walked away. Had I offended him? We did not meet again for several weeks. I was going homeward one evening, when I heard quick feet behind me. A hand was laid on my shoulder, and a familiar voice spoke my name. It was my friend Baldwin." "Come home with me," he said. I tried to excuse myself, but he would take no denial; so I accompanied him home. His manner as we walked was frank and cheery. "How is Mrs. Baldwin ?" I naturally inquired. 66 'Oh, very well!" he answered, without change of tone. Getting more reconciled to her new home?" her waist, in spite of my presence. Her face was aglow with pleasure, its whole expression so far different from what it was when I last met her that I could but wonder at the change. Her manner towards me, her husband's friend, was very cordial, and quite in contrast with what it had been at a previous meeting. Then she was depressed, absent, and ill at ease, and when she looked at her husband, her face, instead of lighting up, grew strangely shadowed. I understood it all. The true and loyal husband had supplemented fidelity with tenderness. I saw this in every word, and tone, and action. The half-proud courtliness, the dignified repression of feeling, which had so hurt and chilled his loving little wife, and held her away from him, were all gone, fused by a tenderness he permitted to go forth in speech and act. Tender and true! Yes, he was all that now; and his young wife felt herself to be the happiest woman in the world. PRAYER FOR OTHERS. A LECTURE-ROOM TALK.* BY THE REV. H. W. BEECHER. THERE is no doubt about what the old saints thought on intercessory prayer; no doubt but that Christ and the Apostles practised it; and there is no doubt about their instructions to Christians for all after times. Paul, in writing from different Churches that he visited, mentioned whole catalogues of people by way of remembrance, and made supplications for them from day to day. He passed in review different communities and persons; and the largest half of his prayer was not for himself, but for others. To the Ephesians he says: "Wherefore, I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus, and love unto all saints, cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers," etc. This prayer for others he ceased not to utter with varieties of expression. To Timothy, the Bishop of the Grecian Churches, he says: "I exhort, therefore, that first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men.' This should be the general attitude of our minds toward men. Those who wish can trouble themselves by asking: "Is there any use in such prayers? Can any good come of them? Is it not a pure imagination? Have you any reason to suppose that God does not hear such prayer? Professor Tyndall has written a review of prayer for our physical wants; although disputing that, even he says that in the higher wants it is eminently reasonable to suppose that if God is a Father to all, He will hear such prayers. He disputes the validity of prayer only in its interaction and combative action with natural law. Dr. Chalmers said, God's providence or ways were a long chain, and we see only the lower end of the chain. We live in the animal plane; by-andby we know the soul will recognise what is faith, taste, imagination, love, gratitude. In life, moral sentiments are transcendently of mole value than anything that science reaches. Our first idea of prayer seems to be to ask God for something for ourselves. Prayer includes ourselves, but we need not pray in a selfish way. Going out after others in our petitions is a contrast to selfish praying. Consider how we are in sympathy with Divine feeling when we are more solicitous for other people than we are for ourselves. It is to be like Christ, who went about doing good. The mother forgets herself for her children: she is sensitive for her children. We say, such a man is just and true. Yes; but he is as cold as a fish-he won't do any harm, but he is like a toad shut up in a rock. There is another man near him. Ah! that man blunders; he is not a model man; but what sympathy and kindness there are in him! If I were in trouble, of all the men in the world, I would go to that man. All the better if a man is both discreet, just, and true, yet large-hearted, kind, and sympathetic. This element of asking favours for others and not for ourselves, we feel is noble; and does it not appear so to God? When we come into His presence, we need not always cry, "Help me, help me, O Lord!" but, Help somebody else! When we enter into the condition of others, and then bring them before God, is not that wellpleasing to Him? If a person came to me and said: "Give me a barrel of apples from your orchard," I would give them if I had one. have a barrel about once in five years. But if he asked: "If you will give some vegetables to that poor family, I think it would be a great kindness," I would do it quickly, and thank him for asking for some. body else, and not for himself. We are pleased with this sort of generosity. Do we not borrow it? Is it not a spark from an infinite globe of such feeling? Does not God love to hear our prayers and supplica tions for others? I Pray for your children. Don't stop at the one request, “Oh that my child might be converted!" Take each child up, one by one, in prayerthe more realistic you make your request, the better. Tell God what you want, tell Him your trouble, ask Him for a remedy, ask Him what is needed. They are dear to you by love; yet ask, "Lord, love Thou them. Lord, they are not my children as much as they are Thine. I hold them for Thee-love Thou them." In the first place, you see what depths of love there are for them-even God's love. Such prayer connects your children with all that is sacred. You think of your child in relation to its eternal life: you unite your child's destiny and future with God's love for it. Such a prayer for your children would be blessed of God far more than if you only prayed for yourself. So, go around the whole circle of your friends with your prayers, and pray always. My children are scattered; many I loved are scattered; friends in former parishes, dear to me as my own flesh and blood, are far off now, going through deep waters and fiery trials. I take them up in thought to God, I pray for them, sympathize with them, and help them. On the souls of those we love many blessings shall descend in answer to such prayers, and also on the soul of him who prays. Praying is not a melancholy drone; not whining out "O-L-o-r-d-!" It is familiarity with the best friend the soul can have. I think of friends the other side of the sea: my thoughts run after them; I think about them before God. Some friends at a distance are in trouble; I go at once to them, I stand beside them and plead with God for them. So I place upon their hands not the jewels men's hands have fashioned and carved, but the more precious jewels that come from the Spirit of God. In my prayer I bring them the ring, the necklace, the garland of infinite pleasures. Such a prayer is precious; there are angels in it, and blessings in it too. If you pray for people, doesn't it help you to get along with them better? If a husband and wife don't get along very well together, it's as if a chimney smoked-it's an irritation to you all the time. Now, go and pray for each other. Pray for each fault. Suppose you counted all faults as diseases, and prayed; "Lord, my husband has got the scarlet feverperhaps the scarlet temper; he has got a broken arm: violence has been done to nerve or bone "-you can bear that; but when violence has been done to the higher bone, the more delicate nerve, pray for that too. Christ carried and will carry for us our sorrow and soul-sickness. Instead of aggravating each other's faults by our words, if our only conversation was confidentially with Christ, and we carried them into the presence of Christ, it would have a peaceful effect upon us; we should be full of all carefulness and sympathy with them. I believe in intercessory prayer. God will answer prayer for others even more than for yourself. This benevolence of praying for others is better than prayer for self; it develops the best part of our nature; it opens up feelings of sympathy for others. A praying woman of this kind my father had in his parish, down on the east end of Long Island. She used to speak of going round the whole town every day, though she was bedridden. She would say: "Every morning I go in to see all my friends and neighbours. I inquire after all the family-the servants and the children; then I go out and off to the next house, and remember all, pray with every one; so I go into every house up to the end of the street; then I turn and come down, and come into every house. By the time I get home I am tired out." That is not a bad trade. Such visitation blesses; it carries blessing with it. Such a visitation is not to be found fault with! A SHORT STORY ABOUT HONESTY. FOR THE YOUNG. ONE evening a poor man and his son, a little boy, sat by the wayside, near the gate of an old town in Germany. The father took a loaf of bread which he had bought in 66 the town, and broke it, and gave one |