you hear me speaking better? I've thought about it, George, and am convinced the cup is a talisman! I am better all the time I hold it! It was because I let you put it away that I was woree last night-for no other reason. If it were not a talisman, how else could it have so nestled itself into my heart! I feel better always the moment I take it in my hand! There is something more than common about that chalice! George, what if it should be the Holy Grail !" He said it with bated breath, and a great white awe "I will find her," she said, and rose, but turned and apon his countenance. His eyes were shining; his breath asked: "How does he seem now? Is he any better?" GLIMPSES OF MISSION WORK AMONG THE MAORIES. ON THE WEST COAST ROAD, NEW ZEALAND.-SEE PAGE 91. came and went fast. Slowly his aged cheeks flushed with two bright spots. He looked as if the joy of his life was come. "What if it should be the Holy Grail !" he repeated, and fell asleep with the words on his lips. As the evening deepened into night, he woke. Crawford was sitting beside him. A change had come over him. He stared at George as if he could not make him out, closed his eyes, opened them, stared, and again closed them. He seemed to think he was there for no good. "Would you like me to call Alexa ?" said George. "Call Dawtie; call Dawtie !" he replied. "Rather worse," George answered. 66 'Are you going to be with him through the night?" "I am; he insists on my staying with him," replied George, most apologetically. "Then," she returned, "you must have some supper. We will go down, and send up Dawtie." He followed her to the kitchen. Dawtie was not there, but her mistress found her. When she entered her master's room, he lay motionless, "and white with the whiteness of what is dead." She got brandy, and made him swallow some. As soon as he recovered a little, he began to talk wildly. I'm not a "Oh, Agnes "' be cried, "do not leave me. bad man! I'm not what Dawtie calls me. I believe in the atonement; I put no trust in myself; my righteous ness is as filthy rags. Take me with you. I will go with you. There! slip that under your white robe-washed in the blood of the Lamb. That will hide it-with the rest of my sins! The unbelieving husband is sanctified by the believing wife. Take it; take it; I should be lost in heaven without it! I can't see what I've got on, but it must be the robe of His righteousness, for I have none of my own! What should I be without it! It's all I've got ! I couldn't bring away a single thing besides -and it's so cold to have but one thing on-I mean one thing in your hands! Do you say they will make me sell it? That would be worse than coming without it!" George felt he had not a friend in the house, and that he must leave things as they were! The door of the closet was locked, and he could not go again to the deathchamber to take the laird's keys from the head of the bed F He knew that the two women would not let him. It had been an oversight not to secure them! He was glad the watch was safe: that he had put in the closet before but it mattered little when the cup was missing! Hə went to the stable, got out his horse, and rode home in the still gray of a midsummer night. The stillness and the night seemed thinking to each other. George hal little imagination, but what he had woke in him now as he rode slowly along. Step for stepthe old man seemed following him, on silent churchyardfeet, through the eerie whiteness of the night. There was He was talking to his wife !-persuading her to smuggle neither cloud nor moon, only stars above and around, and the cup into heaven! Dawtie went on her knees behind the curtain, and began to pray for him all she could. But something seemed stopping her, and making her prayer come only from her lips. "Ah," said the voice of her master, "I thought so! How could I go up, and you praying against me like that! Cup or no cup, the thing was impossible!" Diwtie opened her eyes-and there he was, holding back the curtain and looking round the edge of it with a face of eagerness, eff rt, and hate, as of one struggling to go, and unable to break away. She rose to her fet. “You are a fiend!" he cried. "I will go with Agnes !" He gave a cry, and ceased, and all was still. They heard the ory in the kitchen, and came running up. They found Dawtie bending over her master, with a cared face. He seemed to have struck her, for one cheek was marked with red streaks across its whiteness. ་་ "The Grail! the Holy Grail !" he cried. "I found it! I was bringing it home! She took it from me! She wants it to-——————” His jaw fell, and he was dead. Alexa threw herself beside she body. George would have raised her, but she resisted, and lay motionless. He stood then behind her, watching an opportunity to get the cup from under the bedclothes, that he might put it in the closet. He ordered Dawt e to fetch water for her mistress; but Alexa told her she did not want any. Once and again George tried to raise her, and get his hand under the bedclothes to feel for the cup. "He is not dead !" cried Alexa; "he movel!" "Get some brandy !" said George. She rose, and went to the table for the brandy. George, with the pretense of feeling the dead man's heart, threw back the clothes. He could find no cup. It had got further down! He would wait! Alexa lifted her father's head on her arm, but it was plain that brandy could not help. She went and sat on a chair away from the bed, hopeless and exhausted. George lifted the clothes from the foot of the bed, then from the further side, and then from the nearer, without attracting her attention. The cup was nowhere to be seen. He put his hand under the body, but the cup was not there! He had to leave the room that Dawtie and Meg might prepare it for burial. Alexa went to her chamber. A moment after, George returned, called Meg to the door, and said : "There must be a brass cup in the bed somewhere! I brought it to amuse him. He was found of odd things, you know! If you should find it" "I will take care of it," answered Meg, and turned from him curtly. a great cold crack in the northeast. He was crying after him, in a voice he could not make him hear! Was he notstruggling to warn him not to come into like condemnation? The voice seemed to say, "I know now! I know Low! I would not believe, but I know now! Give back the cup; give it back!" George did not allow to himself that there was "anything" there. It was but a vague movement in that commonplace, unmysterious region, his mind! He heard nothing, positively nothing, with his ears-therefore there was nothing! It was indeed somehow as if one were saying the words, but in reality they came only as a thought. rising, continuously rising, in his mind! It was but a thought-sound, and no speech: "I know now! I know now! Give it back; give the cup back!" He did not ask himself how the thought came; he cast it away as only that insignificant thing, a thought; cast it away none the less that he found himself answering it-" I can't give it back; I can't find it!—Where did you put it? You must have taken it with you!" "What rubbish!" he said to himself ten times, waking up; "of course Daw tie took it! Didn't the poor old fellow warn me to beware of her! Nobody but her was in the room when we ran in, and found him at the point of death! Where did you put it? I can't find it! I can't give it back!" He went over in his mind all that had taken place. The laird had the cup when he left him to call Dawtie; and when they came, it was nowhere! He was convinced the girl had secured it. in obedience, doubtless, to the instruction of her director, ambitious to do justice, and curry favor by restoring it. But he could do nothing till the will was read! Was it possible Lexy had put it away ? No; she had not had the opportunity! (To be continued.) It was an ancient and significant custom in the Church to have on Easter Day, in the early morning, a large wax candle lighted. This candle was of gigantic proportions. It was placed in the midst of the church to represent Christ. Throughout the forty days of Easter this candle burned, to show that the light of the risen Christ beamed continuously in His Church on earth which He had founded between Easter and Ascension Day. On this latter day, when the presence of the Lord was removed from the sight of His apostles and disciples, when He went up into heaven, and their eyes saw Him no more, then the great Paschal candle was extinguished. The light was gone out when the people came to church on Ascension Day, ns token that the Lord had withdrawn Himself from the sight of Hs beloved ones, and that henceforth they must walk by faith only. GLIMPSES OF MISSION LIFE AMONG THE MAORIES. NEW ZEALAND is one of the most promising of mission fields. Situated in the South Pacific, within about twelve hundred miles of the Australian Continent, with a healthy climate, fertile soil, and good harbors, it seems destined to become a second England. The three islands composing the colony were discovered by Tasman, the Dutch navigator, who gave them the name by which they are still known; but Captain Cook first inspected the islands, and made his countrymen acquainted with the character of the inhabitants. When he visited New Zealand, in 1769, he found that the natives were cannibals, but extremely susceptible of religions instruction. He acted as a fatherly kind of benefactor to them in various ways; and it is recorded that, in consequence of his sedulously refraining from oppressing or taking any mean advantage in his dealings with them, his memory is still cherished with affectionate gratitude. He is said to have introduced pigs, potatoes, dogs, cabbages, and the use of iron tools. The aborigines still talk of him reverentially as the good "Peni Kuki" whom their fathers knew. After the era of Captain Cook, whalers trading in the Pacific began to call at New Zealand for fresh supplies, as the natives were at all times ready to barter cheaply quantities of pigs and potatoes, as well as to replenish their own stores by commodities from over the sea. The Bay of Islands became so well known, also, as a good and safe harbor, that frequently as many as two hundred ships of all sizes were stated, even at that early era, to visit the Bay in the course of a year. In process of time the islands became better known, and several New South Wales merchants established whaling stations on the coast; while emigrants, runaway seamen, or escaped or released convicts from the Australian penal settlements, betook themselves to New Zealand, and united to form a heterogeneous population. In the natural order of things little jealousies and frictions became common, and it was soon (very evident to the most inexperienced eye that a supreme controlling and governing power became a sine qua non. Captain Hobson. This gentleman happened to be of small stature, and dressed in plain clothes, upon which the natives expressed their criticisms very freely, saying to each other: "The Queen has sent such a little man to be a great chief, and his clothes are quite plain." As usual, the native mind associated power with display, but the prestige of England had reached them sufficiently to enable them to form a very intelligent idea of the advantages which would accrue from being united to that country. The English representative then laid before the natives the chief reasons for the ceding of the country to England. They were, first, the mutual jealousies of the chiefs, which prevented any powerful ruler from banding all the tribes together, for any purpose, either of defense or defiance; and, second, the large increase of European residents, between whom and the natives many collisionshad already arisen, while much wrong was being committed on both sides. The advantages of such a cession were twofold: first, security for their property and liberties; and second, opportunity of redress in case of wrong. Captain Hobson laid great stress upon these advantages, and met all objections with a calm reasoning which went far to convince the chiefs of the real benefit to be derived. One of the speeches of the New Zealand chiefs may herebe quoted as a sample of the rest. It will be seen that the speaker held no mean rank as an orator. "I am an old man; war was once my delight, now my thoughts are for peace. The white men have brought us many evil things, as the stinking waters, guns, and some diseases; these arebad; but they have also brought us the potato, and the pig, and the flour, and the blanket, and the medicine; the young and very old could not eat the fern, it was a lump in the stomach, and they died, but now they have suitable, soft food. The missionaries have taught us to read, and told us about heaven and God, and to sit in peace and not devise perpetual wars, therefore I think we should walk still further in white ways, and adopt the Queen's word; the more so when I look round and see that some of the white people who are here are bad men, and require ruling, and we native chiefs are afraid to punish them when they do wrong, because they threaten us that the war-ships shall come and fire upon us. I counsel that we sign this treaty, and become brothers with the white people, that there may be one rule for all, one judge superior to all,. who will render right to natives and Europeans." In 1839 the British Government resolved, having had representations of the kind laid before it, to form the whole group of islands known as New Zealand into a Crown colony. The English had, however, acknowledged the independency of the island chiefs some years previously, and, in order to constitute the country a colony of Great Britain, it was imperative that the native chiefs should be induced to unite in signing a treaty which would convey Some of the chiefs demurred, rather, to English rule, all their sovereign rights to England. Much time was being cautious, suspicious men, and wily withal, as it consequently occupied in arranging these preliminaries, became their antecedents; and surmised that Englishmen as it was determined to accomplish the matter peacefully, intended to deprive them of their lands, and then turn and with thefu 11 consent of the chiefs, or not at all, and them adrift like dogs. Still, all things considered, there this delay France endeavored to utilize for her own bene- was an evident inclination to accept Captain Hobson as fit. A French man-of-war was sent out with a number of Governor, and to become bona fide subjects of Her Maemigrants, who were to be landed at Akaroa. This done, jesty. One further condition was stipulated; for, said one the French flag was to be hoisted, and the country form-chief, "Considering all these matters, I counsel acquiesally annexed. But a fast-sailing English frigate was sent out immediately, which performed the passage more quickly, by four or five days, than did the man-of-war; and by the time the French party had arrived, the country had been ceded by the native chiefs to England, and the "Waitangi Treaty" had been duly signed. The ceremony was somewhat impressive. The numerous chiefs were assembled by appointment, and the resident missionaries accompanied the representative of the Queen, cence, but not unless one thing more is promised. We have been free, always free-have always walked straight up-and we will never consent that slaves, bad men, 'convicts,' as you call them, should ever tread our ground." Captain. Hobson gave his promise that convicts should never be sent there, and here the matter ended. It will be within the knowledge of our readers that a penal settlement has never yet been established in New Zealand. The members of the English Government, however, little suspected that the real reason for this peaceful settle-, mission work may be equally divided between the Church ment of the treaty lay in the fact that, some years before, and the Wesleyan Missionary Societies. The aborigines one of the most influential New Zealand chiefs being ill, were, and are, called Maories, and were noted for savageand at a distance from his home, was kindly taken to his ness and cruelty. Adventurers, 1 old and ambitious, they own tribe by Captain Hobson. The captain set apart a regarded Christianity as only helps to the possession of cabin next his own for the chief, and entertained him at his guns, powder, and other munitions of war. own table during the whole of the voyage. The remem- About the commencement of the present century the |