with the same team, and at one operation. If the subsoil-plough is not needed, it may be detached and laid aside for future use in one minute. Then, to the principal bar may be attached, in half a minute, any kind of blade or mould that ever has been made, turning-blade, shovel, bulltongue, garden - plough, ditchingplough, &c.; thus converting the plough into a new variety every time a new blade is attached."

A GHOST STORY.

THE Court, as the villagers call it, is a good specimen of a substantial, cozy house, built somewhere in the after-part of the last century. The front looks out on a large, close-shaven lawn, encircled with a carriage-drive, beyond which are strips of grass of varying widths, flower-beds, and at the back a well-grown shrubbery shutting in all. If you walked across the lawn, bearing a little to the right, and passed through the shrubbery, you would find it bounded by a very low wall, dividing it from the churchyard. If you went up that short, narrow path opposite the front-door, you would find yourself in an extensive ruin of an old manorial residence, thickly covered with ivy. In front of the shrubbery, to the right of the house, and overhanging the grass-border beyond the carriage-drive, is a very fine evergreen oak, beneath the shade of which is placed a garden-seat.

I am thus particular in my description in order that you may better understand the strange thing I have to tell, and which happened no longer since than this last summer.

One beautiful moonlight night, after the family had gone to their several rooms, a lady-who, with her husband, was visiting at the house, and occupied one of the front bed-rooms-drew up the blind of the large bow-window, and looked out over the lawn at the encircling belt of trees, with their leaves

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all bathed in the cool, clear brightness, and the heavy shadows beneath, broken up here and there with flecks and patches of moonlight.

As the visiter looked round towards the right, her eye was arrested by a figure seated beneath the large tree to which I referred. It seemed to be a woman, clad in white, or very lightcoloured garments.

The gentleman, coming to the window, also saw the robed form distinctly, and agreed with his wife that their hostess should be informed of the presence of this untimely intruder. She was accordingly fetched, and had the proof of her own eyes that the garden-seat was occupied by some one, but whether by any body there really seemed room to doubt. The thing was so serious that the master of the house, who had been laughing at the affair, must be called. He was very far from being a credulous or fanciful man; but there was no gainsaying the witness of his own eyes. There, beneath the great dark tree, sat the spectral form, white and motionless as marble. It was not thirty yards off; so there could be no mistake.

Let every matter-of-fact sceptic weigh well the evidence in this case. This was no apparition seen by one frightened person and invisible to every one else; but the sheeted form sat clear and still before the eyes of four intelligent and educated people,one of them a lawyer.

But there was other and independent testimony. The groom occupied a front-room in a sort of wing at the left of the house. He had been watching the spectre for an hour, but was afraid to make it known.

Two of the maid-servants had a room on the floor above. As one of them drew up the blind, she exclaimed, "Why, there's mistress sitting in the garden, with a muslin dress on!" Her companion, knowing this to be impossible, was frightened, and urged her to look no more, but to get to bed.

The little party in the room below were sorely perplexed. Wishing to find out whether the pale visitant was mortal, the master of the house threw up the sash, and shouted as people are wont to do to a trespasser. The apparition never moved, but sat still as the moonlit-tree above it. The host then resolved to get a nearer view of the weird object, by looking from the window of a room on the same floor, but much further to the right, and, therefore, nearly opposite the garden-seat. He went quietly, and looked: the seat was empty, and the pale ghost had vanished. A slender stream of moonlight poured through the dark tree just above the garden-seat, and passed out slantingly towards the lawn. A moment's reflection solved the mystery, and spoiled my ghost story. The observer noticed that, as he altered his position, the streak of light showed in a different form; and that as he moved away to the left, it became collected into a smaller space, and wore the spectral shape which had caused all this disturbance.

I am not going to hazard a universal negative as to ghostly apparitions; but suppose that the inquiry in this case had not been completed. Imagine the excitement which must have followed; made more intense by every conversation about the matter; the report spreading, gathering much garnish as it went; the testimony of six trustworthy witnesses to confirm the fact. How few such rehearsals are backed by such evidence!

I wonder how many ghosts, and house - hauntings, if perseveringly searched into, would also turn out to be-all moonshine.

THE OLD SUN-DIAL.

MANY persons now living in London must remember the vertical sun-dial, with a very remarkable motto, which

was placed on the front of a building at the Temple in London. But most of them probably never heard of the curious tradition, probably a true one, respecting the motto. When, a few years ago, the building was taken down and rebuilt, it is likely the Benchers were either ignorant of the tradition, or had forgotten it, else they would have restored the sun-dial, with its motto. Perhaps they may even yet be induced to do so.

The tradition is this:-That when the sun-dial was put up, the artist inquired whether he should (as was customary) paint a motto under it. The Benchers assented; and appointed him to call at the library at a certain day and hour, at which time they would have agreed upon the motto. It appears, however, that they had totally forgotten this; and when the artist or his messenger called at the library at the time appointed, he found no one but a cross-looking old gentleman poring over some musty book. "Please, Sir, I am come after the motto for the sun-dial." "What do you want?" was the pettish answer: "why do you disturb me?" "Please, Sir, the gentlemen told me I was to call at this hour for a motto for the

sun-dial." "Begone about your business!" was the testy reply. The man, either by design or by mistake, chose to take this as the answer to his inquiry, and accordingly painted in large letters under the dial," BEGONE

ABOUT YOUR BUSINESS."

The Benchers, when they saw it, decided that it was very appropriate, and that they would let it stand; chance having done their work for them as well as they could have done it for themselves.

Anything that reminds us of the lapse of time, should remind us also of the right employment of time in doing whatever business is required to be done.

A similar lesson is solemnly conveyed in the Scripture motto to a sun

dial: "The night cometh, when no man can work."

Another useful lesson is conveyed in the motto to a sun-dial erected by the late Bishop Copleston in a village near which he resided: "Let not the sun go down upon your wrath."

THE TIDE OF GRACE. LET me now urge on you, says Dr. Guthrie, the advantage and duty of improving to the utmost every season of heavenly visitation. There are seasons more favourable and full of grace than others. In this there is nothing surprising, but much that is in harmony with the common dispensations of Providence. Does not the success of the farmer, seaman, merchant of men in many other circumstances-chiefly depend on their seizing opportunities which come and go like showers; which flow and ebb like the tides of ocean? The sea is not always full. Twice a day she deserts her shores, and leaves the vessels high and dry upon the beach; so that they who would sail must wait and watch, and take the tide; and larger ships can only get afloat, or, if afloat, get across the bar and into the harbour, when, through a favourable conjunction of celestial influences, the sca swells in stream or spring tides beyond her common bounds. The seaman has his spring-tides; the husbandman has his spring-time, and those showers, and soft winds, and sunny hours, on the prompt and diligent improvement of which the state of the barn and barn-yard depends.

If the season of heavenly visitation be improved, who can tell but it may be with you as with one well known to us. She was a fair enough professor, but had been living a careless, godless, Christless life. She awoke one morning, and, most strange and unaccountably, her waking feeling was a strong desire to pray. She wondered.

It

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was early dawn; and what more natural than that she should say, There is time enough; meanwhile, "a little more sleep, a little more slumber, a little more folding of the hands to sleep" As she was sinking back again into unconsciousness, suddenly, with the brightness and power of lightning, a thought flashed into her mind, filling her with alarm: "This desire may have come from God; this may be the hour of my destiny; this the tide of salvation, which, if neglected, may never return." She rose, and flung herself on her knees. The chamber was changed into a Peniel; and when the morning sun looked in at her window, he found her wrestling with God in prayer; and, like one from a sepulchre, she came forth that day at the call of Jesus, to follow Him henceforth, and in her future life to walk this world with God.

THE ROMAN SENTINEL. WHEN Pompeii was destroyed, there were many buried in the ruins of it, who were afterward found in different situations. There were some found in deep vaults, as if they had gone thither for security. There were some found who were in the streets, as if they had been attempting to make their escape. There were some found in lofty chambers. But where did they find the Roman sentinel? They found him standing at the city-gate, with his hand still grasping his war-weapon, where he had been placed by his Captain; and there where the heavens threatened him, there where the earth shook beneath him, there where the lava-stream rolled, he stood at his post, and there, after a thousand years had passed away, he was found. So let Christians learn to stand to their duty, willing to stand at the post on which their Captain has placed them, and they will find that grace will support and sustain them.

not know a word of one of the Ten Commandments.

Fifty-two, or nearly one-fourth, must be classed as home heathens; meaning by the term, persons totally ignorant of the common truths of Christianity; who were as unable to tell me anything whatever respecting the birth, life, and death of Jesus Christ, as though they had lived all their lives in a heathen instead of a Christian country; who had no notion whatever of the atonement considered by itself, or of its necessity; and who not unfrequently attributed the death of our Redeemer to the transgression of some human law or other, and for which He had deserved punishment. Five had no notion of what was meant by the word Queen; eight could not tell me how many months there were in the year; while many more could not tell me the names of the months; and, incredible as it may seem, one labourer positively could not name the days of the week, knowing only Saturday, Sunday, and Monday.

These are simple, plain, and ugly facts; and they speak for themselves.

The questions put to the prisoners were not in any single instance put abruptly or without leading questions to gain their confidence and remove any embarrassment they might feel; and in the worst instances were afterwards repeated by either the schoolmaster or head-turnkey of the prison, but with no better result. There is the wretchedness of a heathen ignorance in our villages as well as large towns; at our doors, and, not unfrequently, amongst some of our domestic servants, in our very homes.

The "Norfolk News," of November 3d, 1860, observes on this Report:—

"We observe that out of 219 prisoners 81 could not read a letter in a book, 65 more could read very imperfectly, and only 32 could read well. Of these 219, more than half-namely, 120-could not sign their names; and only 6 could write well. The religious knowledge of these poor creatures was in a miserably low state. Specimens are given in the Report,

of their barbarous ignorance, which almost surpasses belief.

"Mr. Pilkington properly designates these pitiable objects Such they are, and

home heathen.'

as such they should be regarded. It is a distressing reflection that such a mass of moral destitution exists within reach of our churches, our chapels, our halls, and our mansions. Thousands of miles do we send, at a vast cost, numbers of earnest and devoted Missionaries, to supply to savages the means of salvation; whilst here, at our very doors, a multitude is herding, whose souls are dying out of them for want of religious knowledge, and whose mental powers are perishing from neglect of culture. Mr. Pilkington tells us that it is only neglect; for that they are mostly capable of culture, his figures fully demonstrate.

"These wretched Pariahs of England, it should be remembered, are not mere negative evils. It is true that all in them that was allied to the Divine seems well nigh lost, and that they are degenerating to the level of the animal. This is true; but it is not half the truth. It is not into imbecility that they fall. A potency remains in them, a form of life, but its tendency and adaptation are for crime. These poor wretches, owing in many cases to no fault of theirs, are absolute pests and nuisances in the neighbourhood where their lot is cast."

It is gratifying to state that the spiritual necessities of this county have been practically considered by our Connexion. Five additional Ministers have been recently appointed to our Circuits in it. This addition must, however, only be regarded as the earnest of greater HomeMissionary efforts where they are so much needed.

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was full. The guests, for the most part, had come from those scenes of humble life which the Exhorters had done much to evangelize. They were come together, in part, to countenance those whom they felt to be their friends. And it really was refreshing to see them, and many of the leading members of our Societies, both male and female, mingling and sitting at table together. I never saw a teameeting, I think, in which cheerfulness and Christian propriety were more happily combined. Most of the Exhorters were present, and gave short addresses in the course of the evening. Nor was it a small joy to know that we had such men among us. Men of such heart, prepared with so much simplicity and warmth to use their talent in preparing the way for others. The proceeds of the meeting went towards defraying the incidental expenses of the movement; such as lighting and cleaning the various rooms in which religious services are occasionally held. Will you permit me to introduce an extract or two from the Report? It struck me as worthy of notice.

"The Exhorters have been an organized body in the Wesleyan-Methodist West Circuit, Birmingham, for about thirty-five years. During that time, in spite of much discouragement, they have been cheered with much fruit. A few men, mostly poor in this world, but by the grace of God fitted for such work, have given themselves to God, and live to speak for Him in the dwellings of the poor; to whom they have means of access such as many others cannot command. They have often pioneered the way for the larger forces of Methodism. One case may show the character of their work. The cause at Smith-street room began with an open-air service. Then one of the neighbours opened his house for weekly meetings. Two houses were byand-by filled to overflowing. And at length the present room was opened, a Society formed, a Sunday-school established, and now all are in efficient operation under ministerial oversight.

"The Exhorters have successfully laboured to draw the people into our ordinary congregations. Many find their way from the cottage-services to the free

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