this world shall keep it unto | I have any being, I will sing life eternal.-St. John xii. praises unto my God.

25.

O put not your trust in princes, nor in any child of man for there is no help in them.

For when the breath of man goeth forth he shall turn again to his earth and then all his thoughts perish.

Blessed is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help and whose hope is in the Lord his God;

Who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that therein is Who keepeth His promise for ever;

Who helpeth them to right that suffer wrong : Who feedeth the hungry.

The Lord looseth men out of prison: the Lord giveth sight to the blind.

The Lord helpeth them that are fallen: the Lord careth for the righteous.

Let the saints be joyful with glory let them rejoice in their beds.

Let the praises of God be in their mouth and a twoedged sword in their hands; To be avenged of the heathen and to rebuke the people;

:

To bind their kings in chains and their nobles with links of iron.

That they may be avenged of them, as it is written : Such honour have all His saints.

THE FIRST FOUNDATION.

Jasper.

HOU shalt make the breastplate of judgment with cunning work. And thou shalt set in it settings of stones, even four rows of stones. The fourth row a beryl, and an onyx, and a jasper. And the stones shall be with the names of the children of Israel, twelve, like the engravings of a signet; every one with his name shall they be according to the twelve tribes.-Exodus xxviii. 15, &c.

And he made the breastplate of cunning work. And they set in it four rows of stones. The fourth row a beryl, an onyx, and a jasper. And the stones were

according to the names of the children of Israel.-Exodus xxxix. 8, &c.

Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper. Ezekiel xxviii. 13.

Behold, a throne was set in heaven, and One sat on the throne. And He that sat was to look upon like a jasper and a sardine stone.-Revelation iv. 2, 3.

Her light was like unto a stone most precious, even like a jasper stone, clear as crystal. And the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and in them the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb. And the building of the wall of it was of jasper. And the foundations of the wall of the city were garnished with all manner of precious stones. The first foundation was jasper.

Revelation xxi. II, &c.

Jasper has a score of hues and a multiplicity of aspects; yet it always remains that same jasper, opaque, hard, comely. It exhibits redness of blood, greenness of foliage, yellowness of gold, brownness of earth, greyness of twilight and as blood, foliage, gold, earth, twilight, are the common heritage of mankind, these its appearances seem well fitted to recall that Saint who, having himself found the Messiah, rested not content till he had imparted Him first to his own brother Simon, afterwards to the Jews, last of all to the Gentiles; so far as in him lay, to the whole human race. "There is that scattereth, and yet increaseth."-Proverbs xi. 24.

Again: jasper sometimes displays one unvaried surface; sometimes clouds, stripes, spots, intricacies of markings. It is, as God made it, good: even thus came it fresh

from His hand, planned by His mind and executed by His fiat, to be a beautiful creature in its proper order and place, according to His good pleasure. It retains its own special comeliness, which is His gift to it alone and not to any other. Its veinings are not the veinings of alabaster, nor its colours the colours of opals, nor its hardness the hardness of adamant: nevertheless, good was the word spoken at its creation, for it is fair in its own allotted degree; hard enough to be cut and polished into a thousand delicate and enduring figures, not so hard as to resist the Master's hand and pleasure.

In ancient times the name jasper included many stones now otherwise classed. Thus a jasper might of old be a bright-coloured translucent chalcedony. This perhaps helps to explain the simile: "Her light was like unto a stone most precious, even like a jasper stone, clear as crystal." Thus in our Authorized Version. According to a second view, "clear as crystal" should be changed into "of crystal hue;" and the image before our eyes should shine with the dazzling lustre of the diamond.

Various wonderful properties were in former days ascribed to jasper; and these, and such as these, we may use as parables of those good gifts which God hath oftentimes bestowed on His elect. Whoso wore a jasper attained honour, became poison proof, and under certain conditions was rendered invisible :—

Them that honour Me I will honour.-1 Samuel ii. 30. If they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them. -St. Mark xvi. 18.

Seek ye the Lord, all ye meek of the earth, which have wrought His judgment; seek righteousness, seek meek

ness: it may be ye shall be hid in the day of the Lord's anger.-Zephaniah ii. 3.

The jasper which stands last as a jewel of the High Priest's breastplate, stands first among the foundation stones of the New Jerusalem :

The last shall be first.-St. Matthew xx. 16.

The gracious generosity of St. Andrew hath its archetype in our Lord God: for He Who giving to every man severally as He will, awards the jasper to His Apostle and to His Church, reveals Himself in vision as to look upon like a jasper and a sardine stone :"

God created man in His own image.-Genesis i. 27. Christ Jesus made Himself of no reputation, and was made in the likeness of men.-Philippians ii. 5, 7.

Exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the Divine Nature.-2 St. Peter i. 4.

THE DAISY.

We are well placed where God places us.

HE daisy, scattered over many soils, blows the whole year round in genial weather, and though less plentiful in November than in milder months, its rarity may then be viewed as choiceness, for throughout November flowers are few. The daisy must almost always be precursor and companion of some blossom more gorgeous, or more beautiful, or more fragrant than itself: yet not for this does