educated, and which are so hard that they hear the commands of God, without wishing to obey them; and receive His mercies and goodness without feeling love and reverence for His name.

Henry.-Oh, Mamma! but what wicked people! I hope Mary and I shall never be like them.

Mrs. B.-No, my love: indeed I hope and pray that you may not! that that great and good Being, of whom the sower in the parable is the type, or representative, may keep your hearts soft and open to receive the seed which He throws into them; and may you, on your parts, pray to that God who has commanded us all to "ask, and it shall be given us,"* that He will not suffer the devil, the great enemy of our souls, who is represented by the birds in the parable, to take the good seed out of your hearts. He is continually endeavouring to do so, and will do so if you allow it to lie upon the surface, and not to sink into the ground. If you, on your * Matt. vii. 7.

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parts, are careless and inattentive, God may withdraw His grace from you. You will continually become less and less able to feel His mercies and His love; and the seed which was sown, being upon a hard and unprepared soil, will soon be wholly lost. But God grant, my dear children, that this may never be our case! May we be neither the ground by the way-side, nor that among the stones!-Henry, do yoù remember what became of the seed sown there?

Henry. Yes, Mamma, I think I do. It grew up, but the sun burnt it, and it

died.

Mrs. B.-Quite right, Henry; and now hear how Jesus himself explains this part of his parable. "He that received the seed in stony places, the same is he that heareth the Word, and anon with joy receiveth it; yet hath he not root in himself, but dureth for a while; for when tribulation and persecution ariseth because of the Word, by and by he is offended." Do you understand this explanation?

Mary. I think so, Mamma; a person having root in himself means having steadiness, does it not?

Mrs. B.-Certainly, my dear, and without this virtue of steadiness, without a firm root of love for God, of gratitude for His mercies, and of confidence in His protection and promises, the best and warmest resolutions are of no avail. The seed, indeed, springs up, but when the sun becomes hot, that is, when persecution arises on account of religion, there is nothing to supports its growth, and it withers away.

Henry-But, Mamma, why is the sun used to signify persecution? Is not the sun good for corn?

Mrs. B.-Yes, my dear, a moderate degree of heat is not only good for it, but necessary to its growth; it draws up the moisture of the earth below and feeds the root; and so are trials and persecutions beneficial to the faith of sincere and wellgrounded Christians; they exercise their virtue and nourish their religion, as the sun does the corn; but those who have no

foundation, no depth of root, wither away under that which might otherwise have been their benefit.

Mary-But, Mamma, there are no such things as persecutions now, so that there can be no such people as these any longer.

Mrs. B.-We have indeed reason, my love, to thank God that the days of actual persecution, the days when the acknowledgment of a Saviour's mercy and atonement was punished by bodily sufferings and death, are long since at an end; that in we live in an age and in a country, which a belief in the redemption wrought for us by Christ forms part of the established religion of the land. But you must not imagine on that account that the days of " tribulation because of the Word" are at an end, or that the sincere Christian will not have to undergo many trials, whether he "hath root in himself" or not. You, my dear Henry, will, before very long, go to school, where, as in the world afterwards, you will meet with persons of

all characters; with some who have been so unhappy as never to have been taught to reverence religion themselves, and who therefore make a mock of it in others; with many who, from different motives, will ridicule and despise your strict adherence to your principles and your religion. And believe me, my dear little boy, strange as it may appear to you, ridicule or contempt are almost as difficult to meet as the more open persecutions of fire and sword; unless you have root in yourself, unless your belief in, and love of God are thoroughly rooted in you, you will, to use the Scripture phrase, be "offended;" or as I have been told is the more literal translation, be "made to stumble" by the trifling, but constantly repeated persecutions of those who are really your inferiors in religious knowledge. My dear Mary has not, in this respect, so difficult a task to perform; but even she may have opportunities of showing openly that she is not to be turned aside from her duty by perse