Lord Jesus himself for a teacher, instead of Mr. Baynes; and learn quietly here, instead of going to school among other boys. I daresay it is hard to lie still, and cough; but if he be your teacher, all will and must come right. Do listen to what he says; and oh, Charlie, do ask him to make you love him; do, will you ?" The pleading eyes and earnest voice won the boy; scarcely was the promise, "I will," given, when Miss Prescott returned. Charlie did not forget his promises. Daily he asked God for his Holy Spirit, to make him "like Miss Flora." Nor did he ask in vain; little by little the light dawned upon his young mind, unknown to others, almost unknown to himself. All Charlie knew was this, that he loved the visits of Mr. Sanar better and better, that his mother's prayers at night soothed him, while an earnest wish had sprung up within his heart (how, he knew not) to be different from his former self. He continued to pray, though like a child feeling its way in the dark. Weeks passed on, and Easter was close at hand. A few bright, mild spring days seemed to work wonders in Charlie; but it was only a temporary change for the better. Very soon his cough returned, with greater violence than before, while his weakness was so much increased in consequence, that he had to remain in bed altogether. The doctor spoke of rapid decline. Poor Mrs. Astlake sorrowed in secret ; she could not bring herself to tell her boy; and not until Ned insisted upon knowing the whole truth, would she tell even him. What could the poor widow do, but pray?" Two days before Easter Sunday, Charlie called his mother to the bedside and said: "Mother, I think I love the Lord Jesus now, better than all ;-won't Miss Flora be glad?" 66 What makes you think this, my boy?" "Because I've asked him over and over again to help me to love him; and now I feel in my heart that I do love him. Even if he don't let me get well and go to school, still I can love him, because he loved me, and gave himself for me. O mother, think of that-me, a poor ignorant little sweep! I do indeed love him now, better than Miss Flora, or even you, mother dear. So God must have answered my prayers. You won't mind, mother dear, my loving Jesus best, will you?" added Charlie quickly, mistaking the tears in his mother's eyes. "Mind, mind? Charlie, my boy, why, you have filled my heart with joy!" "That's right, mother. And oh! I do think Miss Flora was right in what she said. I have been at school all this time, and none of us knew it. Yes, at school in this bed, with Jesus for my teacher. He made me feel tired, and cough too, because I only wanted to get away from his class, that I might learn what I liked. But, mother, it wouldn't do. He said I was to learn to love him; and he's kept me at the lesson, till I have learned it. I had to give in at last, you see; but oh! mother, I know it now, and I am so happy." Exhausted, the boy sank back upon his pillow, while his mother, overjoyed, hastened to get some nourishment ready for him. Overjoyed at this unexpected disclosure, there was little room for sorrow in the heart of the poor widow, when she observed the increasing bodily weakness in Charlie. Easter dawned, with its news of a risen Saviour, bringing with it brightness and sunshine to earth; to many souls joy and strength, in that it told them of a seal set to the work of the Saviour for them, for all sinners, and in that it declared that the victory over sin and death, those bitter foes of man, was won by the sinner's Substitute, Christ Jesus. On the home of the widow in Swan Alley, Easter dawned upon hearts filled with love and gratitude to God for his unspeakable gift. The little invalid was much weaker, yet able to rejoice even in his weakness; no longer irritable and fretful, but patient under suffering, and gentle to all who approached him, thankful for every effort made to alleviate his pain. No theme of conversation now was so pleasing to him as that of the Saviour's love. Therefore the Easter news of a risen Saviour, heard by him for the first time on this morning, was doubly welcome. All hope of recovery had left the hearts of Ned and his mother now; even Flora, determined to hope to the last, was now quite sure that Charlie was passing away from this world. All human means available had been tried, but in vain. And now the end was in God's hands alone. During the afternoon of this Easter Sunday Charlie called his brother Ned to the bedside, and said: "Do you remember, Ned, our last morning together at the big house, when we stood so long at the gate?" "Yes, well." "And do you recollect my calling it hard and cruel?” "Yes." "Ah, Ned, that was the best thing that could have happened to us, wasn't it? All that time God was watching us, Ned ;-meaning good all the while, even while we were murmuring. O Ned, if it hadn't have happened so, where should I be now? That cold waiting at the gate was the first step to my finding the Lord Jesus. Oh, it is wonderful !” A fit of coughing prevented any further conversation; but when it had subsided, his mother said, "Ah, Charlie, my boy, it is with you as it was with Jacob, when he lost heart under trouble. You were thinking and saying, that morning, as he did, 'All these things are against me;' when all the while these things were really for you, not against you. We all mistake God's dealings with us." In reply, Charlie only smiled, and soon fell asleep. During the next few days Charlie sank so rapidly, that his death was now expected at any moment. Flora obtained permission to visit him once more, in order to take leave of him. Very few were the words which passed between them, but these were enough to convince Flora that her thought was correct-that "Jesus had taken little Charlie to school to himself." And oh, how much better he had been trained than would have been the case had she found her own way! How thoroughly had he learned the great lesson of life on that sick-bed; namely the love of God in Christ Jesus; whom to know is life eternal! Tears filled the eyes of poor Flora when she said good-bye to her little friend. And so they parted for time, these two friends, so differently placed on earth-the one the child of luxury and of wealth, in the full bloom of health-the other the child of poverty and hardship, dying upon the couch of the cottage; and yet both one children of one Father-heirs of one kingdom -one in hope-one in plea-one in purpose-in a word, one in Christ Jesus. Therefore they parted now but for a time, in full assurance of meeting again in Christ's kingdom. Well might Flora's heart sing for joy as she returned home. Had she not found work to do for God! and had she not, in his strength, done it! Charlie did not live many hours after taking leave of Flora. His last words were, Jesus, I want you—I do!"* In the arms of his mother he fell asleep, to awake in the arms of Jesus, to find his want satisfied to the full. To Flora Westmore, his death brought the following message: "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might!" To poor Widow Astlake it said: “Men ought always to pray, and not to faint;" therefore pray without ceasing. To the writer of this sketch it has also spoken, saying: "Go thou and work for God,-in his way, his time, his place of choice." "Be ready to take up or to lay down his work at his bidding." "Unite work and prayer.” "Be not weary in well-doing; for in due season ye shall reap, if ye faint not." Never listen to the tempter's artful suggestion, that the Lord has said in vain to any soul, "Call upon me in the time of trouble, I will deliver, and thou shalt glorify me." Reader! what does this slight sketch of the Little Sweep, with his death, say to you? W. B. F. THE STAR BOYS. HE " Sternbuben," or "Star Boys" of the Pfalz, have something of the nature of the English Christmas carollers, mingled with the guizards of old days in Scotland. The tendency of most of these old Christmas customs, begun at first probably with a reverential desire to keep holy events in remembrance, has ever been to degenerate into mere frolic and beggary; so it is well, perhaps, when they die out, as belonging to days gone by. But among Christian people in Germany, the Christmas-tree is yet a much more serious and religious thing than with us. We have borrowed that Christmas custom from them, but we have been unable, apparently, to transplant the reverential feelings which form the best part of it. A foreign lady, herself born and brought up in a German pastor's house, expressed to me her surprise at the light way in which we view the whole thing. She told me of her remembrance of what a gladly solemn thing the Christmas-tree was to the young flock who gathered round it. It was not merely a time and opportunity for friends and relatives to exchange gifts and remembrancers, and so knit together more closely the bonds of family love. It was much more. It was a solemn religious festival, where the young ones were taught that the birth of Christ, followed by his life and death, was to them the origin of all true joy. Then they learned that without him earthly blessings are empty and vain, and that he alone is the source of all good gifts, temporal and spiritual. * A fact. To us it sounds irreverent to talk of sweets and toys as gifts from the "Christkind"-the "child Christ❞— for the little ones; and with us such talk would undoubtedly be irreverent; but in Germany, where the old Christmas language is filled up by true Christian feeling in those who use it, it is quite a different matter. There, it only leads the very youngest members of the family with child-like faith to associate all the joy and brightness of their life with Him who was born and died to save them. They learn thus to see that all they have and do, even in their play, is under the eye, and may be full of the presence and blessing, of the Lord, who loved them so as to become a child for their sakes.-Translator. CHAPTER I. WHERE SHALL WE GET BREAD?" THE outer spurs of the Vosges Mountains extend from Alsace into the Pfalz, and cover part of it with a network of hills, among which, here and there, a higher one rises prominent, such as the Donnerberg and Potsberg. As they spread out from south to north, these hills are intersected with valleys, which serve as paths by which the mountain streams make their way eastward to the plain, and so reach the Rhine; that is, when they do not prefer to turn westward, and have a longer wander among the mountains before they join the company of the Saar or Moselle, who lead them down at last to old father Rhine. are skilful carvers, who will cut kitchen utensils and images of saints from the same piece of wood. Others, again, travel the country, summer and winter, as chapmen, with kirschwasser, pictures, &c. There are also many who do nothing but poach in the neighbouring forests. In every way they try it, life is a difficult matter with them. When the hard winter is past, as soon as the snow begins to melt and the roads are open, whole bands of poor half-starved children come trooping down from these villages to the plain, and appear at the doors of the well-to-do Pfalzers. This hilly part of the Pfalz is called the "Westrich." | specimens of their industry. Others, especially gipsies, Old chroniclers tell us that this name is derived from "Vastum Regnum"-the waste or desert kingdom-a name which it well deserved at the time when Pirmi- | nius, "the apostle of Westrich," built his cell at Hornbach, and the herdsmen set up their tents around him. On that very spot the town of Pirmasen now stands, with its famous shoe-factories, which send their produce far and wide, even to Russia and America. These old times are long gone by. The border-land of the Pfalz is no longer the savage district which it was in the days when the very mention of "the land of thickets and finches," as it was called, sent a shudder through the hearers. The offshoots of the Vosges are not so wild as the parent stock. Wide table-lands and broad valleys, filled with fruitful fields and rich meadows, alternate with stretches of woodland and with narrow deep gullies. Varied as is the land, so diversified are the people. Beside rude misculture one finds plain honesty and honourable industry. Close to wealth in the handsome dwellings of rich farmers dwells the deepest poverty in mud hovels and under thatched roofs. In one of these villages, which had originally been Protestant, but had been brought back to the Roman Catholic Church by strength of hand, there lived two neighbours, the only people of the evangelical faith in all the place. They were not a remnant of the old Protestantism of the village, but had both settled there lately. Master Klund the joiner had worked there as a journeyman, and on succeeding to his late master's workshop took to himself a wife-not of the daughters of the land, but from his old home in the Pfalz. Their marriage was unfruitful, so it was all the more easy for the mistress to befriend her neighbour Flinner, the poor broom-maker, whose wife had died early, leaving him the care of two motherless children. The boys were now pretty well grown. Christian, at whose baptism Master Klund and his wife had, from Christian love and friendship, acted sponsors, was now thirteen; Friedel was eleven years old. The boys regularly took a two hours' journey to the nearest evangelical church and minister's class for their religious instruction, while for their common education they went to the village school. In their holiday-time they accompanied their father to the forest in search of birch twigs, or carried his brooms to the neighbouring villages for sale. If the rich farmers, named by the poor in bitter irony "Manschettenbauern" (ruffled-shirt farmers), spend their time with their fashionably-dressed wives and daughters in reading novels and taking their pleasure in the towns, the small farmers and day-labourers, on their side, too often find their greatest enjoyment in pernicious brandydrinking. One must, alas! confess that brandy has set up its desert kingdom in Westrich, and has often turned that land into a real "Weh-strich"-a land of woe. There, not only the old drink their schnaps like water, and by the chopin, when they have money or can get credit, but even the youngest children are accustomed to the deadly drink. Many an unhappy child there goes to school in a morning, and his only breakfast has | been a bit of bread and a glass of schnaps! No wonder that the children are not like green olive-plants around their father's table, but much more resemble the miser-light of a pine splinter at the table in the corner of their able twisted twigs of the gnarled pines which grow out of the rifts of the rock up there, and hang between heaven and earth, having too little nourishment for full life, and too much for death. There is much of sad shadow in the life among these hills; but now and then one meets with men of a powerful stamp of national character, who would be right leal men of strength in the kingdom of God, if they were but once taken hold of by God's Word, and had the darkness of their minds dissipated under the light of everlasting truth. Towards the French frontier, to the left of the road that leads from Landau by Annweiler to Pirmasen, among wooded hills, a very poor district of Westrich is to be found. It is dotted with a number of lonely villages, whose inhabitants are, with few exceptions, Roman Catholics. As they can draw but little from the stony soil, they have devoted themselves to different poor branches of handicraft. This is the home of the broom-makers, who supply all the country round with It was the evening of the first Sunday in Advent 1834. Father Flinner and his boys sat by the dim one room. Outside it was cold November weather: everything was already hard frozen up. Within the little cottage a bright wood-fire crackled in the stove. But at the table and in the boys' faces things did not look so bright. Before them there lay only a few heaps of potato peelings, a small remnant of bread, and some salt on an earthenware dish. They had just finished their very frugal supper, and given thanks. "See, my boys," said the father after a while, "what is weighed and measured is soon eaten. The bread and potatoes are finished, and we have no money, for the brooms which you took out yesterday to sell came back with you unsold What do you think, Friedel? Where shall we get bread ?" The boy did not ponder long, but, looking trustfully up to his father with his great blue eyes, said,— "If Aunt Klund knew about it, she would help us right gladly, and Uncle Klund would say nothing against it." It is the kindly custom throughout the Pfalz, that not only relations, but also master and servant, neighbours and neighbours' children, call each other "cousin" and "aunt." "I believe it, my little man," answered the father. "Our good neighbours have truly studied the apostle's saying, 'Do good unto all men, especially unto them who are of the household of faith;' and they have practised it too, diligently, on our behalf. But mark me, my lads-we must not be a burden to other people. As long as a man has sound health and all his limbs, he should try to stand on his own legs and walk on his own feet. What do you think, Christel? Where shall we get bread?" Christian was embarrassed, and remained silent. He had an answer, indeed, all ready in his heart, and it was even at the tip of his tongue; but he did not trust himself to utter it. "Ah, what counselless counsellors you are! Well, I was only beating about the bush to try you, and see if you had attended to the sermon this morning; but I can get nothing out of you. Have you forgotten it all already?" 'No, father, no!" they both cried out at once. 'Well, then, Christel, what pleased you the best in it?" "Ay, it was how the Lord Jesus went riding into Jerusalem upon an ass, poor and mean, and yet a helper and a King. All the way home it has been running in my head whether he would not be a helper to us too. We are poor enough, I am sure, and the rich folks do not trouble themselves about us; and I have been thinking that, as he was so poor when he was in this world, he must know how it feels." "Well does he know it," answered the father. "For that very purpose did he become man, that he might be in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.' And did you not notice in the sermon that comforting word about the poverty of the Lord Christ? Children, that was said just for us poor folks." "Ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ," " began Christian, and little Friedel joined in, "that, though he was rich, yet for our sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich.'" "That's it. If we have him for our friend, we need ask for nothing more in heaven or earth. With him we have all things, and we need no other earthly riches than those of the apostle, 'Having food and raiment, let us be therewith content.' We know that we shall have these; and how we shall get them we know also. How? By prayer and labour. Thus God gives always what is needed. If he does let us begin this new week without any prospect of supplies for it, still, don't let us be down-hearted, and ‘take thought for the morrow.' The Lord will hold his Advent-season in our hearts, as we have heard to-day. We certainly do not shut the door against him by gluttony and drunkenness. He has taken care of that; let us take care that we do not shut him out by anxious care about the morrow." After speaking these words the father rose and went to the window, through which they could see the windows of the living-room of their neighbour Klund. The two houses stood a little apart from the village, on the edge of a wood, and were only divided by a small garden. Flinner turned back to the children, and said, "Christel, clear up the table and wash the dishes. And you, Friedel, stick up a fresh pine splinter, and put another fagot on the fire. We shall go over to the neighbours presently, but I see they are still at their supper." When Christel had finished his task, and come back from the out-house, which served as a kitchen, his father and Friedel were sitting by the stove. He sat down beside them on a block of wood that stood in the corner, and all of them for some time kept a silence that was only broken by the ticking of the old smoke-browned Black-Forest clock which hung on the wall. But Christel fidgeted occasionally, as if he had something on his mind, and did not quite know how to give it utterance to his father in a discreet manner. At last he satisfied himself, and began. "Father!" "What, my son?" "What does it mean by saying that we become rich through Christ's poverty?" "Ay, that refers to spiritual riches, as the verse of the hymn says→→ 'He who is the Lord most high, Once was poorer far than I, That I might hereafter be His poverty consists in that he laid aside the glory which he had with the Father, and took upon him our poor flesh and blood; yea, took upon him the form of a servant. Thus he won for us, by his poor life, and through his bitter sufferings and death, the riches of the heavenly kingdom, forgiveness of sin, righteousness in God's sight, and eternal life. So I learned in old days from the answer in the Heidelberg Catechism to the question, 'What dost thou understand by the words, "Suffered under Pontius Pilate"?'" The father had in his explanation risen too high for the boy's purpose in the conversation, and Christel did not know at first how he was to bring it back to what he had on his mind; so he was silent again. But he could not be quiet long, and soon began once more. "But, father, I think we could, through the poverty of Christ, gain something even for the life of our body.” "What do you mean?" "To-morrow the 'Star Boys' of the villages near here are to set off down to the Gäu, as they do every year. They sing of the poverty of Christ-how the Lord Jesus was born in a stable and cradled in a manger. Then people give them many gifts for the sake of the remembrance of Christ's poverty." So he had at last got a beginning made with what he wanted to say, and each word came more easily than the last. Yet still he stuck fast. fathers refused shelter to the Virgin Mary and the infant Jesus. It also told how some learned men supposed "What more?" said the father, who had a pretty that the gipsies were Jews, who for fear of persegood idea of what he would be at. 'Ay, we two boys"--and his tongue went fast enough now- "want to go with them for once, and we might bring enough back with us to help us on through the winter. We have already learned the 'Star Boys' carols; and Gipsy Andrees says he will be our thirdthe comrades with whom he went last year are going no more." "I would not be greatly against it," said the father; "but how about the dress? and where are you to get a star?" "Father," broke in little Friedel, "Aunt Appel has promised us two new shirts as Christmas gifts; I daresay she would give us them now. And Uncle Klund would make us the star." cution tried to hide their nationality; and it described their thieving, begging, fortune-telling ways. "One sees there," added Master Klund, "the origin of the brown folks; and their fingers are just as long now as of old, when they first came from Egypt." "One could almost believe," said his neighbour, "that there may be some connection between them and the Jews, who also are so obstinate in their own ways. Though the gipsies do profess to be Christians among us, yet, as you say, the waters of baptism have not washed the old heathenism out of them. It may be that their forefathers did indeed in old times sin against the child Jesus, and so brought down punishment on them; just like the Jews, who, we know, because they hung the Lord of glory on the tree, still bear the curse, and are a "Hem! We must sleep upon the subject," decided people without heart or courage." the father. "Come now, we shall go across." There they found Master Klund sitting at the table, with the large Basle Bible in front of him, of which he was turning over the pages. He was waiting for his usual Sabbath evening guests, who now walked in. As the two houses were neighbours in their separation from the village, so their inhabitants, as being the only villagers of the Evangelical Church, were good companions and helpers of each other's faith, and generally gathered together round the Bible on Sabbath evenings. Flinner, after their greeting, seated himself with his boys beside Aunt Klund at the fireside; while the master stuck his spectacles on his nose, and proceeded to read a chapter, which they afterwards talked over. It was the history of the flight of the child Jesus into Egypt. "It is wonderful, comrade," said the master, as he at last shut the brass-bound Bible, and laid it away on a shelf in the corner-"it is wonderful how the gipsies have used this history for their own purposes. But it has been all lying and deceit with them all along; and it is just the same with that race yet. Every race has its own nature; and nature goes further than teaching,' as the farmer said when his cat ran through the room after a mouse. One should not compare human beings to beasts; but it is true all the same. I have often said it. These gipsies in the valley down there are nought but heathens yet, were they baptized ten times over. I have been reading about them to-day in an old book which the master with whom I worked at Heidelberg gave me as a keepsake, and there are wonderful stories in it of what our fathers attested of them in old days." "That may be that may be. Any way, I trust none of them." "They have very queer ways. Down there in the valley behind Landstuhl, a troop settled down near the mill, and made themselves holes in the ground like foxes, and roofed them with tiles. A few years ago they had an old woman among them called Liz, whom they honoured greatly, as they generally do their old women, who know most of their evil arts. She went about begging with her two boys. When she was dying she called them to her, and divided the Pfalz between them, as she said. To the oldest, called 'One-eyed,' she promised the Vorder Pfalz; to the other, the 'Officer,' the Westrich. And her will was held good: each keeps to his inheritance, and still goes round his territory gathering contributions at the doors." "Ha, ha, ha!" laughed the master, "that is not bad. But let them be; I trust none of them.” Little Friedel had sat listening with the greatest attention. He would willingly have put in his word, but did not venture, for father Flinner kept up good discipline with his boys. But now, when the old feiks were silent for a moment, Friedel began respectfully: "But, father, Gipsy Andrees, at the beadle's, is not like the other gipsies; he is quite to be trusted." "Nay, I will say nothing against your standing up for your companion, and if he proves an exception to the others I shall be the better pleased; but seeing is be| lieving." "You should hear him sing hymns, father-so devoutly, and with all his heart. You would believe him then." "What sort of companion is that you have got?" broke in Master Klund. While speaking, he took down from the shelf an old chronicle bound in pig-skin, and opening it, began to read without waiting for a reply. He read out an account of the first appearance of the gipsies in Germany in the fifteenth century. The chronicle related how they gave themselves out as Egyptians, who must wander the world constantly as a punishment because their fore-burden on the parish; and, as is their use, or rather "A few weeks ago," answered father Flinner, “a poor gipsy woman died down in the valley there, and left a boy behind her whom she had picked up somewhere. As she belonged to these parts, he has fallen a |