present less variety than the footstep of strangers in a foreign land, and when, as in a hospital, the nurse goes to and fro in the room, few sounds would, as we imagine, at length become more monotonous. But a footstep may be the medium of communication through those delicate means of affecting the sense which no human science can either analyse or explain. The sound this evening had arrested Allen, he knew not why; he found himself beginning to wonder who it was that had entered the ward, and what the immediate object of the visitant might be. The footstep stopped, as it seemed to him; for he could not see into the ward on the other side of which the nurse had entered. By the sounds that followed, he gathered that she, whoever it was who had entered was taking her place either to write the indited letter, or to while away the sufferings of half an hour by reading. His attention being more than usually awakened to what hitherto had become the hourly monotony of life, the voice that rose upon the stillness struck upon his ear as it read the parable of the barren fig-tree spared for "one year more." At first the voice passed over him as the sound of a tone of music heard in years ago, and he was so engaged in the effect of the actual melody, that he did not at that moment stay to consider the source from whence it sprung. As he listened feelings were awakened by the intonation awakening memories of the past in his own thoughts which he had had which he could now recall, and which hitherto had lain in the deep slumber of forgotten years. They seemed to open upon him fast. Things over which the eye-lids of past days had been

dropped. Voices which had spoken with him, the conscience, the conviction, the hope, and earnest intention, which had become dull in his soul, now began one by one to speak again with the clear accents of years gone by. What was it? if he had had time at that moment to track the pathway of his associations, what was it that in connection with the voice which was reading broke up so mysteriously the mists and shadows that had dropped over his childhood? and why should that voice, as if it came from one authorized to lead to the haunts of early days, have the power to do so much more than to convey the exact meaning of the parable?

The voice ceased; and even yet Allen had not discovered the history of his feelings, nor traced the associations to their source and home. He listened eagerly and unconsciously to himself; he had drawn himself to the edge of the pillow, and had placed his ear so that through the crevice of the doorway he should catch the faintest accent that fell from the visitant of mercy.

The reading of the parable was followed immediately by some question put by the soldier to whom it had been read, which did not reach his ear, but as the voice of the sick man drew to the end of his sentence, Allen could almost hear his own pulse beat with the expectation with which he listened to the answer that might be given. As far as he could gather, the question had been with reference to the meaning of "the fig-tree spared for one year more," for the answer in the same tones of voice which had read the parable was as follows:-"The Gardener in this story

is the LORD JESUS CHRIST, always wanting to forgive and spare the sinner until he has had time quite to repent, for He does not wish the death of a sinner, but wishes all to come to Him and be saved."

The voice, the words, the sentiment and tone in which it was spoken, came home to Allen's memory; and starting from the pillow on which he lay, he cried out "My mother."

The next instant a figure darkened the doorway of his room, and in another Allen wept upon the widow's bosom.

Allen, my child, my child," said the faithful mother, "thank GOD for His wonderful Providence in bringing me to the place where you were.

gined you were far away."

I ima

"Oh, my mother!" said Allen, "how wonderful are His ways, past finding out! to think that the old parable read, and the explanation recollected from the days of my childhood mixed up with your voice which I scarcely ever thought to hear again, should be the means of bringing us together."

It would be difficult to describe what the feelings of that moment of meeting were, and how infinitely beyond all the other joys that gather round those ordinary meetings in life which we value too little. That meeting between Allen and his mother, thus unexpectedly brought about by the Providence of GOD, can only be fully appreciated by being seen in contrast with the agonies of those partings which the present war has so signally and sadly brought about; the hour when the news first reached the home of the death of a son or a bro

ther, the first opening of the Times; the gazette of the killed and "dangerously wounded;" and when the eyes which scarcely saw, and the hand which scarcely held the trembling page at last rested still for a moment on the beloved name ninth or tenth in the column, which told that the Benjamin of the home, the youngest, the dearest beloved of the family, had, a few hours before, lain cold, and stiff and still upon the desolate battle-field! That instant when the mother's face fell as she recollected the loving or the laughing eye of him on whom she had gazed when cradled in his infant hour upon her arms, and imagined that at least if he died before her he would die there, now to have met death so far from even the possibility of alleviating one of its pangs, or of receiv

away

which seem so to reContrast partings like

ing one of those last words lieve the bosom of the dying! those with the meetings of Allen and his mother, and we value each in their true light. When on the threshold of the mansion or the cottage the last farewell has been uttered, and the eye that tries to gaze towards the lodge or the latticed gate gazes its last glance as the figure is borne away from sight, the gazer returns to muse through one aching hour upon the possibilities of the future, and events of the past. He returns to do the daily work of life under the conviction that in the usual occupations of the daily call and the fulfilment of our duty to GOD, our station and our fellows, we shall find that relief to the anguish of the mind which will best dull the keen point of suffering, and bring that comfort which alone

can spring from fulfilling the duties that we owe to GOD and to our neighbour. Those moments which so many of us have known of in the present war, will enable us to understand the joy of Allen's meeting, and the pang of the parting of thousands. Allen and his mother were at least temporarily restored to each other.

Virtue was its own reward; and in going forth upon a mission of mercy to any of those who might be in suffering, the mother had been restored to her child, and the last days of the recovery of one to whom she had devoted the whole of her life were committed to her tender keeping. Who more than a mother can do that blessed work!

CHAPTER XXXIII.

WOMAN.

How beautiful the trait of God's providential care, especially in connection with this relationship of a mother appears in the tale of the child, who, floating in the bulrush ark, was by the order of Pharaoh's daughter committed to the care of one of the nurses of the Hebrew women, and when the trembling infant nestled upon the bosom of its nurse, it found the accustomed breast of its mother.

Few things can show us the mercy of GOD in the arrangements of our daily path more than when in the hour of suffering He permits us to be thrown unex