moreover, can be done only by messengers to the heathen, who must be sent to them, because they have not got wings to fly thither. Then he begins to ponder the question, how he can do something to help. So he buys himself a mission-box, that he may always be putting something in there when he has anything to spare. As nevertheless what goes in is only the mites of poverty, it looks to him a great deal too little. He makes the resolve now that every quarter of a year he will go round the village with his box to collect for the mission. But this is a resolve he cannot perform; for inasmuch as the mission is not known to the people of his village, he reflects that where there is no heart for the mission, naturally there are no gifts for it. And there he was quite right, and did a wise thing to let his collecting project alone. So about that he gives in, and quietly hangs up his mission box in his room, on a nail opposite the door, so that every one who comes into the room can see it. And people do observe it, and many a one asks what sort of a thing that can be? He makes answer, it is for this purpose: that whatever goes into it will be applied to the converting of the heathen. And so in this way some few mites do actually get in; which, however, at the end of each year bring but a small sum. Now as this sum is still far too small to content him, he turns simply to the dear Lord Jesus, and says to Him--"Dear Lord, as for going to the heathen myself, that I cannot do: I am too old, and I have not learned enough. But because Thou hast done so much for me and in me, I would like greatly to do something for Thee, and truly a little more than I have done hitherto. So give me Thy Holy Spirit, that I may know how to manage it; for without Him man's knowledge is nought." Following upon such a prayer then, the Lord appointed him to be nightwatcher. For without his having in the least anticipated such a thing, the village community invited him to undertake the service of the night-watch in the village. He made answer, he must take the matter into consideration before God and with his wife. The latter was not at first disposed to be pleased that he should wake while others slept; and his own flesh also takes to it not kindly, to have to wander about in the village in snow and rain, when it is cold and when it is stormy, while everybody else is lying upon his ear. But his former prayer recurs to him, the Lord is certainly now giving him something to do; and so he says to the Lord Jesus--"My dear Saviour, if Thou canst use me in this way, keeping watch in the village with Thy holy angels, who are about us at all times, then give me strength and joy to do it!" And as the Lord grants him both, the thing is settled, and in the name of Jesus he accepts the office of night-watch. The custom in that place makes it a rule, that on New Year's night the night-watch should sing under people's windows a couple of pretty Christian verses, as it were a