voice half stifled with pain,--"our books! our books! Ah, they are burnt up by now! our own and our children's only treasure and comfort!" And behold, they all then fell to weeping, men and women and children, men and maids, as if their hearts would break. At last spoke out the old Father Hinz, an eighty-years-old grey-headed man,--"Hush, children! if our books are burned, our God and Saviour is not gone with them; we have Him in our hearts; and His Word we have too, not only in the Bible but in our memories. I will say out a chapter for you every morning and every evening, out of my heart." Then they grew quiet, and he folded his hands and began at once, and prayed first the twenty-third psalm, and then the seventy-third psalm, and finally the eighth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans; all verse for verse from the beginning to the end.'" "The twenty-third and the seventy-third?" said Maggie interrupting. "Which are they?" "Don't you know? The twenty-third begins,--'The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want.'" "And it goes on,--" said Mr. Murray,--"'He prepareth a table before me in the presence of mine enemies; he anointeth my head with oil; my cup runneth over.'" "Not very appropriate," said Flora. "I thought very appropriate." "Why they were just in great want, sir; even of the most ordinary comforts." "A good time to remind themselves of their extraordinary comforts." "What had they to justify them in talking of their 'cup running over?'" "Something which they know who know, Miss Flora, and other people would try in vain to comprehend." "Well, the other word, 'I shall not want;'--they were in want already." "No," said Meredith, "excuse me. I have read what comes after." "They were in want, Ditto, certainly." "Only such want--never mind, I will not forestall my story." "What is the other psalm?" Flora asked. "Very beautiful in this connection," said Mr. Murray, who had got out his Bible. "It begins,--'Truly God is good to Israel, even to such as are of a clean heart.'" "There again!" said Flora, "what reason had they just then to think that He was good?" "That is faith, Miss Flora." "Faith?" the young lady repeated. "Yes. Faith takes on trust, when it cannot see." Flora looked at the speaker. "The psalm goes on to describe the temptations to doubt which had beset the psalmist on observing the prosperity of wicked people and the hard times the Lord's people often had; and then how he saw his mistake; and then he breaks out, 'Whom have I in heaven but Thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside Thee. My flesh and my heart faileth, but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever.'" "That is beautiful, and appropriate," said Flora.