CHILD OF POVERTY! _Where is thy God?_ Can He visit this rude dwelling? Can God's promises be hung on these broken rafters? Can the light of His word illumine that cheerless hearth and sustain that bent figure shivering over its mouldering ashes? Yes! He is here. The lips of Truth that uttered the beatitude, "_Blessed be ye poor_," have not spoken in vain. Bound down by chill penury--forsaken and forgotten in old age--no footstep of mercy heard on my gloomy threshold--no lip of man to drop the kindly word--no hand of succour to replenish the empty cupboard--that God above has not deserted me. He has led me to seek and lay up my treasure in a home where want cannot enter, and where the beggar's hovel is transformed into the kingly mansion! BEREAVED ONE! _Where is thy God?_ Where is the arm of Omnipotence thou wast wont to lean upon? Has _He_ forgotten to be gracious? Has He mocked thy prayers, by trampling in the dust thy dearest and best, and left thee to pine and agonise in the bitterness of thy swept heart and home? Nay, He is _here_! He has swept down my fondest idol, but it was in order that He himself might occupy the vacant seat. I know Him too well to question the faithfulness of His word, and the fidelity of His dealings. I have never known what a God He was, till this hour of bitter trial overtook me! There was a "need be" in every tear--every death-bed--every grave! DYING MAN! the billows are around thee--the world is receding--the herald symptoms of approaching dissolution are gathering fast around thy pillow--the soul is pluming its wings for the immortal flight; ere memory begins to fade, and the mind becomes a waste,--ere the names of friends, when mentioned, will only be answered by a dull, vacant look, and then the hush of awful silence,--tell me, ere the last lingering ray of consciousness and thought has vanished, _Where is thy God?_ He is here! I feel the everlasting arms underneath and round about me. Heart and flesh are failing. The mists of death are dimming my eyes to the things below, but they are opening on the magnificent vistas of eternity. YONDER He is! seated amid armies of angels. "_My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God!_" "THIS GOD SHALL BE MY GOD FOR EVER AND EVER!" VI. Sabbath Memories. "Dear is the Sabbath morn to me, When village bells awake the day, And with their holy minstrelsy Call me from earthly cares away. "And dear to me the winged hour, Spent in thy hallow'd courts, O Lord, To feel devotion's soothing power, And catch the manna of Thy Word. "And dear to me the loud 'Amen,' That echoes through the blest abode-- That swells, and sinks, and swells again, Dies on the ear--but lives to God. "Oft when the world, with iron hand, Has bound me in its six days' chain, This bursts them, like a strong man's band, And bade my spirit live again."