and replenished that bag which Judas carried as the common purse of Jesus and the twelve? for ought any one can show to the contrary, this rich man's hand may occasionally have put something therein. All this is possible; nothing in the history forbids the supposition. His record is short, but it is rich in actions, eloquent of love. If this man never walked openly with Jesus, he at least, so far as we know, never denied him either by word or by false and inconsistent action. Let it be well marked that of the three occasions when he did notice Jesus, two of them were not in the sweet soft sunshine of ease and honour, but when His prospects were under a dark cloud, and the storm threatened His destruction; or when His mangled body, partly deserted by His friends, was still amongst His insulting foes. How different this to many who confess Christ while it brings honour and costs nothing; and deny Him, desert Him, when self-denial is needed. Of the two, give us Nicodemus.

It seems strange that this man should escape the nimble wit and lively imagination of good Bishop Hall, who finds no place for him in his "Contemplations." But the tripping pen of John Trapp has given him a kindly mention in these words, "Good blood will not belie itself; love, as fire, will not long be hid: Croesus's dumb son could not but speak to see his father ready to be slain. Nicodemus, though hitherto a night-bird, now shows himself for Christ in a Council. How far had Judas outstripped Nicodemus till it came to the upshot! Nicodemus was only a night-professor; Judas in the sight of all. Nicodemus a slow scholar, Judas a forward preacher. Yet at last, when Judas betrayed Christ at night, Nicodemus faithfully professed Him in the day.' THOMAS HENSON.

How a Boy came back.

SOME years ago a boy left his home in Indiana for Chicago. He was not there long before he was led astray. A neighbour from his father's town, happening to visit Chicago, saw that boy on the streets drunk one night.

When that neighbour went home, at first he thought he wouldn't say anything about it to the boy's father, but afterward he thought it was his duty to tell him. So in a crowd in the street of their little town he just took the father aside and told him what he had seen in Chicago. It was a terrible blow. When the children had been put to bed that night he said to his wife: 'Wife, I have bad news. I have heard from Chicago to-day." The mother dropped her work in an instant and said: "Tell me what it is." 66 Well, our son has been seen on the streets of Chicago drunk." Neither of them slept that night, but they took their burden to Christ, and about daylight the mother said: “I don't know how, I don't know when or where, but God has given me faith to believe that our son will be saved and will never come to a drunkard's grave.”

One week after that boy had left Chicago. He couldn't tell why. An unseen power seemed to lead him to his mother's home, and the first thing he said on coming over the threshold was: Mother, I have come home to ask you to pray for me;" and soon after he went back to Chicago a bright and shining light. If you have a burden like this, fathers, mothers, bring it to Him and cast it on Him, and He, the great Physician, will heal your broken heart.

D. L. MOODY.

Deacons for Life, or a Term of Years--Which?

BY A "LIVE" DEACON.

SOME time ago the following interrogatory was handed to me :-" Which is the most scriptural or proper method of electing deacons, for a term of years, or for an indefinite period, or for life?" I ought to have answered this question much sooner, and probably should have done, only other topics have been in the way.

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The scriptures, as most readers will know, are absolutely silent on this theme, as they are on much beside. The deacons at Philippi may have been chosen annually, bienially, triennially, or septennially, or at other intervals, for anything Paul's letters show to the contrary and it may be held, without contradicting Luke, that the Committee of Seven elected by the Jerusalem church may have gone out of office as soon as they had quieted the widows and given an account of their stewardship to the apostles. We do not know. We are not likely to know, and what is more important, we need'nt know.

Some persons seem to me very dissatisfied with the Bible. Extensive as it is, it is far too small for their needs. Though it contains the best literature of a great people, and is really the most magnificient library the world contains, yet some souls are always trying to find out what is not there, and what was never meant to be there. They would like all things settled for them by an infallible rule, and would have churches wound up like clocks and worked like machinery. They are always making rules. One would think they expected Christian societies to live on "red tape." True! Man is a mechanical animal, at least an Englishman is, and he exults in cranks and wheels and cogs. He would have settled every possible question that ever can come up for decision in the lapse of the unending ages, and embodied all teaching in the form of a model trust deed, within the covers of the Bible. To have satisfied him, Paul should have said, "The election of deacons shall take place in all the churches of Galatia, on the fifteenth of the first month, at the hour of seven o'clock in the evening, due announcement having been given of the said election on two preceeding Lord's-days within hearing of at least three-fourths of the brethren. Every person elected to the office of deacon shall serve for the space of thirteen lunar months, reckoning from the hour of election; and the election shall in all cases be by show of hands, no brother or sister being allowed to hold up more than one hand."

But the Bible, unfortunately for our stupendous indolence, but fortunately for our growth and strength, is silent on these and a thousand other points. The hush of scripture drives us back to experience, and to the diligent and careful use of the great and cardinal principles upon which the church of the Lord Jesus Christ is based.

What then is the verdict of experience?

Each new

Some churches have adopted the system of annual elections. year brings the duty of considering the claims of the brethren to the office of deacon, and urges to the front the solemn responsibility of making a wise and judicious choice New blood can be infused into the diaconate with infinite ease; and new men may bring in new measures. The possibilities are endless. One cannot say what will not happen. A millennium may be at the doors every first of January, or—a tempest in a teapot. No doubt these are advantages that may be treated too lightly. It is a good thing to keep a church aware of its functions, and to go back again and again for refreshment to the fountainhead of power.

But I think you may go too often. Good as agitation is, you may have too much of it; and though I would give up many things for the sake of preserving a keen edge to the sense of responsibility in the church, yet I think this is paying too dearly. Annual elections are an annual nuisance. Hot water is always flowing. The polling booth is always in sight. You cannot get away from the din of electioneering contests. There is no rest, no divine calm, in the church.

Moreover, men as well as plants require a little time to take root before they can grow. It is not difficult to elect a man, it is a gigantic task to grow a really good deacon, and it takes time. I give my word for it, I have been growing under some most happy influences, for the better part of half a

century, and yet I am more than ever aware of the distance between me and the ideal deacon. My roses cost me a good deal of money, care, and attention. A good business man is a slowly achieved victory. How is it likely you can grow good deacons, then, on this annual system? In my judgment it has but one thing to recommend it (and that ought not to exist), and that is, that if the church has made a gross mistake, there is an early opportunity of rectifying it.

The biennial system does not seem, so far as my enquiries have gone, to have found favour anywhere. Elections for three years are more common. I know of a case where the duration of the office is four years, and another six; but most of the churches of which I have been able to get any information elect for the period covered by "good behaviour."

Two objections hold against this latter course. The first is the extreme difficulty of removing an officer of manifest and proved incompetency. He will not voluntarily surrender the seals of office. To vote him out is impossible; for his character is good, though he is flagrantly unfit for his post. Hence the church must be overweighted in all its work with this ill-chosen burden.

Again, men in office do not always take kindly to new-comers. They are apt to regard them as intruders, and to suggest by deeds or words or looks that they are not altogether welcome. Especially is this likely to be the case if the former officers have been "in place" for many years, and have earned by good service a prescriptive right to guide and direct the affairs of the church.

These are real objections and I feel their force. We must therefore choose from the evils incident to annual, triennial, quadrennial, or character-long elections, which we will have. As with all human affairs, there are evils springing out of each plan. My judgment is that they are least where the duration is longest; and that by wise and discreet management the evils belonging to elections for "good behaviour" may be greatly lessened if not wholly removed.

The difficulties in the way of working smoothly and effectively the system of elections for life may be easily surmounted thus. Arrange that the initiations of additions to the diaconate shall come from the existing diaconate, and then you can easily introduce competency, wisdom, zeal, and general capacity within the official circle, and so bring power into the right hands. For it is a law all churches and societies have to submit to, that work gravitates, in the long run, to those who have the power and will to do it; and so the incompetent (comparatively speaking: for I do not forget that we are all painfully incompetent) sink out of sight, and cease to disturb us with their errors and failures.

So again with regard to the new comers. If those in office have the equitable concession granted them of suggesting the names of their co-workers, they will be the more likely to accord them that generous and hearty welcome which will make co-operation easy and happy.

The advantages of the "long term" system are both numerous and obvious. The church feels the gravity of the act, moves more cautiously, and shrinks from imperilling the concord of the leaders of the church. There is no saying, "It doesn't matter; it's only for a year." There are no "sore" or "soured" men in the church, suffering and complaining because of their rejection. The best men have the chance of being chosen, and of growing up to the requirements of their work, and so purchasing to themselves a good degree and great boldness in the faith.

PRAYING BY THE CLOCK

It

Is not universally to be commended, but for young people I am sure it is a good thing to live by rule. David said, morning and noon and at night will I pray. Daniel prayed three times a day. Regularity is a law of bodily health. is also a condition of spiritual strength and progress. Never omit the morning prayer; never hurry through it; pray thoughtfully, as from an outlook upon the battle-fields you will have to enter during the day, and as desirous of receiving your directions from the Captain of salvation. An old scholar said awhile ago that a lapse into coldness and indifference of several years commenced in a neglect of morning prayer; then a neglect of Sabbath morning worship; and at last a neglect of God and His laws altogether. MIND THE

BEGINNINGS

About Being Fleyed.

FOR THE CHILDREN OF THE BAND OF HOPE.

THANKS to Board Schools, many of the children who read this will know the difference between being flayed and being "fleyed." The word "flay" is good English all the world over, and means to strip the skin off as butchers do to sheep, and as it is said northern pirates did when landing on the coast they would kill villagers and nail their skins upon the church door! The word "fley" is to be found chiefly in Lancashire and Yorkshire, and is a Scotch word meaning to frighten. It is said that a vicar who had lately come to a Lancashire parish imagined he had come amongst savages. Taking a walk with his churchwarden, he remarked, "I hear the late vicar was not on good terms with the parish." "Na," said the churchwarden. "An' yan dark neet three o' our lads wad pay un aff, sa ou jest jumped ower a wall t' fley un!" What!" said the vicar, "to flay him ?" Aye; an' ou were fleyed finely-ou were welly fleyed to deeth." It is said the vicar suddenly ended the conversation, took the next train back, and resigned the living.

Now it seems to me one of the objects of your being members of the Band of Hope is to keep you from being "fleyed" There are several duties you ought to perform, and temptations you ought to shun, which you are not likely to if you allow yourselves to be "fleyed." For instance: in these days when so frequently strong drink soddens the fine brain, and blights the fair life, and breaks up the happy home-in these days it may well seem a duty to have nothing to do with such drink. But on resolving that you will be a total abstainer, attempts will be made to "fley" you. Whatever kind of home you have, whatever society you move amongst in the future, you will frequently be laughed at; and people that are usually bold and strong and firm-minded are often "fleyed" by a laugh. Bands of Hope are formed that you may be trained to resist the temptations to drinks, and may be able to smile at the sneers, the arguments, or the persuasions that shall be used to cause you to break your pledge. So that whether as a lad you are thrown among workmen who club together to buy beer-or as a man you go out for a holiday trip with fellowemployés who will enter public-houses-or whether you sit with friends at a birthday party, or a wedding, or a funeral--you may not be " fleyed" to refuse the beer, or to pass the wine and champagne untasted. On many occasions you will find yourself among people with finer clothes, wider knowledge, more brilliant accomplishments and fashionable manners than you have, and by declining to drink as they do, you will be a marked person-you will be thought queer," "peculiar," "absurd," "rabid"-you will be said to condemn their habits, and to be setting yourself above your elders and superiors. Nevertheless you must not be "fleyed." John Bright, when President of the Board of Trade and member of the Queen's Privy Council, Abraham Lincoln, when President of the United States, had to do in most exalted spheres, exactly what you have to do in lowlier; they had to protest in the most brilliant society against the use of alcoholic drinks, and to refuse champagne even when a toast was proposed in honour of the noblest personage of the land. Then make up your mind that you will not be "fleyed" to acknowledge, “I am a total abstainer."

Bands of Hope help also to keep you from being "fleyed" at speaking in public. In these days it is absolutely necessary to any man who would do his fair share of philanthropic and political and Christian work, that he should be able to make a speech with fluency and grace and force. To fit men for this, Young Men's Debating Classes, and Mutual Improvement Societies, and Christian Associations, are of incalculable use; but the Band of Hope has this advantage over them, that it has to do with younger minds. It is an excellent thing that you have opportunities in your earliest years of reciting at your monthly meetings, and sometimes before larger gatherings. Such recitation not only makes you somewhat acquainted with English poetry and eloquence, and strengthens your voice, and exercises your memory; but what is perhaps of greater importance, it accustoms you to the sensation of being looked at and listened to by a public assembly. Every speaker is more or less "fleyed" in his

early efforts at public speaking, and many a speaker all his life long is troubled by nervousness. He may have prepared his address well, but when the eyes of hundreds are fixed upon him, and his own voice alone breaks the stillness of the crowded room, the nerves of his upper lip contract, he has a dry sensation in his mouth and throat, beads of perspiration form upon his forehead, his thoughts get jumbled together or entirely forsake him; and thus what might have been a powerful speech, made up of argument and illustration, humour and pathos, is a worthless collection of hesitating, disconnected, broken remarks. You Band of Hope children have every opportunity of overcoming this undue nervousness. If you will learn your recitation thoroughly, practise it often at home, and in your own room, if you are fortunate enough to have one, and thus learn to deliver it easily and naturally, you will have taken one of the first and most important steps towards successful public speaking; you will have seen an audience listening to your voice with interest and pleasure and profit, and you will be encouraged to prepare an address of your own. If you should have energy and perseverance to take one step after another until you can stand up without being "fleyed" to deliver an address of twenty or thirty minutes to an audience of four or five hundred, you will be for ever thankful for your connection with the Band of Hope.

I trust, too, that the Band of Hope will do for you more even than this— that it will help to keep you from ever being "fleyed" at doing what is right. You will find that to abstain from strong drink, or to appear before an audience, are not the only tests of your courage. Not only when you come in contact with the drunken, or the impure, or the dishonest, or the unthinking, will you have to protest, to argue, to persuade. You will have to do so even when you move amongst the wise, and the righteous, and the earnest. Questions will come up concerning which it is at first impossible to see eye to eye, and you will feel obliged to advocate what they condemn, to build up what they are pulling down, and to defend what they are assaulting. If ever the love of right and truth and wisdom should cause you to separate from those you love, and to hear hard speeches from those you had formerly worked with heartily; if it should cause you to stand alone whilst enemies sneer, and your own party upbraid; if it should lead you to attempt the revival of a cause that is unpopular, and that seems dying; or to advocate a reform that others call too sweeping, and daring, and revolutionary; then you will be thankful if the Band of Hope has taught you not to be "fleyed" by a laugh, or a threat, or a sarcasm, or a prophecy. Towards the close of the prosecution of Warren Hastings, Governor General of India, one of the greatest trials that English history records, Edmund Burke stood alone in the determination to carry it on to the end. A corrupt House of Commons resolved that certain words he used ought not to have been spoken, and the committee of managers for the impeachment held two meetings to consider the advisability of discontinuing the trial. But by Burke's arguments and entreaties they were induced to proceed, and two years afterwards he acknowledged to Sir Joshua Reynolds, "The most brilliant day of my life, and that which I would most wish to live over again, was the day I appeared at the bar of the House of Lords with the censure of the Commons in my hand."

Boys and girls! be you sure of this, that though in following truth, and seeking after wisdom, and fighting against oppression and sin, you may have days of pain and nights of wakefulness; though you may lose half-hearted friends and make angry enemies; though you may forfeit money and social position; yet you will have a conscience whose quiet all the uproar without is impotent to disturb; you will probably have, when passion is hushed and mists have lifted, the approval of the very people who were loud in denunciation; and you will certainly have the reward of Him who honours the honest purpose even when it is misdirected, and who accepts the attempt to serve Him even though it fails of success. May you never be “fleyed” to do the right!

WEALTH AND GOODNESS.

W. EVANS BOTTRILL.

"SOME of God's noblest sons, I think, will be selected from those who know how to take wealth, with all its temptations, and maintain godliness therewith. It is so hard to be a saint standing in a golden niche."-Beecher.