IT

MY FIRST SERMON.

T was my first sermon. Confused headlines lay before me on my desk. Imaginary audiences passed 'twixt me and the farther end of the room. I saw myself, gowned and ministerial, holding forth the doctrines of my faith.

And yet I winced. Was I a man to point the way to my fellows?

Still, in imagination, my hearers seemed to heed my words. Fancy pictured some of them coming forward to take me by the hand, and to say that I had given them a new light, that I had set them thinking.

And yet I winced.

Had

Away down in my deepest thoughts I knew that there was a doubt. I the strength to practice what I preached ? Could I, alone in the world, withstand the battering of temptation? Ah, no! I knew that I could not. Without her I knew that it was impossible. That's what made me wince.

Sometimes during my college days I was on the verge of wishing that I had turned my steps along another path. That was cowardice. Once, I confess it, I would have been glad had mother's last words not been a wish that I should enter the ministry. That was unmanly. But cowardice and unmanliness will creep into a man's life sometimes in spite of him. That is my experience; others may see it differently.

My mother died when I was but a youth. But even then I never forgot her wish, although at times my conscience pricked, for within my heart I knew that often the son was unworthy of his heritage.

Then a new life came into mine, a life that made me yearn to make myself worthy of my calling, worthy of her. Gloomy days, nor bright days, her sweet face never forsook me; and

often, when the will was weak and the voice of the tempter strong, the remembrance of her pure, noble life gave me strength to stand erect and turn my steps toward her.

Throughout my college days her influence was greater than that of the Provost, her teaching more subtle than the exegesis of the Scriptures or my researches in Sanskrit and Hebrew.

At last I came to my first sermon. Confused headlines lay before me on my desk. Imaginary audiences passed 'twixt me and the farther end of the room. I saw myself gowned and ministerial, holding forth the doctrines of my faith.

And yet I winced.

I thought of her and of how much my life depended upon her influence. With her always by my side I knew that I could face anything, even sneers of the skeptical. But I needed her, I knew that. I wanted to hear her say that mine was a noble calling, of which I should be proud.

I decided to go to her, even from the midst of my confused headlines, and learn if she would follow with me the lead of my first sermon, if she would become my wife.

She laughed, and somehow, the coquetry of it was not at all like her.

"A minister's wife!" she said. "The very idea!" and she laughed again. "A minister's wife!"

That was enough. She need not have said anything about the plays and the dances she would miss. 'Twould have been in better taste had she refrained from mentioning the weeknight prayer-meeting and the after gathering on Sunday. I knew of that. When she pictured herself as president of this auxiliary" and secretary of

that aid "I reached for my hat. By the time she had said that perhaps she would care for me if I were to try some other line, say religious journalism or something, I was at the door. I shook

my head, but her suggestion set me thinking.

"Never mind the sermon," she said, as she bade me good-night. "Go out into the world like other men."

Back in my room again, I faced the confused headlines. Gradually they began to take shape, and involuntarily I added others. When I had finished; I decided that I would fulfil my engagement-preach that sermon the coming Sunday, anyway. Then, I would turn my attention to something else I would win her.

The church was in the suburbs. The audience bore with me throughout, and at the close of the service, as is customary, a few came forward to shake hands. With them, to my astonishment, was she, waiting her turn. On the way to the car, going home, I said that I had not expected to see

her there.

"You great, silly goose," she replied, clinging to my arm, "do you think I would miss your first sermon? I was only proving you. I wouldn't give a pinch for a man that would give up such a calling for me."

Again I winced-but I am still preaching.

Newton MacTavish.

MURPHY'S PRISONER.

As Murphy drew near to the river, the smell of smoke became suddenly very apparent. Even the stout broncho which he bestrode, threw back its head and nosed about as if suspicious of its surroundings.

"His last camp, poor devil; how he must feel, escaping from he knows not what and going into this great land of no-where-in-particular."

Murphy, of the North-West MountPolice, addressed these remarks to himself. He cultivated this habit partly to exercise his organ of speech, and partly to break the long monotonous silence which had hung over him all day.

The horse and rider presently drew up beside the smouldering remains of a fire, over which a small bent stick

still leaned, and a piece of ragged meat still sissled at its top.

"Well, Sally, we will not go any farther to-day, anyhow, and from indications I would predict that our chase is about ended. We've followed yonder fellow nigh seven hundred miles and we have got him at last, but, Sally, think of that long journey home again."

The little beast neighed gently, by way of reply to her master, and then directed her whole attention to the rank vegetation at the water's edge, while Murphy undid the stout buckles of her riding gear and patted her gaunt flanks.

He soon had the fire blazing merrily enough, and after a sumptuous meal of dried meat and oatcake, washed down with copious draughts of water from the river, he spread his blanket and drew out his pipe. His short policecarbine he placed within easy reach of his hand and his saddle made a pillow for his weary back.

He compared his position with that of the fugitive ahead and laughed a hard mirthless laugh. Then his thoughts reverted back to the little post not many miles from Edmonton where his companions were awaiting

his return.

He

Gradually his whole life lay spread out before him as in a dream. could see his boyhood days at the old home in Ireland, and his mother standing on the kitchen stoop calling the men to dinner, and then his checkered career during early manhood until one dark rainy midnight he landed in Regina, and landed hard, too, as the conductor of a through freight had kicked him none too gently from his bed on the coal tender on to the station platform. Then he remembered how proud he felt when first he donned the smart blue uniform of the police boys, and also how he wrestled with the horses until he became sergeantinstructor in the riding school; and then the hard lines of his face relaxed as the picture of a woman fair and golden-haired, sitting in a hammock on a rancher's verandah, passed before his eyes, for Murphy, like most men

who have seen so much of life, had time to weave his own little bright spot of trust and romance, like a silver thread in a shawl of homespun. Then he thought of that weary ride all alone with nothing but his British pluck and duty to back him up. Seven hundred miles from civilization with one frail horse and a few cartridges between him and the great unknown!

As the night shadows blurred the landscape and the silence of supreme solitude settled like a pall over the whole earth, he forgot the purpose of his wandering and the poor, desperate man in front of him became a bosom friend.

A sudden snapping twig or the stirring of his horse, awoke him from his gloomy reverie, and he instinctively grasped his carbine. He mechanically

looked at his watch and noted that his time was just twelve o'clock.

Again the noise, now quite distinct, resounded to his left, and then a long lean shape slouched boldly into the circle of light, and before Murphy was his man, with unkempt hair, and wild, bloodshot eyes, and clothes hanging in ribbons from his body. Horse gone, gun gone, everything lost but life, he stood defiant and grim awaiting the welcome from his enemy the police.

Murphy arose and held out his hand and the other grasped it, but neither spoke, and the little fire crackled brighter than before.

At last Murphy broke the silence, and his voice was thick and hoarse. "Was it for this, Tim McShane, that you and I went to school together in that far-off town in Connaught? Where we fished with the same pole in the village creek, and where we stood side by side when the big boy undertook to thrash us? Was it to arrest you that I came seven hundred miles alone on my pony, for the gratification of strangers, and they told me you were a desperate man and that I daren't do it? No, Tim, no, you and I are friends, alone in a lonely land, and we will travel back to civilization, and you can go your way and I'll go mine. Your course is free. No one

knows but I where you are, and I can tell them that you died out here with hunger.'

Beads of perspiration stood upon the forehead of Murphy as he talked.

"I'm going back, Murphy," answered the other; "I'm going to give myself up. I don't care what they do with me. I've travelled nigh three months alone into the great north land, and I knew you were upon my trail, and I could have doubled back and shot you but I wouldn't. No, Murphy, your case is far different from mine, and I'm going back to that little jail in Prince Albert, and they can hang Tim McShane if they like. I killed a man once, but it was in self-defence, and I cannot live an eternity out in this God-forsaken place. Let me lie down, Murphy, by your fire and I will go as your prisoner in the morning."

The two men, the policeman and the felon, lay down side by side, and brotherly love was dim beside the passion aroused in each heart, And the pony in the neighbouring thicket watched while the sleepers slept.

R. Henry Mainer. *

TREED BY WOLVES.

"YES, you may go and welcome, if

you are fools enough." Thus spake the boss when Bill and I requested permission to attend a dance in the settlement, some seven miles distant from our lonely shanty.

"Thank you for your permission and compliments," I replied. And in five minutes we were off.

The night was clear, but very cold. The moon was just rising behind the fringe of trees that bordered the lake, and threw long, strange shadows on the glistening snow.

Bill was my special chum, and I was proud of him. He was a genuine product of the Emerald Isle, and by reason of his ready wit and good nature was a general favourite with all the boys in the camp.

"Sure and what did old Windy Whiskers mean by saying that we were fools for coming out on a night like this," remarked my companion.

66 'But they wouldn't attack both of us, would they"? he asked in surprise. "Let us hope that we may be spared the pleasure of an introduction, I replied. As the roads were good we were not long in reaching our destination. A large party had assembled, and dancing was in progress.

It was not long, however, before we discovered that our presence was not required. Some young men had come from another camp bringing a quantity of liquor, and were soon engaged with the boys from the settlement in what promised to be a regular "Donnybrook Fair," as Bill called it; so, to avoid being mixed up in the fight, we left for home.

It was midnight as we reached the woods. The moon rode high in the heavens, and her light was sparkling on the frosted trees as on a wreath of diamonds. We had not covered a mile of the forest road, when we heard the dismal howls of a pack of wolves; but we quickened our steps, hoping to reach the camp in safety. They were coming at right angles to the road, but we increased our pace to a run. few minutes they were in full cry after

us.

In a

"To the trees," I shouted, and choosing two birches about twelve feet apart, we hastily scrambled up. We had just reached seats in the branches when the pack came in sight, ten in number. They did not go on, as I had fondly hoped, but without a moment's delay made right for the trees. They would spring up as high as they could, fall back and try it again, all the while making the air hideous with their howling, snarling and yelping.

Bill soon began to see the ludicrous side of the situation. "Do you see that grizzled heathen there?" he cried, pointing to the leader of the pack, "and don't he look like the Boss? I'll bet you a plug of tobacco that he can jump a foot higher than any of his fellow brigands."

Bill now began kicking his feet against the tree to warm them, and the wolves, thinking that he was coming down, crowded around snarling and snapping at one another. I remarked that it was hardly fair for him to monopolize all of the audience in that

"I'm going to entertain the audience," I replied.

I set fire to the bark, and when it was blazing brightly, I let it fall. With howls and yelps the wolves scattered. "Hurrah!" shouted my companion, hastily following my example, "You don't like fire-works. Sure if your feet were as cold as mine, you'd enjoy it, so you would."

We continued to throw down the blazing bark, and the wolves became more and more alarmed; one after another they turned tail and fled. At last they were all gone.

After waiting for a time to see that they had really left, we climbed down and warmed up our chilled limbs by a good run. We reached camp without seeing any more of our enemies, and Bill speedily became a hero. He was never tired of telling the story, with special reference to the "gray, grizzled heathen" that looked like the Boss.

J. Harmon Patterson.