Even the youngest, humblest child Something may do to please the Lord: ' 'Now, what,' thought she, and half-sadly smiled, 'Can I, so little and poor, afford ? '—

'Never, never, a day should pass,

Without some kindness, kindly shown,' (Little Christel looked down at the grass,) Rising like incense before the Throne.

'Well, a day is before me now;

Yet, what,' thought she, 'can I do, if I try?
If an angel of God would show me how!
But silly am I, and the hours they fly.'

Then a lark sprang singing up from the sod,
And Christel thought, as he rose to the blue,
'Perhaps he will carry my prayer to God;

But who would have thought the little lark knew?'

II.

Now she entered the village street,
With book in hand, and face demure,
And soon she came, with sober feet,
To a crying babe at a cottage door.

The child had a windmill that would not move,
It puffed with its round red cheeks in vain,
One sail stuck fast in a puzzling groove,
And baby's breath could not stir it again.

Poor baby beat the sail, and cried,

While no one came from the cottage door;
But little Christel knelt down by its side,
And set the windmill going once more.

Then babe was pleased, and the little girl
Was glad when she heard it laugh and crow;
Thinking, 'Happy windmill, that has but to whirl,
To please the pretty young creature so !'

THE BENEFACTIONS OF LITTLE CHRISTEL.

IV

But she saw, as she walked by the side of the brook,
Some great rough stones that troubled its course,
And the gurgling water seemed to say, 'Look!
I struggle, and tumble, and murmur hoarse!

How these stones obstruct my road!
How I wish they were off and gone!
Then I would flow as once I flowed,
Singing in silvery undertone.'

Then little Christel, as light as a bird,

Put off the shoes from her young white feet; She moves two stones, she comes to the third, The brook already sings 'Thanks !sweet! sweet!'

O then she hears the lark in the skies,

And thinks, 'What is it to God he says?'And she stumbles and falls, and cannot rise, For the water stifles her downward face.

The little brook flows on as before,

The little lark sings with as sweet a sound, The little babe crows at the cottage door,

And the red rose blooms, but Christel lies drowned!

V.

Come in softly, this is the room;

Is not that an innocent face?

Yes, those flowers give a faint perfume

Think, child, of heaven, and Our Lord his grace.

Three at the right and three at the left,
Two at the feet, and two at the head,

The tapers burn. The friends bereft

Have cried till their eyes are swollen and red.

Who would have thought it when little Christel
Pondered on what the preacher had told?

But the good wise God does all things well,
And the fair young creature lies dead and cold!

VI.

Then a little stream crept into the place,
And rippled up to the coffin's side,
And touched the corpse on its pale round face,
And kissed the eyes till they trembled wide:

Saying, 'I am a river of joy from heaven,
You helped the brook, and I help you;
I sprinkle your brows with life-drops seven;
I bathe your eyes with healing dew.'

Then a rose branch in through the window came,
And coloured her cheeks and lips with red;

'I remember, and Heaven does the same,'
Was all that the faithful rose-branch said.

Then a bright small form to her cold neck clung,
It breathed on her till her breast did fill,
Saying, I am a cherub fond and young,

And I saw who breathed on the baby's mill.'

Then little Christel sat up and smiled,

And said, 'Who put these flowers in my hand?'
And rubbed her eyes, poor innocent child,
Not being able to understand.

VII.

But soon she heard the big bell of the church
Give the hour, which made her say,
'Ah, I have slept and dreamt in the porch,
It is a very drowsy day.'

R.

TO THE READER.

CHRISTMAS again! Eight years of wedded life to our readers! Well, what has been your experience of our literary connubial happiness? Perhaps, if the reader were closely pressed, we should receive for answer, after, of course, a general expression of gratification and enjoyment, a catalogue of faults, of which we ourselves have been too keenly conscious, and the mention of which by others would only, but deservedly, dishearten. For, however clearly we may perceive our own defects, and however ingenuous we may be in acknowledging them to our own hearts, we do not like to know that our friends have been watching and taking stock of them. We may have good reason to believe that, in this respect, we are seen by others as clearly as we see ourselves, but our amour propre is shocked at the audible declaration that such as we are, with all our faults, vanities, and weaknesses, such we seem to others to be. Therefore, if you are a friend, spare us, O reader, and add not to our general discontent with ourselves through the year, and our especial discontent at Christmas, by weighing us down with our loads of faults.

We say this to indicate the kind of response one naturally expects to receive in reply to the question we have put at the head of this address. No man or woman, on asking his or her espoused and honoured partner, what has been the individual experience of connubial happiness during eight years of married life, would dream of putting

such a question if there were a thought that the answer would be an unfavourable one. Better keep the subject in the back-ground a great deal! We, however, have no doubts or fears in this matter. We could not have enjoyed our own life if we had not known that our readers were enjoying theirs. We should have given up' long ago if we had not an assured consciousness that we could rest in their affections. Hitherto, our reward has been our work, and this its most prized result that those for whom the work has been wrought have, with all its defects, accepted it.

But a retrospect of mere labour is, of all things, the most humiliating. Who can take satisfaction in it? Not a particle of work but has its spot or flaw, to which distance lends not 'enchantment,' but depreciation. Nothing done that could not have been done betternothing, so, sometimes, it seems, literally nothing done at all! If we and not God were the real workers, what a failure would be everything that is done under the sun! But when there is the consciousness that we are 'workers together with Him,' we know that a real and eternal success must attend all that is attempted to be wrought.

How far our work in this journal has been His, to whom we owe life, and breath, and all things, no man can tell, but we can look back upon much of it-much that has been done during the twelve months that are just closing-with both satisfaction and joy. We, ourselves, are the stronger for it; it has helped us onward; and we have a confident trust, that to others it has ministered similar strength and happiness.

It has been the lot of the 'CHRISTIAN SPECTATOR' to be very often placed in circumstances of apparent antagonism to many existing forms and institutions. Not looking upon everything connected with churches, chapels, religious society, and religious societies, as they at present exist, with an eye equally prejudiced in favour of defects and beauties, it was thought that friendly counsel and criticism from within, might possibly be productive of less harm, if not more positive good, than that rougher handling, which must one day come from without, when defects shall have so long existed as to become constitutional, and, having become constitutional, will be defended as being both necessary, and, it may be, ornamental. Hence, George Warrington,' 'Poverty and the Pulpit,' 'Modern Congregational Literature,' 'A Word concerning the London Missionary Society,' and some similar papers, which may possibly have displeased many who, like

Lord John Russell, are devout worshippers, not only of our great constitution, but of every bit of dust and cobweb that has become attached to it. Now, shall we confess, that we have not an atom of partiality for dust and cobweb? Yet, what is the use of such a confession? Better wipe all away, and say nothing whatever about it!

We can, however, easily, and we think correctly, understand the position of those who deprecate any criticism, be it just or unjust, on existing institutions. There is an exact parallel, in this respect, between religious and political society. To lay hands on the bishops in the House of Lords, in St. Stephen's, and to lay hands on certain half-hereditary dissenting magnates elsewhere, excites in different sections of society exactly similar sensations of horror. Plead, in the one case, the good of the State, and in the other the good of the Church, and, if anything, you make matters worse. doing a good thing from very conscientious motives it is best not to mention conscience at all. If you are conscientious your conscientiousness will inevitably make itself felt; if you are not, all the declarations in the world will have no effect on those who may differ from you. So we can only say-What we have done we have done, and we have no wish that it should be undone.

If you are

To live to criticise, however, is the very farthest from our ambition. We suppose no animal would deliberately choose to be one of those ants who, in the south of France, are just now making a living by nibbling away the beams and foundations of houses. One must be smiled upon sometimes. Even sour and cynical Mr. Scrooge (Scrooge and Marley) could not live for ever upon his vinegar and pepper, still less we apologize for the juxtaposition-could the amiable readers of the 'CHRISTIAN SPECTATOR.' In the papers on the 'Means and the Method of Life,' on 'Prayer,' on the 'Sermons in Trees,' the 'Songs of Novalis,' a 'Sunday Morning's Musings,' 'Family Union and Responsibility,' the 'Leaves from a Minister's Diary,' 'The True Method of Christian Progress,' the 'Sinlessness of Jesus,' the Benefactions of Little Christel,' and our Christian Common-Place Book,' we hope they have found springs of spiritual strength and joy.

Travel braces, freshens, and wonderfully rubs down provincial and insular egotism and narrow-mindedness. Christians in their Christian life suffer from these no less than as men and women they do in their social life. May we hope that their acquaintance through the CHRISTIAN SPECTATOR' with the 'German Pulpit' and the German