same merciful Being? Every breath you draw comes from Him; and, little as it may appear, your existence hangs upon it. Were He to withhold the power to breathe, you would immediately die.

Annie. I wonder that these truths have not struck me before. I have learnt something to-night.

Mother. I am not much surprised that facts of this kind, though so evident to any person who will think thereupon, should not have engrossed your particular notice; for, I am sorry to say, the majority of mankind advance to the end of their days, if not wholly ignorant of, yet altogether unconcerned about, them. You would shudder, I am persuaded, did you hear any one say, "There is no God:" whilst, however, this sin is not commonly witnessed, I see scarcely a shade of difference between saying "There is no God," and acting as though there were not one. I remember to have heard of a person, who inquired of

another, "Where is God?" and what reply, do you suppose, was returned? Annie. I cannot tell.

Mother. The questioner was answered thus:"I am unable to say where God is not." This individual and the sacred psalmist were quite agreed: "O Lord (says David), thou hast searched me, and known me. Thou knowest my down-sitting and mine up-rising; thou understandest my thought afar off. Thou compassest my path, and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways. For there is not a word in my tongue, but, lo, O Lord, thou knowest it altogether. Thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid thine hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me: it is high, I cannot attain unto it." I will not proceed further with my quotation, but desire you will carefully read the whole of the hundred and thirty-ninth psalm, which treats largely of the omnipresence of God.

Annie. If God is "acquainted with all my ways," I ought to think before I speak or do anything.

Mother. Indeed you should be thus cautious. And, if you always recollected that God heard and saw all that was said and done, you would be preserved from many wrong things, which, I fear, you are too guilty of. A good young man, I have read of, remembered that the eye of God was upon him, in a time of temptation, and he was preserved from offending his best friend: "How (he exclaimed) can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?" Hagar, we are told, in a season of sore trouble, was visited from heaven with a message of love; and, after the angel had departed, she was led to ruminate upon the kind and suitable aid that was given her, when she had no idea that any eye saw her-and what, think you, was the conclusion she came to? It was this: "Thou, God, seest me!" And a very rea

sonable conclusion it was to come to; for the relief she needed was sent, when she was in a desolate wilderness, where not a single human being was nigh, to render her any assistance.

Annie. But, since God sees everybody, I am at a loss to understand why it is that nobody can see God.

We

Mother. The reason why you cannot behold God with eyes of flesh is, because He is not possessed of such a nature. read in St. John's Gospel, "God is a spirit," and a "spirit has not flesh and bones" as you and I have. So, likewise, that soul, which God breathed into the first man, and is found in every one of the human race, is a spirit, and, though we cannot see it, yet we are conscious of its existence. It has properties peculiar to itself, altogether different to those of the body, and will be found alive and vigorous, when the body is decayed, and mingled with its native earth.

Annie. Whilst it puzzles me to know how God can be everywhere at the same time, still, I dare not doubt that so it is— though I cannot tell how it is

Bible declares it.

because the

Mother. That is right, Annie. You are not expected to comprehend this and similar mysteries. It is asked in Scripture, "Canst thou by searching find out God? Canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection? It is as high as heaven; what canst thou do?-deeper than hell; what canst thou know? The measure thereof is longer than the earth, and broader than the sea." It perplexes you, you say, to know how God can be everywhere at the same time and does it not perplex you, equally, to understand how light and air can be all over England at the same time?— and the light and the air are quite as perfectly these properties on the precise spot where we dwell, as they are spread over the space of a hundred miles: in like man