a higher calling, namely that of a minister of Jesus Christ. The temple in which he was to preach had been an old cow-house. It was lighted by a few candles fastened in tin slides and stuck against the walls, and by a huge fire, around which a number of children were warming themselves. When he arrived the people were singing, so, joining in the hymn, he got into the wooden box which served as a pulpit. He could neither read nor write, but his knowledge of the Scriptures was so extensive that he always had a verse appropriate to the occasion. This knowledge he owed to his wife, who taught him to recite whole chapters. Janet was just dead, and this was the first time he had preached since his loss. He took for his text 2 Tim. ii. 7, 8. The sermon over, the children flocked round "dear old Ben," and an aged man, stretching out his trembling hand to him, cried: "The Lord be praised for what we have heard to-night!" The old man invited him to have a "dish of tea" before he went home, and the preacher left the little meeting-house amid many a fervent "God bless you" from the poor people who had heard him.
"I kept the kettle boiling," the good wife said to Ben, as he entered the humble dwelling of his host. "I know'd you'd be coming. So Janet's gone, aye—hoo's better off now, Ben." "Bless the Lord! hoo is," said Ben; "but it's wearying without her. Hoo says, a bit afore hoo died, 'Ben,' hoo says, 'thee'l not be long after me;' and then hoo says, 'Ben, Ben,' hoo says, 'tell us about Jacob's lather;' so I told her; and then hoo says, 'Ben, Ben,' hoo says, 'the lather's coming down, Ben,' and then hoo died. Five and thirty years hoo'd been my wife, and it's lonesome like now to be without her, for I'm an old man, ye sees, and my work's nearly done, bless the Lord! I've tried to serve Him more years than I served the devil—forty years this very night since I first know'd Him, and He's been very good to me ever since." His pent-up feelings overcame him, and the old man stopped to give them way. It was a solemn scene, those two poor old creatures out of their poverty ministering to the bodily and spiritual comfort of "dear old Ben." The dish of tea was drunk; and then, kneeling on the cold bare floor, Ben prayed. It was the last prayer he offered up in the presence of others, for three hours later he was found, with his head resting on a stone by the road-
