t an island, our feeble efforts, under God, may raise a break-water
that will dash back the surges of municipal abomination. Beside, we
toil not in our own strength.

It seemed insignificant for Moses to stretch his hand over the Red
Sea. What power could that have over the waters? But the east wind
blew all night; the waters gathered into two glittering palisades on
either side. The billows reared as God's hand pulled back upon their
crystal bits. Wheel into line, O Israel! March! March! Pearls crash
under the feet. The flying spray springs a rainbow arch over the
victors. The shout of hosts mounting the beach answers the shout of
hosts mid-sea; until, as the last line of the Israelites have gained
the beach, the shields clang, and the cymbals clap; and as the waters
whelm the pursuing foe, the swift-fingered winds on the white keys of
the foam play the grand march of Israel delivered, and the awful dirge
of Egyptian overthrow.

So we go forth; and stretch out the hand of prayer and Christian
effort over these dark, boiling waters of crime and suffering. "Aha!
Aha!" say the deriding world. But wait. The winds of divine help will
begin to blow; the way will clear for the great army of Christian
philanthropists; the glittering treasures of the world's beneficence
will line the path of our feet; and to the other shore we will be
greeted with the clash of all heaven's cymbals; while those who resist
and deride and pursue us will fall under the sea, and there will be
nothing left of them but here and there, cast high and dry upon the
beach, the splintered wheel of a chariot, and, thrust out from the
surf, the breathless nostril of a riderless charger.

WINTER NIGHTS.

The inhabitants of one of the old cities were told that they would
have to fly for their lives. Such flight would be painful, even in
the flush of spring-time, but superlatively aggravating if in cold
weather; and therefore they were told to pray that their flight be not
in the winter.

There is something in the winter season that not only tests our
physical endurance, but, especially in the city, tries our moral
character. It is the winter months that ruin, morally, and forever,
many of our young men. We sit in the house on a winter's night, and
hear the storm raging on the outside, and imagine the helpless crafts
driven on the coast; but if our ears were only good enough, we could,
on any winter night, hear the crash of a hundred moral shipwrec