O Christian young woman, if you would make yourself happy and win the blessing of Christ, go out
AMONG THE DESTITUTE!
A loaf of bread or a bundle of socks may make a homely load to carry; but the angels of God will come out to watch, and the Lord Almighty will give His messenger hosts a charge, saying, "Look after that woman; canopy her with your wings and shelter her from all harm;" and while you are seated in the house of destitution and suffering, the little ones around the room will whisper, "Who is she? Ain't she beautiful?" and if you will listen right sharply, you will hear dripping down through the leaky roof, and rolling over the rotten stairs, the angel chant that shook Bethlehem: "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good-will to men."
Can you tell me why a Christian woman, going-down among
THE HAUNTS OF INIQUITY
on a Christian errand, never meets with any indignity? I stood in the chapel of Helen Chalmers, the daughter of the celebrated Dr. Chalmers, in the most abandoned part of the city of Edinburgh; and I said to her, as I looked around upon the fearful surroundings of that place, "Do you come here nights to hold a service?" "Oh yes," she said, "I take my lantern and I go through all these haunts of sin, the darkest and the worst; and I ask all the men and women to come to the chapel; and then I sing for them, and I pray for them, and I talk to them." I said, "Can it be possible that you never meet with an insult while performing this Christian errand?" "Never," she said, "never."
That young woman who has her father by her side walking down the street, and an armed police at each corner, is not so well defended as that Christian woman who goes forth on gospel work into the haunts of iniquity, carrying Bibles and bread. Some one said, "I dislike very much to see that Christian woman teaching those bad boys
IN THE MISSION SCHOOL;
I am afraid to have her instruct them." "So," said another man, "I am afraid too." Said the first: "I am afraid they will use vile language before they leave the place." "Ah!" said the other man, "I am not afraid of that. What I am afraid of is that if any of those boys should use a bad word in that presence, the other boys would tear him to pieces and kill him on the spot."