This is a very solemn subject, and yet it is one most satisfactory the better we understand it. I believe every act of our lives will be set forth there, so that God's grace and dealing with us with reference to our own acts will be known there. It is said in Rom. 14:, " Every one of us shall give account of himself to God." The judgment-seat is there referred to in connection with the admonition to the brethren not to judge one another with respect to a day, or eating meat. I am disposed to think that only the deeds will be matters of manifestation; but so much is every act of our lives dependent on inward feelings, that it is in one sense hard to distinguish between deeds and thoughts. Acts always declare the strength of the thought or feeling. I believe all our doings shall be detailed there-not to us as in the flesh for condemnation, but to unfold to us the grace which has dealt with us, regenerate and unregenerate. Our whole history will be detailed there, and, in parallel line, the history of His grace and mercy toward us. The why and the how we did this or that will be declared then. It is declarative, and not judicial, for us. We are not in the flesh before God. In His eye, blessed be His name, we are dead ; but then where we have walked after the flesh, we must see how we lost blessing-what a loss it has been to us; and on the other hand, His ways toward us all, in wisdom, mercy, and grace, will be fully known and comprehended for the first time. Of course, there will be no replying, but each history will be like a great transparency. How you yielded, and how He preserved ; how you slipped, and how He rescued ; how you approached danger and shame, and how He, by His own hand, interposed. I believe it will be the bride making herself ready, and I regard it as a wondrous moment. There will be no flesh there to receive condemnation, but the new nature will enter into the transcendent love and care which in true holiness and justice, even in grace, have followed us every step of our journey. Passages in our lives now utterly unexplained shall be all seen clearly then. Tendencies of our nature which we may not think would lead to desperate issues, and to curb which we may now be subjected to a discipline which we have not interpreted, will be fully explained there ; and still more the very falls which distress us sorely now will be shown then as used to preserve us from worse. I do not believe that we shall get any thing like a full view of the evil of our flesh till then. We shall have done with the flesh then ; but I believe the display of His grace individually to us will be so magnificent that even the sense of the evil of the flesh that were ours, if it were possible to intrude, will be prevented by the greatness of the other. Why do we not deny and mortify our members when we remember that hour? The Lord enable us to do more to the glory of His grace.

The subject leads the soul into a very full sense of our individual place-to think of each giving an account of himself to God.

I do not know that the judgment-seat of Christ is used oftener than in Rom. 14:and 2 Cor. 5:In the former, to prevent private judgment; in the latter, to provoke to present well-doing and self-judgment, in view of that day.

(Eph. 4:3.)

The blessed truth of God, as broad and catholic as it is spiritual and holy, is being constantly narrowed and stiffened into formality of some kind by the narrowness of our own hearts. We interpret the Word so much out of our hearts,-we see it so much in reference to our own circumstances merely,-the things that are before us are so apt to engross and prepossess us, that we are often little able to realize at all the mind of the Spirit in it. The narrowing of the application becomes a real perversion often thus. Sectarianism is natural to us; and sectarianism means but self,- " our own things," whether in a smaller or a larger circle, and "not the things of Jesus Christ."

We have also to remember that we may be easily ensnared into the identification of these contrasted things with one another. " Our own things " readily become for us the " things of Jesus Christ." Scripture contracted by our selfishness becomes then also the enforcement of our selfishness in the name of the Lord. The idol we have fashioned begins fashioning us; and by this process of action and reaction, how soon and how far may we be led astray! What cause have we to pray for the grace of self-judgment when we take God's Word into our hands, lest we bring our own thoughts into it, instead of receiving divine truth from it!

Has not the blessed truth of the unity of the Spirit suffered this sort of contraction at our hands ? Has it not been often made to serve the purpose of a rigid and narrow ecclesiasticism, and pressed into the very opposite of that which the apostle so earnestly here enjoins? Has it been always used so as to foster the spirit of " all lowliness and meekness, forbearing one another in love"? Has it been sought even to be kept "in the bond of peace"?

But my purpose is not to pursue this at all just now, but to put and answer, as the Lord may enable me, the question, What is the " unity of the Spirit" we are to keep? and how then are we to keep it?- questions in the present day of very great importance surely, amid the strife of parties and opinions ever increasing, and when also there is danger of a mere liberalism which is not of God, effectually aided, with many, by the weariness of the strife itself.

These questions are not really difficult to answer, however, nor are the answers in any way them-selves difficult or questionable. The apostle, in his next sentence, has given us the first of these. As old Matthew Henry would have said, the key hangs very near the door. " There is one body and one Spirit!' Here are two unities, which are plainly to be distinguished, while as plainly related, and that unity of which the apostle speaks proceeds from this relation of one to the other. The "unity of the Spirit" is the unity produced by the one Spirit as animating and controlling the " one body."

The unity of the body, it has been truly said, is not ours to keep. God has taken care for that. Whether we are practically acknowledging it or not, the body of Christ is one, and we are members one of another. But that which practically unites the body together is the living Spirit which puts the members in real and practical relation to one another. They are thus kept in communion with and true subjection to the Head, Christ Jesus. It is not a mere formal, but a true spiritual and intelligent oneness, owned and carried out in mutual sympathy and service,-a service which is duty no less than privilege-and to the full extent of our . ability, within a sphere not less than that of the whole body of Christ.

This is the answer to the first question, and there is surely no need to enlarge upon it, nor to enforce the truth of it. Its truth is manifest:the duty to one another flowing from our place together in the body of Christ will be owned by every true and loyal-hearted Christian wherever found.

But the question of greater difficulty, and therefore of greater interest at the present moment, is as to what is involved in the endeavor to keep the unity-to carry out this principle so easily recognized. The body is no longer manifestly one:the members are separated from one another, variously and widely. Each one of numberless divisions is united by and earnest to maintain the differences by which its adherents are sundered from the rest. Hence discordant views create discordant interests. Collision and conflict are the inevitable results.

More than this:in this strife of party interests, aid is welcome, and one must not too nicely investigate from whence it comes. Impoverished and distracted by internal feuds, the Church of God accepts, if it does not invite, the help of the world, perhaps loosely Christianized, sometimes not that, and sometimes even antichristian. How is a way to be found and held with God through this bewildering, shifting, maze of difficulties? How shall we take a step into this stream without being whirled from our feet by these eddying currents of human passion, emulation, and party zeal? How are we to be large enough yet discriminating enough?-"wise concerning that which is good, and simple concerning evil"?

And yet we are to "endeavor to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace." As the duty remains, so do the way and means of fulfilling the duty. Isolation from whatever affects our brethren is not God's thought for us, who has joined the body together, and would have no schism in it. Whether we will or not, from this interdependence of one upon another we cannot "escape. "If one member suffer, all the members suffer with it." And while there may be and are great difficulties,
these are but the means of testing and drawing out faith, never of confounding it.

How, then, are we to keep the unity of the Spirit? The answer may be given in a few words:by uniting ourselves in heart to every thing in which the Spirit's work is manifest, while turning from and refusing all (though it may be mixed up with this) in which, as tested by Scripture, the character of that work cannot be found.

This is but to apply to the matter before us the principles of the apostle John's last two epistles. Love must be in the truth, is the motto of the second ; The truth must be in love, is that of the third. And these are the two sides of the divine nature, "God is love" and "God is light," made to test our practical conduct. As "grace and truth," they together " came " to us " by Jesus Christ." We cannot sunder them :to sunder is to destroy. Without love, there is no truth in us:love is itself the first and fundamental truth. Without truth, love cannot be.

And so the apostle insists, If you keep God's commandments, this is His commandment, "that he who loveth God love his brother also." On the other hand, if you love your brethren, the children of God, " by this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and keep His commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not grievous."
How necessary, in a day of mixture such as the present, to remember these words! And how it would seem often as if we did not believe that " His commandments are not grievous"! How many are the plausible suggestions now that, at least within certain limits, the end sanctifies the means; and that if the object be to serve Christ, a little conciliation of the world and the flesh may secure an immense influence in His favor! No doubt, they would not like to be thought to patronize unholiness who do this, and in truth they do not mean to violate conscience:but it is natural conscience only which they have in mind; not conscience enlightened by the word of Christ,- for in His light they do not see light.

Keeping, then, in mind the only perfect standard of what is "vile" or "precious," we have only come, after all, to the words of God to Jeremiah in a day of apostasy,-"If thou take forth the precious from the vile, thou shalt be as My mouth." Priceless words are these indeed, with all their simplicity. We shall do well to ponder them if as yet we have not, to recall them to remembrance if we have. For contact with an evil world, even when necessary, tends to dull our spiritual sense continually, and only by perpetual recurrence to the word of truth can our sanctification be maintained. Let us look, then, at these words to the old prophet, and see if they are not words of power for our day,–if they do not give us at least the underlying principle in the following out of which the unity of the Spirit will be most simply and surely kept.

It is true that in Jeremiah necessarily there is no mention or thought of the body of Christ. And this is now that in which (in a way unknown to the Old Testament,) the Spirit of God dwells. We will not forget that the Church, which Christ loved so as to give Himself for it, is the sphere of this unity which we have now before us. But this affects the details rather than the principles. The work of the Holy Spirit is in all ages morally the same:the work speaks of its Author, and has the impress of His own immutability.

First, then, let us notice carefully that in taking forth the precious from the vile, our occupation is with that which is precious. We do not hunt for the vile, although we cannot but recognize it when it comes before us. We judge it better by our refusal of it than by any amount of analysis and condemnation of it. Our part is, " whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report, if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise," to "think on these things." This has a wonderful effect upon the heart. The occupation with evil tends to distress, discourage, and enfeeble on the one hand; on the other, to engender a spirit of controversy and harshness, closely allied with and near akin to a subtle self-righteousness. When that which is good occupies us, we are kept in rest, encouraged, and superior to the evil; love is not merely unchecked, but active, in the presence of what calls it out. If we strive, it is with the desire of rescuing what is of God and dear to Him from what injures and defiles it.

Secondly, this effort is supposed and enjoined in taking forth the precious from the vile. Every where the conflict of good with evil is going on, and divine grace is in unceasing, unwearied activity to win souls out of the darkness and corruption, to God and to the holiness which is the atmosphere in which He dwells. Of this activity we are ourselves the fruit, and in this way have become also its instruments. The world is a vast battle-ground, in which there are only two parties, essentially opposed. He that is not with Christ is against Him; he that gathereth not with Him scattereth abroad. Nor is there pause or relaxation in the continual struggle. To pause is to give way; to cease from conflict is to be overcome ; to persevere is, on the other hand, to win certain victory, and every effort gathers strength for a fresh one. But assuredly we shall not without a struggle "take forth the precious from the vile;" for sin is an armed and aggressive enemy, and the goods of the strong man can only be taken in the might of One who is stronger than he.

The main difficulty lies in this, that although there are but two parties in this strife, and the lines might seem easily enough drawn, in practice it is not so. There is an inner enemy as well as an outer one, and a battle-field in every Christian heart corresponding to that outside. Thus the power of the Spirit has to accomplish in us the work of deliverance from the evil within as well as around; and we have to be with Him, not only in winning from the world the trophies of divine grace, but also in delivering the people of God from themselves and from their fellows, as well as from the world around.

What makes the endeavor to keep the unity of the Spirit so difficult, but this? Why does it require all lowliness and meekness and long-suffering, forbearing one another in love? It is because the body of Christ is composed of men in whom sin is and in whom it works; and thus unity can be only maintained by conflict:here, as in the individual, "the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh, and these are contrary the one to the other, so that you should not do the things that you would."

Thus no mere keeping of an external or ecclesiastical unity will suffice us here. Every where, as a first necessity, we need that discernment which only he that is spiritual can have. There is implied a constant exercise, a continual need of being before God, a practiced faith, a thorough individuality of walk, which mere ecclesiasticism, far from encouraging, always represses, as hostile to unity,
instead of favoring it. It is the unity of the Spirit that is to be kept, not that of the Church. And this can never be really kept, I do not say by a violated conscience merely, but by an unexercised one. The Spirit of God ever acts, indeed, in behalf of real unity ; but in this very way it can only be attained by a close and intelligent following of His mind. Could the whole body act as one apart from this, it would only be the more completely contrary to the apostle's precept here.

(To be continued.)

What a revelation we have in this third John, beloved! – how wonderful it is! Though so familiar to us, it grows greater and fresher as the Spirit of God gives us to understand more the depths of its meaning. Fresh from the lips of the Son of God Himself, it, burst forth upon the darkness of this world:"God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son"! Think of it!-the whole world lying under the power of Satan,-in the darkness of distance from God; in the misery brought in through sin and the solemn judgment of God upon it,-then it is these blessed words burst forth from the lips of the Son of God Himself, like the light of a glorious sun, breaking forth upon the darkness of this world:"God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." Precious, wonderful revelation! yet how received by man? We were singing a while ago,-

"When we see Thee as the victim,
Nailed to the accursed tree"-

The Son of God nailed to the tree!-yes, by man whom He had come to save! Is not this another wonder, declaring under what power of Satan and depths of darkness man was fallen in rebellion to God? Yet this declaration comes to the whole world:"God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son."

Is it not, beloved, a wonderful revelation?-this break of a glorious light upon this benighted world.

Bless God for it, all ye who know Him! My soul worships and blesses God for it.

THE ADDRESSES TO THE CHURCHES, (Continued.)

Sardis:Sleeping Among the Dead. (Rev. 3:1-7.-Continued.)

But is not here the history of the churches of the Reformation-of Protestantism, in fact,- during the three centuries of its existence? Is not this the true account of its divisions, for which it is reproached ? The Spirit of God is not, indeed, the author of confusion, but of peace,-of unity, and not disunion. But when people talk of schism, they should remember to what that term applies. As found in Scripture, it is " schism in the body" that is reprobated, and the body of Christ is not a national church. When men have joined together the living and the dead,-when they have subjugated consciences to formularies instead of Scripture,-to hierarchies instead of God, or to hierarchies in the name of God, what have they forced the blessed Spirit to do but to draw afresh the line they have obliterated between the living and the dead, between man's word and God's, between human authority and divine?

And His mode of doing this has been constantly to bring out of the inexhaustible treasure of His Word some fresh or forgotten truth, which would do that which the popularized truth in the creed had almost ceased to do-would test the souls of His people as to whether they were indeed the descendants of those who confessed Him of old, whose tombs they built, and whose memories they had in honor. The fresh truth calls for fresh confession; costs, and is meant to cost, something; brings its confessors into opposition to the course around them, and separates them at once from those whose only desire is to go with the stream, and with whom the profession of Christ and the cross are widely separate.

Doubtless the division may separate between true Christians themselves; and this is in itself an evil, that true Christians should be separated; but! the responsibility rests with those who are not quick-eared enough to hear God's call when it comes,-not single-eyed enough to discern the path in which the Lord is leading His own. We are bound, by the honor we owe to Him, to maintain that He cannot possibly be leading His own in contradictory paths-cannot possibly refuse the needed light to walk aright, however simple or ignorant the soul may be. No one strays and no one stumbles because God denies him light. But "the light of the body" practically "is the eye"- the inlet of it, and there the hindrance is. Thus a severance, sorrowfully enough, is made between real Christians; but the sin of it is not with those who separate from that which God has shown then to be evil, but with those who remain associated with the evil which is. forcing out the true in heart. Separation from evil, so far from being a principle of division, would, if honestly followed, make for unity and peace, as leading upon a path where God's Spirit, ungrieved, could really unite arid strengthen His people. With evil He cannot unite; and this, indeed, therefore, wherever admitted, is a principle of division.

I am not, therefore, upholding or making light of schism. The divisions of Protestantism are its shame, and to glory in them is to glory in one's shame. Error is manifold, contradictory, schismatic. Truth, however many-sided, is but one. Sects, in their multiplicity, may accommodate, no doubt, the religious tastes of man; but that only would show how purely human they are, how little divine.
The unity of the Spirit may be maintained, and allow indeed for growth in knowledge, and in unity of judgment as to many things. The Church of God has room for all that are God's, of whatever stature-fathers, young men, and babes. It can allow of-nay, insists upon the largest charity for those who differ from us in aught that would not link the name of Christ with His dishonor. But that is a very different thing from what is implied in a creed, and indeed I may say, is its fundamental opposite. For the creed defines, in a way that, if rigidly adhered to, shuts out toleration as to points of confessedly minor importance, where the Spirit of God would teach, not indifference, indeed, but the largest charity,-forcing its definitions upon all in a way most felt by the most conscientious. It is as necessary, as far as the creed goes, to believe in a child's being regenerate when baptized as it is to believe in the Son of God Himself. I grant there may be practical laxity, but for a soul before God that does not do. For such an one, with his eyes open, the subjection to human institutions in the things of God is just what he cannot and dare not yield.

"Schism in the body" then, is always wrong. Separation from evil, at all costs, is a necessity, and
always right. And from this have been gathered the freshness and power which have plainly characterized so many movements of this kind at the beginning. They began in self-judgment and devotedness. The evil at least they saw, and were exercised about, and the measure of truth they had was held in power. It was soon systematized, and in that proportion its power began to fail. The founders, if you look at their lives, were men of faith and power, suffering and enduring. The manners of the adherents were chastened, simple, primitive. Organized, popularized, with a large following, the freshness waned; and in the third or fourth generation, another sect had taken its place among the many, boasting of a history which it did not discern to be a satire upon its present condition.

The organization, the creed, are to preserve the truth. But did these give them the truth they are anxious to preserve? Surely not, as they must own. God in His love, God in His power, has given what man had proved his incompetency to retain. They cannot trust Him to retain it for them, after He has given it. He has used His Word to minister it; they turn round and use, for that blessed Word of His, a creed of their own manufacture to preserve it. The generations after follow their fathers' creed, and not the Word. The truth popularized is gone as " Spirit and Life." God has to work afresh and outside of what a little while ago He had Himself produced.

And the spiritual life of the time has come more and more to manifest itself in "revivals," which, so far as they are really such, are the protests of the Spirit of God against prevailing death continually
creeping over every thing; and oftentimes connected with fresh statements of truth, when the old have lost their power. The Lord's warning to Sardis points out this constant tendency to death. " Be watchful, and strengthen the things that remain, which are ready to die." " Remember therefore how thou hast received and heard, and hold fast and repent."

It is scarcely too much to say that every true revival, whatever the blessing for individuals,- nay, I might even say, in proportion to the blessing for individuals,-weakens the national system; and this for reasons we have been considering. The Spirit of God must needs work in opposition to the death produced by the system, and therefore against the system which produces the death. Souls quickened by the Spirit of God cannot go on contentedly under deadly and unchristian teaching, comforting themselves with the assurance of the article that "the evil" who sometimes "have chief authority in the ministration of the Word and sacraments" do yet "minister by Christ's commission and authority;" nor will they always be able to accept the ecclesiastical "yoke with unbelievers," because the system requires "every parishioner" to communicate, irrespective of any other security as to his conversion than his baptism and confirmation may imply.

It will be no marvel, then, to find, what any one with spiritual understanding must own, that at least the large proportion of those who could be said to "have not defiled their garments" in the history of Protestantism have been in some way or other dissenters from the national system. The first generation of English reformers were dissenters from Rome, and Rome did her best to keep them pure, in the fires she kindled for them. In the second and third generation from these, a people began to be separated, who from their honest endeavor to be right with God were nick-named " Puritans." I need not tell you what great names, which after-generations have learnt to love and honor, are found among this class,-a class with whom fine and pillory and imprisonment were familiar things. Every body knows that Bedford gaol was the " den " in which John Bunyan dreamed his memorable dream. In Scotland, the attempted enforcement of prelacy gave a succession of martyrs and confessors to the Presbyterian name, with whom, as elsewhere, their time of persecution was their time of real blessing, while the Episcopalian-ism which was riding rough-shod over them had gone already more than half way back to Rome.

With the movement under Wesley and Whitefield, nearer to our own times, we are naturally still more familiar; and that which issued in the Free Church of Scotland is still within the memory of a generation not yet passed away. All these, and many others, will exemplify the truth of what I have been saying; until, in our own days, the national systems are showing evident signs of decrepitude and breaking up; and Romanists and infidels are beginning their pagans on the downfall of Protestantism. We who are able to see it all in the light of Scripture can easily understand why all this is, and see only the truth of God's Word more and more manifested in it. Christianity flung as a cloak over a corpse can surely not warm it into life. Corruption will go on underneath, eating away the form of life, the only thing it ever had, until at last the cloak will more or less fall off, and what was all along true become apparent.

When the Protestant churches shall be gone altogether, or gone as such, their protest will not be gone, but only transferred to another court. Heaven will take up what they have dropped. Babylon the Great will fall under divine judgment; and apostles and prophets, and God's people every where, will rejoice at her fall.

(To be continued.)

The countless multitude on high,
Who tune their songs to Jesus' name,
All merit of their own deny,
And Jesus' worth alone proclaim.

Firm on the ground of sovereign grace,
They stand before Jehovah's throne ;
The only song in that blest place
Is, " Thou art worthy ! Thou alone ! "

With spotless robes of purest white,
And branches of triumphal palm,
They shout, with transports of delight,
Heaven's ceaseless universal psalm.

Salvation's glory all be paid
To Him who sits upon the throne ;
And to the Lamb, whose blood was shed,
"Thou! Thou art worthy ! Thou alone !"

For Thou wast slain, and in Thy blood
These robes were washed so spotless pure;
Thou mad'st us kings and priests to God,
Forever let Thy praise endure.

While thus the ransomed myriads shout,
"Amen ! " the holy angels cry ; "
Amen ! amen ! " resounds throughout
The boundless regions of the sky.

Let us with joy adopt the strain
We hope to sing forever there,-
"Worthy's the Lamb for sinners slain !-
Worthy alone the crown to wear."

Without one thought that's good to plead,
Oh what could shield us from despair
But this :though we are vile indeed,
The Lord our righteousness is there !

AS FORESHOWN IN THE BOOK OF REVELATION.

THE ADDRESSES TO THE CHURCHES, (Continued.)

Sardis:Sleeping Among the Dead. (Rev. 3:1-7.)

In the address to the Church at Thyatira, we have found the Lord announcing His coming, and bidding His saints wait to share with Him then the authority which the false church was assuming to have already. Thyatira presents us thus with a phase of things which goes on at least till the Lord comes for His saints; not, indeed, till the rising of the Sun of Righteousness upon the world, but until He comes as the Morning-Star, the herald of the day before the day appears.

In Sardis, we have, therefore, not a development of the Thyatira condition, but in many respects, as it is easy to see, what is in entire opposition to it. Thyatira, or popery, is the last phase of the church in its Jewish hierarchic and ritualistic growth; and although there has been all through a remnant different in spirit, and becoming finally more or less distinctly separate, even outwardly, as among the Waldensian and kindred bodies, yet up to this point there has been in fact a certain unity:it could claim to be, before the eyes of men at least, the Catholic church.

True, there had been already a separation; not now of others from it, but of this latest development itself from others. Rome had separated herself from the churches of the east-the Greek and Syrian churches, which remained in the condition we have traced at Pergamos. The Catholic church of the west had become the Roman Catholic. Yet, in character, the system was the same throughout; here more, there less, developed-that was all. But now we come to a new thing,-a breach and a new beginning. There is now in Sardis, not the claim of infallibility, not (as what is prominent) corruption of doctrine, not persecution of the saints, not the exercise of authority in the same sense,- none of these things characterize Sardis. What characterizes is sufficiently definite in the Lord's charge here:it is lack of spiritual power,-nay, in the body as such, of life itself. " Thou hast a name to live, and thou art dead."

Yet they had " received and heard," and are bidden to "hold fast" this, "and repent." Just as Ephesus had been, at the commencement of decline, called back to remember their first state, so here there has been a fresh beginning in God's grace, a recovery of His word and truth, a new beginning, from which (alas!) already there is decline. Again, they have not answered to His grace, and those things which remained among them from this revival were languishing and ready to die. And no wonder, when the charge against them is considered. The body addressed is a professing but unconverted one:with a name to live, it is dead.

There is but too little difficulty in applying this. A breach with Rome, a restoration of the Word of God, a fresh revival of truth, ending, however, in a system or systems characterized by a fatal defect of spiritual power, and churches with an unconverted membership, God's saints being scattered through the mass,-living themselves, but unable to vitalize it:such are the characteristics, easily to be read, of the national churches which sprang out of the Protestant Reformation.
Let it be well understood:it is not the Reformation itself that is depicted here. So far as it was this, the Reformation was the blessed work of God, and the Lord does not judge, and can never need to judge, His own work. He refers to what His grace had done for them-to what they had received and heard. Their responsibility was, to take heed to it, and hold it fast; and already they had failed in doing so. This was therefore the ground of judgment.

Notice how Christ is represented here. He has "the seven Spirits of God, and the seven stars." There is no failure in the fullness of spiritual energy on His part, no possibility of failure in His love and care for His people. Yet this power is not found practically in that which has sprung out of the seed sown by the Reformation. With more pretension than before, for they have now a name to live- name assumed to be in the book of life, the actual condition of the mass is that of death:not feebleness merely, but death.

Yet there are exceptions:not simply those alive, but still more-that have not defiled their garments; and of these the Lord speaks in the warmest terms , of praise. " They shall walk with Me in white, for they are worthy." Indeed, these are only "a few names." Others may be alive, but in a scene of death (and the defilement which results from contact with the dead is emphasized in the symbols of the Old Testament) the many of those alive even are defiled. But the mass are dead altogether- dead, with a name to live.

In His promise to the overcomer, the Lord further refers to this:"He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment, and I will not blot his name out of the book of life." The book of life is understood by the majority of people to be only in the Lord's hands, and all the names written in it to be written by Himself. Hence, those ignorant of the gospel stumble over this blotting out of the book of life, as supposing it is the blotting out of the names of those once saved. But there is no such thought here. There is not the slightest hint that those mentioned ever had life at all:they had a " name to live "-only a name.

On the contrary, you find in Rev. 13:8 the very opposite thought as to those " written," as we ought to read it, with the margin of the Revised Version, " from the foundation of the world in the book of the Lamb slain." There, this fact of their being written in the book from the foundation of the world is given as their security from being deceived by and worshiping the beast. Sovereign grace, that is, is their only and sufficient security.

Here, on the other hand, the book has got into man's hand, and he writes names in it as he pleases. It is a figure, of course, all through. The Lord, in His own time, corrects the book, and then He blots out the names of those to whom only the name belongs.

Now the " name to live " has a very special meaning in connection with Reformation times. The putting people's names into the book of life (while here on earth) is in no way characteristic of popery. Saints, for them, are only the dead, and not the living. The living she warns that " no man knows whether he is worthy of favor or hatred," and that it is not safe to be too sure. Her pardons, indulgences, sacraments, only show by their very multiplicity how difficult a thing she believes salvation is. Darkness is the essence of her system, and she thrives upon it.

On the other hand, the Reformation recovered the blessed gospel, and the word of reconciliation was preached with no uncertain sound. The doctrine of assurance was maintained with the utmost energy, and was stigmatized by the Council of Trent as " the vain confidence of the heretics." They even pushed it to an extreme, asserting (at least, some of the most prominent reformers did,) that assurance was of the very essence of saving faith itself, and that unless a man knew himself to be forgiven, he might be sure that he was not forgiven.

It is plain, then, that Protestantism put a man's name in the book of life in a way that popery did not at all.

Two immense things the Reformation gave us, which have never since been wholly lost,-an open Bible, in a language to be understood; and on the other hand, the gospel, at least in some of its most essential features. These are inestimable blessings, which would that we had hearts to value more.

Of the men, too, who were the dear and honored instruments in handing them down to us we cannot speak with enough affection and esteem. God honored them-how many!-taking them to Himself in fiery chariots, from which their voices come, thrilling us with the accents of the heaven opening | to receive them. Those who disparage them will have to hear, one day, their names confessed and honored by Him they served, as those of whom the world was not worthy.

But on the other hand, we must not make, as many are doing, the Reformation the measure of divine truth. They are not loyal to the Reformation really who accept any thing beside Scripture as the measure and test of this. The broken and conflicting voices which are heard the moment it is a question no longer of the gospel but of the church and its government, assure us that if here Scripture has spoken, the churches of the Reformation do not in the same sense convey to us its utterances. Lutherism is not Calvinism, the Church of England is not the Church of Geneva here. We must needs, whether we will or not, take Scripture to decide amid claims so conflicting; and when we do so, we find, with no great difficulty, that no one of these takes us back to the Church as it was at the beginning-the body of Christ, or the house! of living stones-at all.

Instead of this, as is well known, the churches of the Reformation were essentially national churches Not in every country, of course, able to attain the full ideal,-as in France, where Rome retained its
ascendancy by such cruel means,-but always of that pattern. Rome had herself prepared the way for this. The nations of Europe were already professedly Christian nations, and it was not to be expected that those who escaped from Jezebel's tyranny would give up their long hereditary claim to Christianity. The adoption of an evangelical creed did not and could not change the reality of what they were. They learned the formula, put their names upon the church-books as Protestants, learned to battle fiercely for the gospel of peace, and how could you deny their title to be Christians? Yet, as to the many, it was but the "name to live."

We must learn to distinguish two elements in the ecclesiastical revolution of those times. There was, first of all, a most mighty and most manifest work of God. The Scriptures, released from their imprisonment in a foreign tongue, began to speak to responsive human hearts with the decision and persuasiveness that the Word of God alone can have. Christ began once more to teach as one – having authority, and not as the scribes. The blessed doctrine of justification by faith every where brought souls held fast in bondage into liberty and the knowledge of a Saviour-God. The ecclesiastical yoke could not hold any longer those whom the truth had freed; and where Christ had become thus the soul's rightful Lord, the yoke of Rome was but the tyranny of Antichrist.

This was the first and most powerful element in Protestantism; not a political movement, but a movement of faith. Luther, solitary at Worms, in the presence of the mightiest political power in Europe, was the testimony that the work was of Him. His strength was manifest in human weakness. Had that place of weakness been retained all through,-had but God been allowed to show that power was of Him alone, how different would have been the result! And it is due to the foremost name of Protestantism to acknowledge that, as far as carnal weapons were concerned, Luther would have rightly refused them a place in a warfare which was God's. At any rate, to think of Protestantism as essentially a political movement is to do it glaring injustice, and to contradict the plainest facts.

On the other hand, we cannot ignore the political element which so soon entered into it. Rome had made the nations every where feel the iron hand of her despotism, and the national reaction against her was the natural result of her intolerable and insolent oppression. The notorious wickedness of her chiefs had long destroyed all real respect. Her power stood now in an excessive and degrading superstition. She lived upon men's vices and their fears; and where the light fell and removed the darkness, the fears were removed also, where the vices were not. Men learned to look upon the power they had cringed to with contrary feelings, deep in proportion to their depth before. Their interests, political and otherwise, coincided with the spiritual movement which divine power had produced. Soldiers, politicians, governments, made common cause with the men of faith. It was hard not to welcome such apparently God-sent allies, when on every side persecution raged. The movement increased in external power and importance, but its character was in just that proportion lowered and perverted.

And now there was need of defined principles to give cohesion to elements which the Spirit of God no longer sufficed to bind together. Outside, there was the pressure of Rome, a compact and immensely powerful body, armed, drilled, and intensely hostile. Organization was soon a necessity; of what or whom? To proclaim the true Church would have been to cast off their allies, to insure the continuance of persecution and reproach, to leave Rome unchecked, triumphant, I do not say that the true thought of the Church ever dawned upon them; but I do say that their alliance with the world was a sure means of hindering their seeing it. There were formed instead national churches, with evangelical creeds, used as pieces of state-craft, and political power to back them, not divine.

ft is simple enough, that if a creed had been a necessity for His Church, the wisdom of God could easily have given us an infallible one, and His love could not have failed to do so. On the contrary, He has given us that which He testifies to as able to furnish the man of God thoroughly unto all good works, but which people feel at once to be as different from a creed as can be.

Why do people want a creed ? As something more plainly and easily read than Scripture. Scripture is infinite:the need must be definite. Of Scripture, every one makes what he likes; what is wanted is something different-something that shall not be capable of two meanings, plain to all-spiritual and unspiritual, Church and world alike.

It has been before contended that Scripture is clearer, plainer really, than any word of man; and so indeed it is; beside being, in divine wisdom, written so as to meet, as nothing else can meet, with perfect foresight of the future, all the thoughts of men. It is thus the only sufficient guard and protection against heresy to the end of time. And yet it is no contradiction to this to own that there is some truth from the point of view taken by those who contend for this, between the creed and Scripture.

From their point of view. For the apostle's words limit us somewhat when we speak of the intelligibility of Scripture. "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness,"-but for what?-"that the man or God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works."

So that Scripture, profitable for doctrine as it is, does need a certain state of soul for its proper apprehension. It needs not indeed great attainments, human learning, deep research,-although all these have their use, and are not despised by it; but it absolutely requires (what may be found in the lowest and poorest just as well,) devotedness-that we be God's men:what by possession and profession all Christians are, but alas! not what all, even of true Christians, always practically are. This is the single eye, which we must have for the body to be full of light.

But this being so, we can easily see that the Bible is not just the book for a court of law, and it is not the suited thing for a national creed. The truth is not meant to be accessible to the merely natural mind. Nay, ''the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned."The Bible is not crystalized for us into doctrines, but it’s truths are exhibited and only known as living realities to those who are in the true sense alive. It is so essentially unlike a creed, that we may be assured that nothing like a creed was in God's design. He did not mean to give what might serve as a motto for political partisanship, or a banner for any other than spiritual warfare.

Nationalism, then,-the union of the living and the dead-was never in His mind. He meant spirituality to be a first necessity, and an absolute one, for the discernment of His thoughts:and men, when they substitute in this respect the blessed word of God for their plainer creed, show really that herein they are at cross purposes with Him.

" Thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead,'' is the exact moral description, as it is the plain condemnation of nationalism. Of more this, no doubt, but still of this. It is not the idea of the Church of God at all, but a Christianized world, with Christians scattered through it:a place so defiling, that but few indeed can keep their garments undefiled. Connected with the truth, as popery is not, such a system betrays the truth which it professedly upholds. The character of the last days is developed by it:"Men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, proud, blasphemers," the retaining all that is natural to them under the garb of Christianity; "having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof."The direct command is, "From such, turn away."

This is the effect of popularized truth,-popularized as God never meant His truth to be. Of course this is to be distinguished from the preaching of His truth, than which nothing assuredly is more in accordance with His mind. His gospel is to go forth to every creature, and the blessings of an open Bible we could scarcely exaggerate. But by "popularized truth" is meant, what we have already been speaking of, truth made into a party badge, so as to be accepted by those with whom Christ is not; for He was never really popular, and still is not.
Popularized truth means, truth that has lost its power. It may be that for which martyrs died, and which when first given of God, or when afresh given, was full of quickening power. Popularized, it is so far lifeless. No exercise of soul in receiving it; no cross in professing it; men have got from their fathers what their fathers got from God:to their fathers it was shame, to them it is honor. There is nothing to test conscience, nothing to make them ask, Dare I take this without human sanction to commend-nay, in the face of all human discountenance? Yet only thus have we got it truly from God. The martyrs they talk of took it thus and suffered for it:they take it from their fathers-a principle which would have condemned the martyrs; and they take it without the slightest thought of being martyrs.

Truth is proclaimed as powerless by the unholy lives of its professors, while unholiness is recommended by the practice of those who are orthodox as to truth. And thus truth tends to die out of itself, as valueless, remaining all the while in the national creed, embalmed as a memorial of the past. " Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain, which are ready to die; for I have not found thy works perfect before God." This has been long experienced with regard to all national systems too manifestly to need more than a bare allusion.

It is a system designedly adapted to worldly minds, and to be worked by political machinery. The Word of God is no necessity to it, except, it may be, to furnish a table of lessons; for the authoritative standard is the creed. The Spirit of God is not necessary to it; for colleges can manufacture preachers, and ecclesiastics ordain and send them forth apart from this. Christians are not necessary to it; they are too uncertain as a constituent part of a nation or its government to be capable of being reckoned on; nor is there any means of certainly determining who they are. A sacrament,- baptism or the Lord's supper,-takes here the place of less manageable tests.

And the grieved and insulted Spirit may be besought to breathe upon the lifeless mass, and fill the sails of the ship of state. But He must keep within the bounds prescribed by ritual, hierarchy, and parliament, or He will be treated as schismatical. And it must be remarked how often in this case a schism springs out of a large and manifest revival. Souls brought near to God, and made to feel the value of His Word, are not made thereby the more docile servants of a state-religion. The new wine will not be held in the old bottles. Statesmen are not thus favorable to such fresh enthusiasm, and no wonder:it divides the house which it is to their interest to keep as one.

(To be continued.)

A WITNESS for God is the most uncompromising man on the face of the earth. He never lowers the flag. He never adapts his testimony to altered circumstances. General unfaithfulness only nerves him-braces him up to a more complete surrender to his Master's interests. No surrender of the truth is ever thought of. He 'may die, death alone being the check to the course and testimony of the witness, but he will never sacrifice one iota of his testimony. He is a man who counts not his life dear to him if he may but finish his course with joy. A witness is essentially a martyr, the word for both being the same in the Greek. " God, and His glory!" is his watchword. Would you be a faithful witness for God-another Antipas, "one against all"? Then you may have to seal your testimony with your blood, as Stephen in the midst of religious Israel, or Antipas amongst the professing people of God. (Acts 7:and Rev. 2:13.) A true servant of God never defends his character-that the Lord takes care of-and woe be to the man who wantonly takes liberties with the character and ways of God's witness. He enters into a controversy with God, as Num. 12:solemnly intimates. A witness for God is a man who meekly bears reproach, suffering, and distress, but is consumed-yea, burns when the glory of his Master is in question (Ex. 32:). May the Lord lead to increased and unswerving faithfulness to the Master and His mission.

"Not a cloud above, not a spot within."

"Let me die the death of the righteous," said Balaam of old, "and let my last end be like his." (Num. 23:10.)And who knows but that there was a measure of sincerity in the words of the hireling prophet, as from the "top of the rocks" he beheld the thousands of God's people encamping in divinely prescribed order around that cloud-capped tabernacle?

No wonder, either, that even this poor money-loving prophet should at that moment give vent to such an expression; for Israel was indeed a blessed people. Jehovah Himself was in the midst of her, at once her Saviour, her Defender, and her Guide.

Yet, what a moral contradiction it was to hear this lover of the "wages of unrighteousness" saying, " Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his."

Well, reader, I know neither your course of life nor your state of soul. God knows both. But I dare venture to say that the substance of Balaam's prayer has been the burden of your thoughts, aye, many a time. Now I want to ask you to think a little more of those three monosyllables, " my last end"! Repeat them over to yourself again and again,-" MY last end." Take a pencil and write them down, if you will; but weigh well their meaning, I pray you, so that at least one of God's desires may be realized in your case. " O that they were wise, that they understood this, that they would consider their latter end! " (Deut. 32:29.)

Life's journey will come to a close some day. That is certain. You may even now be very near the end. A long eternity is before you, and, whether you like it or not, you are inseparably linked with it. I solemnly ask you, therefore, as you look beyond all earthly plans and pleasures- beyond earthly friendships and earthly ties- beyond life's latest hour, What are your prospects ? What shall the end be ?

But I have a bright tale to tell you, and I want your attention. The happy subject of it, Richard H–, was for years a valued personal friend and fellow-laborer. From boyhood's days he known and loved the Lord, and from that time to the "home-call" his deepest delight was to serve and follow Him.

But it is of his end I desire to speak particularly. Shortly before he passed away, and after a visit from the doctor who attended him, he expressed a particular wish to know what he thought of his physical state. On being told that "departure" was soon to be looked for, he burst forth into quite an ecstasy of joy, saying, " Good news! good news from the far country! Set the bells a-ringing. Hoist a flag outside, to announce that I, a sinner of the earth, washed in Christ's blood, am going into the heavens; and going by a work that has glorified God. Good news! good news!" he again exclaimed, "it's like breaking up school, and going home."

It was a few days after this when, for nearly the last time on earth, I was privileged to see him. Physical weakness, through the rapid inroads of consumption, seemed to be increasing. But, oh, while things seen and temporal were gradually fading away, how strong ft grip had faith got of that which is "unseen and eternal!"

After a warm, familiar greeting, he said, and said in such a way as it is impossible to describe on paper, "You haven't come here to see death, Georgie. Death isn't here-not a bit of it. It's regions behind me, and He is before me." Then, looking up to heaven, he said, as if in some deep, happy reverie, "Holiness! the more holiness the better; the more righteousness the better; the brighter the glory the better. They can but bring out to my soul the value of my title."

What a bright sunset! What a peaceful close to life's short day! Death, with all its accompaniments, was nothing to him. Nay, he would n't have it that he was dying, but only going home. And I shall not be a bit surprised, unsaved reader, if you tell us that you would fain have your last end like his.

But, mark, let your wishes be what they may, depend upon this, that to live without Christ is the surest method you could possibly adopt of dying without mercy. Oh that the Spirit of God might awaken you this moment!

But let us inquire what was the real secret of such a victory as the one just referred to. He had n't a word to say, or a thought to bestow, upon his good works or pious life; though I may safely say that all who knew him can testify of his self-denying, heavenly-minded devotedness, both to Christ and His people, and that for many years ere he was called home. But it was Christ Himself, his own gracious Saviour, who covered his vision and filled his heart, so that every thing else -grim death itself not excepted-was, as he so graphically expressed it, "regions behind him."

Once, no doubt, like thousands more, he had turned his eye inward upon himself to find something which he thought God might accept as a ground for blessing him, and something, therefore, which he too might rest his hopes upon. But, when weary and disappointed in such a search, the Spirit of God had turned his longing gaze to One in whom God could and did delight, whose finished work at Calvary He had accepted. Yes, reader, it is the look without that brings the peace within. " Look unto Me, and be ye saved," is the message from a Saviour-God to guilty men. (Isa. 45:22.)

Notice, now, it is not " Look at yourself till you feel you are saved."

That may be man's gospel, but it certainly is not God's.

God is not looking at you, dear reader, to see whether you are worthy of His confidence. He knows you are not, and has told you so. Your heart, He declares, is without its match for treachery-" deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked." (Jer. 17:9.)

God's eye rests with delight and satisfaction upon His beloved Son. He thinks every thing of Jesus. He has highly exalted Him ; enthroned and crowned Him ; put every thing into His hands and under His feet,-yea, given Him power over all flesh. God has intrusted Him with the giving of eternal life, with the dispensing of His righteous judgment. He is to be the Head of heavenly government-"King of kings,"-in that bright millennial day; "for He must reign" says the Holy Ghost, and we who love Him say, " Alleluia! Alleluia!" The once-despised and hated Nazarene, God's King in Zion! How it makes the heart well over with joy to think of it!

"He shall reign from pole to pole,
With illimitable sway;
He shall reign till, like a scroll,
Yonder heaven shall pass away."

Well, then, I repeat, the gospel does not ask you, clear troubled soul, whether or not you are sufficiently worthy for God to trust you ; but it brings the blessed welcome news that His Son is sufficiently worthy for you to trust Him; that in turning away from all thoughts of your bad self, as well as from all your vain efforts to establish a good self, and, reposing the confidence of your heart in the worthy Son of God as your Saviour, everlasting life is yours. Listen to the highest of all authorities:"Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on Me hath everlasting life." (Jno. 6:47.)

Oh, let me ask you, then, " What think ye of Christ?" It was this blessed Saviour, this crowned, honored, exalted, beloved Son of God, and Son of Man in heavenly glory, that was before the happy soul of this dear departing disciple.

" But," says one, " how was it that the holiness and righteousness of God,-yea, the very brightness of the light of the glory of God seemed friendly to him?"

Friendly to him! Yes, as friendly as the cross, as we shall see. But let us first listen to the words of Him who hung upon that cross,-" God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son" -gave Him to be "lifted up" as a victim for sin. On this ground the believing sinner stands before God, free from all condemnation.

Faith can say, " If the righteous Son of God was delivered for my offenses; and if God has accepted that sacrifice, I must be delivered from my offenses."

But then God has not only given His Son to be delivered up to death and judgment for us, He has given Him in resurrection-life and glory to us.

" For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord." (Rom. 6:23.) "He made Him to be sin for us" (2 Cor. 5:21); but He has also made Him "wisdom, and
righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption" to us. (i Cor. 1:30.)

Bear in mind, too, that this is not Christian attainment. It is the common portion of all that believe in Christ. The Holy Ghost speaks of them as created in righteousness and true holiness (Eph. 4:24), and of course creation is not attainment. It is what God has made them in Christ.

The old creation is said to be by Christ (see Col. 1:16), while the new creation is in Christ (see Eph. 2:10.) Now this happy young Christian had learned, not only to look from self to Calvary's Victim for the righteous discharge, and therefore the full forgiveness, of his many sins, but also to look off from self to Christ, the heavenly Victor for perfect acceptance before the throne of God. With childlike simplicity he believed what God told him in His Word, not only that the work of Christ on the cross was accepted for him, but that he too was "accepted in the Beloved." (Eph. 1:6.)

Thus, you see, he knew from God's Word that Christ was his righteousness, and Christ his sanctification; and as to the glory of God being friendly, why, the effulgent brightness of that glory shines in the very face of the very Man who once "bore our sins in His own body on the tree." (2 Cor. 4:6.)

What a trumpet-tongued witness is this, that those sins are forever put away from before the eye of God!

Well, dear Christian reader, this same Lord Jesus is soon coming again, and then once more shall we meet our dear brother shining in the fair beauty of Christ Himself. Oh, what a prospect! No wonder the believer's heart leaps within him at the thought of it.

But "what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel?" "If the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?" Oh, reader, as the Lord liveth, and as thy soul liveth, there may be but a step between thee and death. And don't forget that if death finds thee in thy sins, judgment also will find thee in thy sins, and an eternity in the lake of fire will be the never-ending end of thy guilty history. As God is true, hell is the certain doom of the unrepentant. Oh, why will ye die? God waits to be gracious still. Geo. C.

MOTTO FOR 1888:-"For to me, to live is Christ,"

"And he put all upon Aaron's hands, and upon his sons hands, and waved them for a wave-offering before the Lord. And Moses took them from off their hands, and burnt them on the altar upon the burnt-offering; they were consecrations for a sweet savor; it is an offering made by fire unto the Lord." (Lev. 8:27, 28.)

It has been often remarked that "consecration" in this passage is filling the hand. Aaron and his sons are practically consecrated to God by the putting into their hands the fat and shoulder of the ram, with cakes and wafer of the meat- (or meal-) offering, and waving them for a wave-offering before the Lord. Then they are taken and burnt upon the altar as a sweet savor.

Before this, and in order to it, we must remember, they have been washed (these priests) in water, and sprinkled with the blood of sacrifice; and this has been put upon the tip of the right ear, the thumb of the right hand, and the great toe of the right foot. Even so must we, if we are to be priests
to God, be washed with the " washing of regeneration," and have our "hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience," being set apart to Him as His by the power of the same cleansing blood which has bought us, that we should be no more our own. Thus cleansed from sin, and become the servants of God, we have our fruit unto holiness and the end everlasting life.

As priests, our occupation is with the holy things; and this practical consecration is just occupation. All Christians are priests to God, and it is our business to attend to these things. The hand, in the type before us, speaks of all our activities, our labor. The ear is that by which we receive instruction; the foot speaks of our individual walk before God; but the hand is that by which we lay hold of things around, and mold and transform them. By the hand, man shows himself the natural vicegerent of God upon earth; and thus, while the ear and foot have been equally set apart to Him by the blood of atonement, the hand it is now that is to be filled for consecration:we are to be taught our business. Blessed be God, it is indeed true that-

"With Him is all our business now."

Some one may object, indeed, that in saying this we go much too far. Our circumstances in the world will not allow of any thing like this; indeed, it is our mere secular employment that we habitually call our "business." And it is true that as Christians, alas! we not only pick up the language of the world, but sanction its thoughts. Nevertheless, it is also plainly true, and easily to be proved from Scripture, that the Christian's business is with Christ. No less than Paul's is our motto to be, "To me to live is Christ;" and what does that mean, except that all that makes up our life-the whole business of our life is Christ?

By this it is not denied at all, as it would be absurd and impossible to deny, that each one of us has his earthly calling, duties to fulfill which carry us into the world, and require a large part of our time to be spent in their discharge. We have families to provide for, and that is often a work of much toil, yet "he that provideth not for his own, specially for those of his own house, has denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel." Christianity loses sight of none of these claims, but enforces them all upon us:they are as many as our links of connection with other men ; every link is a responsibility ; every responsibility toward man a responsibility to God also.

This is sufficiently solemn; and it is nothing but a misuse of grace to make it lessen for us its solemnity. Life is full of seriousness; the more serious our sense of it the better.

Yet while "all things are full of labor," as the preacher says, and the Christian does not escape from this, yet "Labor not for the meat that perisheth" is the Lord's own word to us; a word of simpler meaning than we may have apprehended in it. For, in truth, we are never to labor for the perishing food, but are privileged rather to labor for Him who has appointed our path, and to whom our duty is. Our duty thus becomes to us that yoke of Christ which is easy, and in which we find rest. Our business is with Him:its recompense from Himself; and if we had to toil ten or more hours a day for Him, would it be a spiritual weight to drag us down from communion with Him, or rather a service in which for all our need and in all our weakness His power and fullness should be more than sufficiency?

Alas ! for these Christless businesses in which self-will is rampant, and the "gain to me" is not "loss for Christ"! When shall we learn that there is no spot on earth in which there is not a battle between two forces? no course that we can take which is merely neutral between Christ and the world, between God and mammon? Here is a spiritual leprosy which pollutes the whole life and secularizes it:for if the business be secular, no part of the life can be kept sacred.

How significant a thing, then, is this priestly consecration, in which our hands are filled with Christ. Our hands are to wave before God the fat and the shoulder and the cakes of the meal-offering. We are to keep Him thus before God, presenting Him in the energy of His devotedness (the fat), in the burden-sustaining "shoulder," in the perfection of His life of holy balance and consistency in the power of the Holy Ghost. God is to see in us this memorial of His beloved Son, whatever we put our hand to; not merely an imitation of Him, but a devotedness derived from the apprehension of His, a power which is His strength made perfect in weakness,-a life, in short, which is but the life of Christ, developed by the power of the Spirit in us. For "out of His fullness have all we received, even grace upon grace."

Is it not of our priestly consecration we are reminded, when, from week to week, on the first day of the week, before its toil begins, we, as His disciples, come together to break bread? Is He not for faith put afresh into our hands, that we may receive Him in the place He has taken for us, and in occupation with Him begin again and again the henceforth of our lives? He thus claims possession of us every way, fills our eyes, our hands, makes Himself ours that we may be His, that henceforth whatever we look at, it may be Christ we see; whatever we handle, we may touch Christ in it. How sweet to be reminded ! how solemn the need of being thus reminded!

Christian reader, have you so learnt Christ? To see Him in every thing, find Him every where, have your whole business with Him, take in nothing any other yoke than His yoke? This is rest, liberty, power. To come short of it is distraction and confusion. "A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways."

" That I am Thine, my Lord and God,
Sprinkled and ransomed by Thy blood,-
Repeat that word once more,
With such an energy and light,
That this world's flattery nor spite
To shake me never may have power.

" From various cares my heart retires,
Though deep and boundless its desires ;
I 'm now to please but One :
Him, before whom the elders bow,
With Him is all my business now,
And with the souls that are His own.

" This is my joy that ne'er can fail,
To see my Saviour's arm prevail,
To mark the steps of grace ;
How new-born souls, convinced of sin,
His blood revealed to them within,
Extol the Lamb in every place.

"With these my happy lot is cast!
Through the world's deserts rude and waste,
Or through its gardens fair;
Whether the storms of trouble sweep,
Or all in dead supineness sleep,
Still to go on be all my care.

" See, the dear sheep by Jesus drawn
In blest simplicity move on ;
They trust His Shepherd's crook.
Beholders many faults may find,
But they can guess at Jesus' mind,
Content if written in His book.

" O all ye wise, ye rich, ye just,
Who the blood's doctrine have discussed,
And judge it weak and slight:
Grant that I may (the rest's your own)
In shame and poverty sit down
At this one well-spring of delight.

"Indeed, if Jesus ne'er was slain,
Or aught can make His ransom vain,
That now it heals no more,-
If His heart's tenderness has fled,
If of a Church He is not Head,
Nor Lord of all, as heretofore,

" Then,-so refers my state to Him,
Unwarranted I must esteem,
And wretched all I do.
Ah, my heart throbs, and seizes fast
The covenant that will ever last;
It knows, it knows, these things are true.

" No, my dear Lord, in following Thee,
And not in dark uncertainty,
This foot obedient moves :
'Tis with a Brother and a King,
Who many to His yoke will bring,
Who ever lives and ever loves.

" Now, then, my Way, my Truth, my Life,
Henceforth let sorrow, doubt, and strife
Drop off like autumn leaves;
Henceforth, as privileged by Thee,
Simple and undistracted be,
My soul which to Thy scepter cleaves.

" Let me my weary mind recline
On that eternal love of Thine,
And human thoughts forget;
Childlike, attend what Thou wilt say,
Go forth and do it while 'tis day,
Nor ever leave my sweet retreat.

"At all times to my spirit bear
An inward witness, soft and clear,
Of Thy redeeming power ;
This will instruct Thy child and fit,
Will sparkle forth whatever is mist,
For exigence of every hour.

"When all the sequel is well weighed,
I cast myself upon Thine aid,
A sea, where none can sink ;
Yea, in that sphere I stand, poor worm,
Where Thou wilt for Thy name perform
Above whatever I ask or think."

(Gambold.)

Q. 38.-"Can you give me some light on i Pet. 4:6?"

Ans.-It must be taken in connection with what immediately precedes it. The apostle has been speaking of the changed lives of the Christian converts, which exposed them to the reproaches of the Gentiles round; but they must give account to Him who was ready to judge both the living and the dead.

This leads him to speak, in the verse before us, of the uniform effect of the gospel wherever received, and in which they were one with all the saints departed. " For this cause was the gospel preached also to them that are dead :" not, as some have strangely imagined, who were dead when they were preached to, but who are now dead,-"that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit."

The gospel had for its necessary result the bringing out of all the ways and thoughts of natural men (men in the flesh). And this exposed its converts to the false judgment' of such men. But according to God in the spirit they then really and for the first time lived:they had true, divine life, recognized and approved by Him. In this, the living saints only followed in the steps of those passed away ; and, in the nature of things, the opposition on the part of men must be,-it was only the expression of the opposition between their former and their present lives. F.W.G.

There is nothing in which we so signally fail as in the cultivation of a confiding and thankful spirit."

"Our path through the desert is strewed with countless mercies; and yet let but a cloud the size of a man's hand appear on the horizon, and we at once forget the rich mercies of the past in view of this single cloud, which after all may only 'break in blessing on our head.'"

I cannot doubt but that much of that lack of deep, settled, habitual peace of Which so many complain is very justly traceable to the light and trifling habits of conversation in which they indulge,-to their reading of newspapers and other light works. Such things must grieve the Holy Spirit; and if the Holy Spirit is grieved, Christ cannot be enjoyed ; for it is the Spirit alone who, by the written Word, ministers Christ to the soul.

I do not mean to deny that very many feel this lack of peace who do not engage in such things. By no means; but I say that these things must necessarily be productive of much serious injury to our spiritual health, and must superinduce a sickly condition of soul, which is most dishonoring to Christ.

It may be that some who have long been accustomed to a so-called high teaching will turn away from such plain, practical principles as these. It will be pronounced legalism ; and the writer may be accused of seeking to bring people into a sort of bondage, and of casting them upon themselves. I can only say, God forbid. The opening statements of this paper should furnish a decisive answer to such an accusation. If it be legalism to direct attention to the matter of conversation, then it is the legalism of the epistle to the Ephesians ; for there we find that "foolish talking and jesting" are amongst the things which are not to be "once named among us, as becometh saints."* * The word which is rendered "jesting," takes in what is commonly called "wit," "humor," "punning," "repartee," and such like. It is well to remember this. The word " jesting" would let a great deal pass which should come under the edge of the original word, which is a compound of two Greek words, signifying, " to turn well."* Again, we read, " Let your conversation be always with grace, seasoned with salt." These are plain statements of Scripture-statements, moreover, found in immediate connection with some of the most elevated doctrines of inspiration; and it will be found, that where those plain statements are not allowed their full weight on the conscience, the higher truths are not enjoyed. I can neither enjoy nor walk worthy of my " high calling " if I am indulging in "foolish talking and jesting."

I quite admit the need of carefully avoiding all affected sanctimoniousness, or fleshly restraint. The sanctimoniousness of nature is fully as bad as its levity, if not worse. But why exhibit either the one or the other? The gospel gives us something far better. Instead of affected sanctimoniousness, the gospel gives us real sanctity; and instead of levity, it gives us holy cheerfulness. There is no need to affect any thing, for if I am feeding upon Christ, all is reality, without any effort. The moment there is effort, it is all perfect weakness. If I say I must talk about Christ, it becomes terrible bondage ; but if my soul is in communion, all is natural and easy, for "out of the" abundance of the heart the mouth speaks." It is said of a certain little insect, that it always exhibits the color of the leaf on which it feeds. So is it exactly with the Christian. It is very easy to tell what he is feeding upon.

But it may be said by some that " we cannot be always talking about Christ." I reply that just in proportion as we are led by an ungrieved Spirit will all our thoughts and words be occupied about Christ. We, if we are children of God, will be occupied with Him throughout eternity ; and why not now ? We are as really separated from the world now as we shall be then; but we do not realize it, because we do not walk in the Spirit.

It is quite true that in entering into the matter of a Christian's habit of conversation, one is taking low ground ; but then it is needful ground. It would be much happier to keep on the high ground ; but, alas ! we fail in this; and it is a mercy that Scripture and the Spirit of God meet us in our failure. Scripture tells us we are "seated in heavenly places, in Christ;" and it tells us also not "to steal." It may be said that it is low ground to talk to heavenly men about stealing ; yet it is Scripture-ground, and that is enough for us. The Spirit of God knew that it was not sufficient to tell us that we are seated in heaven; He also tells us how to conduct ourselves on earth; and our experience of the former will be evidenced by our exhibition of the latter. The walk here proves how I enter into my place there.

Hence, I may find in the Christian's walk a very legitimate ground on which to deal with him about the actual condition of his soul before God. If his walk is low, carnal, and worldly, it must be evident that he is not realizing his high and holy position as a member of Christ's body, and a temple of God.

Wherefore, to all who are prone to indulge in habits of light and trifling conversation or reading, I would affectionately but solemnly say, Look well to the general state of your spiritual health. Bad symptoms show themselves -certain evidences of a disease working within-a disease, it may be, mote or less affecting the very springs of vitality. Beware how you allow this disease to make progress. Betake yourself at once to the Physician, and partake of His precious balm. Your whole spiritual constitution may be deranged, and nothing can restore its tone save the healing virtues of what He has to give you.

A fresh view of the excellency, preciousness, and beauty of Christ is the only thing to lift the soul up out of a low condition. All our barrenness and poverty arises from our having let slip Christ. It is not that He has let us slip. No; blessed be His name, this cannot be. But, practically, we have let Him slip, and as a consequence, our tone has become so low, that it is at times difficult to recognize any thing of the Christian in us but the mere name. We have stopped short in our practical career. We have not entered as we should into the meaning of Christ's "cup and baptism;" we have failed in seeking fellowship with Him in His sufferings, death, and resurrection. We have sought the result of all these, as wrought out in Him; but we have not entered experimentally into them, and hence our melancholy decline, from which nothing can recover us but getting more into the fullness of Christ. C.H.M.

It's dreadful to live this way ! I do wonder why God doesn't answer your prayer and send you some work," said Mrs. Wilson,

"Are you hungry, wife? I'm sure I thought we had a good breakfast," responded John Wilson.

" But we've nothing for dinner ! "

"But it isn't dinner-time yet, my wife."

"Well, I must confess I'd like to know what we are to have just a little while before dinner-time."

" God has said our bread and water shall be sure, but He has not promised that we shall know before-hand where it's coming from."

" Father," said little Maggie, " do you suppose God knows what time we have dinner?"

"Yes, my dear child, I suppose He knows exactly that. I've done my best to get work, and I'll go out now and look about."

John Wilson went away to seek work, and spent that forenoon seeking vainly. God saw that here was a diamond worth polishing. He subjected His servant's faith to a strain, but it bore the test. I will not say that no questionings or painful thoughts disturbed the man as he walked homeward at noon. Four eager, hungry little children, just home from school, to find the table un-spread, and no dinner ready for them ; an aged and infirm parent, from whom he had concealed as far as possible all his difficulties and perplexities, lest he should feel himself a burden in his old age,-awakened to a realization that there was not enough for him and them,-these were not pleasant pictures to contemplate; and all through the weary forenoon Satan had been holding them up to his view, and it was only by clinging to the Lord, as drowning men cling to the rope that is thrown to them, that he was kept from utter despondency.

"Thou knowest, O Lord, that I've done my best to support my family. My abilities are small, but I've done my best. Now, Lord, I'm waiting to see Thy salvation. Appear for me ! Let me not be put to shame.

"' Increase my faith, increase my hope,
Or soon my strength will fail.' "

So he prayed in his own simple fashion as he walked along.

He drew near to his own door with something of shrinking and dread. But the children rushed out to meet him with joyous shouts.

" Come right in, father ; quick !We've got a splendid dinner all ready. We've been waiting for you, and we're fearfully hungry."
The tired steps quickened, and the strongly drawn lines in the weary face softened to a look of cheerful questioning, such as was oftenest seen there. He came in and stood beside his wife, who was leaning over the fire, dipping soup out of the big dinner-pot with a ladle.

"How is this, mother?" said he.

"Why, father! Mr. Giddings has been over from Bristol. He came just after you went out. And he says a mistake was made in your account last August, which he has just found out by accident; he owed you fifteen shillings more, and he paid it to me. So I–"

" I don't think it was by accident, though," said John Wilson," interrupting her.

" Do you think it was accident that sent us that money to-day, mother?" persisted the thankful man.

"No, I don't think so," said the wife, humbly; and I am thankful. You haven’t heard the whole, though. Mr. Giddings wants you next Monday for all the week, and he thinks for all summer."

The grace at the table was a long one, full of thanks and praise, but not even the youngest child was impatient at its length.

My dear suffering one, I can see only the Lord in all this which you are now passing through. I can see no enemy, no injustice of the creature, no triumph of evil, so brightly does the love and wisdom of God shine over it all.

God is perfecting that which concerns you; and these are His instruments of blessing to you, if accepted in His will and submitted to for His sake. He does not cause all this wrong-doing, but He overrules all, permits all, even causing the wrongdoing of others to be a ministry of good to His dear children. Has He not declared, and will He not perform? "No evil shall befall thee."-"All things work together for good." Did not Job say, (though all his affliction was directly from the hand of Satan, " The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away:blessed be the name of the Lord!" Never did there seem such triumph of the powers of darkness as when Christ was crucified and laid in the tomb. Thank God, things are not what they seem. It was the hour of God's victory; it was the overthrow of Satan's kingdom ; it gave to the world a risen Christ, who liveth for evermore.

Christ feared not to go by that way to accomplish the will of God. So, beloved, fear not to go by the way He is now leading you, even unto the death of self, reputation and all, that you may rise in all the life of God.

It is not for man to appoint his steps. God in His providence has brought you by this way; accept it as God's will to you; take it as the cup the Father offers you. " The cup which My Father giveth Me, shall I not drink it?"

The crucifixion of self, and the regulation of all right desires, can only be accomplished by true and perfect submission. The will is the essence of the body of self; and in order to have it brought into perfect harmony with God's will, we must submit to all the discipline of life as it comes to us in God's causative or permissive will. We, as consecrated children, must acknowledge all as from the Lord. Be patient:believe all things:wait for the end. God will let no enemy, no wrong, triumph over us. " And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God." (Rom. 8:28.)

" My happy soul, since it hath learned to die,
Hath found new life in Thine infinity." M.E.C.

As to the connection between psalm 1:1-3 and John 7:38, I think the first psalm is a delineation of the character, walk, and fruitfulness of the Lord Himself, the Man of God's delight. He neither walked in the counsels of the ungodly, nor stood in the way of sinners, nor sat in the seat of the scornful; but His delight was in the law of the Lord, and in it He meditated day and night, according to psalm 119:97-100. In Him God saw, and sets before us for our imitation, a Man whose delight it was to do His will as revealed in His law-1:e., the Word of God. Hence His fruitful-ness; for the secret and power of fruitfulness is subjection to God (Jno. 15:). But psalm 1:presents Him to us rather, I think, as the corn of wheat, yet abiding alone. He was indeed the tree planted by the river of water, in constant, unbroken communion with God, whose leaf faded not, and which brought forth His fruit in season. Every thing in Him delighted God. He said the right thing at the right time and in the right place. God says to us, See the Man who always pleases Me; and see Him-how He does it. He knows how and when to speak, how and when to be silent, even though Himself is defamed; He knows what to do and what not to do, when to go and when not to go, what to say and what not to say. He is neither an enthusiast nor a mere reasoner, neither elated by acclamations of praise nor dejected by the scorn and contempt of those who felt His majesty and their own inferiority. He is superior to the world, to man, to Satan; and without sin, His branches are richly loaded with the fruit that God delights in. This is the Man whose springs are in God, whose strength and sufficiency God is, and in whom God delights. But in all this strength and majesty, this rich fruitfulness in living connection with its source for man (God), He stood alone,- Himself could drink to the full from the fountain of all joy and strength, and through Him indeed came blessing to others. Still He was pent up- straightened, because He had a baptism withal to be baptized. Yet so fixed was His purpose to do the will of Him that sent Him, and to finish His work, that He could anticipate that work in its blessed results to others. He stands up in that the last great day of the feast (strange feast where were those who were athirst!), in which there was indeed the outward form of approach to the source of blessing and refreshment, but no real approach, (and the form without reality is the saddest kind of poverty,) and cries, " If any man thirst, let him come unto Me, and drink." If I mistake not, it is the only occasion (besides that on the cross) that He cries, as if the vehemence of His desire to impart blessing to those who are famishing for it while they are spending their labor for naught- as if that untellable burning love that yearned to give to the needy was only equaled in its vehemence and intensity by the intensity of the suffering that proved it to be stronger than death. " He that believeth on Me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water." I think the allusion here is to Isaiah 32:2, with possibly Isaiah 44:3. In the psalm, we have more the effect of the river in the fruitfulness of the Tree. It is planted by the water which nourishes it. In John 7:, it is the waters that are to flow out unchecked. The tree is always, I think, what the individual is in himself and for God; and that too, I think, in nature and under the law. Christ was fruitful there, but who else? The rivers of living water flowing out of the belly is what God does in grace for man and through man. It never existed before the exaltation of Christ. "This spake He of the Spirit, which they that believe on Him should receive; for as yet the Holy Ghost was not, because that Jesus was not yet glorified." It had never been before. It was not a tree bearing fruit to God, but God opening up all the floodgates of blessing to man through man,-first, through the obedient, humbled, and now exalted Man, and in connection with Him, those who believe. Notice, the Lord does not say that every one who would like to be a fruitful tree, and would like to bring forth something for God; but seeing the real poverty and need, He says, " If any man thirst, let him come unto Me, and drink," and he shall not only have what he needs for himself, but shall become a channel of richest blessing to others. W.W.

I.
" Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest." (Matt. 11:28.)

From sin and sins, dear Lord, I rest,-
Altar and Priest and Sacrifice Thou art;
By law and sin no more oppressed,
I share in Thy beatitude a part.
My yesterdays are covered by Thy blood ;
To-day, my only shelter is Thy power;
To-morrow, Thou wilt be as strong and good
As in the past most gracious hour.

II.

"Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me; for I am meek and lowly in heart; and ye shall find rest unto your souls."(5:29.)

I rest by serving at Thy will,-
Thy yoke is easy, and Thy burden light;
And peace grows deep, and deeper still,
As my obedience proves Thy might.
I hold my powers alone for Thee,-
Use them in loving errands of Thy grace;
And calm me, though I may not see
Thy methods, as before Thy face.

III.

"There remaineth, therefore, a rest to the people of God.'' (Heb. 4:9.)

And yet the noblest rest remains
In sweet reserve for hope and love;
It hath no place for sighs or pains,
'Tis kept a glad surprise above.
Oh, rest untroubled and serene,
In Thy bright presence, spotless Lamb !
Fit me each day, by every scene,
For robe and harp, for crown and palm.

Stone

THE ADDRESSES TO THE CHURCHES. (Continued)

Thyatira:the Reign of the World-Church. (Rev. 2:18-29.-Continued.)

Rome it surely is, drawn with the few bold strokes of a master-pencil,-Rome as the Lord Himself sees and judges it. Good it is, and necessary, to take our estimate of her from the Word of God itself rather than from the judgments of men, shifting and unstable as they have ever proved. The judgment of God abides, and the day that is coming will only affirm its decisions, unutterably solemn as indeed they are. How dare we indulge the false liberality so common in this day in presence of the awful threatenings of the passage before us ?

" And I gave her space to repent of her fornication, and she repented not. Behold, I will cast her into a bed, and them that commit adultery with her into great tribulation, except they repent of her deeds. And I will kill her children with death; and all the churches shall know that I am He that searcheth the reins and hearts; and I will give to every one of you according to your works."

Thus the pitiless persecutor of God's people shall find sure doom from His hand at last; and with that judgment all heaven will be in sympathy:"I heard as it were the voice of a great multitude in heaven, saying, 'Halleluiah! Salvation and glory and power unto the Lord our God, for true and righteous are His judgments; for He hath judged the great whore, which did corrupt the earth with her fornication, and hath avenged the blood of His servants at her hand.' And again they said,' Halleluiah !' And her smoke riseth up forever and ever."

No true charity can possibly soften down the terms of divine judgment here pronounced, but will rather echo the call of mercy in the meantime:" Come out of her, My people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues."

Yet it is quite possible to judge Rome without hesitation, and to partake, nevertheless, in what are the works of Rome. We must remember, therefore, that Rome is the " mother of harlots and abominations of the earth." Principles can be received and followed which are essentially Romish, while we reject the full development of them in the canons of the Council of Trent or the creed of Pope Pius IV. The features of popery, if carefully noted here, will often be found under the guise of Protestantism. And there is a tendency in them to reproduce themselves together. Take Irvingism, in which, in the most startling manner, all the doctrines of popery (without the pope) have sprung up into a precocious maturity:and here, even the claim of infallibility is found though the pope is not:there is the voice of the woman calling herself a prophetess, whether the woman's name be " Jezebel" or not.

But in modified forms, the features of Rome may be found where there is no pretension to infallibility, and none at all to worldly supremacy for the Church as such. Wherever the teaching of the Church is maintained as authoritative, though it be over a body of Christians who make no claims to catholicity, or to succession after the Romish manner, and who do not propose to add to the Word of God, but to be guided by it,-still, even here the voice of the woman is heard, although the woman's name be certainly not " Jezebel." Yet here, not only the churches of the Reformation, but all churches almost, stand. Nay, it is considered even that there is no sure guarantee for orthodoxy where this is not so. And indeed it cannot be denied that the abolition of creeds has been very often loudly urged by those who desired latitude as to the most positive doctrines of the Word itself. The deniers of eternal punishment have contended for it; the men who put the inspiration of Scripture on the same footing with the inspiration of Shakespeare; the people who to retain Christianity must leave out Christ. All these, in their various pleas against the stiffness of a creed that they refused, have furnished the most convincing arguments for its necessity. Nor do I now propose to deal with these arguments ; they will come before us properly elsewhere. It is nevertheless true that, according to Scripture, the Church never teaches. God teaches by His Spirit, and the one authoritative teaching is that of the inspired Word,-truly authoritative, because absolute truth itself. This much is true in Jezebel's false claim, that infallible teaching alone can demand obedience, as alone it can implicit faith. Allow that the guide may lead astray, and how can you require men to follow her? " If the blind lead the blind, shall they not both fall into the ditch?"

But the creeds are to be submitted to because they may be proved by Scripture, " by most certain arguments," it is said. Well, if Scripture be so certain and so authoritative, what need of any thing else? I believe indeed that it is certain and all-sufficient, and thus the argument proves too much. Why seek to make certain what is already so, or give authority to what is already and only authoritative? In so doing, Scripture is dishonored in the very method by which you would honor it. Its own testimony is, that it is "given by inspiration of God, and profitable for doctrine, for correction, for reproof, for instruction in righteousness; that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works." But the authoritatively imposed creed actually takes away the appeal to Scripture, becoming itself the only permissible appeal. If there be error in the creed, it will have to be maintained as carefully as the truth in it. If there be defect in the creed, the Scripture cannot be allowed even to supplement it. It is, in short, completely displaced from its rightful supremacy over men. The conscience is not allowed to be before God, and the most godly are just those who will be forced most into opposition against the human rule thus substituted for the divine.

This we shall have to look at further at another time, however. But it is evident that Jezebel is right thus far, in that she connects her right of rule over the people of God with the infallibility of the prophetess. She displays, however, the falsity of her pretension by her refusal to submit her claims in this respect to be judged by that which she owns herself to be the Word of God. Her infallibility must not be tested, but received:whereas Scripture itself, with a claim no less absolute, on that very account submits to every possible test, assured that the more complete the test, the more will this claim be manifested and made good. The true coin fears not the test which would at once expose the counterfeit. Faith in Rome is credulity and superstition only:faith in Scripture is intelligent, reasonable, and open-eyed.

In Scripture, the Church does not teach at all. The prophets speak, and the rest "judge." The Word itself is the rule by which all is judged, and the conscience is kept directly in the presence of God Himself. All are exercised as to what is spoken:they are to take heed what they hear, as well as how they hear. This exercise is necessary to maintain the soul in vigor and in dependence. Vigilance, the constant habit of reference to God, and walking before Him are to be ever emphasized and insisted on. We tend continually to follow human authorities and traditional teachings, which God has continually to break through for us, sending us afresh to His Word, that our faith may not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. Thus alone true spiritual health is realized and preserved.

Church teaching is one mark, then, of what in Rome has only come to full maturity. The seed is scattered widely, and found in the most diverse places. Another thing often to be met with independently is yet, quite similarly to this, the germ of what is fully developed only in Rome. This is, the claim for the Church of rightful supremacy over the world.

In Rome, it is outspoken and defiant. Jezebel reigns as a queen, and is no widow, and shall see no sorrow. With her foot upon the necks of kings, she can apply to herself the words which belong to Christ,-" Thou shalt tread upon the lion and the adder; the young lion and the dragon Thou shalt trample underfoot." This needs, of course, no comment ; but how many are there, on the other hand, who sincerely believe that Christians should have their place in the government of the world,-nay, should control it! Who, in fact, so fitted? and what could be so desirable for the world itself?

They do not see that the world is never to be subject to Christ until He take possession of it with the rod of iron; that Satan is its prince and god, never to be cast out until the Lord comes Himself from heaven; that the world remains, therefore, in steadfast opposition to what is of God, and Christianity, if it root itself in it, only becomes corrupted by it, and not its purifier. The yoke with unbelievers, which these principles of necessity bring about, is what at the start forfeits for the child of God the enjoyment of the child's proper place. " For what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? or what communion hath light with darkness ? or what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an unbeliever ? and what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? For ye are the temple of the living God, as God hath said,' I will dwell in them and walk in them, and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. Wherefore come out from among them, and be separate; and touch not the unclean thing, and I will receive you, and will be a Father to you; and ye shall be My sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.' "

In Jezebel, the full maturity of these principles is reached, and the Church attains its rule over the world; but in so doing, it has entirely changed its character. It is no longer the true Church, but the false, although in historical succession with the true. The world's principles have leavened it; it shelters the unclean "birds of the air," the followers of the " prince of the power of the air;" the true followers of Christ are hunted down and destroyed ; and their only hope is here the coming of the Lord Himself, which now for the first time in these addresses becomes the Star of promise. " But unto you I say, even unto the rest in Thyatira, as many as have not this doctrine, and which have not known the depths of Satan, as they speak; I will put upon you none other burden:but that which ye have already hold fast till I come. And he that overcometh, and keepeth My works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations:and he shall rule them with a rod of iron; as the vessels of a potter shall they be broken to shivers; even as I received of My Father. And I will give him the morning star."

Here is, plainly, the attitude of faith declared in contrast with Jezebel's claim of rule. Rule! yes, we are to have it when the Lord comes,-not before. The reign of the saints is to be with Christ, and although it is true that He now reigns, it is upon the Father's throne-a throne which cannot be shared with men. It is impossible, therefore, that Christians can reign now. When as Son of Man He takes His own throne, then indeed they shall be associated with Him. This is in the promise to the overcomer in Laodicea:"To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with Me in My throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with My Father in His throne."

It is in that day the rod of iron will be in His hands, which, as we see here, He promises to share with His people. This is a direct reference to the second psalm, where Christ is seen, as in the purpose of God, "set" upon the "holy hill of Zion." It is not a heavenly, but an earthly, throne. And thereupon Christ's own voice is heard declaring the decree which establishes Him in possession of the earth:" I will declare the decree; the Lord hath said unto Me, ' Thou art My Son, this day have I begotten Thee. Ask of Me, and I will give Thee the heathen for Thine inheritance, the uttermost parts of the earth for Thy possession.'" This is often quoted to show the gradual spread of the gospel over the earth, but how, in fact, is Christ's claim upon the nations to be made good? "Thou shalt rule them with a rod of iron; Thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel."

This is plainly not the grace of the gospel. It is as plainly the exercise of the power in which He associates the saints with Himself. It is again referred to, when in the nineteenth chapter of this book the white-horsed Rider, whose name is called the Word of God, comes forth from heaven, attended by His armies, to the judgment of the nations banded still, as in the second psalm, "against the Lord and against His Christ." " And out of His mouth goeth a sharp, two-edged sword, that with it He should smite the nations, and He shall rule them with a rod of iron, and He treadeth the wine-press of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God."

Thus the time of this rule is fixed definitely, and its character it would seem impossible to mistake. Till then, "overcoming" is in patience and long-suffering, keeping Christ's works unto the end.

But the promise of the morning-star goes beyond this, even; and we must look at it with corresponding attention. We have here the Lord's own interpretation, and in the same book. When the whole roll of prophecy has been unfolded and come to an end, He returns to explain to us this significant word. "I Jesus have sent Mine angel to testify unto you these things in the churches. I am the Root and the Offspring of David, and the bright and Morning-Star" The Revelation, and thus the New-Testament as a whole, closes with this announcement. It is striking, therefore, to find the Old Testament closing, in Malachi, with a contrasted announcement, which yet applies to the same glorious Speaker, who thus takes His place in connection with the promises of both parts of the Word. The Old Testament, with its earthly promises, closes with this:" Unto you that fear My name shall the Sun of Righteousness arise with healing in His wings." The New Testament, with its heavenly promises, speaks, not of the Sun of Righteousness, but of the Morning-Star.

The Old-Testament promise may seem the fuller thing. It is more to have the sun rise, surely, one would say, than the morning-star,-to have the day than the promise of the day. And this is true from the Old-Testament point of view:the star shines out of heaven, does not brighten the earth at all; but in its own sphere it is bright nevertheless. And this is the key to its New-Testament use. The Star shines its welcome for us out of those heavenly places in which our blessings as Christians are. Christ is coming to bring the day to the whole earth. The glory of the Lord, like the solar radiance, is going to cover it, as the waters cover the sea. It shall rise upon Israel, and the Gentiles come to the light, and kings to the brightness of its rising. But before this, our eyes shall have beheld Him; and when this comes, our higher, better place shall be already with Him. For His promise to us is, " I will come again, and receive you unto Myself, that where I AM,"-in His own eternal home,- "there ye may be also."

How beautiful this reminder, then, here, where the glitter of earthly rule and dignity seeks to attract and ensnare the saints of God! Like the Lord's words to the seventy when they returned to Him again with joy, saying, " Lord, even the devils are subject unto us through Thy name! " With His face toward the very scenes of which we have been speaking, He replies, " I saw Satan as lightning fall from heaven! Behold, I give you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy; and nothing shall by any means hurt you. Notwithstanding,"-and here is the parallel so complete,-"in this rejoice not, that the spirits are subject unto you, but rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven"

Though our reign be over the earth, and when He appears we shall appear with Him in glory, yet our " mansions"-our abiding-places, as the word means,-are not on earth, but in the Father's house, of which the temple, with its "patterns of things in the heavenlies," was the type and presentation upon earth. "My Father's house" was Christ's name for the temple. This had its temporary apartments for the priests, as they came up in their courses to fulfill their service at Jerusalem. And is it not in designed contrast that our Lord designates our places in the Father's house above, not as temporary, but abiding-places? To "abide," "continue," is one of the characteristic words in John's gospel, and it is in perfect harmony with the gospel of Christ's deity that it should be so; all that belongs to Deity abides ; and _here, in the place of the presence of God, are our not temporary but eternal abodes.

But " the Morning-Star " is more than our abode. The abode we shall have, to enjoy it, but Himself it is we are called to enjoy, "I am the bright and Morning-Star." "Father, I will also that those whom Thou hast given Me be with Me where I am; that they may behold My glory, which Thou hast given Me; for Thou lovedst Me before the foundation of the world."

How blessed to be forever where this glory is displayed, and where the eye will be perfect to let in the light! " We know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is." And in order to see Him as He is, we must be like Him. The passage is often read the reverse way; as if it were the sight of Him that would change us into His likeness:but I do not believe that to be the thought. The truth is, that as we must have the divine nature to know God, so we must be in Christ's moral image to apprehend Him. Man knows man by reason of the common nature; here, where all obstruction is at last removed, and we enter into life as our abiding and exclusive condition,-the " body of death" gone forever,-here we shall be at last face to face with Christ indeed. And this will seal and perfect the blessedness of a life always in us essentially dependent. We shall still and ever, now with no inner obstruction to prevent its realization, be "complete" (or "filled full") "in Him."

The Morning-Star anticipates the day, and we shall be gathered up to Christ before He appears for the judgment yet deliverance of the earth. Then, those who have suffered will reign with Him. When judgment shall return to righteousness,- the rod, no longer a serpent, returns to the hand of that great Shepherd of whom Moses was but the fore-shadow,-we shall be with Him, to take joyful part in that" restitution of all things " which He comes to effect. When the Sun of Righteousness arises, " then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun, in the kingdom of their Father." The rod will then be the irresistible " rod of iron," but how beneficent shall be its sway! " Then, judgment shall dwell in the wilderness, and righteousness remain in the fruitful field; and the work of righteousness shall be peace; and the effect of righteousness, quietness and assurance forever. And My people shall dwell in a peaceable habitation, and in sure dwellings, and in quiet resting-places." For now, as never yet, " a King shall reign in righteousness, and princes shall rule in judgment. And a Man shall be as a hiding-place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest; as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land."

The word, then, to the overcomer is, " Hold fast till I come!" The night-watch is not over; nor will the failed Church recover itself. The watchword of comfort is, " Until I come." The true are but a remnant, and Rome's catholicity is but a decisive proof of the general departure. Revivals there may be, but no return. Good it is for those who accept humbly the lesson, which stains forever the glory of man. "The corruption of the best thing is the worst corruption." We have had God's "best thing" nearly two thousand years in hand:what have we done with it? Shall we do better now? It is easy to judge Rome; to judge, in Rome, our own utter and ruinous failure, is that to which God calls, and in which alone blessing is. Then, blessed be God, the Morning-Star rises in the darkened sky:"At midnight there was a cry made, ' Behold, the Bridegroom! go ye out to meet Him.'" " He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches!" F.W.G.

The more spiritual the soul is, the more prayer-ful it will be, because it is then the most occupied in heart and desire about the things of God. Our prayers will be few and feeble if our walk with God be of a low character. If we have narrow views of God and His purposes, our prayers will be also narrow and confined. If we are unstable, unbelieving, and unspiritual, our prayers may return unanswered. Faith, a good conscience, a large heart, knowledge of the mind and will of God, and a sense of our utter weakness, are the proper prerequisites of prayer. Not many words are needed:the desires of the Spirit in our hearts, with groanings that cannot be uttered, God will attend to. He that searcheth the heart, and knoweth the mind of the Spirit, will give heed to the feeblest cry. It is far more important to consider the condition of our souls, and the truthfulness of our requests, than the mode of utterance or form of speech. In prayer, we have to do with the divine ear, and not with man's.

Alpha and Omega, Advocate above,
Jesus, precious Saviour ! how Thy grace we prove !
Thou art God's Beloved, Bridegroom to Thine own;
All our hearts' affections to Thyself are won.

Christ, the Lord's Anointed, and our Captain Thou,
Unto Thee in glory every knee shall bow ;
Day-star of the morning, day-spring from on high,
How we long to see Thee, in whom we're made nigh !

Thou art Life Eternal, God revealed below;
Thy blest name, " Emanuel," 'tis our joy to know.
Now, as Man Thou art risen, First-fruits from the grave,
All Thy work completed, mighty now to save.

God's great gift for sinners, Guide to heaven's home,
Rock of our salvation, precious Corner-Stone !
On this firm foundation safely now we rest
Till we stand before Thee, in Thy presence blest.

Thou our Head in heaven, we Thy members here,
To Thine own blest Person ever keep us near.
Jesus, we would follow whither Thou dost lead;
Thou, our loving Shepherd, all thy sheep dost feed.

Image of the Father, light and life and love,
Lamb of God, once wounded, seated now above,
Unto Thee the praises of our hearts arise
As the grateful savor of the sacrifice.

" Nazarene," men called Thee, when on earth below
Thou didst stoop in mercy all our griefs to know;
High Thou art exalted on the Father's throne,
Righteousness established, all Thy work well done.

Refuge and Redeemer, Prince of life, Thou art,
In Thy loving-kindness we've with Thee a part.
Though the world reject Thee, soon Thou will come again,
On the clouds of glory, o'er the earth to reign.

Once the Man of Sorrows, and with thorns then crowned,
Man shall own Thy scepter wheresoever found;
Then Thy fair creation, from the curse set free,
Shall enjoy Thy favor, giving praise to Thee.
But, our blessed Saviour, we who know Thy name
Even now can worship, and Thy praise proclaim :
Everlasting glory, Lord, to Thee we give ;
Thou alone art worthy,-Thou in whom we live.

When in Thy blest presence low we bow the knee,
We shall praise Thee fully through eternity,
While with growing rapture we Thy grace explore,
And with satisfaction ever Thee adore.
Amen! and Amen!

C.E.B.

THE ADDRESSES TO THE CHURCHES. (Continued)

Thyatira:the Reign of the World-Church, (Rev. 2:18-29.)

Our course has been hitherto continually downward. The church to which we have now come forms no exception to this rule, and in a certain sense it is the end of the course that we reach in it. In Thyatira, our eyes are no more toward the past, but toward the future-the coming of the Lord:there is no more the call to repentance and doing the first works; the word is now, " I gave her space to repent, and she did not repent." The opportunity of repentance is therefore over:henceforth there can only be judgment-judgment which has accumulated terribly during the long delay:" I will cast her into a bed, and them that commit adultery with her into great tribulation, except they repent of her works; and I will kill her children with death."

But on this account we find a remnant in Thyatira distinguished from that upon which judgment is to fall; a remnant guilty indeed for their toleration of what the Lord has devoted to destruction, but which He cannot for a moment confound, nevertheless, with it. This remnant is exhorted to hold fast until He comes. "And to him that over-cometh, and keepeth My works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations, and he shall rule them with a rod of iron; as the vessels of a potter shall they be broken to pieces, even as I received of My Father; and I will give him the morning star."

We have reached, then, in this line, the final development, as I have said. Thyatira goes on, substantially, unchanged until the coming of the Lord.

What, then, is the character of Thyatira? It is characterized by the suffering of one who calls herself a prophetess,-that is, claims for herself divine inspiration,-and who by her name, Jezebel, carries us back to the idolatry of the worst days of Israel, and the bitter persecution of the saints and servants of God by her who, stranger as she was, exercised royal authority in the midst of the professed people of the Lord. "And she teacheth and seduceth My servants to commit fornication, and to eat things sacrificed to idols."

We have already compared the opening parables of the thirteenth of Matthew with the first three of these addresses to the Asiatic churches, and we cannot but be here most powerfully impressed with the appearance of the " woman" alike in the fourth parable of this series and the fourth address to which we have come. It is a new figure in each case. When we come to examine it, we are made to realize without any doubt that the two women are in fact but one. And that in spite of various and discordant interpretations which have been given to these passages. Let us look, then, first at the parable, and then compare it with our Revelation chapter. They are both the words of our Lord Himself. "

Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened."
The common interpretation of this we are all familiar with. It is applied to the universal spread and final triumph of the gospel, which, diffusive as leaven in its nature, is thus to make its way among the nations of the earth, and subject them to its beneficent influence. And at first sight there is much plausibility in this view. It may be urged for it that if the kingdom of heaven be like unto leaven, this settles the question of the leaven itself as to be taken in a good sense, and then undoubtedly it is the kingdom which spreads throughout the world. But a brief examination will assuredly remove all the appearance of truth in this, and force upon us an entirely different conclusion from the common one.

In the first place, to meet the strongest point of the argument:-is the kingdom of heaven here intended to find its symbol in the leaven itself? At first sight, it may be granted that it seems so, but if we compare the style of similar parables, we shall more than hesitate to assert this. To take the second parable of the same chapter, is the kingdom of heaven meant to find its likeness in the Sower of the good seed ? or rather, is it not in the whole story of the different seed, and of the issue ? Again, in the fifth, if the treasure hid in the field be the kingdom, and not the man who finds it,-yet in the sixth it would be not the pearl itself, but the man who finds it.

The truth is, it is the whole parable that is the likeness, and not any one point in it; and then also this does not decide that the meaning shall be good rather than bad:for the kingdom is not as it will be-set up in power and in the hands of Him whose right it is, but as now with the King absent, intrusted to the hands of others. Thus, while men sleep, the enemy can sow his tares among the wheat, and the proof is conclusive that in the first three parables there is a progressive growth of evil:the first showing the partial failure of the good seed; the second, the success of the bad seed, the enemy's work; the third, the tree-like worldly power which results from the sowing of the least of all seeds; and the fowls of the air, the evil powers of the first parable, securely lodged within it. If, then, the fourth parable shows the universal spread of the gospel, the whole course of things is changed, and the most perplexing contradiction arises, not only to the view presented in what goes before, but also to the view given by Scripture as a whole.

On the other hand, simply interpret Scripture by Scripture, and not only is there consistency throughout, but there is found a definiteness and precision of meaning which is itself a convincing proof of its truth. Every part of the parable becomes full of light. We have not, as before, to omit or interpret at hazard essential features of it, (as the three measures of meal, for instance,) and to claim in defense of it that "no parable goes on all fours," though this may be really true, instinct as it is with a life higher than bestial, as with a spirit more than human.

There should be no question that the key of the parable has been rightly found in the second chapter of Leviticus. The "three measures of meal" refer to the "fine flour" of the meal-offering, as the Revised Version very well styles it, into which the leaven was never to be put (Lev. 2:11). The essential point is, that the woman is doing what was expressly forbidden to be done. This at once brings the similitude of the kingdom here into harmony with what has gone before. The process of deterioration which we see going on in the first three only assumes in the fourth a character of more decided evil. For the meal-offering is Christ the bread of life, the food of the priestly people of God, and the mixture of the leaven means the adulteration of Christ as this at the hands of the woman, the professing church.

We must, for its importance, look at this more closely, however. And here the feast of unleavened bread, so peremptorily insisted on in connection with the passover-feast, shows at once the perfect familiarity of the figure to the mind of the Jews whom our Lord was here addressing, and the way in which it could scarcely fail to be apprehended by them. Leaven in meal was to them undoubtedly a thing of evil significance and not of good. The positive word, " For whosoever eateth leavened bread from the first day until the seventh day, that soul shall be cut off from Israel" (Ex. 12:15), was well known and rigidly held by the mass of the people in our Lord's day. The ordinance as to the meal-offering was scarcely less familiar to them, and the prohibition of leaven in any offering to the Lord made with fire was very clear in attaching to leaven as a type the thought of evil abhorrent to the Holy One.

The general use of leaven in Scripture, it is allowed, perfectly corresponds with this. There is no exception, if it be not found in the passage be-before us; and here, the connection of the parable with what precedes necessitates an evil significance.

But there is a specific application of the figure by the Lord Himself, and in this gospel which defines it in a way completely in agreement with the parable before us:He applies it to "the doctrine of the Pharisees and Sadducees" (chap. 16:12).

Now Christ as the food of our souls is ministered to us in the way of doctrine. The Word is constantly, in Scripture, spoken of as food to be eaten, or appropriated by faith to the personal need. Christ is the " Truth," and in the truth we apprehend Him. The doctrine of the Pharisees and Sadducees is error presented in its common types of an external and self-righteous formalism, or of an unbelieving rationalism. The leaven in either case is the rejection of Christ as God presents Him and as faith enjoys Him. If to these we add what in the gospel of Mark(8:15) is added-" the leaven of Herod," or the court-party, then we have fully the great triumvirate of evil-the flesh, the devil, and the world-as corrupting influences of the truth of Christ.

But why "three measures" of meal? Upon any other interpretation of the meal, I know not. We find the same thing in the provision made by Abram for his heavenly guests; and both there and here, if we see Christ before us, it is not hard to realize the meaning. It is the Son of Man who gives us the "meat which endureth unto everlasting life;" as man, He becomes our necessary food:but what is the measure of the " Man, Christ Jesus " ? Three is the divine measure, the number of the Trinity-of the fullness of God; and " in Him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily." Lesser or lower measure would not fit the truth presented to us here.

Into these " three measures of meal" the woman, then, is putting leaven. But who is the woman? Undoubtedly the Church is in Scripture symbolized by a woman, and this whether it be the true or the nominal professing body, which so readily passes into the shape of the woman " Babylon," the false church of this book of Revelation. Between these two, in view of the other features of the parable, there is not the least difficulty in deciding as to which is before us. In the preceding parable, we have already found the Babylonish character,- the kingdom of heaven, becoming in its earthly administration of the pattern of the kingdoms of the world, the figure of the tree corresponding specifically, moreover, to that under which the power of Nebuchadnezzar is depicted. Thus here it is the reigning world-church, which as possessing empire must make its laws and promulgate its doctrines. Necessarily the leaven comes then into the meal. All features cohere in a picture startling in its vividness.
The woman has in her hands the doctrine of Christ-the Christian doctrine; she has authority over it; she can knead and mold it at her will ; she can add her traditions, her unwritten law, equal in authority to the written Word; she can interpret and fix its meanings. Here is the leaven:it is the leaven of Church-teaching, the essential error which wherever found, in whatever modified forms, quenches the Spirit of God, deforms and mutilates the Word of God, gives the conscience another master than the Lord Jesus Christ, and does all this cunningly in His name and by His authority, so that the souls of His people even bow to the forged decrees and shudder at the thought of resistance. For this is " Mystery, Babylon the Great, the Mother of harlots and abominations of the earth;" and her merchants are the great men of the earth, and by her sorceries are all nations deceived.

Turn we now to this other picture that we have in the address to Thyatira,-a picture by the same master-hand,-and put side by side the woman of the fourth parable and the woman Jezebel of the fourth Asiatic church. Who will deny that they are one? This Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, and teaches and seduces Christ's servants to commit fornication and eat things sacrificed to idols, is she any other than the leaven-hiding woman of the parable " writ large"? or than the woman Babylon of the later character? But we will take up the address in its due order; we will listen to Christ's words as the Spirit of truth has given them to us; we would not miss the least detail, or the impression that the "due order" should make upon us.

" And unto the angel of the church in Thyatira write, These things saith the Son of God, who hath His eyes like unto a flame of fire, and His feet are like fine brass." It is no longer, as in Pergamos, " He that hath the sharp sword with two edges." That sword is the Word of God as the word of penetrating judgment; for " the word that I have spoken," says the Lord, "the same shall judge [him that receiveth them not,] at the last day " (Jno. 12:48). And so, in the nineteenth chapter of this book, men are slain with the sword proceeding out of His mouth.

But in the meanwhile the Word precedes and anticipates this judgment, and in Pergamos it is still there to appeal to, to warn of coming wrath, to separate between joints and marrow, and soul and spirit, and bring men into the presence of Him with whom we have to do, before whom all things are naked and opened. Plenty of perverters of the Word there are too in Pergamos, as we have seen; but the Word is also there witnessing for itself against them. In Thyatira it remains no longer:we hear of Jezebel's doctrine, and the word of the living prophets, clearer and more decisive, as her followers claim, has superseded practically the Scriptures. With the Church's word men may be more safely trusted than with the word of God.

Thus it is no more " He that hath the sharp sword with two edges," but the "Son of God," who has to assert His authority as a divine Being over the Church, rising into a sphere where she dare not pretend to be. With Him alone are the " eyes as a flame of fire," the really infallible and holy insight, which the "feet like fine brass" accompany with irresistible judgment.

And He needs to assert His claim, for she who claims to be His bride, in her own self-assertion, is doing what she can to lower it. She has taken the grace of His incarnation to subject Him to His human mother; or if she remember His divine title, it is to raise Mary into the " Mother of God." Systematically Rome degrades Him amid a crowd of saintly mediators and intercessors with God, all more accessible than Himself, foremost of whom is this "queen of heaven" with her woman's heart, more tender than His!
Here, then, He speaks as Son of God to those who would confound the Church's authority with His. Has she His eyes of fire ? Has she His feet of brass? If that which she binds on earth is bound in heaven, will she bind with her decrees the throne of God itself? Will His all-conscious wisdom stutter in her infant's speech? or His holiness attach itself to error and frailty and sin ? . It is well known, and shortly to come before us, how Rome escapes from such perplexity; and it is safe to assert there is no other way. But to all asserters of Church-authority alike, the Lord here maintains His distinctive place. He alone is the "Son of God" in a place unapproachable by His people, and His glory will He not give to another. He alone is the governing Head; the Church His body, in a wondrous relationship to Him as that, but perfectly distinct and wholly subject.

As "Son of God," also, He now sits upon the throne-His Father's throne,-that of pure deity, which no creature could possibly share. His words to Laodicea afterward bring out the force of the assertion here,-" To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with Me in My throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with My Father in His throne" (chap. 3:21). As Son of man the apostle has seen Him in the vision with which the book commences; as Son of man He will presently take a throne which He can share with men, His redeemed. Till then, they are in the field of conflict, to overcome as He overcame, and this is the manifest answer to the dream of authority in the world which in Thyatira possesses the false church. Rome would reign before Christ reigns, or reign upon the throne of God with Him. Thus His claim to be the Son of God is here of the greatest possible significance.

This is as to authority over the world, and in this way, of course, " whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven " cannot possibly apply. The passage in Matthew connects it with the maintenance of discipline among the saints, with care for the holiness which His people are to exhibit. It is not founded on relationship to Him, save as disciples to a Master, and then of obedience to Him which they are under responsibility to enforce. In the fulfillment of this responsibility He is surely with them:what they bind He binds; but apart from His word they bind nothing, nor are they even the authorized exponents of it. Themselves subject to that Word, He is for them in all true subjection. It is the Word that has authority, not they; and let it be shown that the Word has not guided them, then Christ cannot bind upon His people in subjection to the Word:it would be to be a party to His own dishonor.

And all claim of ecclesiastical authority other than this is real rebellion against Christ Himself. Here as elsewhere, " no man can serve two masters." The conscience is to be before God alone, and this is a first principle of all holiness, all morality. Swerve from it by a hair's breadth, right is no longer right, nor wrong wrong; all lines are blurred; the unsteady tremulousness of the soul warns but too surely of the approach of spiritual paralysis.

Yes, the " eyes of fire " are still with the " Son of God" alone. Let us take heed how we hear and what! But clear and holy as they are, they are the eyes of the priestly Son of Man, full of an infinite pity and tenderness none can fathom. How blessed to have to do with Him! How full of joy to stand before Him! And even in Thyatira-amid the awful corruption of that " mystery of iniquity," Rome,-still His words to His own recognize all He can:-

" I know thy works and love and faith and service, and thy patience, and thy last works to be more than the first." We must remember that a remnant is distinctly separated in Thyatira, and that neither Jezebel nor her children are included here. Then it will not be hard to realize this testimony on the Lord's part to what He has seen in them. Little, too, do we know of the hidden lives of those who amid the assumption and pride of the days of Romish tyranny walked humbly and in secret with their God. Comforting it is to realize how fully Christ could appreciate and how openly He will yet acknowledge them. Like the devil-coats put upon their victims by the Inquisition of old, how many falsehoods have besmirched the memories often of those who in the day of manifestation will receive their crown of righteousness from the Lord the righteous Judge! Of how many Naboths has Jezebel suborned her witnesses that they have "blasphemed God and the king," because they would not surrender their inheritance for a price! Here is the record, that they are not forgotten, those nameless ones, or of dishonored names:"works and love and faith," how tested! "and service," amid what discouragement! "and thy patience," marked and emphasized in the language used,-that long endurance!

And then comes, last of all, that sweet witness of real divine energy, which does not flag as what is merely human does,-" and thy last works to be more than the first." Not simply the same as the first,- that would be much to say, as it should seem, amid all the opposition, continuous, unrelenting, of all that held power on earth. But here it is "more than the first," for the works recorded are fruits of the life eternal, which, implanted within us, is a growth, a living energy, which, thank God! can burst all bands and defy all imprisonment. We have all remarked how the might of a living tree will break up and burst through the stones around its roots, as it forces its way up into the light of heaven. How much more will the energy of that eternal life whose nature is spirit, and which the Spirit of God sustains, develop itself in the face of whatever hindrances. "They go from strength to strength" is said of God's pilgrims through the valley of Baca; for it is Christ's strength perfected in human weakness.

If we study the record which we have of those dark days also, we shall be inclined too to believe that there was in the line of those patient witnesses, looked at as a whole, a growth in vigor as the days went on. They come more into the light; they take bolder place; the coming Reformation has its precursors; the torch of truth, as it drops from one hand, is taken up by another. Above all, separation becomes more decided,-a great point, one of the greatest; for we see that what the Lord has against these saints of His is declared to be their tolerance of the woman Jezebel. The evil, it is true, was rampant, and might seem supreme; none the less, but the more, became the duty of open testimony against it. It was by such a testimony, in the face of overwhelming odds naturally, the Reformation established itself; and where it was the Word openly preached, God rallied round it defenders of it.

" Notwithstanding I have against thee, that thou sufferest that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess; and she teaches and seduces My servants to commit fornication, and to eat things sacrificed unto idols. And I gave her space to repent of her fornication, and she will not repent."

Here is the distinctive evil of Thyatira,-an evil so frightful that the Lord calls it further on " the depths of Satan."Beyond it we do not get in this direction. It closes the development of the Church's departure from God in true succession from its germ in the beginning. Afterward, we find a fresh work of God has commenced, although it too is shortly, and indeed when first it comes before us, declined and passing. But as the woman closes the first series of the parables of Matt, 13:, so does the woman close the first series of the Asiatic churches. We shall speedily find, as has been already stated, that these two women are in fact one and the same,-the woman, " Babylon the Great, the Mother of harlots and abominations of the earth."

Her name is at once significant, and is a striking exemplification of the pregnant speech of Scripture, which with a single word will illuminate a subject with a flood of light. The name, with its attached history, adds features to the picture which carry us far beyond the mere assembly in Asia to which first the Lord spoke, and identically the "woman" in question in the plainest way possible.

Thus she is described here simply as one that calls herself a prophetess, and the effect of her false prophecy is given as seducing to fornication and idolatry; but the history referred to by no means gives us Jezebel as a prophetess. She is a queen, and an idolatrous queen, but this the Jezebel of Thyatira was surely not. Yet in the promise to the overcomer we have evident allusion to a reign over men on earth, which helps us easily to understand that the thought of queenly power is really meant to be implied in the name as used. For the promise, as we see in all these cases, has reference to the state of things in which the overcoming is to be. Here he who overcomes waits in fruitful patience, till he shall reign with Christ. How significant if in that scene which is the full realization of what is in the Lord's mind here, the false church is reigning! Babylon, too, in the after-churches reigns a queen, and thus these two passages are linked together.

Babylon also is red with the blood of the saints and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus; and here again is a character of the woman which we could not expect to find in the Thyatiran assembly. But the name "Jezebel," interjected in the address, recalls at once to our minds the persecutor. And we need all this to bring out the full meaning of the address. On the other hand, the fourth parable of Matthew says nothing of the queen or of the persecutor, while it speaks clearly of the self-assumed prophetess. Thus the address to Thyatira binds together these two other prophesies, and the three throw their concentrated light upon the solemn reality which is presented to us. (To be continued.) F.W.G.

Reuben, Gad, and half tribe of Manasseh were equally with the other tribes called to Canaan :they accepted the call, but came short in practical power. " They saw the land of Jazer, and the land of Gilead, that, behold, the place was a place for cattle." (Num. 32:) Ah! that was the secret; the rich pasture-lands of Jazer and Gilead were more to them than the call of God.

How stands it with you, my reader? Are you one of the many who admire and accept, and would on no account give up, the doctrine of the heavenly calling, while it is denied in practical power? Has it formed your life, character, and ways? If not, seek to discover at once the hindrance to your full and hearty response to the call of God.

You will find that, after" all, the only path of safety and blessing is, to be out and out for God.

The two tribes and half were the first to fall into the hands of their enemies.

The worldly Lot soon found himself a captive with the "sinners of Sodom," and the loving but half-hearted Jonathan fell with the enemies of God and Israel on the mountains of Gilboa.

Abraham came short of the first step in the path of practical discipleship. He fell before the claims of nature (Acts 7:3, 4). Would the Bride have beauty for the eyes and heart of her Bridegroom and King? then " hearken, O daughter, and consider, and incline thine ears:forget also thine own people, and thy father's house. So shall the King greatly desire thy beauty, for He is thy Lord, and worship Thou Him." (Ps. 45:10, 2:)

God graciously came into the scene of half-heartedness and laid His hand upon Terah, Abraham's father.

If we do not break the link ourselves, God will do it for us; while the heart will get a wrench it might have been spared.

Demas, a fellow-laborer with the apostle (Phil. 24), found the testimony of Paul too narrow. Either the world or the testimony must be given up (2 Tim. 4:10). The witness-bearing of Paul will be found embraced in his epistles to the Ephesians and Colossians; and Demas, as well as "all in Asia," give up, in practice, the truths of these precious epistles. They did not give up the gospel of the grace of God, but the gospel of the glory.

Union to the risen Man in the heavens is a truth which refuses to have to say or do with the world. It were well for thousands to ponder, ere taking the path of discipleship, the words of Jesus, "No man can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will hold to the one and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and Mammon" (Matt. 6:24.) The Christian's path is one outside the world-system, as the lonely path of the " blessed One " sweetly tells us, " Ye are not of the world, even as I am not of the world." E.F.B.

The whole of this portion is founded on the deep consciousness of Christ Himself in passing through the world, that all in connection with earth was closed and broken up. The fire was kindled :all would come out more distinctly at the cross; but all that was in opposition was now actually showing itself, bringing out the truth of the portion and the position of those who are Christ's being entirely heavenly, having nothing down here, waiting for the Lord with loins girded. He having been definitely rejected, all linking them to earth is broken.

In chap. 11:some said, "He casteth out devils through Beelzebub, the chief of the devils." What was that but calling the Holy Ghost a devil ? It was a hopeless sin, the direct enmity of Satan. In this chapter also we find " singleness of eye " – our responsibility to let our light shine out ; also two characters of satanic power – first, malicious, a liar; second, a murderer. In chapter 12:, " Be not afraid of them that kill the body." If open persecution come in through Satan, they are not to be afraid. But in ver. 13, there is the danger of the worldly influence of Satan, – a quiet influence, the more to be feared because not open – a kind of influence that goes on when not watching, and weans the heart away from the only thing we have as Christians, – 1:e., a heavenly portion, making us solicitous about, and setting a value on, worldly things ; but the Lord comes to the rich man to show the utter folly of any who are making the world their portion, and then He enters on the use to be made of riches. We have not got apostles at whose feet to lay down every thing for the Lord, but we are to hold all mammon for the service of the Lord, our portion being in heaven, yet having the privilege of using it for the Lord, turning what is mere dross and dung into something for service to the Lord, and then not to have a care.

Sweet the way in which the Lord discharges them from all care:"Your Father knoweth that ye have need of these things"! How blessedly they are brought into direct connection with the Father! The world passeth away, and the lust thereof, but the word of God endureth forever. Directly we come to a Father taking care of us, the heart is discharged entirely from care about this world. How blessed the thought of that God being our Father, without whom not a sparrow falls to the ground, and that we are in this blessed relationship because Christ has taken us into it with Himself. " Fear not, little flock," etc. As those belonging to the kingdom, how ought we to walk? All laying up treasure here carries the heart with it; if laying up treasure, we shall like to keep it. On the one hand, warned against the spirit of the world; on the other, not to have a care, because He who is your Father careth for you. Walking with loins girded and lights burning, be ye as men waiting for their lord, every moment having, in the whole spirit, tone, and temper, the sense of constantly waiting for the Lord girded (the long garments tucked up for service). There then is the distinct power of life seen. Servants, in the midst of all down here, waiting for their absent Lord with affections tucked up (loins girded). It is a great thing to walk through the world with the distinct thought that the Lord is out of it because it would not have Him. Suppose yesterday, or six days ago, He had been rejected by the world, and He had told us He was going to prepare a place for us, what should we think of the nature and character of that world that had blasphemed and rejected Him? Could we be taken up with it if our hearts are really attached to Himself, and He up there having done the work to bring us into the place of holiness before He went, that we should be up there accepted in Him ? Should not we be waiting for Him with girded loins, walking through the world that spit upon and hated Him, with hearts out of it? It is to be constant watching. " Blessed are those servants " (5:37)." Soon I shall take My turn in serving. You must now be watching with hearts and eyes fixed on Me, but when I come I shall have it My own way; I shall gird Myself, and put you at My table, and then I shall serve you. Here there must be watching and waiting, but there is a place where I shall have things My own way; I shall spread the table and serve you. All the fat of the house will be set before you; lay your account upon that. You are to be in the place where you are not going only to rule the world that turned Me out, but there where all the energy of My love will flow out to you."

The watching for the little while now, is for the outflowing of the eternal blessedness of His love at that day when He shall gird Himself and make them sit down that He may serve them. There it is not watching, but service to those now watching. The loins girded for service, and watching, is to be the character of our walk all through this present wilderness path, suffering linked with it. If we suffer, we shall reign. We get suffering as the consequence of what He puts into our hands. What a wonderful thing for us that we are to be set in the place of rule in every thing below Him! Now one sees here the blessedness of His love to His own ; how He takes their hearts out of the world, expressing Himself as if all was over. His own heart cannot get on in such a world. He is driven in on Himself by the condition of all round Him, forced to shut up the very love ever ready to flow out. The whole thing is, morally speaking, over; the world judged, He out of it; and that is the place you get, the place He is in now; that is what detaches the heart from all things not of the Father, but of the world. The Holy Ghost sets Christ's walk before us to show us the character and spirit we ought to have in the world if our hearts would go rightly through it. It is only as the heart is fixed on Jesus as the One soon coming-that only will make us in our lives the diligent expression of His coming. Not only our treasure above, counting all but dross, but the practical place of separation to Him, the heart thinking only of Him, and separating from the world that won't have Him. Oh, may He fix our hearts on Himself, that He may see us in spirit and walk like men waiting and watching for Him! The Lord truly keep our hearts waiting and longing for Him from heaven!
I WILL NOT GO OUT FREE."

There's rest for the birdling in its nest,
For the infant on its mother's breast,
For the sinner with his sins confessed.
But there's a deeper, holier rest:
'Tis for him who leans on Jesus' breast.
And still, there is another rest:
When earth's no more by sin oppressed,
When death's destroyed, and heaven blest,
Then we shall learn how God can rest; .
With praise our wondering souls possessed,
We'll join in God's eternal rest.

H. McD.

A row of books had been set up again and again upon the table, but each time failed to keep their position, because to some extent leaning one upon another. One who was sitting near set them up firmly by placing each distinct from the other, saying, as he did so, "This is the only way to accomplish it-let them stand upon their own responsibility."

I thought, what a lesson for ourselves is here given us!-they only stand well together in divine things who first stand upon their own responsibility individually. And to this end, is it not oftentimes that our gracious God removes from us those whom He sees we are leaning upon, instead of wholly upon Himself, that we may realize our own individuality with Him. So we find it in Ps. xviii, " I will love Thee, O Lord, my strength. The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust; my buckler, and the horn of my salvation, and my high tower," and thus throughout the entire psalm.

How much of life's discipline may this explain! and how many of the precepts of Scripture, little realized to any profit, would it give force and value to were it more so with us! As we go forward in the Christian life, this surely will result, and our hearts be more able through grace to say, " I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me." " God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world."

May we know it thus, through His grace! B.C.G.

I was very religious when I was a young child. I was the only daughter, and my father brought us up most strictly in all the outward forms of church-attendance and strict regard to religious duties.

When I was eighteen or nineteen I was a Sunday-school teacher, and visited the poor as a matter of course. I was very anxious to do my duty, and exceedingly conscientious as to my responsibilities at home with my brothers and my father. On the whole, I was tolerably satisfied with myself, especially when I was toiling in religious duties. But there came an awakening, to me that entirely changed all my thoughts and feelings, and broke up all my fancied security.

A stranger-lady came to lodge in the street in which we lived. She was quite alone, very handsomely dressed, and very sad-looking. In a quiet country town, you know, the appearance of such a stranger excites some curiosity and remark. Occasionally I saw this lady come into the place of worship we attended, and as I walked down the street to go to my Sunday-school, I frequently saw her sitting alone by her window. We found that her husband was a Frenchman, and that they were separated; but no one knew more, and a sort of romance gathered round her in my girlish mind. We had never met or exchanged a word, and imagine my amazement when one day a messenger came to my father's door asking to see me, and on my appearance, telling me that the lady lodging at Mrs. –'s was very dangerously ill, and particularly wished to see me.

" To see me! " I said. " I think it must be a mistake. I do not know her."

"Oh, no," replied the girl; "its no mistake, miss, for the lady has said many times, ' Fetch that young lady who passes by on Sundays to the school;' and I know she means you, miss, for she told me where you lived. The little baby was born last night, and the doctor says the poor lady cannot live."

When I got into her room, I found her in a state of distressing excitement.

" Have they told you that I am dying?" the lady asked. " Yes, I am dying, and I don't know how to get ready to die. I sent for you. I am sure you will excuse me, because I know you are so very religious. I am sure you can tell me what I want to know. Tell me, I beg you, as quickly as you can, what I must do to get ready."

Never can I forget the scene. The poor woman flushed and agitated, her beautiful hair all dangling and wet, her pillows and bed-clothes tossed about in disorder, no one belonging to her to speak a word of help or comfort. I could hardly control my voice to say, " You must pray to God. You have read the Bible? You know what He says?" but she caught up my words with a sharp cry of pain:"I cannot pray, I am too ill, and I do not know how. I cannot read the Bible, and I do not know it. Oh, tell me yourself what I must do. Pray for me, oh, pray for me."
Can you wonder that I burst into tears? I had never prayed with any one in my life. I could remember nothing that I thought could possibly be of any comfort or good to this poor dying woman. More than that, a sudden flash of light seemed to reveal to my inmost soul that I myself was building my house upon the sand, and that all my religiousness was nothing at all to stand in such a storm as this.

" Oh," I said to her eagerly, " let me fetch the minister to you."

"No!" she answered; " I do not know him. I do not want him. I want a woman to speak to me, like a sister, or a mother."

I thought of the minister's wife. Ah, no, she was not one I could imagine in such a scene as this. Then I remembered, with a sudden feeling of inexpressible relief, another lady, wise, loving, gentle, earnest-one of those who bore her Master's name written on her forehead, whose own name I had heard many a time uttered in accents of love and gratitude from the poor and the sorrowful.

" I know a dear lady," I said, " who could help you. I am sure she would. I will go to her directly."

"Oh!" said the dying lady, with a look of reproach that sank deep into my inmost heart, " I wanted you to tell me. I have seen you so often going to church and to the school. I often, often wished I was like you; I thought you were so very religious." She sighed bitterly, and leaned back exhausted.

I escaped, crept down stairs, hearing the feeble wail of a little infant as I passed, and hastened to the house of Mrs. –, rushing into her presence with my agitated and half-incoherent story, much to her surprise. " Do come directly, dear Mrs. —," I said; " there is not a moment to lose! Oh, come back with me now! "

" My dear Margaret," she answered, " I will come as soon as I can; but it cannot be immediately. Go back and sit by the poor lady until I come. Try to be very calm and quiet with her, and to soothe her as well as you can. I daresay I shall be with her a quarter of an hour after you."

I was not quite pleased at this, and felt impatient and astonished. Ah, I knew in after days why she could not come on such an errand without seeking wisdom and help in one quarter of an hour with the Master.

I went back, and sat quietly by the bedside, where my poor invalid lay in feverish sleep. As I sat there, a realization, such as I never felt before, of the uncertainty of life and the nearness of eternity came to me. My own past life, with all its " religiousness," looked utterly worthless, and I knew that I had yet to begin with the humble cry, "God be merciful to me a sinner!"-yet to be " born again," and to enter as a little child into the kingdom.

My heart was heavy for the poor young mother, and my busy fancy tried to guess her story, while I shuddered to think how nearly it was closing, and longed for help and comfort for her.

A low knock at the door, quiet footsteps on the stairs, and my friend came in. Softly as she entered, the dying lady awoke, and her painful agitation returned.
Tenderly as a mother my friend went to her, smoothed her pillows, arranged her bed-clothes, and with willing gentleness asked and used permission to brush her hair and make her comfortable.

I looked on in surprise, for I had expected her to be in haste to read and to pray. I was learning lessons useful to me ever since. I was sent for warm water, and we sponged her face and hands. In a few minutes she was resting with a very different expression on her face, refreshed and peaceful, as if reflecting the quiet restful ness of the face of her new friend; but the bright, eager eyes were turned on her with a wistful, imploring gaze that went to her heart.

"And now," she said, "dear friend, you want to know how to rest in the Lord Jesus, so that you may be safe in His arms if He should see it best to call you home? Our time is very precious; we will ask Him to show it all to you Himself." And we knelt by the bedside.

I cannot tell you any thing about that simple, urgent prayer, except that it came home to my heart with a power that must have been that of the Holy Spirit who inspired it. When it was ended, I could not trust myself to stay in the room. I thought, too, that it would be better to leave them alone together; and I went down to the kitchen, where at least I felt myself at home in making some gruel, nursing the baby, and helping to restore some degree of order to the distracted little household.

Before the next morning dawned the lady passed away, looking in faith and hope to a crucified Saviour, as we humbly believed,-her hand clasped in hers who had brought her the message of peace. As for me, 1 did not find peace at once; for weeks, and even months, my burden only grew more and more heavy, and my heart more sad. When I could no longer keep my anxiety to myself, my father and brothers were amazed, and began to fear that my mind was affected. Again and again they said to me,-

" But you have always been so religious, Margaret; why should you be troubled about such things?"

They made parties of pleasure for me; but wherever I went I carried my burden, and every thing failed, until God sent me a true friend, and through his blessing, and the guidance I then received, I was led to give up my own doings, and found true peace in believing in Jesus, coming to Him as a guilty, unprofitable servant, just as I was. If I had not been summoned to that dying bed, I might have remained all my life with only " a name to live;" I might have missed all the blessed reality of life in Christ Jesus.

The first mention of a covenant in the holy Scriptures is found in the -portion above referred to, and a few things with reference to it are very striking, as showing forth somewhat of the blessedness of Christianity. Let us consider them:-

1. The origin of it:THE HEART OF GOD.

" The Lord smelled a sweet savor; and the Lord said in His heart, ' I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake; for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth; neither will I smite any more every living thing as I have done. While the earth remaineth,- seed-time and harvest,
cold and heat,
summer and winter, shall not cease.'"
day and night,

2. The nature of it:A divine COVENANT.

"My covenant." (5:9.) "My covenant." (5:2:) "The covenant which I make." (5:12.) "A covenant between Me and the earth." (5:13.) "My covenant between Me and you." (5:15.) "The everlasting covenant between God" etc. (5:16.) "The covenant which have established between Me" etc. (5:17.)

3. The extent of it:the WHOLE WORLD.

(you, the fowl, " With your seed after you, of the cattle,

( every living creature with you, ( every beast; from all that go out of the ark, to every beast of the earth." (10:9, 10.)

Between Me and you,… (5:12.)

every living creature with you.

"Between Me and the earth." (5:13.)

"Between Me and you, every living (5:15.)every living creature of all flesh.

" Between God and every living creature of all flesh." "Between Me and all flesh." (5:17.) (5:16.)

4. The immutability of it:ESTABLISHED BY GOD.

" I, behold, I establish My covenant." (5:9.)

"I will establish My covenant." (5:2:)

"The covenant which I have established." (5:17.)
5. The assurance of it:THE BOW IN THE CLOUD.

"This is the token of the covenant." (5:12.)

" I do set My bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant." (5:13.)

"And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud." (5:14).

" The bow shall be in the cloud." (5:16.)

6. The remembrance of it:god's EYE AND mind.

" The bow shall be seen in the cloud ; and I will remember My covenant." (10:14, 15.)

" The bow shall be in the cloud ; and I will look upon it, that I may remember" etc. (5:16.)

7. The duration of it:EVERLASTING.

"Neither shall all flesh be cut off any more" "Neither shall there any more be a flood." (5:2:) " For perpetual generations." (5:12.) "The waters shall no more become a flood." (5:15.) "The everlasting covenant." (5:16.)

Passing from this "the shadow of good things to come," to the "good things" themselves, how readily we may trace the various points of similarity, while yet remembering that it is but the shadow, and not the very image, of the things"!

I. As to its source.

"Having made known unto us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He hath purposed in Himself" etc. (Eph. 1:9.)

" Who hath known the mind of the Lord ? or who hath been His counselor ? or who hath first given to Him, and it shall be recompensed to him again ? For of Him, and through Him, and to Him, are all things:to whom be glory forever. Amen." (Rom. 11:34-36.)

"According to Thine own heart hast Thou done" it. (I Chron. 17:19.)

2. As to the nature of it.

" God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son," etc. (Jno. 3:16.)

" God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." (Rom. 5:8.)

" In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him." (i Jno. 4:9.)

3. As to its extent.

" God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them." (2 Cor. 5:19.)

"God our Saviour, who will have all men. to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth." (i Tim. 2:3, 4.)

4. As to its immutability.

"Wherein God, willing more abundantly to show unto the heirs of promise the immutability of His counsel, confirmed it by an oath; that by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us." (Heb. 6:17, 18.)

5. As to the assurance of it.

" The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God." (Rom. 8:16.)

" Now He which stablisheth us with you in Christ, and hath anointed us, is God ; who hath also sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts." (2 Cor. 1:21, 22.)

" Because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, 'Abba, Father.'" (Gal. 4:6.)

6. As to the remembrance of it.

" God is not a man, that He should lie; neither the son of man, that He should repent:hath He said, and shall He not do it ? or hath He spoken, and shall He not make it good?" (Numb. 23:19.)

" The gifts and calling of God are without repentance." (Rom. 11:29.)

7. As to the duration of it.

" According to the eternal purpose which He purposed

in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Eph. 3:2:)

"God hath given to us eternal life." (i Jno. 5:2:) " The author of eternal salvation." (Heb. 5:9.) "Having obtained eternal redemption." (Heb. ix 12.) "Who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself." (Heb. 9:14.)

'They which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance." (Heb. 9:15.)

" Who hath called us unto His eternal glory," (i Pet. 5:10.)

May we learn, beloved brethren, the depth of blessing in these " precious things of God " which have thus cast their shadows backward, and to Him shall be the praise. B. C.G.

"ADOPTION is, putting into a place. BIRTH makes us children:adoption makes us sons. John always speaks of children:Paul uses both words-'sons' and 'children.' Eph. 1:5 is, son-putting, or adoption. Adoption is, taking you into His house. The spirit of sonship gives you the place, and the spirit to fill the place."-F. W. G.

THE ADDRESSES TO THE CHURCHES, (Continued.)

Pergamos :the Promise to the Overcomer, (Rev. 2:17.)

The promise to the overcomer in Pergamos claims our deepest attention. As always in these epistles, it emphasizes the condition of those to whom it is addressed ; and we have seen that this is not merely a past condition, but a stage in the development of what is all around us to-day ; so that the exhortations and warnings suited to it have for us no less force than ever. In fact they should have more, as we stand face to face with that development, – as the fruit, ripe and multiplied, is before our eyes.

But the promise to the overcomer, while reminding us of the departure and decay already so far gone, is not shrouded with the gloom of this. On the contrary, it is bright with hope, and full of the joy which for the Christian can spring out of whatever sorrow. It breathes the spirit of what the apostle speaks of as our portion ever, "not the spirit of fear, but of power and love and of a sound mind." It is Christ's word of encouragement for those who in the strife of the battle-field look to the Captain of their salvation; and it carries us beyond the scene of strife to the inheritance already sure to us, although through trial and suffering is the path by which it is ordained to reach it.

The promise has two parts, which are in beautiful relation to one another. The manna, as is evident, speaks of Christ Himself, and of our apprehension of Him; the white stone is a sign, on the other hand, of His appreciation of us. How blessed is the interchange of affection thus expressed! How touching the appeal to it where the heart of His beloved is so manifestly wandering away from Him! The manna is wilderness food:it fell only there, in Egypt it was not yet known; arrived within the borders of the land, it ceased. It was divine provision for those to whom God was an absolute necessity, whom He had brought into a place where was no natural provision, where they were wholly cast upon Him. It was this necessity which was their claim upon the tender compassion of their great Deliverer. He had, indeed, made Himself responsible to answer to it, and all their varied need was thus to draw out new witness of divine resources,-riches of glory-power and love alike.

The wilderness does not speak of any natural condition. Egypt is the natural condition, and Egypt is a very fruitful land. There were many drawbacks there, no doubt, which would in general be freely acknowledged. Plagues smote there as elsewhere, and an oppressive tyranny brooded over it:but the one, they might hope individually to escape; the other, they bore in company with a multitude. But the productiveness of the soil no one could question:"We remember the fish which we did eat in Egypt freely; the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlic:and now our soul is dried away, there is nothing at all but this manna before our eyes."

The promise of the manna is, then, for the wilderness, but it is the overcomer in Pergamos who alone knows the need of the wilderness. Those who have settled down in the world proclaim by the fact how little they find the world such; and this character of the overcomer confirms our view of the state spiritually of Pergamos itself. Here it was no longer the state of individuals merely, but of the mass; and not even a secret state, but avowed openly in deed if not in word. Thus, then, the Lord speaks to him who, true to his calling, finds in Himself his one necessity and satisfaction. " Bread shall be given him, his water shall be sure." Yea, " meat which endureth unto everlasting life," and water which shall " be in him a spring of water, springing up to everlasting life."

And this may remind us that the manna, of which the Lord speaks in the promise here, although it be the manna of the wilderness, is not, nevertheless, what was partaken of in the wilderness. The "hidden manna" was that put by command of God into the ark, and carried into the land, that after-generations might see the bread wherewith He had fed them in the wilderness." In this case it was, of course, not eaten; but the Lord promises to the overcomer here that he shall eat it; clearly in the blessed place which for us has in the highest degree the character attributed to the land of Canaan, -a place " where the eyes of the Lord are continually:" the wilderness food is still to be enjoyed when the wilderness is passed forever. The hidden manna was the memorial sample of what had fallen long before:it is typically the abiding remembrance of what we once tasted,-the fresh taste in eternity of Christ as enjoyed by faith down here.

We may thus see (and it is good to see,) how closely connected the life to come is with the present. Do we not miss much by separating them as widely as we sometimes do? and by supposing that, apart from all experiences and attainments here, all elements of blessing will be found in equal degree in the cup of eternal joy, when our lips are once at its brim? by imagining that if "when that which is perfect is come, that which is in part shall be done away," then all present effects of lack of communion, or of that knowledge which results in and implies communion, will be necessarily passed also; not allowed to abate in any wise the eternal portion? Is this what the words of the apostle indeed assure us of ?

For each one of us, no doubt, the state will be perfect, the partial condition will be done away. That is surely so. When the bud is ripened into the flower, the perfect condition is reached ; it is a bud "no longer. Does it follow from this at all that the flower is in no wise dependent upon that bud which is passed away ? We know it is dependent. So when it is no longer a condition of faith, but of sight,-no longer seeing through a glass, darkly, but face to face, the present knowing*-not the knowledge itself, but the manner of it-will have passed. *" Knowledge," in 1 Cor. 13:8, may be here better rendered "knowing" (γvπσις). When it is added, "Then shall I know even as also I am [or rather have been] known" (5:12), a compound form is used (πιγιvώσκω), This last perfectly suits the apostle's comparison of seeing face to face instead of through a glass. It is intensive,-a knowing founded upon knowledge, and thus often used for "recognition" and " acknowledgment."* We "shall know," not as afar off any longer, but in the presence of the things known. That is, " as we are known," as He to whom all things are present knows us. It does not speak of the measure of knowledge, but of the manner of it; for who could suppose the measure of it to be God's omniscience ? And it is of the manner of it -face-to-face knowledge-the apostle speaks.

Rather will the limits of our knowledge there be defined, and we shall be conscious of them,-spared thus the strain of searching into the unsearchable, and delivered from the temptation of aspiring to what is beyond our sphere. There will be, of course, complete satisfaction with the limits whatever they may be.

But this, then, removes the thought of any necessary equality of knowledge among the redeemed themselves. The "new name written, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it'' is a proof of this in the words before us. And the hidden manna is another proof. For the partaking of that which fell in the wilderness is only possible as a recalling of experience once known. It is not a fresh experience, but a past experience enjoyed afresh. Christ is no more there the humbled One of which the manna speaks; and the hidden manna was carried into Canaan, not belonged there. It was strictly a memorial of the past, and as this, has its significance. The experience which we gain here is gained forever; the joy is not for a moment, the meat endures unto eternal life:the fruit of the sorrow we pass through is not reaped all amid the sorrow, but reaped above all, there where the harvest is an abiding one. Blessed be God, it is so.

Some imagine a common height of blessing to which grace lifts in result all partakers of it, which leaves no practical issue for eternity of whatever difference in the life and ways on earth. Others would cut off, as contrary to the grace which remembers our sins and iniquities no more, the very memory of them within us, as if it would spoil the eternal blessedness. Others, again,-and this is a most common mistake,-would confound the fruits of grace,, which we enjoy in common, with the rewards of grace, which have respect to responsibilities fulfilled. All these are alike errors, and lead to practical consequences which are of grave importance.

Sonship, heirship, membership in the body of Christ, are alike pure gifts of divine grace, and in no wise of work. They are ours once for all, and never withdrawn from us. How blessed to realize that these are, after all, our very chiefest blessings, which we have in common! How much less, comparatively, must the reward of our work be, and the reward of Christ's work, which they all are! How precious to know that every child of the Father's love shall be clasped to the Father's heart alike,-that there shall be no more distance for one than for another! Yet it is not every one who is clear as to salvation who is clear as to this. But were it otherwise, who could, without presumption, anticipate any nearness at all ? But the many mansions of the Father's house have room for all, and the Father's heart has surely no less room. "What manner of love hath He " indeed " bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God !" But it is His love, and let us enjoy it to the full without a remnant of fear. Let not one shadow of legality darken the joy of it. And this love shall be justified in its fullest expression also, for "we shall be"- one as much as another,-" like Christ, for we shall see Him as He is."

It is not, perhaps, wonderful that as we contemplate such blessings as these we should be tempted to think that there surely cannot be left room for any difference whatever. To be like Christ!-all altogether like Him! Think of it, ye His beloved, the fruit of His work, the purchase of His precious blood! Who could imagine, indeed, that the fruit of our work could make any difference here! For whom could it be but in the most absolute wonderful love, with power to accomplish its desires in us ? Shall any thing hinder that accomplishment, then? No, nothing! What is stronger than what manifested itself in the cross ? What can rob it of its glorious reward ?

Yet unspeakably great as all this is, still he that has an ear to receive the Scripture testimony will surely find that, beside the common blessing which every one of Christ's own shall get, there are distinctive and individual blessings, which are not, therefore, the same for all. " To reward every one according as his work shall be."-" Rule thou over ten . . . rule thou over five cities."-" Hold that fast which thou hast, that no man take thy crown." These passages, and such as these, are unmistakably clear also. Nor can it be urged that it is only in temporary not in eternal awards that such distinctions can have place. The hidden manna and the white stone are not of this character, and they both speak of what is the result of the earthly walk.
And again, it is in no wise true that the very sins of which God says, " I will remember them no more" shall not come up before the judgment-seat of Christ. They surely shall. "God," says the Preacher, " shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good or whether it be evil." "We must all be manifested before the judgment-seat of Christ, that every one may receive the things done in his body, whether it be good or whether it be evil."

Are these things contradictory? They are equally parts of God's perfect and eternal Word. Nor is there the slightest difficulty even as to their reconciliation, if we may speak of reconciliation as needful. God will indeed remember our sins no more; but does any one imagine that His memory will fail in the least as to one of them ? Against us He will not remember them. No displeasure on their account shall ever darken His glorious face. Never will He upbraid us with them. It is we who shall "give account of ourselves to Him." Shall it be only of whatever good, little or much as it may be? Shall we present ourselves as sinless ones, who have had no need of redeeming blood ? Standing in the glory and perfection of Christ's likeness as we then shall be, our memories shall be fully alive with all the past, so as to give a faithful record of it before the throne of truth. All mists, all uncertainties, all errors, will be gone forever. How blessed to be clear of them! Then how bright will God's grace appear! how perfect His wisdom! Not, surely, with reference to an angel's course, but to that of a fallen, erring, yet redeemed man. And the memories of our sins, would we be then without them, when without them the whole world would be an impenetrable darkness still, and the very song of redemption could not itself be sung!

And it is declared of some who build upon God's foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble, the day shall declare it, for it shall be revealed with fire, and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is. If any man's work abide which he has built thereon, he shall receive a reward ; if any man's work be burned up, he shall suffer loss; yet he himself shall be saved, yet so as through the fire. No matter of what class of believers this speaks, the principle announced is plain:reward to some, to others loss, while yet both alike are saved ones.

Thus the promise of the hidden manna appeals solemnly, while most encouragingly, to us. Our present life is not cut off by so broad a division from the eternal one as some would have it; while yet there is a division as plain as it is serious. The days of human responsibility end with the life here. It is for the things done in the body that they are judged or rewarded, and for these only. Thus these days exercise an irreversible influence over the life to come:the hidden manna and the white stone are eternal recompenses of the present time. In another sense, as to the hidden manna, it is but that " the meat" that faith lives on now is but the "meat that endureth to everlasting life."So that the spiritual experiences of the present pass on as memories into the eternal joy beyond. But as memories with none of the dullness which attaches to such things now; for then is the day of manifestation and of recompense, and the memory then will far outdo the experience now.

We pass through trial and adversity, through a world "in truth a wilderness, a place of utter dependence, in which faith feels, amid the darkness, for the strength of the everlasting arms. And here we learn, as no where else could we learn, the grace that is come down to us. We are like those that go down to the sea in ships, and that have their
business in the deep waters,-men that see the works of the Lord, and His wonders in the deep. "A brother is born for adversity," and in adversity we learn the touch of a brother's hand; yea," there is a Friend that sticketh closer than a brother," and how blessed to realize in Him who sticks so close the very Lord of glory Himself! Not a kindly and gracious Protector merely, from His own sphere of unchanging blessedness, but One hand in hand, traveling the same road, ministering of His own cup of consolation, displaying sympathies which have been developed in the self-same path, but of sorrows voluntarily endured that He might so minister to us.

Precious humiliation, upon which the heavens once looked down in wonder! but of which none can know in truth the deepest meaning, save those who have drunk of the cup of the pilgrim, and in actual poverty been enriched by a greater poverty of Him for our sakes come into it. It is this which makes the hidden manna so impossible to be tasted except by one who has tasted the manna in that wilderness where alone it fell. After-generations in Israel might indeed see the food wherewith, the Lord fed them in the wilderness, but that was all. He who had been in the wilderness alone could say of it, " I know its taste." When the people were despising it as light food, in touching appeal to us the Lord through the historian describes its taste. We can little indeed describe a taste; only at all by comparing it to some other familiar one, and so here:" its taste was as the taste of fresh oil,,"-the ministry of the Holy Ghost; but in another place, " it was like wafers made with honey:'' that speaks of Him whom the Holy Ghost declares to us.

The land promised to Israel was described in its riches as a "land flowing with milk and honey." It is the figure of natural sweetness; very sweet, but not to be partaken of too freely, nor allowed to be put into that which was offered to God. But the manna was not honey, and though having the sweetness of it, could be fed upon continually. All the sweetness of human affection and intimacy is found in the " Son of Man," but with no element of corruptibility in it. Honey easily ferments and sours, but in this sweet intimacy there is absolute stability:it is a love which can be relied on at all times, where the human has become one with the divine,-the divine makes itself realized in what we can apprehend and enter into as most truly human.

This is the taste; but to know it, you must taste it. No description will convey it rightly to you; and to know the grace of Christ's humiliation, you must have been in the wilderness, and there learned to say, " All my fresh springs are in Thee." If " a brother is born for adversity," it is only adversity that can rightly make you know that " brother." In the land, amid all its glories, the manna was " the hidden manna." In the wilderness it was not hidden ; and to those who had gone the journey through the wilderness, the manna, even in the land, was not really hidden. In the glory of heaven we shall know in the Man, Christ Jesus, some steps (and surely wonderful ones) of His surpassing condescension; nay, a " Lamb, as it had been slain," will call forth the unceasing homage of all there; but the manna gives the personal application of this grace to a need which in heaven will no longer exist:it must be enjoyed there as knowledge gained in quite other circumstances. And here the wilderness will at last yield its harvests to us, the desert left behind will blossom as the rose.

For how will those spiritual experiences so full of joy to us here bloom in the sunlight of eternity into glorious recollections, when all that hinders shall be forever removed; when the divine ways shall be seen in ail their holiness, all their wisdom, all their grace! Our senses are here at the best so dull, the power of the Spirit so little known, Christ is after all so little in His transcendent beauty enjoyed ! Then, face to face with His glory, seeing Him as He is, and able to measure somewhat truly the depths of His descent from the heights before us, how will the King in His beauty, our blest Lord and Saviour, be revealed!

But it is time to turn round upon ourselves, is it not? and to ask of ourselves, How much material for this joy hereafter are we gathering here? And this suggests another question:How much need have we of Christ day by day? how much hunger and thirst have we after Him? These are very strong terms, as they are evidently also the terms of Scripture. All the labor of man is for the mouth. Hunger and thirst are controlling things. Yet says the Lord, " Labor not for the meat that perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life." Do we indeed by comparison not labor for the one as we labor for the other? and which one is it-in calm, sober, reality-that we labor for?

We have life, perhaps,-eternal life,-salvation. Blessed to have these. With the rest thus gained, have we started for the goal outside the world? or are we practically living much as others in it,-the days filled up with a routine of things imposed by the various masters (customs, men's thoughts of us, the claims of society, and what not) which rule there? It is one thing or other; outside the world, and in opposition to it, or in it, and floating with its stream.

In this last case, there will either be no felt need, or none that Christ can be counted on to meet. Much may be pleaded as to duties, which are merely artificial, and untruly covered with so fair a name. But whatever may be the plea, the daily need and ministry of Christ is a thing unknown. Great needs may demand Him, but life is not made up of these.

Briefly to consider now, however, the second part of the promise-the "white stone":-

The two parts of the promise are inseparably connected with one another. The appreciation of Christ by the soul is the necessary basis of His answering approbation. The white stone speaks, as has been said, of this approbation. It was the token of approval, dropped by voters into the urn of old, with the name of the candidate approved upon it. But the name here is a new name, known only by Him who gives and by him who receives it.

The name, in Scripture, is always significant and descriptive of the one who bears it. To know God's name is just to know what He is, to know His character; and the new name here speaks of the character for Christ of him upon whom it is conferred, some character which He approves. It is a peculiar link between the Lord and the one approved, a peculiar something that we are for Him.

It implies some trial, as the former part of the promise, and speaks of His estimate of how it has been endured,-of something especially noted as pleasing to Himself. It is not publicly noted or rewarded, however. Such rewards, of course, there are; but this is another and a deeper thing. Still more than the hidden manna is it an individual joy, not shared by the general company of the redeemed,-the one secret link, as it would seem, between the Lord and the individual saint.

Is it worth seeking, this approbation of His? Is any thing else in comparison? Is it not marvelous that we can barter the priceless eternal joys for things which perish in the using, even if they did not also entail upon the soul a feebleness from which oftentimes there is here no recovery. We pity the inebriate, possessed by his passion for what rivets upon the ever-increasing load which will at last destroy him; but oh what sorrow should we have for the Nazarites of God, endowed with the limitless possession of the Spirit of God, to know the things that are freely given to us of God, yet drunk with the spirit of the world, His enemy, and squandering the precious gifts of God for the husks of the swineherd! We have no words that are worthy or of power to rebuke it; but let us hear the apostle:-

" Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? Wherefore, whosoever will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God."

" Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. . . . For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof; but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever."

" Wherefore awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light."

" For ye are all the children of the light, and the children of the day:we are not of the night, nor of darkness. Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober. For they that sleep in the night, and they that are drunken are drunken in the night; but let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for a helmet, the hope of salvation. For God has not appointed us unto wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, that, whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with Him."

Yes, and that life is now begun with us; the eternal life has for us begun. May the words ring in our ears at least until they lay hold completely of our hearts and lives:" To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and will give him a white stone, and on the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth saving he who receiveth it."

"Overcometh"-not in the world merely, but now in the church; not in circumstances in which he is not, but in the precise circumstances in which he is;-"overcometh:" do you, do I, know well, and from quite familiar experience, what it is to overcome ? F.W.G. (To be continued.).

Oh, the songs of night, the songs of night,
Breaking forth from the children of fadeless light
As they journey along through this poor sad world

Beneath God's banner of love unfurled !
Singing with joy as they pass along
Their Master's praise in cheerful song.

Surrounded by foes on every side,
Safe in His presence do they abide,
Knowing their weakness as on they go,
And the mighty power of their wily foe;
Yet the everlasting arm, so strong,
Safe, and secure, doth bear them on.

I hear them singing, with beaming face,
Of the Father's love and the Savior's grace ;
I see them toiling with heart and hand
As they journey on to the glory-land;
Their hearts are cheered, through the toil and strife,
By His love that brightens the darkest night.

Sing on, ye children of heavenly light,
Let your songs resound through the world's dark night;

Tell of redemption through the blood-
Of Him who hath our surety stood-
The priceless gift of eternal love,
The precious, peerless Christ of God.

Oh, the songs of night, these songs of night,
That we never can learn in our home of light,
Where all shall be changed from faith to sight,
When forever with Jesus in glory bright;
Then past forever-each weary sigh
All hushed-in His presence eternally.

No toil to mar-'no grief or care,
Naught to sever can enter there ;
There, all at home, one family
In the Father's glorious home on high,
With adoring hearts we shall love to trace
The wonders of God's perfect grace.

Songs of the night, bright witnesses ye
Of the Spirit that leadeth your melody ;
Not the trumpet-sound, or the noisy drum,
But the heart's deep joy as we're pressing on,
And deeper the joy the more we learn
His love, who maketh our heart to burn.

Songs of redeemed which the Spirit awakes,
Sung in the prison, sung at the stake,
Sung by the mother amidst her home-cares,
Sung by the people of God every where ;
The rich and the poor, the high and the low,
All sing these songs wherever they go.

And the night is made glad with these songs
of the day,
For the love of our Father doth ever display;
If we sleep or wake-it's unceasing care :
There's none can harm, and nothing to fear.

Oh, well may we sing as we journey on
To the home of everlasting song,-
The home of eternal bloom-where we
Shall see the One who for us did die,
Who hath redeemed us with His blood,
And brought us to His Father, God.

C.G.C.

Just as the mother-eagle
Breaks up her birdlings' rest,
Pushing her wee ones over
The edge of their quiet nest,

Watching their trembling efforts,
With eager mother's love
She spreads her wings beneath them,
And bears them safe above.

Up toward the bright sun soaring,
O'er dizzy mountain-crest,
Showing her timid birdlings
Things better than their nest.

Thus does Thy love, O Father,
Break up our earthly nest;
In faithfulness Thou sayest,
"Rise ; this is not thy rest."

H. McD.