We were speaking, in our last paper, on worship. And this, beloved reader, is most important. To be a worshiper of the true and living God is the grandest thing possible for any created intelligence, since this will be the chiefest occupation of the redeemed to all eternity. Think, one moment, of this:to all eternity a worshiper ! Never wearying, and never monotonous; always fresh. He who knows what worship is, (for it is a purely spiritual exercise,) will witness to this as a divine reality. He never wearies of it. And he who doubts, or questions, this statement, may be sure that he has never known true worship, "in spirit and in truth." There are many nowadays who can say with the woman of Samaria, "Our fathers worshiped in this mountain, but ye say that Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship " ; and to such the Savior's answer would equally well apply, "Ye worship ye know not what." To enjoy a meeting is not necessarily worship; and yet there is abundant joy in worship. One may be very happy in preaching the gospel, as in listening to the preaching of the gospel, and yet not worship at all; for the gospel is God's message sent down to men, while worship is a sweet savor of Christ handed up to God. The gospel is manward:worship is Godward. The gospel is to, and for, the unsaved, that they may become worshipers-that they may be saved, and then answer back to God, in the power of the Holy Ghost, with a song and a heart-throb which present Christ as our meat-offering (Lev. 2:i-ii). But notice especially the eleventh verse. " No leaven," and " no honey," allowed here-nothing of man, nothing of ourselves. The honey and the leaven represent the good and the bad in man; there is the good side, and there is the bad side. But the good side has no more a place before God than the bad; and for this reason:it would displace Christ! And if you displace Him,- the Holy and the True, the Father's delight, God's Beloved,-you might as well do it with bad self as with good self. And yet much that is called worship in these days is but the honey and leaven of human wisdom and fleshly contrivance, which of course yields its proportion of joy and satisfaction, according to the measure of devotedness with which it is taken up. Beloved reader, am I speaking rashly, when I say that Christ must be the measure of all that you can present to God as worship? And this is made plain in Phil. 3:3 :" For we are the circumcision (God's true Israel) which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, (not in ourselves,) and have no confidence in the flesh." The word translated flesh here is the same as in chap. 1:22, 24, and also in the fourth verse of the same chapter, and is intended to designate the whole man, the good as well as the bad of a Christian, a child of God; and this all the more intensifies the thought expressed in the leaven and the honey, which shows clearly that there is nothing of ourselves, in good feelings, nor in good doings, that we can bring to God as worshipers:absolutely nothing can God accept but that which is a sweet savor of His blessed Son. Hence, "to worship God in the spirit" is to "rejoice in Christ Jesus;" it is to find your whole soul's delight in Him who is God's delight. Oh, if I could impress this upon your heart !-the importance of finding your delight in God's delight. "To behold the beauty of the lord." Is this a reality to my reader ? or is it barbarian-something which you do not understand ? Be assured of this :worship does not consist in good thoughts, nor good feelings, nor in good meetings. It does consist in presenting to God, most holy, that which delights His heart. And where do you find it ? in Christ.

Turn, if you please, to the seventeenth chapter of Matthew, and mark one thing which we get there. While on the mount of transfiguration, when Jesus had put on the glory of the coming kingdom, and Moses and Elias were seen by Peter, James, and John, as talking with Jesus, Peter would give Moses and Elias a tabernacle as well as Himself. What did God think of it? "While he yet spake, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them:and behold a voice out of the cloud, which said, This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye Him." And when the disciples heard it, they fell on their face, and were sore afraid." What does this mean? Well, beloved reader, to me it means this first of all:that God has spoken to us by His Son (Heb. 1:1-3); and, secondly, that now there is absolutely no access to God but in and through Him; and it is a saved soul-one consciously saved-who can be, and is, a worshiper "in spirit and in truth."

Beloved reader! what did Jesus say to the woman of Samaria? (John 4:22.) "Ye worship ye know not what:we know what we worship:for salvation is of the Jews. But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth:for the Father seeketh such to worship Him:God is a Spirit:and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth." "in spirit and in truth"-by the Holy Ghost led, and according to the truth. And again I ask, Do you know what this is ? Do you know that the Holy Spirit dwells in you ? and that it is the Spirit abiding in you, and ungrieved, who must lead and guide in everything which we say and do, else it cannot be acceptable to God, it cannot be '' worship in spirit and in truth," since there can be no sweet savor of Christ in it ?

Oh, how many thousands of people there are who are no better off than the woman of Samaria!-they worship they know not what-the religion of their fathers, their church, their minister, their good feelings, their happy experiences. And what is this but idolatry ? And yet they are sincere and conscientious. Their religious teachers have never given them anything better, simply because they had it not to give. The one-man ministry is all right for the gospel, but all wrong for worship. The evangelist is necessarily alone in speaking for God to men; but in worship, each individual saint is responsible to offer to God a sweet savor of Christ. And how can he do this ? Only as led by the Holy Spirit-not by proxy. Under the ritual of the law, it was by proxy. The high-priest went into the presence of God for the people:but under the law, it was man in the flesh worshiping ; hence timbrels and harps, trumpets, pipes, and organs-musical instruments of all kinds ; because there is nothing like music to stir up the natural emotions ; and how oft these emotional feelings, stirred up by fine music and good singing, are supposed to be worship, while the heart is just simply occupied with the music, and the fleshly delight which it gives, and not with Christ at all!

My reader ! how is it with yourself ? Have you ever tasted the divine joy of offering to God a sweet savor of His beloved Son ?

" O Lord, we know it matters not
How sweet the song may be;
No heart but by the Spirit taught
Makes melody to Thee."

C. E. H.