peace of mind, even here below, you must endeavour to realize a large measure of this hallowed feeling: if you hope to join the worshippers in the courts above, you must, by grace, attain to its complete possession; your will must be swallowed up in God's will. Without this entire conformity, heaven would be no heaven to you, were you to find yourself, at this moment, among its blessed inhabitants; for it is the will of God, and that alone, which awakens the harps of angels, and gives all the brightness to their crowns, and all the glory to their song; it is the will of God, and that alone, which throughout eternity, century by century, and year by year, and moment by moment, has sustained, and will sustain, the heaven of heavens, and all its unnumbered multitudes, from dropping into annihilation and perdition; it is the will of God, and that alone, for ever perfectly, cheerfully, and un

ceasingly fulfilled, which itself constitutes heaven. Surely, then, under every circumstance, the desire of our hearts should be, "The will of the Lord be done;" and our daily prayer, whether in acting or suffering, "Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven."

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LECTURE V.

ACTS xxi. 26.

THEN PAUL TOOK THE MEN, AND THE NEXT DAY PURIFYING HIMSELF WITH THEM, ENTERED INTO THE TEMPLE, TO SIGNIFY THE ACCOMPLISHMENT OF THE DAYS OF PURIFICATION, UNTIL THAT AN OFFERING SHOULD BE OFFERED FOR EVERY ONE OF THEM.

AFTER a journey marked by those most affecting and instructive particulars which we have already reviewed, St. Paul arrived at Jerusalem. Here, had we not been forewarned of the contrary, we might have hoped that his trials and his troubles would have ceased; or if this were too much to expect for the sincere and faithful follower of our Lord in this world of

sorrow, that, at any rate, some little respite might have been afforded for his solace and repose. From the circumstances which now present themselves, we shall find how erroneous would have been all such anticipations, that as the eventide approached, storms and tempests thickened round his path, and that the clouds which now were gathering were never afterwards totally dispersed, but formed that dark and cheerless sunset in which his day of worldly services was closed for ever.

Upon arriving at Jerusalem, we read that "the brethren received him gladly," and that "the day following he went in unto James, and all the elders were present. And when he had saluted them, he declared particularly what things God had wrought among the Gentiles by his ministry." lightful must have been this meeting! How glorious the account which, by God's blessing, this faithful apostle

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was enabled to render! his hearers have rejoiced to listen to every detail of those wonderful achievements, far more interesting than were ever told to admiring senates by the conquerors of the earth, of the power of divine grace which, by "the foolishness of preaching," had overcome the philosophic pride of the Areopagite, and subdued the rugged nature of the barbarous jailor, with as much facility as it had melted the heart of the tender Lydia. Surely few eyes were dry in that assembly, when St. Paul narrated his parting scene with the elders at Ephesus, and when he told them, as he doubtless did, that he was come among them not to repose after such unparalleled labours, but to meet, cheerfully to meet, those bonds and imprisonments which had been predicted, in every city in which he had set his foot. When his narrative was concluded, we are informed, with the beautiful brevity