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of Jesus can warm the poorest hovel into a home, and the knowledge of God as our Father can make the heart bound that was breaking. Christianity was given, not merely to show us a home in the future, but to make us happy amid the incidents, the ills, the sorrows, and the sufferings of the present.

Do we fear things future? Do we dread things to come? The apostle speaks of "things past, of things present, and of things to come." What the years to come will be, no man can say. To some they will come leaping like brides'maids to a wedding; to others they will arrive weeping like mourners clad in sackcloth to a funeral. It is well that we do not know which it will be. There are many things in the future that we know are certain, as well as many things that are uncertain and contingent, about which we ought to have no anxiety. For instance, old age will come. Nobody likes to grow old. It is an instinctive feeling that we should like to remain at our meridian, but the hairs will whiten, the vigor of our early days will depart, and the love of calm repose, and sympathy with quiet and ease, will grow upon us day by day, so unconsciously, because so rapidly, that at the end only we feel that we have been growing old. Yet old age lays his hand upon the heart of the aged Christian, as the harper lays his palm upon the harp-strings, not to break them, but only to deaden their vibrations. Old age is but the ripeness of manhood, the preparation for glory, the reaching the last descent in the valley, that we may instantly begin to ascend on the other side to the heavenly Jerusalem, the house not made with hands, the presence of our Father and our God.. Let us not fear old age, and grey hairs, and infirmity. Let us feel God is our Shield, and our exceeding great reward. Fear not. At every step, in every trial, every conflict, over us is the Omnipotence, and around us the encircling Omni

presence, of the everlasting arms. That foe who smites the child of God fatally must be able to strike through the very omnipotence of God himself. There is nothing in the past that we can fear, for it is gone. There may be much to repent of, much to be forgiven, and neither is contingent, for the blood of Christ cleanseth from all sin. There is much in the present to struggle with, but nothing to overcome us. There is nothing in the future that ought to depress, discourage, and dispirit us, for God, who has been our defence in the past, is our shield in the present, and will be in the future. Let our rest and our repose be in him. Let us look at all things in the light of him, and we shall have peace. If you infer what God is from what betides you upon earth, your views of him will be most gloomy and unscriptural. Rather reverse the process. Look at life's rough places, and its ups and downs, and trials and sorrows, in the light of God our Father, and both will be beautiful. Start every prayer with "Our Father," begin every pilgrimage with "Our Father," look not upon God in the light of your affliction, but look at your affliction in the light of God, and thus you will have perfect peace, you will not fear, you will find in him your shield and your exceeding great reward.

This fearlessness, or absence of disquieting fear, is one of those states that will best strengthen and prepare us for the duties and the responsibilities of the present. It is always in quiet and repose, when kept in perfect peace by God, that we can see him the most clearly our shield and our great reward. When a person is full of disquiet, excitement, trouble, and fear, his eyes grow blind, his ears become deaf, he loses his self-possession; but when we have complete repose, with the absence of all disturbing fear, apprehension, and dismay, we can look behind us, before us, above us, and see exactly where we are and what we are.

It is in the calm, not in the tempest, that we see most clearly the stars of the sky; it is in the still ocean, not on the stormy and the turbulent sea, that we can see mirrored a thousand fathoms down the beautiful rainbow. It is in a state of repose that we can think most deeply, live most truly. It is in this absence from fear, disturbing fear, that we can best make preparation for every contingency, draw our conclusions, estimate our position, and decide correctly. The sailor, when his glass begins to indicate the approaching storm, reefs his sails, and makes his ship all right and trim for the conflict; the general, when he sees the foe approaching, calls in all his scattered outposts, seizes the best position, makes the most formidable arrangement, and thus prepares for the issue. And so the Christian, in this calm confidence in God, when he is kept in perfect peace because he trusts in the Lord, can make preparation to master every trial, to beat back every spiritual foe, to strengthen and increase every position that he occupies, and be sure that he will be more than conqueror, through him who loved him. Confidence in God was required of Abraham; it is what is asked of us. God delights that every Christian should walk with him as a child with his parent, not as a slave with his master. One great and besetting sin of professing Christendom is, that we feel as if we were slaves. We wince from God as if he were a cruel, exacting tyrant and taskmaster; we thus injure our own souls, and grieve our Father in heaven. Wherever we see God's foot print, or hear God's footfall, or trace God's fingerwhenever we enter into his presence, let us go with all that unsuspecting peace with which a babe clings to the bosom of its mother, or the child walks with its affectionate parent; we not only are stronger ourselves by this sweet sense of filial security, but we carry away the reflex operation in receiving that honor, "Them that honor me, I will honor."

Fear not

Fear not;

Fear not life nor death, nor things present, nor things to come,, nor peril, nor famine, nor nakedness, nor tribulation, nor sword; for in all the varying phases of our life, in all its ups and downs, in all its calms and storms, God is our shield. Because we lose the sense of this, it does not prove that God has ceased to be so. When I do not see the sun, it is not because the sun has gone back into the depths of the firmament, and hidden himself, but because a cloud has come from my earth, and arisen an exhalation intercepting the sunbeams. When we lose a sense of God's presence, protecting, preserving, it is not true that God has ceased to be our shield, or repented of his promise to be our reward, but that some fog has arisen from the marshes of the yet unsubdued and unsanctified heart, and intercepted the vision that was once so clear, and thus succeeded in hiding from us our shield and our exceeding great reward. all God's promises in Christ are yea and amen. "Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat, but I have anticipated it, I have prayed for you, that your faith fail not." Try the experiment of unsuspecting confidence in God, try the new experiment of not doubting what God says, but believing that he gives you whatever you ask, and that you are welcome to his presence, infinitely more than is the most affectionate child to the bosom of the most affectionate parent. He is our refuge, and "though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea, though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof," yet, says the Psalmist, "there is a river whose streams make glad the city of God." Let our hearts lie like isles upon the bosom of that river, gladdened by its current and refreshed by its waters, reposing in perfect peace, until earth is covered by the sunshine, and made a section of the great continent of eternity.

CHAPTER III.

AN ANCIENT CHRISTIAN.

"For wisdom famous through the East,
Abraham rested on his staff; in guise
A Chaldee shepherd, simple in his raiment,
As when at Mamre in his tent he sat.
Snow-white were his locks

And silvery beard, that to his girdle rolled.
Fondly his meek eye dwelt upon his Lord,
Like one that, after long and troubled dreams,
A night of sorrows, dreary, wild, and sad,
Beholds at last the dawn of promised joys."

"Your Father Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was glad." JOHN viii. 56.

OUR Lord preached to the Jews the truths of the gospel. They argued that what he preached was inconsistent with what Abraham taught. They said he was possessed by a devil, for "Abraham is dead, and the prophets; and thou sayest, so inferior to either, If a man keep my sayings, he shall never taste of death. Art thou greater than our father Abraham, which is dead? and the prophets are dead; whom makest thou thyself? Jesus answered, If I honor myself, my honor is nothing; it is my Father that honoreth me; of whom ye say, that he is your God. Yet, with all your loud pretensions, ye have not really known him, but I know him; and if I should say, I know him not, I shall be a liar like unto you; but I know him, and keep his sayings. And now, so little like to Abraham are you,

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