encouraged by Him. Had not the angel been there, the women would have returned home with sad hearts. However, they were made the happy messengers of good tidings to His disconsolate disciples; and the same words are spoken for every seeker today, "Fear not ye;" but to His foes His is a voice producing fear, shaking, and shame. What are your thoughts respecting Christ alive? All are not public messengers for Him, but all His disciples think about Him and seek Him, and " a book of remembrance is written before the Lord for those who fear Him and think upon His name " (Mal. iii. 16).

The text suggests many things for profitable meditation. We see that no power, not even death and the grave, can hinder the work of Christ for the salvation of His people; all the efforts of men fail before Him, too. We are directed to contemplate the empty grave. This we can do with delight, because we know that Jesus is alive. Nevertheless, it was a real grave. He died and We here see what our sin brought the Lord of life Jesus passed through death and the grave on His We, too, are hastening to fill a grave—

was buried. to. Yes, our way to glory.

Can we say

"Yes, we shall soon be dying,

Time swiftly glides away."

"But on the Lord relying,
I hail the happy day"?

The grave is not to be our eternal prison-house; it is to be our resting-place for a season. Our grave also will be forsaken when He who is our life shall appear. Look then at the grave as the proof of sin's reign, and at the empty grave as the declaration of Christ's triumph over it, and the pledge of your future glorious exaltation and perfect happiness, if you by faith are resting upon the atoning work and blood of Jesus.

In conclusion, bear in mind that it is the same Jesus who was led as a lamb to the slaughter that John saw in the midst of the throne, still bearing the marks of His suffering, "a Lamb as it had been slain." Jesus remembers Calvary. He can say—

"The palms of My hands when I look on I see
The wounds I received while suffering for thee."

Yes, we have the same Jesus, to whom we may come to-day, with the same reasons for seeking Him, and with the same hope of finding healing virtue in Him, as had those who sought to touch the hem of His garment in days of old. He is "able to save to the uttermost." Yea, He is still "mighty to save." Do you feel your need of Him? Are you also seeking Him? Then fear not. He knows what you want and where you are.

He will send a word to you, a soul-healing and heart-cheering word. This same Jesus will quickly come again and receive you who love Him to Himself, to His own home.

"There you will see His face,

And never, never sin ;
There, from the river of His grace,
Drink endless pleasure in."

"MY THOUGHTS ARE NOT YOUR THOUGHTS." (1 PETER i. 3.)

ALTHOUGH we are in Christ new creatures made,
How subject still to bondage, doubt, and fear!
Sin lurks within and rears its haughty head,
Scarce doth one ray of hope, at times, appear.
One time I vainly thought that I should be,
While in this world of sin, and guilt, and woe,
From every sin and sorrow quite set free,

And happy to the end should onward go.
But oh, how vain, I since have lived to prove,
Are all such foolish, human thoughts as these!
For He who dwells in heaven, a God of love,
Ere time began, determined otherwise.

Like Peter, James, and John, and others too,
I quite mistook the work of Jesus Christ;

'Tis certain they but very little knew,

Nor I, of what the kingdom did consist.

*

The hope I had, like theirs, was very quickly lost;
It would not, could not, stand temptation's fire;
So very soon it yielded up the ghost, †

And buried was in despond's quaggy mire. ‡

But in the doubting Christian's darkest hour,

The light breaks through the clouds, the soul looks up, And Christ's almighty resurrection power

Begets within the soul a living hope.

And though, through trial, sharp and lasting long,
This hope is often damped, yet still it lives;

And live it must, for Jesus Christ is strong,
And needful strength He daily, hourly gives.

Then may we cry to Him, "Increase our faith!"
That so we may in Him alone believe;
And prove Him precious now, and down to death,
Then rest in Him, and He the praise receive.

Brighton.

R. G.

* Luke xxiv. 21.

John xxi. 3.

Psalm xl. 2.

A FRIENDLY EPISTLE.

MY DEAR FRIEND,-Grace, mercy, and peace be with you and those that love and fear God at C- It gave me pleasure to receive your letter, from which I trust I may gather that my labour among you has not been in vain in the Lord. God is my Witness how at times my soul wrestles with cries and tears that the Lord would bless His Word to poor sinners, and it rejoices my heart to hear that the Lord answers my petitions; but oh, how much do I need the prayers of the Lord's people! What a help they have been to me at C, and at other places! How mysteriously the Lord works! I told you the appearance of those two collegians somewhat daunted me; and yet it must be one of those whom the Lord intended I should speak to, not in the words that man's wisdom teacheth, but as the Holy Ghost teacheth; and how evident it is that they that are joined to the Lord are of one spirit, and that they who are brought to know the voice of the Lord shall be sought out, reclaimed from every mountain of sin, ignorance, darkness, and error, and be at last gathered home, where there shall be one fold and one Shepherd ! What a mercy the Lord is pleased to give any food to His sheep while passing through this wilderness, for such cannot be satisfied with the husks (mere external forms and ceremonies) which the swine feed upon. Nothing short of pure grain-clean provender that has been winnowed by the shovel and the fan-will do for them; and for this to be found in the ministry of the Word, it is necessary that both minister and people be well exercised in both sides of a real religion, the partakers of which will not speak half Hebrew and half Ashdod, but will have a pure language turned unto them, which will be understood by the living family. But what or who is the Person spoken of? Ah! my friend, it is none but Jesus-His lovely name, His precious blood and glorious righteousness. He must be All in all to our poor sin-bitten souls. In Him is health, pardon, cleansing, food; in Him are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge; and when the dear Lord is pleased to turn to us as He did to Thomas, showing us His hands and His dear side, then we see the greatness of our salvation, and think it cannot be for such as we are; but, as we are led again and again to discover that it is all of grace, and dispensed in a free and unmerited manner, we see that the vilest sinner may be saved, and, being brought to feel ourselves the vilest of all, which is only really known as mercy is felt flowing from Jesus to our poor souls, we loathe ourselves under a felt persuasion that the Lord is pacified towards us. Here we are made to feel ashamed of our prayers, our songs, our sermons, finding so much sin is mixed with them, and we can glory in nothing but a

crucified and risen Saviour. And what matchless mercy that He who has won our heart and engaged our affections will one day say, "Come, ye blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world," to the joy of our heart, but to the confusion of millions of our fellow-creatures who have not been such sinners as we have. And here the final gathering in will take place, and we shall no longer need the light of the sun and of the moon, but the Lord will be our everlasting light, and the days of our mourning shall be ended. A prospect of this should reconcile us to pains, afflictions, and sorrows here, seeing the time is short, and, in a little while, "He that shall come will come, and will not tarry." Oh, to be ready for the heavenly Bridegroom, and to be enabled to say, "Come, Lord Jesus!" It is my earnest desire to live every day as though it were my last; but, alas! how far I come short. What cause there is constantly to confess that we are unprofitable servants, and to cry, "My leanness, my leanness! woe unto me!"

Thus far I wrote last week; ever since then our dear little boy has been very ill, and the doctor has been attending him daily. This has so put everything out of my head that, at times, I seem at my wits' end; but the Lord is good, and, whatever may be the result with our dear child, we shall have to say, "Not in anger, but from His dear covenant love," although, as parents, we feel the stroke keenly. With love to the friends,

I remain, yours to serve in the truth,
Deptford, January 18th, 1870.
Mr. T. Porter.

J. BOORNE.

WHAT some call providential openings are often powerful temptations. The heart, in wandering, cries, "Here is a way opened before me," but perhaps not to be trodden in, but rejected.-Newton.

Ir is God's goodness to men to blast all things in the world to them, to break their fairest hopes, that they may be constrained to look above to Himself. He beats them from all shores, that He may bring them to the Rock that is higher than they.Leighton.

GOD's presence is not to banish evils from us, but comfort and support us under evils, and to moderate and order them as a father is present with a sick child. All the presence of God is not in deliverance, but He is present also in His assistance and in His comforts. Though you be not delivered from your evils, yet you are enabled to bear, and you are comforted under them, and this is a gracious presence of God with you.-Sedgwick.

PSALM CVII. VIEWED AS THE BELIEVER'S
PROGRESSIVE EXPERIENCE.

FOURTH STAGE.

(Continued from page 140.)

Verse 23: "They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters." A new kind of experience, for faith, patience, and all other graces have to be tried in various ways for the glory of God—

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"My soul through many changes goes;

His love no variation knows."

They that go down." Not all are called to this, but very many. The sea represents troubles, and its waves a succession of them, as in Job's case, or Psalm xlii. 7: "Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of Thy waterspouts; all Thy waves and Thy billows are gone over me.' As the Captain of salvation was made perfect through suffering, so these are led into deep waters that they may have fellowship with Him. But they have their reward. It is worth going down thus to see "the works of the Lord and His wonders in the deep." "Count it all joy," says James (i. 2); and Peter : "Think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you" (1 Peter iv. 12). This stage represents to us those strange and mysterious dealings, both in providence and within, which now meet the soul. They were not sent when his faith was weaker, but now he must "do business in deep waters." Everything wrong in providence, even to poverty, it may be ; every door of help shut; coldness from the world, and even from the Church, with respect to help and sympathy; the heavens as brass and the earth as iron. Prayer, instead of being answered, only seems to increase trouble: "For since I came to Pharaoh to speak in Thy name, he hath done evil to this people; neither hast Thou delivered Thy people at all" (Exod. v. 23); "When 1 cry and shout, He shutteth out my prayer" (Lam. iii. 8); "Joseph is not, and Simeon is not, and ye will take Benjamin away; all these things are against me" (Gen. xlii. 36). Joseph in prison, under promise of rule; Moses keeping sheep, without prospect of delivering his brethren, as promised; David saying, "I shall one day perish by the hand of Saul," even though anointed to the kingdom-this is the nature of the present experience. Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit" (John xii. 24). A death seems to come upon the promise, upon the prospect, the probability, the possibility of fulfilment, as with Abraham and Sarah before the birth of Isaac.

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