of it, is the greatest beanty in human

nature.

"When I make up my jewels." We read of jewels of gold, and jewels of silver, and of vessels that are to be purified by fire. Paul says, "But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereon, for other foundation can no man lay that is laid, which is Jesus Christ." If any man build thereon gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble, every man's work shall be made manifest, for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire, and the fire shall try every man's work, If a man, therefore, purge himself from these, he is a vessel unto honour, sanctified and meet for the Master's use, and prepared unto every good work. So we must be purified by fire, cleansed by the blood of Jesus, or else we cannot be vessels meet for the Master's use. The grace of God must reign and rule in our hearts. Without all these things formed together, we cannot be called vessels of gold and vessels of silver, to shew forth his praise and glory.

"In that day when I make up my jewels." The word jewel has another meaning, it is used as a word of endearment or fondness. If any one has a love or affection for another, they frequently say, My jewel. You know what I mean, you need not be surprised. If God loves you with an everlasting love, and his love is unchangeable, he uses it to you after manner. You may say, Where is the word, jewel, used as a term of fondness in the book of God? In the Song of Solomon Christ says to the church, "I have compared thee, O my love, to a company of horses in Pharoah's chariot: thy cheeks are comely with rows of jewels, thy neck with chains of gold." The chain of gold about the neck of the spouse, is the truth in the love of it.

The next thing is, they shall not only be his, but he will spare them as a man spares his son that serveth

him." If we look at the word, spare, it means, not to inflict punishment : for if you look at the opposition, it is said, He spared not the whole world, but saved Noah; he spared not the Egyptians; but, above all, he spared not his own Son, but freely delivered him up for us all, but us he spares. "As a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him; for he knoweth our frame, and remembereth that we are dust."

A LETTER ON SPIRITUAL SUBJECTS.

My loved Mother,

Doubtless you have thought me very ungrateful in not writing oftener to you but, dear mother, it is not because I love you the less, but that I might not trouble you to answer my letters, but I never write to my father and to any one or other of my relations, but I inquire after your welfare and anxiously run over any letter that I may have received to see if it contains news of you, and now that we have been parted so many long years, I still call our last parting scene to my recollection as vivid as if it was but yesterday; methinks I still see you looking out of the conveyance that was separating you from your soldier boy, but though we are parted my dear mother in all probabillity for this life, we have this hope within us that in a few more years we shall all meet that love the Lord, in that place where parting is not known, and peace and happiness for ever remain What wonders of grace have been bestowed upon your poor boy! Since I have been a stranger and in a strange land I have become a respectable non-commissioned officer I have been permitted to marry her whom my soul loves: 1 have been blessed with a fine healthy boy, but the crowning mercy of all is, that I have been made a recipient of the converting grace of our Almighty Saviour, and can now say with the apostle Paul, that neither height or

depth nor any other creature can separate me from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. And now, my loved parent, may I be permitted to ask, are you still looking to Christ as the Israelites looked to the brazen serpent; are you still placing all your dependance on his finished salvation; have you committed your all unto him knowing that he is able to keep till that day. I firmly hope you are ; if you are not it is the entreaties of your once heartless and ungrateful boy, but now repentant and forgiven son may have weight with you, that our hopes of meeting again may not be destroyed. The christian horizon of this country is at this time very gloomy, popery and puseyism are making rapid strides, and I very much fear that true vital religion is at a very low ebb; but blessed be God that he knoweth those that are his. But the signs of the times demand of them who do love the Lord, much and earnest prayer for that graceful strength which he has promised. I am well and have enjoyed the best of health since I have been in this country; Eliza is well, but very much reduced since she arrived in this country; my dear boy Harry is well and likely to walk this month. Trusting that this may find you all as it leaves us at present, is the ardent prayer of your affectionate children,

WILLIAM & ELIZA BURGESS.

A CRY OUT OF CAPTIVITY,

My Dear Brother,

You no doubt have been thinking I had forgotten you ere this, but not so, my heart and soul is still united to you and dear W- I trust you are somewhat better than when I heard of you last, or I should have heard from you before now. The account that Mrs. Huntington gave of you really rejoiced our souls, though I can assure you I soon lost the savour. My soul for some time

has been very much cast down, dark, barren and dead, so that nearly all hope of my soul ever being saved is now taken away, and I have found a sort of a trying to give up all hope, and to sink down into despair. But my soul can neither ascend in earnest desires, nor descend into a broken and contrite spirit. And sure I am, if not kept by the good hand of a covenant God, my soul would sink to hell.

I believe my soul must go a deal deeper than it ever has been yet, and I can find a willingness and desire that the dear Lord will try me, and empty my soul from vessel to vessel, and never let me rest one moment short of himself. What is all profession, yea possession, short of the Lord. know my worthless soul has found him sweet, and his dear name as ointment poured forth; and for that very cause my soul does love him.

I have felt a little revival in reading dear Huntington's letters; and this I have narrowly watched, that in his giving the footsteps of the flock, and the real evidences of the work, he never has been out altogether of my path, I seldom or ever read, but what I have a little light where I am, and generally brings me to a spirit that I like; but it is soon gone again: then I fret and mourn, and find it is an infinite mercy that the dear Lord hath received gifts for the rebellious, or my soul must eternally sink.

M and I felt a little compunction of spirit in reading Mr. Huntington's first letters; what power, what unction, what simplicity is there in them, such as my soul loves. I am sure that both of our souls are of one heart, and in the same spirit. There is not one in these parts, that I can find, that is savingly taught of God. I rode forty-six miles on Sunday, and twenty-six last Sunday. I have talked with many, and from what I can judge, thep are full of conceit, blindness, ignorance, blasphemy, and infernal security. I call it infernal,

for the effect that my soul feels after, is awful enmity, hardness of heart, rebellion and bondage; and into that general universal system of working for life. I can truly say I would not part or exchange with the best of them, for there is, neither life nor power in all they say; and though they often visit my company, the Lord knows they never have had my heart with them, nor one spark of affec tion. But as for those whom the dear Lord condescended to teach, and make manifest in my soul, my heart is to live and die with them, nor would I offend them for ten thousand worlds. If it was a beggar from the dunghill, he would be sure to take my heart away, for I know I could not command it. I will thank you to give our love to W, and we would thank him to go and see Mr.

and give our love to him, and tell him how we are. We should be glad to hear from you or him at any time. Tell I am often with you, and long to be with you, but I cannot say when I shall: I have found my soul at liberty once or twice, to beg of the Lord to remove me where I can hear his truth and find his presence, and I am now waiting the result. Our love to Mrs. M and all the family. I hope Mrs. ―is still kept following on to know the Lord, M says she is sure the Lord has made her willing to be saved in God's own way, and despairs of every other. Our children are all well.

And now, dear - my soul's desire is, that you may be "kept by the power of God, through faith, unto salvation." and that we may be kept tender at his feet, and seeking and watching his blessed hand from day to day, and that he would give us a heart to bless his name for the many special mercies that we have received; a heart to seek his blessed face when sensibly withdrawn, and dissatisfied until he return to his temple.

My present feeling is this: I believe in my heart that the dear Lord will bring my soul out in his own good time, but I also believe I must The sink much deeper than ever. Lord bless you.

Yours truly in the best and the sweetest bonds,

N. MARRINER.

A DIALOGUE BETWEEN MR. O., AND MR. T., ON SPIRITUAL SUBJECTS. BY THE LATE REV. JOHN RUSK.

Continued from page 228.

T. I can see clearly what you say reapecting a spiritual birth, but never understood it so before; but go on if you please about the little children, for I think there is much meant in the word little.

0. You say, Go on, as if it was very easy, but I can assure you it is not, unless the blessed Spirit guide us into the truth as it is in Jesus; I feel altogether unfit for such work in general, and if any mortal living felt their need of the Holy Spirit, I do; and since I have engaged to treat of it, I have at times wished I had not, but this is an encouragement to me, that it is the empty, foolish, and weak that the Lord attends to; no fleshly wisdom is of any use here. But now to the point in hand, which as the Lord shall assist we will take up in a three-fold point of light: 1st. How they become the children of God. 2nd. Shew some mark which they have to prove it. And 3rd, To treat of little children. I intend brevity. 1st. Then they became children by free adoption, which was the fruit and effect of eternal election, which took place in eternity before ever sin entered into the world and death by sin, and no reason can possibly be assigned why they should be chosen, and others left to perish, but the secret will and purpose of Jehovah, who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will,

having predestinated us to the adopt tion of children by Christ to himself according to the good pleasure of his will, and although we all fell in Adam alike, and were by nature children of wrath, one as well as another, yet being in Christ before the fall we were preserved; hence Jude says, Sanctified by God the Father that is set apart in his eternal purpose" preserved in Christ Jesus, that is from eternal destruction when they fell with the rest of mankind, and called; that is their effectual vocation, and if this is delayed, I ask such the meaning of this text, "God that cannot lie, according to the promise of eternal life which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the world began; but although loved in Christ Jesus in whom they were chosen with everlasting love, yet when they fell in Adam, there were six things stood in the the way of the display of this love to them; God the Father therefore entered into covenant with his dear Son, and gave to him upon condition that he would become incarnate, and undertake their cause: Thine they were, and thou gavest them me," &c.; and when he came he removed every obstacle out of the way: 1. Sin; "the soul that sinneth shall die;" Christ made his soul an offering for sin. 2. A broken law, "cursed is every one that continueth not in all things written in the book of the law to do them; but Christ magnified the law, made it honourable, and redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for

shall be scattered, (from the stroke) and I will turn my hand (to protect instead of destroying) upon the little ones 4, Truth must be cleared; truth says, that God will by no means clear the guilty now Jesus Christ is truth itself, and all the guilt belonging to them was charged upon him that was inncenc itself. 5. Holiness; God is of purer eyes

than to behold iniquity;" but through his death and sufferings, the Holy Spirit is given them to make them meet for the inheritance with the saints in light. Lastly, God is righteous; and yet through the merits of Christ, he can be just and the justifier of them that believe in Jesus, for all the obedience of Christ is placed to their account.

T-What a glorious harmony there is in God's word and how all the perfections of Jehovah shine forth in the Lord Jesus Christ, so that God is glorified and the sinner saved in a way of strict justice; mercy and truth met together, righteousness and peace kissed each other." feel the blessed effects of these things really as you go on.

I

O. I am glad of it; but I will proceed to the next thing proposed, and that is, some evident marks whereby according to Scripture we may know that we are the children of God. The first then that I shall mention, which will satisfy every real saint, is this: faith in Christ Jesus, to be quite sure that I am a believer in Christ; full assurance of faith is full assurance of satisfaction, and when faith lays a fast hold of the benefits of his life, death, resurrection, and ascension, and comfortably applies them to ourselves, oh, this is delightful work, after longlabouring hard and striving at the strait gate, to say with Paul, The Son of God who loved me, and gave himself for me;" this is a full satisfaction, felt, and enjoyed, and come in due season; hence Paul says, "There is neither Jew, nor Greek, Barbarian,

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