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mon owed to Paul, mine own self *—well do I remember when he was about to be withdrawn from me, and I was to struggle alone, as it were, up the narrow way that leadeth unto life, how my heart misgave me, and my soul sunk within me. I felt forsaken, bereaved, destitute. Almost did I despair of being able to pursue my journey Zionward without his fraternal aid; almost did I forget that the ear of our common Lord was not heavy that it could not hear, neither his arm shortened that it could not save; as if his God had been my God only when he was with me-only when he was with me, his Saviour mine."

"Yes," said my companion, such feelings, under such circumstances, are undoubtedly natural; and very deeply, indeed, did poor Bethlin appear to lament the approaching removal of one who had assisted him on his heavenly road. He sat down beside me, but he could only listen, manifestly afraid to trust his quivering lips with a reply,"

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I have often thought," continued my friend after a pause," that one of the most striking evidences of a soul maturing for an undefiled abode, may be found in the growing sense of the importance of eternity. Man occupied about external things, and almost in the delusiveness of a carnal mind, imagining that he shall possess an immortality on earth, seldom turns his attention to the future, or dreams of the awful realities of another world. Conscious that he is unfit for the employments of an unpolluted rest, and trembling at the fearful alternative of a portion with the devil and his angels, he uses every exertion to intercept the view of eternity. Or if, for an instant, any incidental occurrence arrest his regards, and fix them on the vast wastes beyond, he shudders with

* Philem. 19.

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in himself, and endeavours to speak comfort to his soul with the vain subterfuge that God is merciful, and therefore cannot punish a frail creature with the severity which some denounce. In the language of the Apostle, this he willingly is ignorant of,' that God can alone be merciful where his justice is satisfied; that the sceptre of pardon can alone be extended where the transgressor has been arraigned, and honour done to the violated laws. He forgets that God can be just in justifying that sinner only who believeth in Jesus'

-whose sins have already been atoned for by the sacrifice of the Lamb immaculate, and in whom the claims of his sovereign authority have, through the propitiation set forth in his blood, been answered to the utmost. If Christ had not suffered, I have no hesitation in declaring that forgiveness never could have reached to man! In the words of your immortal bard, who was scarce less acute as a divine than he was unmatched in the daring of poetic range,

"Die he, or justice must."

"These observations," continued my companion, "have suggested themselves to me from the state of mind in which I found my venerable friend. He had not yet attained to any very deep perceptions of heaven or hell, of his misery by nature, or of the everlasting wrath of God. Yet had he an evident and increasing anxiety about eternal things. If he had not hitherto been enabled to rejoice in hope,' and thence had been proportionally weaned from the vanities of this chequered and fluctuating scene, he was still vitally impressed with their perishable nature, and the necessity for seeking a resting place beyond."

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"It is not uninstructive," I remarked, while my companion paused, "to observe the various gradations through which the ob-.

jects of the divine regard are led from total indifference to seriousness from false security, to utter hopelessness in their own deservings-from the indistinct feeling of the futility of earthly pleasures, to a lasting value for heavenly joys: or, if we may employ a Scriptural metaphor, to trace them from the Mount Ephraim, when the watchman first called to them, "Arise ye!" to their calm contentedness when seated at the foot of the cross, reposing under the banner of their Redeemer's love. Happy is it, that the safety of the soul depends not on sensible comforts! I do not mean to say that these are by any means to be overlooked in the discipline of the school of Christ; for these it is that makes the pilgrim go exulting on his way; and how delightful is it, when attending a dying bed, to behold that peace which passeth all understanding diffused around the pillow, whence the head of a brother or a sister is to be raised no more! Yet, a Christian is not the less a Christian, because his Saviour has not revealed himself to him in the fulness of his eternal love, or because he is for a season under the hidings of a father's face. God may see 'good that he should walk through the dark valley of humiliation, ere he ascend the heights of Pisgah, and survey, without a cloud intervening to obscure its glories, the long expected and anxiously anticipated land of promise. Reasons there may be, though inscrutable to human penetration, which may render it profitable for us to go down with mourning to the chambers of the grave. Some hope there may be, some deceitful trust to be rooted out, some dross to be purged away, before we enter those habitations where "God is all in all."

"When I had concluded my little exhortation," resumed my friend, "I proposed to this aged couple that we should unite in

prayer. They thankfully acceded to my request; and before the throne of grace I again commended them and myself to the Keeper of Israel-to Him, who is the LORD, and besides whom there is no Saviour. In that solemn moment, we experienced, I devoutly trust, a portion of his presence; and we arose from our knees with the feeling it is good for us to be here.? I then took an affectionate farewell of my venerable friends. Deeply, indeed, were they agitated at the thought that I must leave them; and

many and warm were the tears they shed. Remember us,' they cried, interrupted by their emotion, ' remember us in your prayers. We are now old and grey-headed, and cannot expect long to live. O, Sir, pray for us, that our loins may be girded and our lights burning, and we like unto those who wait for their Lord.' This I promised, in the humble confidence that God would enable me to fulfil this last duty towards them. Again I shook them by the hand, and finally tore myself from them amidst their tears and blessings; assured that, if we never met thereafter on earth, we should be found together in that heavenly country where the redeemed from among men will be united, gathered from the four winds, thenceforth to separate no more

"While years celestial roll their ceaseless round!"

"The evening had now considerably advanced. The crimson tinge on the mountains was becoming fainter and fainter. Some fleecy exhalations alone, that seemed unwilling to retire from the splendour with which the last smile of day had invested them, lingered over the cerulean arch, now seen only like white specks as farther and farther the sun declined beneath the horizon; recalling to my recollection that beautiful passage of your pastoral poet

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"LET them praise the name of the Lord; for he commanded and they were created."

HER Maker let Creation bless,

In praise let all unite;

His praise is perfect happiness,

His service is delight:

Then raise your songs his power to own,
And humbly bow before his throne.

Ye cheerful hours of beaming light,
Thou full orb'd globe of fire,
And you ye awful shades of night

With all your starry choir,
Proclaim, with more than mortal tongue,
Your Maker's praise in matchless song.

Let e'en the rapid lightning's form,

Dread messenger of wrath,
The boiling ocean's billowy storm,
The direful whirlwind's path,
Adore the Lord who reigns on high,
And bear his praises through the sky.

Each beast within its untracked lair,
And ocean's finny band,
Ye feather'd families of air,
All creatures of his hand,

The wonders of your Maker shew,
Jehovah's matchless praise renew.

Ye seraphs, who, on wings of fire,
Heaven's sacred conclave fill,
Whose whole enraptur'd souls aspire
To do your Sovereign's will;
To bless his name your voices raise,
And swell the tuneful notes of praise.

But more, ye ransom'd sons of earth,
Ye saints of hallowed name,
Adore the grace which gave you birth,
Your Saviour's power proclaim.
Ye sons of heaven and earth accord,
To spread the triumphs of the Lord.

Their beaven-sent powers let each employ
To honour heaven's high king;
Till with glad shouts of heavenly joy

The empyrean arches ring,
Till earth below and heaven above,
Adore and praise redeeming love.

W. A. S.

THOUGHTS IN RETIREMENT.-No. VI.
[Continued from page 186.]

I HAVE no objection to the word condition. It was a word often used by no less a man than Dr. Owen. The promises are all conditional, without a single exception; but then we must remember the condition itself is the subject of promise-"I will subdue your iniquities; a new heart I will give you." The idea of condition any further than of cause to effect, a mean to an end, a capacity of enjoyment, is inadmissible. Repentance, faith, and obedience are all conditions, but they are God's gifts, "that not of yourselves" may be said of every thing. It is grace for grace, or a gracious promise, made to a gracious state. If the conditions of salvation are not so understood, man has whereof to boast. He is his own Saviour.

Explain the term theologically, and there can be no objection to

it.

The perfection of government is a meek firmness.

To deny discrimination in temporals or spirituals, is to close our eyes against facts. Is not one born rich, another poor, one healthy and strong, another weak and sickly, one under a dispensation of light and truth, another exposed to delusion and abomination from the cradle to the grave? It may astonish us, it is nevertheless the fact, deny it who can. Let us, however, be rather thankful than curious. It is a beautiful thought of Leighton, O the depths: 1 choose rather to remain in silence on the sea shore, than venture out into an abyss from whence I may never return.'

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Other men are my looking-glass. In them I see myself. Sin deceives and makes fools of us, or we should need no mirror.

Reason staggers and stumbles at original sin. It is one of the most mysterious doctrines of theology. Many have attempted to

explain it, but all have left it just
where they took it up. It seems
to us, and ever will in this world,
without further light, altogether in-
equitable to impute sin to those
who never committed it; to punish
for sin committed before a man was
born. Yet there is no arguing
against fact. The man, with his
denial of imputation, who allows
condemnation for inherent corrup-
tion; or the man who talks of
a compensatory law; or the uni-
versalist, with his final restoration
of all things; they all do nothing.
In whatever sense we take the
atonement, still the question re-
turns, How came man to need
atonement at all. If we allow the
consequences to deserve condemna-
tion, we are still in as great a
straight as if we maintain imputa-
tion. To say God has provided a
remedy, is really saying nothing to
the purpose.
If the death of
Christ be not of obligation (and
who would maintain so impious a
tenet), but of mere mercy and
grace, then Christ need not have
died, and man might justly have
been condemned, though involved
in ruin by another. I say, the re-
medy as a free gift supposes the
justice of the condemnation, and
the sin of nature deserving such
condemnation, must be traced to
the first offence as its cause. Now
can reason make this out?`

Shall I then deny primitive evil independent of personal volition? Then I must deny fact; for is it not manifest that children suffer for their parents' crimes, and inherit diseases communicated to them at their birth yea, while in the womb. A deist is as much concerned to explain the fact, as a believer in Revelation; yet he knows no more about this matter than others.

I think the American divines, in attempting to explain the difficulty, have done mischief. They are not

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on right ground. This is a matter of faith, not of knowledge. take pleasure in giving credit to the Lord, and am satisfied. "Shall not the judge of all the earth do right?"

Satan can easily foil me in metaphysics; with the shield of faith I am safe and easy. Time and trust will set all to rights. If I now see through a glass darkly, I hope to see face to face.

Time is much better employed in labouring to get out of ruin, than in inquiring how we came into it.

How is it I delay to pray. I shuffle-I admit excuses; and if there are none, invent some. I must read a little, write first, by and by go to God, and converse with him. How is it my mind will wander like a fool's eye to the ends of the earth-earnest only in affliction-dull in deliverance, heartless in comfort-proud in enlargements -glad it is over-presenting a hundred petitions for one act of praise. Ah! I am carnal, sold under sin: any thing but God. Wonderful, I may come. I am not sent into hell on my knees; but there is one whom the Father delighteth to honour. It is for his sake I am borne with admitted after all. Rev. viii. 3.

If we influence each other, one man's spirit another's spirit, why should it be deemed preposterous to suppose God's spirits working in our hearts. Cannot he do what we do every day, convey ideas by his word, and affections by his grace?

discovers much pride, but he is a weak man, and shows him self. Another has more pride and more sense to hide his nakedness.

Strong spiritual affections require special watchfulness. The body partly exhausted, and greatly excited, is irritable. Satan embraces an opportunity to inflict a wound on our profession. The soul after converse with heaven is averse to the worry of life; is dis

pleased at intrusion and disturbance; at unseasonable and unreasonable approach. It is, therefore, a time to mount our watch-tower, and keep the door of our lips.

Man unconverted may be compared to a wheel without a linchpin; he goes for a time, but there is no dependence on him. He has no regulator; he rolls about, but is sure to fail in the end.

Who but an inspired writer could have drawn such a character as that of Christ. Novelists, when they would describe a good man, make him weak, ridiculous, and unnatural. In bad characters they succeed, but fail in their heroes. Sir Charles Grandison makes me sick.

If Christ were not God, how could he be without sin? John, viii. 46. All other men, the best of men, have ever been weak and sinful. If Christ had not been the Son of God, he would have been so too.

Our Immanuel was ever in character, and on the most trying occasions exhibited the most perfect wisdom-the most perfect holiness not a word but in place. An impostor could not be this character, nor describe such a character. It could never enter into a heart full of deceit, intending to impose on mankind, much less could he be always on his guard, and ready for all occasions.

I doubt the least when I am most holy. Scepticism is my punishment for not walking with God.

Man, by the fall, has not lost so much the approbation of good as his inclination to practise it."When I would do good, evil is present with me.'

"Video meliora proboque Deteriora sequor." They disliked to retain God in their knowledge."

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Experience gives demonstration. My greatest trouble in my late perilous situation arose from a fear of dishonouring God by my cow

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