God for a Father, Christ for a Saviour, heaven for an eternal and glorious home. His sins are all forgiven. All things work together for his good. Death, which is so dreadful to others, is gain to him. If these things do not fill us with

joy and peace, I do not know what can.

To be happy is our duty as well as our privilege. It is when others see us to be always rejoicing that they learn the value of faith. Nothing is so likely to lead the unconverted to a serious concern for salvation as an example of Christian cheerfulness, especially when displayed in the midst of trial and sorrow. Solomon says, that "the laughter of fools is as the crackling of thorns under a pot;" that is, it flames up very brightly for a short time and then it dies out, leaving only cold, dark ashes behind. Just such is the mirth of the ungodly. Even in this world it lasts but for a little while. The drunkard's song, the profane jest, the loud laugh of the foolish and thoughtless, often hide a heavy heart, and soon give place to shame and sorrow. Then death comes and ends it all. Very dif ferent to this is the joy and peace with which the God of hope fills those who believe.

"Tis religion that can give

Sweetest pleasures while we live ;
"Tis religion must supply
Solid comfort when we die.

After death its joys will be
Lasting as eternity:

Be the living God my Friend,
Then my bliss shall never end.

TRUE AND FALSE PEACE.

"Preaching peace by Jesus Christ."-Acts x. 36.

Preaching Christ destroys false peace, and gives 'true peace. False peace is fatal. A man sleeping on the edge of a precipice, where a single movement might dash him to pieces, has false peace. He is on the very brink of destruction, yet he does not fear it, because he does not know it. You must at once awaken him and make him feel his danger, as the sailors did Jonah in the storm, Jonah i. 5, 6. When you disturb him he is very likely to be first angry and then frightened. But it is necessary

to do this before you can lead him to a place of safety. This is just the condition of the Christless sinner. He is

at peace in his sins, sleeping on the brink of death and hell. He must be aroused, or he will perish for ever. Το leave him at peace is to leave him to perish. But then the false peace which you destroy will give place to that true peace which a sense of pardon and safety and everlasting life will give. This is a "peace which passeth all understanding." The man who has it may suffer outward troubles and sorrows, but he has happiness within. It is a peace like that which the Man of Sorrows, who gives it to us, himself enjoyed:-" My peace I give unto you." Come hither, all ye weary souls,

Ye heavy-laden sinners, come;
I'll give you rest from all your toils,
And raise you to my heavenly home.
They shall find rest that learn of me;
I'm of a meek and lowly mind:
But passion rages like the sea,
And pride is restless as the wind.

THE CHARITY WHICH GOD REQUIRES.

... .

"And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor,
charity, it profiteth me nothing."-1 Cor. xiii. 3.

and have not

By charity we are to understand true love and kindness of heart. A man may give away all his goods to feed the poor, and yet not have real charity. For he may do it out of a spirit of pride and vain-glory, or from a mistaken hope of buying heaven as a reward of his good deeds. But the apostle says that this will profit him nothing. God looks at the heart. The outward act is nothing in his eyes. The poor man who gives only a cup of cold water, or the poor widow who casts into God's treasury "two mites, which make a farthing," from a right motive and in a spirit of charity, shall in no wise lose his or her reward. If we have nothing else to give, a kind word or a friendly visit to a neighbour in distress may be as well pleasing in God's sight as the larger gifts of rich people would be. Happy shall we be if he says of us as he said of the poor woman in the Gospels, "She hath done what she could." When God requires from us this spirit he only bids us be like himself. "God is love." 66 Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another." Do you find it hard to feel this love even to your enemies? Ask God to give you his Holy Spirit, that so you may love others as he has first loved you.

With pity let my breast o'erflow
When I behold a brother's woe;
And bear a sympathizing part,
Whene'er I meet a wounded heart.

Let love through all my conduct shine,
An image fair, though faint, of Thine;
And thus may I Thy follower prove,
Great Prince of peace, great God of love!

STRENGTH NEEDED AND PROVIDED.

Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might."-Eph. vi. 10.

It is no easy task to which the Christian is called. He must endure hardness if he would be a good soldier of Jesus Christ. Our Master warns us to prepare for toil and conflict. We need strength to enable us to resist temptation and endure trials. We have many enemies. The devil is a strong and powerful foe. Our hearts are very stubborn. "The lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eye, and the pride of life," are all striving against us. We are far too weak to stand against such enemies as these. Even the apostle Paul exclaimed, "Who is sufficient for these things?" He felt his own need of strength, and exhorts us both here and in many other passages to become strong.

But how shall we become strong? A man cannot make himself so. If I see a poor, weak, trembling lamb in the jaws of a lion, I cannot make it strong enough to resist and escape, by telling it to have power and might. But we need not fear, for our strength is in God. He is almighty. In him, and "in the power of his might," we can "resist the devil, and he will flee from us." Weak as we are, God has said that he will " bruise Satan under our feet," and " bring us off more than conquerors through

him that hath loved us."

Now let the feeble all be strong,

And make Jehovah's arm their song:
His shield is spread o'er every saint,
And thus supported, who shall faint?

What though the hosts of hell engage,
With mingled cruelty and rage?
A faithful God restrains their hands,
And chains them down in iron bands.

THE BLIND SLAVE.

THE following incident was related by President Hitchcock, in a sermon recently preached in the College Chapel, Amherst, Massachusetts, on "The Moral Dignity of the Christian Character."

"Allow me here to refer to a case that lately fell under my observation, which illustrates more forcibly than I had ever conceived, the priceless value of the Christian hope to the most unfortunate and degraded. I had descended a thousand feet beneath the earth's surface, in the coal-pits of the Mid-Lothian mines, in Virginia, and was wandering through their dark subterranean passages, when the voice of music at a little distance broke upon my ear. It ceased upon our approach, and I caught only the concluding sentiment of the hymn,

'I shall be in heaven in the morning.'

'On advancing with our lamps, we found the passage closed by a door, in order to give a different direction to the currents of air, for the purpose of ventilation; yet this door must be opened occasionally, to let the rail-cars pass loaded with coal. And to accomplish this, we found sitting by that door an aged blind slave, whose eyes had been entirely destroyed by a blast of gunpowder, many years before, in that mine. There he sat, on a seat cut in the coal, from sunrise to sunset, day after day, his sole business being to open and shut the door when he heard the rail cars approaching.

"We requested him to sing again the hymn whose last line we had heard. It was, indeed, very lame in expression, and in the poetic measure very defective; being, in fact, one of those productions which we find the pious slaves were in the habit of singing, in part at least, impromptu. But each stanza closed with the sentiment,

'I shall be in heaven in the morning.'

"It was sung with a clear and pleasant voice, and I could see the shrivelled, sightless eyeballs of the old man rolling in their sockets, as if his soul felt the inspiring sentiments; and really the exhibition was one of the most affecting I ever witnessed. There he stood, an old man, whose earthly hopes, even at the best, must be very faint; and he was a slave, and he was blind: what could he hope for on earth? He was buried, too, a thousand feet

beneath the solid rocks. In the expressive language of Jonah, he had gone down to the bottom of the mountains, the earth with her bars was about him for ever.' There, from month to month, he sat in total darkness. Oh, how utterly cheerless his condition! And yet, that one blessed hope of a resurrection morning was enough to infuse peace and joy into his soul. I had often listened to tonching music; I had heard gigantic intellects pour forth enchanting eloquence; but never did music or eloquence exert such an overpowering influence upon my feelings as did this scene. Never before did I feel the mighty power of Christian hope. How insignificant did earth's mightiest warriors and statesmen, her princes and emperors, and even her philosophers, without piety appear! How powerless would all their pomp and pageantry and wisdom be to sustain them if called to change places with this poor slave! He had a principle within him superior to them all; and when the morning which he longs for shall come, how infinitely better than theirs will his lot seem to an admiring universe! And that morning shall ere long break in upon thy darkness, benighted old man! The light of the natural sun, and the face of this fair world will never, indeed, revisit you; and the remnant of your days must be spent in your monotonous task, by the side of the wicket-gate deep in the caverns of the earth; but that bright and blessed hope of a resurrection morning shall not deceive you. The Saviour in whom you trust shall manifest himself to you even in your darkness; and, at the appointed hour, the chains of slavery shall drop off, and the double night which envelops you shall vanish into the light and the liberty and glory of heaven. And just in proportion to the depths of your darkness and degradation now, shall be the brightness and the joy of that everlasting day.

"I would add, that on inquiry of the pious slaves engaged in these mines, I found that the blind old man had an excellent reputation for piety, and that it was not until the loss of his eyes that he was led to accept of a Saviour. It may be that the destruction of his natural vision was the appointed means of opening the eye of faith within his soul. Happy man, if the loss of bodily vision gave him spiritual eyesight! It is better for thee to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye, than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire: where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.""