These thoughts written during the year which has lately closed, a grateful Ebenezer for experienced mercy, are committed in prayer and faith to the Spirit who begins, continues, and ends the work of grace in the soul. Amidst the manifold distresses of the present time, when "men's heart's are "failing them for fear," may we have grace to recall the Lord's gracious deliverances in time past, to renew our purposes of grateful surrender to His holy and happy service, to approach the Throne of grace, with humble confidence in a prayer-hearing Jehovah, and remembering that "the time is short," and that now it is high time to awake out of sleep, "put on the whole armour of God," 66 lift up our heads in obedience to our Master's summons, and find in the close of every period of this rapidly passing life, and especially in the hour which shall change the toil of conflict for the song of victory: "Redemption draweth nigh!" February 5th, 1855. PSALM CXVI. 1 I LOVE the Lord, because He hath heard my voice and my supplications. 2 Because He hath inclined His ear unto me, therefore will I call upon Him as long as I live. 3 The sorrows of death compassed me, and the pains of hell gat hold upon me: I found trouble and sorrow. 4 Then called I upon the name of the Lord; O Lord, I beseech Thee, deliver my soul. 5 Gracious is the Lord, and righteous; yea, our God is merciful. 6 The Lord preserveth the simple: I was brought low, and he helped me. 7 Return unto thy rest, O my soul; for the Lord hath dealt bountifully with thee. 8 For thou hast delivered my soul from death, mine eyes from tears, and my feet from falling. 9 I will walk before the Lord in the land of the living. 10 I believed, therefore have I spoken: I was greatly afflicted: 11 I said in my haste, All men are liars. 12 What shall I render unto the Lord for all His benefits toward me? 13 I will take the cup of salvation, and call upon the name of the Lord. 14 I will pay my vows unto the Lord now in the presence of all His people. 15 Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints. 16 O Lord, truly I am Thy servant; I am Thy servant, and the son of Thine handmaid: Thou hast loosed my bonds. 17 I will offer to Thee the sacrifice of thanksgiving, and will call upon the name of the Lord. 18 I will pay my vows unto the Lord now in the presence of all His people, 19 In the courts of the Lord's house, in the midst of thee, O Jerusalem. Praise ye the Lord. THOUGHTS FOR THE RESTORED. "I LOVE the Lord, because He hath heard my voice and my supplications."-Ps. cxvi. 1. "WE love Him because He first loved us." (1 John iv. 19.) "Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins." (1 John iv. 10.) Did then the All Holy love us when we were sinners? Let His own word reply. "But God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ." (Eph. ii. 4, 5.) And how long has the Lord loved His guilty creatures? Listen to His gracious declaration to Israel, by the mouth of His prophet Jeremiah, which we may believe to be made of all who by faith in Christ Jesus are the spiritual Israel, the true children of Abraham : have loved thee with an everlasting love "Yea, I there fore with loving-kindness have I drawn thee." B 66 (Jer. xxxi. 3.) This love therefore included ours, and originated it. It looked upon us when we had destroyed ourselves, with an eye of mercy; it addressed us with the accents of compassion; it stretched out to us an arm of salvation, of help, of guidance; nay more, it drew us "with cords of a man, with bands of love." (Hosea xi. 4.) "No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him," (John vi. 44,) are the words of Him who is "the Way, the Truth, and the Life," (John xiv. 6,) the Saviour of the world. In Matthew xxii. 36-38, we read that our Lord replied to the lawyer who asked Him, 'Master, which is the great commandment in the law?" "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment." And in Deut. x. 12, we read: "And now, Israel, what doth the Lord thy God require of thee, but to fear the Lord thy God, . to walk in all His ways, and to love Him, and to serve the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul." And in Deut. vi. 4, 5: “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God is one Lord and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might." Happy then, they, who can say, in the |