the form of sound words," or creed; but he adds, "in faith and love which is in Christ Jesus." Many persistently cling to the first who know nothing of the second. Of this class was Judas, whose creed was sound, and like him are many professors in our day, who cannot hear error, and who are ready to " 'split hairs" with you in divinity, and are very apt in quoting Scripture when they are in their "cups," whose religion is nothing more than a creed. But the presence of the traitor, Judas among the disciples does not disprove the Godhead of Christ, neither do these shameless professors of "high" doctrine bring aught capital against the creed of Calvin, which, the Romanists tell us, is

Our STRONGHOLD.

Pewsey, Wilts.

H. B.

WHAT IS A PUSEYITE?

["Lord Justice Knight Bruce asked if any one of the learned counsel would define 'Puseyites,' but no one attempted a definition."-Law Report in the Morning Herald, Nov. 12th, 1851.]

REPLY.

"PRAY tell me what's a Puseyite ?" "Tis puzzling to describe
This ecclesiastic Janus, or a pious hybrid tribe;

At Lambeth and the Vatican he's equally at home,

Although, 'tis said, he's wont to give the preference to Rome.

Voracious as a book-worm is his antiquarian maw,

The "Fathers" is his text-book, the "Canons" is his law;
He's "mighty" in the “Rubrics,” and “well up" in the "Creeds,"
But he only quotes the "Articles" just as they serve his needs.
The Bible is to him almost a sealed book,

Reserve is on his lips, and mystery in his look;

The "sacramental system" is the lamp t' illume his night,
He loves the earthly candlestick more than the heavenly light.
He is great in puerilities, when he bows, and when he stands,
In the cutting of his surplice, and renouncing of the bands;
Each saint upon the calendar he knows by heart at least,
He always dates his letters on a vigil or a feast.

He talketh much of discipline, but when the shoe doth pinch,
This most obedient, duteous son, will not give way an inch;
Pliant and obstinate by turns, whate'er may be the whim,
He's only for the Bishop, when the Bishop is for him.

But hark! with what a nasal twang, between a whine and groan,
He doth our noble Liturgy most murderously intone;
Cold are his prayers and praises, his preaching colder still,
Inanimate and passionless, his very look doth chill.

Others as weak, but more sincere, who rather feel than think,
Encouraging he leads to Popery's dizzy brink;

And when they take the fatal plunge, he walks back quite content,
To his snug berth at church, and wonders why they went.

Such, and much more, and worse, if I had time to write,

Is a slight sketch, your worship, of a thorough Puseyite;

Whom even Rome repudiates, as she laughs within her sleeve,
At the sacredotal mimic, a solemn "make-believe."

Oh! it were well for England, if her Church were rid of these,
Half-Papist and half-Protestant, who are less her friends than foes;
Give me the open enemy, and not the hollow friend,

With God and with our Bible, we need not fear the end.

"Protestant Banner,"

Words in Season for those who are Weary.

THE ALPHA.

Ir it be, as the Rev. Legh Richmond says, "a delightful employment to discover and trace the operations of divine grace as they are manifested in the dispositions and lives of God's real children," surely it is not less so for the spiritually-minded to discover God in, and heartily acknowledge Him as, the Alpha in every deliverance of His people from temporal and spiritual trouble. Stephen, the martyr, in his powerful address before the council, struck this key-note. In his first utterance he said, "The God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Charran" (Acts vii. 2). Dr. Hawker beautifully puts it, and often used to put it thus: "If God will make a revelation of Himself to His creatures, it must have respect first to His own glory." But Stephen did not, as many now do, begin on a high note of God's sovereign free grace, and end by complementing the free will of fallen sinners; nay, he maintains the golden thread to the close of his defence. At the beginning we see the truth verified, "I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy," and at the close, in these words, so firmly charging home on his hearers their own personal guilt, viz., "Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye" (Acts vii. 51). We also see verified the solemn and awful truth, "Whom He will He hardeneth" (Rom. ix. 18). In this respect Stephen closely followed the footsteps of his Divine Master and beloved Lord (see Luke iv. 27, 28 and John x. 14-26); and that he was so well enabled to do it is found in the words, "Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Ghost."

When the God of glory appeared to Abraham He came with absolute promises and a word of power, accompanied with a gracious manifestation of Himself; and in a similar manner does He appear to all Abraham's spiritual seed; and, until He so approaches the soul in His way of mercy, all that man can do is utterly valueless. As Elisha Cole well says, "Invitations, exhortations, or such like, and offers of Christ, are but 'rotten wood; but one of the sure mercies of David is, 'Thy people shall be willing in the day of Thy power.'"

God promised Abraham and his seed the land of Canaan for a possession; but also foretold that they should be strangers in a land not theirs, and should serve them, and be afflicted 400 years. "And also that nation," said God, "whom they shall serve, will I judge; and afterwards they shall come out with great substance" (Gen. xv. 14). What a beautiful commentary on this is the word of the Lord Christ in the book of Proverbs, "I lead in the way of righteousness, in the midst of the paths of judgment, that I may cause those that love me to inherit substance; and I will fill their treasures" (Prov. viii. 20, 21).

God's beginnings in the souls of His chosen are often small, but they are ever sure (Phil. i. 6). In this His power and wisdom are manifested. When He began Israel's deliverance from Egypt He appeared to a solitary shepherd at the back-side of the desert, the visible emblem of His presence being a type of Israel oppressed but not destroyed-a suffering Church preserved in a miraculous manner. In all the way of Jehovah's deliverance there are obstacles. Mountains of difficulty are

reared up; but before this Zerubbabel they eventually become a plain. Moses's want of eloquence is not to stand in the way, nor Pharaoh's pride, unbelief, tyranny, and stubbornness. What! shall anything created on earth or hatched in hell be able to stand before the arm of Omnipotence? Oh, to be preserved from cherishing such a thought! and to be brought to that place, feelingly, by the sovereign operation of the blessed Spirit of God, which Toplady must have occupied when

he wrote

"The work which His goodness began,

The arm of His power will complete;
His promise is, yea and amen,

And never was forfeited yet."

He is the Eternal, His acts of mercy towards a chosen and redeemed sinner must, therefore, be great acts in their final issues, and in this view the weakest believer is warranted to say concerning himself, at all times, what he can sincerely say in his favoured moments, "The Lord shall deliver me from every evil work, and will preserve me unto His heavenly kingdom: to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen " (2 Tim. iv. 18).

Tranmere, Birkenhead.

G. A.

"THE LORD IS GOOD, A STRONGHOLD IN THE DAY OF TROUBLE."

"So you've come in to see your old friend on his death-bed!" "Not his death-bed, I trust; but I heard you were very ill, and I could not pass the house without calling in to inquire how my old schoolfellow was.'

Yes, little did you and I think we should live to see each other as we do now; you a cripple for life, and 1 confined to my bed, to suffer till it pleases God to remove me. Do you remember how we used often to run the whole two miles to school?"

"Yes, not much the matter with lungs or legs then."

"And now I have had to sit bolstered up as you see me for the last month, and even then all last night the beads of perspiration stood upon my forehead, from the labour it gave me to draw breath. Thank God, I am easier this morning, as I want to have a few words with you. The doctor says it is rapid consumption it's turning to now, and there's not a chance of my recovery."

"Oh! doctors are often mistaken; only One above knows what is before us."

"I am glad to hear you own One above."

"Oh, of course I believe in the existence of a God, One more powerful than ourselves. You and I would not be as we are if we could have helped it."

"And yet it was a Power greater than our own that gave us the life and health of youth, was it not? Do you not sometimes wonder if it is the same God who is making us suffer, and yet gives medicine oftentimes to deliver from that suffering?"

"That's nonsense, the same God cannot do two different things at the same time. These are two beings warring against each other."

"And which is the stronger, which is God, the evil or the good? Evil, I should say, since good feeds and clothes us for so many days, but

at last can do no more than hand us over to be destroyed by the evil. And I do not see why I should not please Him by hastening on what He intends Himself to do sooner or later." And the poor sufferer stretched forth his hand towards a bottle marked "Poison," which stood by his bedside.

"Oh, don't!" cried his friend, seizing it and throwing it behind the fire in his horror.

"But I don't see why I should not do so, for God must be cruelty itself if He can permit a poor fellow to linger in suffering as He does me, and not explain Himself to His creature, whom He has endowed with reason."

"But I thought you did believe in the Bible, and does not that say, Whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth,' and that 'death' itself shall not 'separate you' from His love?"

66

Yes, if the Bible be true, I can rejoice in my sufferings; yes, and glory in death, since it tells me a Saviour God died for sinners. But what if God be not good?"

"God is good, for how many more days have we had good than evil? Besides, do you not remember how cruel and untrue you used to be, but the Spirit of truth and mercy rules in you now, therefore, good must be God."

"And the change was wrought in me through believing the book you won't receive as of God. That book alone showed me what good is, and, through the Spirit's power, who wrote it, turned me from untruth to truth, from cruelty to love; and it alone gives me a reason now still to believe, in the midst of my agonies, that God is love.""

"And, thank God, I now see that if good is God, He must have left His creatures to whom He has given reason a revelation of Himself."

"Yes, and further, the whole of the Old Testament, as received by the Jews in our Lord's time, must be of God, or the Lord Jesus, when He was on earth, would have encouraged His creatures in deceit, by attending the synagogues where the law and the prophets were read."

"Yes, He said, did He not, 'If you believe not Moses's writings, how shall you believe my word?' therefore, if we believe one, we must believe the other." He buried his face in his hands for some moments, then looking up in the dying face of his friend, said, slowly, "Faith has conquered unbelief, and no motive can be stronger than mine to live to God, for I see that while I was yet a sinner Christ died for me."

“And to as many as receive Him, to them gives He power to become the Sons of God."

"God has given you a soul for your hire, a seal to your ministry. We shall meet and praise together the King of kings, and Lord of lords, our Redeemer from the curse of sin, and also the power of sin," said his friend, as he stooped to kiss the death-sealed brow.

RULES FOR DAILY LIFE.

SAY nothing you would not like God to hear.
Do nothing you would not like God to see.

Write nothing you would not like God to read.

Go to no place where you would not like God to find you.
Read no book of which you would not like God to say,

"Show it me."

Never spend your time in such a way that you would not like God to say, "What art thou doing?"

A WORD TO YOUNG MEN.

"Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth."-ECCLES. xii. 1. AMONG the many errors that tend to seduce the young man from a consistent and upright course, none has a more baneful and injurious effect than the desire to be and to do the same as those with whom he may by circumstances, accidental or intentional, be brought into contact. This pandering to the desires and wishes, whims and caprices, of acquaint-ances frequently leads him from the path of moral rectitude and virtue to that of an irregular and rugged, whereby not only his prospects of a worldly nature are blighted, but those also of a spiritual; for, if once he should submit-notwithstanding it be not without a struggle-the better promptings of his judgment to the fickle-mindedness of others, he will find it very hard to re-assert his right to be the best judge of his own actions and the wisest counsellor of his own ways and deeds. It is, as a rule, far easier to be led and directed than to lead and direct-to be guided and controlled than to guide and control; and a pathway once hewn out of the crude and pliable mind of an individual not sufficiently strong to withstand the temptations of a more masculine becomes, in course of time, sufficiently smooth for the heavy burden of sin to travel over. The harmonious feeling sought after, and obtained, possibly at an immense sacrifice of mental perversion, is conducive, in many instances, to the demoralization and degradation of the devotee of the fashionable offspring of a meretricious and gaudy world. The light-heartedness, the gaiety, or, perhaps, brilliancy, of one misguided companion may be a loadstone powerful enough to attract a dozen erring ones to the dangerous, subtle, and temporarily-pleasing avenue that leads to the broad road of destruction. The exuberant hilarity and outflow of feeling forming the enchantment of the will of others is possibly-and alas! too probablybut the outward draping of a heart gnawed to its very core by the blighting and destroying influence of all that tends to the production of the superficial and deceptive effulgency that irradiates the darkened mental recesses of the weak and vacillating; and it cannot be too often or too strongly impressed upon young men, that the best guide to a choice of companions is not the exterior appearance, but the inward stability and firmness of upright principle added to the sobriety of manner and the purity of intention emanating from a desire to live according to the precepts of the Gospel, after the pattern of the Saviour, and to do to all men as they would they should be done by. But, as in all the other alluring besetments of sin, it is much more agreeable to satisfy the cravings of the flesh than to give a passing thought to the eternal welfare of the immortal soul, or to bestow a casual glance upon the dread realities of eternity. The immeasurable and inconceivable value of the riches of the world to come is swallowed up in the worthlessness and poverty of the present. Sin is rampant, religion at a discount, but holiness-where? And it can be truly said that the want of putting into practice even a small quantity of the unlimited profession of Christians is one of the greatest drawbacks to the advancement of Gospel light, and a powerful weapon in the hands of the scoffer and the unbeliever. Self, and the interests of self, embody nine-tenths of all the evils in existence, if not the whole. Scarcely a thought is bestowed on the rights or the justice of the claims. of another.