faith, and joy is one concomitant of faith. Reader, if you wish pardon, our advice as to the manner of seeking it is to act just as you would do if you saw the Redeemer. Without seeing Him, ask as you would if you did see Him; without hearing Him speak, attend to His written words just as you would do if you heard Him speak them."

Robert McCheyne says: "We must close with Christ, not because we feel Him, but because God has said it, and we must take God's word even in the dark.”

1. Let us go back with the Interpreter more than twenty-six hundred years, and read anew the fifty-fifth chapter of Isaiah. The gist of the Gospel message as it was seven hundred years before the advent of Christ, is here; and we venture to say that nowhere else in so small a compass, can be found a fuller or richer Gospel than in the thirteen verses of this chapter. Though quite as familiar to the ordinary reader as any equal portion of the Old Testament Scriptures, yet few, comparatively, read understandingly the portion that contains the consolation features of the message.

Place in parallel columns without chapter and verse, the opening paragraphs of this chapter and the closing portion of the last chapter of the Revelation, and how do they essentially differ? Without the open volume before them, how many could tell which was the old wine and which the new, the flavor is so alike? A countless multitude of all nations, and races,

and tongues, frantic with soul-misery, are running to and fro through the earth with the question ever uppermost, "Who will show us any good?"

On the far-off horizon they behold day after day, the deceitful mirage, and rush frantically toward it only to realize a bitter disappointment. Suddenly a gracious voice breaks upon the ear: "Ho, every one that thirsteth "—and who of this multitude thirsts not?-" Come ye to the waters." An inexhaustible supply of living water breaks forth amid the desert where the consuming thirst of all may be slaked. Not for the favored few who are able and willing to pay for their privileges, is this merciful provision made. "And He that hath no money,

Come."

Millions on millions have not the wherewithal to pay for what they must soon have or perish. Yet of these millions, many hesitate to accept the gracious invitation. Whereat the voice grows more earnest: "Come, Yea, Come." Water! Wine! Milk! Water for all, wine and

milk for those in extremis. "Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price." What wondrous graciousness is this! it is so like our God, to whom belongeth of

And yet