Touched by Thee, my eyes behold Paradise its gates unfold! Rescued from a weary dream, Glad I hail the morning beam. But how weak my infant Hasten, Lord, that blissful day, When, each shadow chased away, Those who win the Christian race See their Saviour face to face. CHAP. IX. VER. 50. Salt is good: but if the salt have lost his saltness, wherewith will ye season it? Have salt in yourselves, and have peace one with another. THE grace of God is the "salt" of the heart; and, if faithfully received into it, is indeed "good"-is capable of "seasoning" and sanctifying every power and affection of the soul, and of preserving the whole from corruption. Contrast, either the man of the world with the man of God, or the same man before and after he is brought under the enlightening and controuling influence of the Holy Spirit, and how broad is the distinction! "Is Saul also among the prophets?" asked some of the astonished by-standers, as they beheld the once profligate son of Kish assembled with the servants of the Lord. 6 And are these,' we may well ask, with regard to many now sitting in lowliness and love at the feet of their Redeemer, 'the men who were once the ambitious, 'the covetous, the selfish, the irritable, the profligate?' This," we may properly add, "is the finger of the Lord." 66 66 But, if the salt have lost its saltness, wherewith shall it be salted?" If we "receive the grace of God in vain;" if the truths of the Gospel fall on the bosom, like the snows of the winter on the hardened soil, without sinking into it; if the cares of the world, or its pleasures, spring up and choke the seed; if we are satisfied to profess the Gospel, without loving or obeying it; of what remedy does the evil admit? What other sacrifice for sin remains? What new influence can be applied, of more sovereign efficacy? The case is analogous to that of a body on which the last process for the recovery of life has been tried in vain. Have the surrounding friends, under such circumstances, cause for apprehension and grief? How deep, then, is the anguish with which a soul thus "dead in sin," and insensible to the only remedy, should be contemplated! "Have salt," says the Saviour of the world," "in" yourselves." Pray that the grace of the Holy Spirit may find free welcome to the heart, and obtain complete and permanent possession of it; that it may destroy "the old man, with his affections and lusts." and renew us in " the image of God;" that it may mingle, as "the leaven," with the whole mass," with every affection and desire of the soul,sanctifying and consecrating the whole to God. 66 Ye," adds our Lord to his real disciples, "are the salt of the earth." Ye are the persons appointed, first, to draw from the fountain-head of life and peace for yourselves, and, then, to distribute the healing streams over the whole face of the moral wilderness. It is your office, under the influence of the Holy Ghost, to enlighten the ignorant, comfort the miserable, lead the guilty to the cross of his Redeemer; to carry on, through all its stages, the moral and spiritual education of the children of the family of God." The earth," says the Lord himself," is weak: I bear up "is the pillars of it." And such is, in a sense, the office of his servants,-to sustain the interests of his Church, to exalt |