new creature in Christ Jesus, or eternal condemnation. Believe and live, or reject and perish. There is no other name under heaven whereby we can be saved but this name of Jesus."

The stranger here broke out again, in a tone of impassioned earnestness, with the question :—

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"If this be true, sir, I beseech you, what are we to do ?"

"We again," the preacher said to himself; "am I too really included in this terrible question ?" The thought staggered him, and he visibly faltered in his work of explanation. Meanwhile, the eyes of the visitor filled with tears, his voice trembled with emotion, and clasping his hands together in an agony of despair, he faltered—

"Alas! sir, if this be true, it is all over with us, and we are undone for ever!"

Pale, trembling, and speechless, the two men stood looking at each other. All distinction between minister and hearer had now vanished. The one had been an avowed infidel; the other, though orthodox in his creed, had been a mere formalist, with no experimental knowledge of the truths he professed. Both now felt themselves to be sinners before God, guilty, helpless, and self-condemned, hanging on the brink of destruction. Then they felt, what they had never before experienced, the need of a present and personal salvation.

The preacher was the first to speak

"Down upon your knees, my friend," he said; "let us pray; let us cry for mercy."

When they had knelt together and prayed, the visitor took his leave, and the minister was left alone with his conscience and his God. What passed during the long anxious hours of that week, we know not. Word was sent to his congregation that he was unable to preach. The sabbath following it was the same. On the third sabbath after the interview, he appeared in his place, and then, with a countenance radiant with happiness, he told to his startled congregation

the great inward change he had experienced. The Holy Spirit had made the "timely question" the means of his conversion, and the beginning of his spiritual life. "The gate" he had so often counselled others to enter he had now passed through himself. The Saviour he had so frequently preached to the perishing was now his own, personal, divine Redeemer; and "the truth" which he had at one time so eloquently proclaimed in doctrine only, he now declared with the Spirit's unction, "as it is in Jesus."

My readers, are there not some among us who can speak about the saving truths of the gospel, and who seem to know the way of salvation through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, but who have never yet seriously felt the need of being saved by grace, and have never yet made a personal application to the Redeemer? Such as these stand like guide-posts on the highway, pointing with outstretched finger to the distant city, but without moving a single inch in the direction indicated.

Some of us may be in the habit of taking our places at the communion table; are we in reality and personally united to Christ the Lord by the bonds of a living faith? Some of us may have spoken to our children of Him who took the little ones in his arms, and put his hands upon them and blessed them; have we ourselves ever gone to the Saviour as little children? Some, perhaps, teach in Sunday-schools; and some, it may be, can eloquently discourse on the saving truths of the gospel: but do we really tell to others what we feel and know and experience for ourselves? My friends, the risk is too great, the danger of self-deception is too awful, to permit us to stand on ceremony with ourselves, or with each other. Even an apostle was careful lest after having preached the gospel to others he himself should be a castaway.

And our Lord warns us that at the day of judgment there will be some who have not only preached, but even wrought miracles in his name, who will nevertheless be cast out. Let us have this great, this all

important, matter settled forthwith: "Do I belong to Christ, or not?" And may this test lead you to a right decision: "If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his."

God everywhere.

E all know that God is everywhere present, but it is amazing how little we think of his presence. It is at once a part and proof of our natural ungodliness, that, till our hearts are renewed, we habitually forget it. We live and feel as though God were far away. But when a man really becomes a new creature in Christ Jesus, he begins to feel himself for the first time in the presence of the living God. The truth he before knew and forgot, he now cannot forget; it assumes a startling importance in his eyes. A part of the grace he has received consists in his lively impressions of it. Do you ask who is a godly man? I answer, he who habitually moves about the earth with this thought in his mind, "Thou God seest me. I am in Jehovah's presence. The God who made me, is near me." At first this thought excites in him perhaps pain and terror. He had rather God were not near him. He is ready to say to him, with frightened Peter, "Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord." He feels in God's presence as a criminal feels in the presence of his judge. But when the man begins to acquire a knowledge of God as a gracious God, and begins to hope that he is or may be gracious to him; when his faith gains confidence, and he can say, "The Lord is my Shepherd," then none but the man himself can tell how he rejoices in the fact that before terrified him. "My Shepherd," he says, "is not one far away from me; one whom I have to call from a distance when storm overtakes me on the bleak mountain, or the torrent

comes rushing down in the dark valley, or when I am faint with hunger in the barren wilderness; he is ever by my side, he never leaves or forsakes me. Whither shall I go from his Spirit? or whither shall I flee from his presence? I can go and flee nowhere, and nowhere do I wish to flee. It is my comfort and strength to believe him near me, and it is the highest earthly joy my soul knows to feel him near; when my foolish heart tells me he is gone from me I become a fearful and troubled man." Rev. C. Bradley.

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Humility.

AUL, writing to the Corinthians about twenty-four years after his conversion, declares himself to be "the least of the apostles." Five years afterwards he takes a lower grade, "less than the least of all saints."2 A year later he takes the lowest place of all, "the chief of sinners." He had then a deeper sense of his own sinfulness than of the guilt of Judas.

Self-denial.

OD's servants must learn to endure hardness, and to deny themselves the use of lawful delights, when they may thereby serve the glory of God, evidence the sincerity of their faith, and express their sympathy with their brethren in affliction. The body must be kept under and be brought into subjection; nature is content with a little, and grace with less, but lust nothing. Matthew Henry.

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2

I Cor. xv. 9.

Eph. iii. 8.

31 Tim. i. 15.

At the Foot of the Cross.

"Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? Behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me, wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger."-Lam. i. 12.

"And all the people that came together to that sight, beholding the things that were done, smote their breasts, and returned."-Luke xxiii. 48.