I tell you what I think it will be?" Kitty assented, and Mr. Morton continued: "Your husband is at present too indifferent and careless on the subject of religion to think or to care about the difference of your creeds. Now this state of things may continue: Ryan may never be aroused to a sense of the danger of his position. God forbid, for his sake, that such should be the case; and mark me, I only say that it may be, not that it will be (my duty is to warn you against not only probable but even possible dangers); and the temptation then will be, that of forsaking not a church, but your God; not a creed, but your Redeemer and his service, Kitty."

"Why should you fear anything so dreadful and so impossible, Mr. Morton ?"

"Impossible, Kitty? Do you remember Hazael, and what followed after he had said, indignantly, 'Is thy servant a dog, that he should do this thing? Just consider for a moment what your position as the wife of a practical, if not an avowed unbeliever-one living without God in the world-will be. Day after day, Sunday after Sunday, will pass without your husband's uttering a prayer in private, or attending public worship. The holy sabbath, as his only leisure day, will be devoted to visiting, receiving friends, or taking his pleasure in whatever way may chance to please him. He will insist, probably, on your entertaining his guests, and he will try and persuade you to join him in his walks or drives, or in the calls which he makes upon nis neighbours. At first you will refuse; but it is hard as kicking against the pricks to resist the solicitations of one beloved, as Ryan is beloved by you; and, after a time, I fear you will give way; more especially will you be in danger of doing so should your husband join ridicule to persecution; for yours is not such a nature, nor is your spiritual armour so complete that you could, with any degree of safety, be exposed to the attack of such powerful weapons. Now you will perhaps say, Kitty, that, though you might possibly yield this one point, for the pleasuring of your husband, yet that in all others you should still be firm. Such a delusion, believe me, is of the devil, the very father of lies. From the desecration of the sabbath every other spiritual evil may ensue; and, indeed, most of the indifference to religion, and even the vice and crime which unhappily abound in the earth may be traced, in the first instance, to that-I mean to Sundays unimproved or abused."

Kitty's voice trembled as she said: "These temptations you say, Mr. Morton, often assail the wives of Romanists; but you do not seem to fear either of them very much for me; I suppose, therefore, you think that I am to be tried by

affliction?"

"You are right, Kitty, in supposing such to be my conviction; and, should my judgment prove correct, believe me the day will come in which you will bless God for having laid his chastening hand upon you, instead of suffering you to be tempted above what you are able to bear. But I must explain myself more fully. God often makes the instrument or occasion of our sinning the means of our punishment: now, in your marriage you sinned, and in your marriage, if I mistake not, you will find your punishment. Ryan

has depth of feeling and strong affections, and, should these ever be enlisted in the cause of Romanism, the path of duty will in your case be most difficult to tread: you will find not the easy, indifferent husband you now think him, but one prompt to decide on measures, and determined in the prosecution of them."

"He must change, then, very much, Mr. Morton: I never knew any one so easily led as Ryan is at present.'

"Indeed," said the rector, with a smile, "could any one have persuaded him to give up little Kitty Kyle after he had made up his mind that he should like her for his wife? Do you think that if he were easily led he would have resolved to marry her contrary to the wishes of his father, and despite the unwillingness with which her parents gave their child to him? But did he yield to the entreaties of his father, or was he resolute?"

"He was indeed resolute," Kitty replied, colouring slightly at the same time.

"Well, he was determined because his warm feelings strongly moved him to be so: you do not imagine that this will prove the only instance in which such will be the case: no, other occasions will arise, equally interesting, equally important, and in some respects similar, but on which your views and wishes will be dissimilar: discussions will take place, in which your principles will lead you to take one side, and his feelings the other; and mark me, Kitty, you will be the one in matters not of vital importance to give way, and on occasions upon which religious scruples will make you firm you will have to suffer."

"But what can Ryan do, sir? he cannot force me to be a Roman catholic against my will?"

"Thank God, he cannot, Kitty; but he may insist on your listening to teaching which you know to be unsound, and to statements and railing accusations made against the church of which you are a member, which you will feel to be untrue and without foundation. He may also resolve to have your children educated in a faith which you cannot regard as saving; and this, if, when the day of your visitation comes, you think seriously on the subject of religion, will be to you a trial, heavy and heart-breaking; and to this other sorrows may yet be added."

"O, sir, what shall I do?"

"Strive continually to bear in mind in all your sorrows that you have brought them upon yourself: this will make you humble: then be instant in prayer, and to the heartfelt petition of the humble and contrite soul an answer of mercy is never denied. True, the answer you hope for may not be accorded-in compassion it may be withheld, but one dictated by love unfeigned, love guided by unerring wisdom, you may be confident of receiving. Endeavour, Kitty, by example and by precept, occasionally, and most gently urged, to lead your husband to the fountain of living water, the gospel of Christ. Should he, once there, drink to the satisfying of his soul, you need fear no more from his unenlightened creed and false zeal; for light cannot dwell with darkness, and, having found for a time the blessedness of possessing a bible, he would not return to the teachers whose first command would be to close the sacred

volume. On the other hand, should circumstances arise to make Ryan think seriously on the subject of religion, whilst his eyes are still closed to the errors of the creed he professes, and old associations still bind him to the faith of his country and his forefathers-that faith which inculcates proselytism as the greatest merits, and sanctifies even persecution as a means of furthering the cause, and enlarging the empire of holy church, then your duty will be to bear the cross daily, ever confessing in deep humility that, be your trials what they may, you have brought them on yourself by becoming, against conviction, the wife of a Roman catholic."

As Mr. Morton ceased speaking, Esther entered with the neatly appointed tea equipage, and the conversation took another and more lively turn. Kitty was at first silent and depressed; but her spirits quickly rallied, and, feeling assured that at the present time at least she had cause to be happy, and was so, the thought of distant and only possible trials, did not damp her buoyant and joyous heart; and, after a while, her conversation became as animated and unconstrained as though Mr. Morton were only the kind sympathizer in her happiness, and not also the unflinching exposer of her faults and their consequences.

Long the old man and the young girl talked: now their converse was of the past, now of the future, and the time seemed as nothing, so happy were they. It was happiness to them to be together, and happiness increased by the feeling that must be of short duration. As the last stroke of ten sounded from the echoing tower of the church hard by, farmer Kyle's hand was upon the rectory door; and Kitty recognized his quick little knock. "O, it is my father," she exclaimed; "then the evening is really over."

"Not quite over," said Mr. Morton with a smile, "unless indeed you are in such haste to be gone, that you won't let your father pay me a little visit. Run, Kitty, and make him come in." Away, with a merry laugh, she flew, but her mission was an unsuccessful one: the farmer firmly declined passing the threshold, which it was usually his greatest pleasure to cross, that night: nothing could induce him to enter; for he felt that the parting between the aged pastor and his little favourite would be a mournful one; and Kyle had such a tender heart that he could not be the witness of others' grief without participating in it in a way which he deemed inconsistent with manly firmness.

"My father is very sorry, sir, but he is not able to stay away from home any longer to-night," said Kitty, on returning to the study; so I suppose I must go.'

66

Certainly, my child, you must not keep your father waiting. Go to Esther, and let her wrap you up well: the wind is whistling through the trees; and we must not let you catch cold just as you are going to leave us."

As soon as Kitty was equipped for her chilly walk, she returned to the rector, who held in his hand a beautifully bound bible, and several books of devotion and instruction, which he presented to her with a father's fondness and a father's blessing on her future years.

The parting was a sad one; for both felt it might be the last.

A. E. L.

"He was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken." THE prophet Isaiah has been styled the evangelic prophet, the evangelist of the Jewish church. To this appellation he is most justly entitled; for in his glowing pages may be inspiration opened to him through a veil of seen clear reflections of that gospel-day which intervening ages. His sublime predictions are all irradiated with the glory of the coming Sun of Righteousness, as the morning sky is illuminated by the beams of the invisible and still unrisen orb of day. The mission of Messiah; his supernatural birth of a virgin mother; his works of mercy, and his righteous kingdom; his pre-eminence in sorrow above the sons of men; his meek endurance, his sufferings, and his death; the laying on him of the iniquities of us all, and the atoning sacrifice offered by him for man's transgressions; the manifestation of his glory to the Gentiles, and the ingathering of the nations within the Christian fold-all these, and more than these, are so clearly, or so significantly implied in the writings of Isaiah, that "his single book is a complete delineation both of the doctrines and the history of the gospel".

chapter from which my text is taken stands But, amongst the prophecies of Isaiah, the out in eminent distinction for the fulness and clearness of its depiction of the Messiah's character and sufferings. The prophet is absorbed in the contemplation of some exalted person pressed down by a load of unequalled affliction: griefs more poignant

than befall

even our suffering race are his portion; and at the same time he is pourtrayed as one endowed with superhuman virtues. The character is human, and at the same time more than human. He is a man of sorrows; and yet he performs what no man, no created being, is sufficient to accomplish: "The Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all" "with his stripes we are healed:" "By his knowledge shall he justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities:" he "bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.'

Although the expectation of a temporal kingdom and a reigning Messiah so strongly

*Davison on Prophecy.

disinclined the Jewish people to admit the claims of the lowly, persecuted Jesus, yet, with a strange inconsistency, this chapter was considered by them as descriptive of the sufferings of the Messiah. The application of the prophecy to any other subject is but a modern perversion; and the suppositions that the person spoken of is the people of Israel, or Josiah, or Jeremiah, are fair examples of the absurdity of the systems which they have been invented to support. To none can the description by possibility apply but to Jesus, the Mediator of the new covenant, who united in himself the two natures of God and man: "God, of the substance of the Father, begotten before the worlds; and man, of the substance of his mother, born in the world." In him, and in him alone, every jot and tittle of the prophecy was accurately and fully verified. "We have here a clear and full explanation of the nature and efficacy of the sacrifice offered for us by our blessed Redeemer. This part of scripture not only seems designed to disclose the whole scheme and essence of the Christian atonement, but, from the familiar and frequent references made to it by the writers in the New Testament, appears to be recognized by them as furnishing the true basis of its exposition"*.

I. My text predicts of the Messiah that he should suffer and die for transgression: "He was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken." And accurately was the prophecy fulfilled in him who was "the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world" (John i. 22): "Christ hath given himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God" (Ephes. v. 12): "God loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins" (1 John iv. 10); and "by him we have received the atonement" (Rom. v. 11). These are but a few of those passages in which the word of God evidently sets forth the passion and death of our Redeemer as a sacrifice of propitiation for the transgressions of mankind. They are but a few of those intimations which direct us to the cross of Christ as the altar upon which, once for all, was offered "a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world." The mouth of God had spoken, and ordained an indissoluble connexion between sin and punishment. How, then, could sinful man be exempted from the stroke of this unchangeable decree? Could sorrow for the past, could agonies of soul, could fountains of tears, wash away the guilty stain of former sin? Alas! both abstract reasoning, and actual experience of God's government of * Magee on the Atonement.

this present world, combine to teach us that repentance is not sufficient to atone for past transgression. Or shall the sinner trust that perfect obedience for the future may annihilate the past transgression? Not so; for, even though perfection were attained, we never could do more than our bounden duty; and how could the discharge of present obligation reflect back a supererogatory acquittal from previous guilt? The very notion of merit is inconceivable as applied to any creature; for every creature owes to the Almighty the very best and highest exercise of all its faculties and powers; but in a creature who once has sinned, like man, let it be "anathema maranatha!" Or shall some of those unfallen sanctities, who circle God's throne rejoicing, undertake for man, and offer himself to the stroke for our transgression? Glorious as they are, they are still but servants: exalted as are their ministrations, they are still performing only what they owe to their sovereign Lord. Nor yet, even though their substituted sufferings were sufficient to atone for man, could justice sanction the exchange, and visit upon the innocent the punishment of guilt. None less than the great Lawgiver himself could vindicate the majesty of his own justice, and expiate man's transgression by the sacrifice of himself.

But thus to represent God as requiring an expiatory penalty for our transgression, some argue, is an attribution of implacability to God, and therefore, plainly inconsistent with his infinite benevolence. Most vain objection! It was because God is placable that he sent his well-beloved One with himself, to die for the unjust. It was because the Almighty Father pitied us even as his own children, because he "loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." It was the Father, the Fountain of divinity, from whom our redemption flowed, as its originating source. It was he who, "through his Son Jesus Christ, overcame death, and opened unto us the gate of everlasting life."

It is not for our imperfect faculties to fathom the deep things of God, or to comprehend how it is that the death of Christ, as an expiatory sacrifice, procures the remission of our sins. The fact is enough for us that the blood of Jesus is the one fountain opened for sin and transgression; that his death is the only means by which God has appointed that we should obtain pardon and peace. But, if he be required to explain the nature of the connexion between the sacrifice of the Redeemer and the forgiveness of his own sins, the answer of the Christian is, "I know not,

nor does it concern me to know, in what manner the sacrifice of Christ is connected with the forgiveness of sin: it is enough that it is declared by God to be the medium through which my salvation is effected. I pretend not to dive into the councils of the Almighty. I submit to his wisdom; and I will not reject his grace because his mode of vouchsafing it is not within my comprehension"*.

II. The affecting description in my text pourtrays Messiah stricken for our transgrestion. For our transgression "the stroket, or plague, was upon him:" The term implies positive infliction, additional to those sufferings to which our Redeemer was exposed by the infirmities of the flesh, and the hardships of his low estate. And how abundantly the prediction was accomplished you have often heard in the scripture. You have beheld and seen that never was sorrow like unto his sorrow: you have contemplated his sacred body, one continuity of suffering from head to foot: you have heard how the ploughers ploughed upon his back, and made long furrows: you have heard how he was mocked, buffeted, and spit on: you have heard of the thorny crown, the nails, the spear, how each acted its bloody part in this great catastrophe.

But this corporeal anguish was but the least portion of the stroke wherewith our Lord was stricken. His very soul was to be made an offering for sin. Fortitude may nerve the body to endurance, when the mind is happy and supported ; but a wounded spirit who can bear? There was a sword which reached the Saviour's inmost spirit, and pierced his very soul. Behold him in the garden of Gethsemane! the Son of the Most High, the express image of his person, yet sore amazed, and fallen prostrate on the ground. It is the agony of the spirit which causes the bloody sweat to roll down from every pore it was the struggling, suffering soul which was then treading the wine-press of God's wrath alone, until it made him red in his apparel, and dyed all his garments with blood. Hear him praying in an agony that, if it be possible, the cup of suffering may pass from him. These were no bodily inflictions which rose in such mighty waves that they seemed almost to overwhelm him that was mighty to save: the sins of the whole world, with all their dark details and circumstances, were present all together to his spotless soul; for he was to bear the sins of many. He who was holy, harmless, separate from sinners, was yet numbered with the transgressors, and made sin for us. Hear his own divine complainings, spoken by the

* Magee on the Atonment, vol. i., p. 24. + Such is the literal translation of the original y.

mouth of the psalmist: "Innumerable troubles are come about me: my sins" (that is the sins of mankind which I bear)" have taken such hold upon me that I am not able to look up; yea, they are more in number than the hairs of my head, and my heart hath failed me" (Ps. xl. 15).

He

But more than all besides, when his own familiar friends had deserted him at greatest need; when the powers of darkness were let loose against him; when the utmost efforts of infernal malice combined with the utmost cruelty of men; when floods of grief went over him, and overflowings of ungodliness made him afraid, and the pains of death were overtaking him upon the accursed tree-it was at this tremendous hour, that, finding none on earth to pity, he looked up as he was wont to his heavenly Father. And now was the crowning stroke of his unutterable affliction: the stroke is from God himself. did not fear what men could do unto him. While he suffered only what the united rage of men and devils could accomplish; while the powers of darkness combined their fierce assaults with the agonies of crucifixion, no complaining voice escaped his lips: he was dumb like a lamb before her shearers. now, when it pleased the Lord to bruise him, when the arm of the Lord had awoke against the Man that was his fellow, when the stroke was directly inflicted by his Father in heaven, his heart is broken by this strange rebuke, and he utters that great and exceeding bitter cry: "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"

But

Thus was Messiah stricken for our transgressions. But how, it may be asked, could the sufferings of this one sacrifice be equivalent for the sins of all mankind? How could the divine justice regard it as a full, perfect, and sufficient satisfaction for the sins of the whole world? It becomes us indeed to tread with caution when we ascend to such high and holy ground. But we may answer, that Christ's atonement was an abundant compensation for mankind's demerit, by reason of the infinite worthiness of him who suffered. In our great sacrifice and substitute perfect God was united with perfect man. In his Person dwelt all the fulness of the Godhead bodily; and therefroin was derived an infinite value to his death and passion.

III. The voice of God, speaking through his prophet, declares that all these sufferings were endured "for the transgressions of his people." Who, then, are his people? Let us reply in the psalmist's words "We are his people, and the sheep of his pasture." Christ is the common Lord and Saviour of all mankind. There is now neither Jew not