will become of my weak faith when time is slipping from under my feet? Where will my little hope be when eternity is opening out before me in all its solemn reality? Oh, that stern moment, the dissolution of body and soul! Oh, that inevitable hour! How shall I meet that grim monster?" Poor disconsolate one, your "I" has nothing to do with this stone. You have not fully understood that caution of your Lord, "Take no thought for the morrow; for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself: sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.” You need to ask the Lord to enable you to leave the future stones in His own hands, and to call to remembrance the past stones from the King's highway. You need to be enabled to forget the future, and to realize that "as thy days thy strength shall be." What an unspeakable mercy that the dark rolling waters of the weakest believer's Jordan has been crossed by One for them. Nothing can harm them in crossing it. True, it overflows all its banks at certain seasons; but even that season is harvest time, you shall learn. Ah, beloved, how can it be otherwise, when our High Priest stands in the bed of that river, like "the priests that bare the ark of the covenant of the Lord, who stood firm on dry ground in the midst of Jordan, until all the Israelites passed over on dry ground." Yes, says the Holy Ghost, blessedly repeating the assurance, "until all the people were passed CLEAN over Jordan" (Josh. iii. 17).

It is only "when ye are come to the BRINK of Jordan, ye shall stand still in Jordan, and see the salvation of God." There shall be found in that much-dreaded moment thy great Joshua, "who is appointed to deliver them who, through fear of death, WERE ALL THEIR LIFETIME subject to bondage." Then, if not before, shall arise the heart-cheering command, "MOSES, MY SERVANT, IS DEAD; Now, therefore, arise, go over this Jordan.'

What a mercy, dear reader, when from living faith we can take up the body of John Baptist, bury it for ever from our sight, and commune with Jesus. How blessed to be enabled to let Michael, our Archangel, contend with the devil whenever he disputes with us about the body of Moses, instead of "showing front" ourselves at his railing accusations! May "the Lord rebuke him." Perhaps some of my readers have visited Naples; if so, they will remember that between the silent entombed Pompeii and the living city of Naples stands the volcano, Vesuvius. I remember, some three years ago, standing on the Castle of St. Elmo, which overlooks the town, and, whilst listening to the well-known "cry of the city," and drinking in the delicious breeze from its magnificent bay, and admiring the surrounding scenery, all basking beneath an Italian sky of more than usual transparency, I could not help saying to my friend, "What a striking picture this seems to afford us of God, listening to the groans of His children, and of Jesus standing between the living and the dead!" Musing in this way for some little time, I thought of bygone years, when serving at Gibraltar with my regiment, and where the Lord was pleased to reveal Himself to my soul in the following remarkable way. At the time referred to I was a patient in the regimental hospital, having been admitted for ophthalmia. One afternoon, when my eyes were getting nearly well, an up-patient asked if he should get me a book from the library. I thanked him, and asked for a copy of "Chambers's Miscellany," which he promised to bring. On reaching the library, this man, who was one of the vilest men in the regiment, was heard to say to the librarian, "Mark this book for B I am going to play him a trick." Presently this man appeared in the ward, walked up to my part of the

.

room, and, throwing on the bed a little book, with a joke said, "There, old chap, I hope that will do you good." Now let us see how God fulfilled this strange prayer, and blessed the mouthful of this raven, and the handful of this vulture, to the soul of him who now writes these lines, and who, at that time, was steeped in sin and iniquity as most soldiers are in large garrison towns. As soon as the man retired, I took the book (Angel James' "Anxious Inquirer") and pushed it under the mattress, out of sight, unwilling that any of my comrades should see me seeming to be religious. Soon the shades of evening drew on, and the ward was cleared of visitors. Presently the gas was lighted, and the up-patients went below for their evening smoke; and now, there being but some three or four men in bed, and they at the other end of the room, I thought to have a peep at the concealed book to while away an hour. Having first ascertained that no one was looking, the book (for want of a more suitable one) was drawn forth cautiously from its retirement. Opening at the preface, I began reading from the commencement. I had not proceeded far, when the thought of ETERNITY pierced me through and through. At once I saw the whole of my past life in all its mingled colours of sin and open rebelliousness, and wondered how God should ever have allowed to live such a wretch as I then felt myself to be. Words cannot describe the deep feelings of my heart; I saw that my sins had crucified Jesusfeeling sure I must die before the morning. Sleep I could not, lest I should awake and find myself in hell; and then the thought of having to face an angry God, with all the accumulated load of a life spent in wickedness, was too much for me. To die was a thought overwhelming to my mind, and to live, I felt it was only "heaping up wrath against the day of wrath, and perdition of ungodly men.

By-and-bye the men returned to the ward. Little did they know what was passing in my soul, smothered up as I was beneath the bedclothes. The very step of these men only served to ring eternity in my ears. One of the men remarked, “B- is asleep." The devil chimed in and said, "Not asleep, but dead." In due course the men retired to rest for the night, and all became still, like them that sleep in death. No sound disturbed that midnight silence save the measured steps of the sentinel in the hospital square; this, too, sounded ETERNITY in my soul. Presently a pause, and the heart-piercing cry of the sentry, "No. 2, all's well,” made me feel my time was really come to die. "All's well." Oh, that I could say, "All's well" with regard to eternity! thought I. About two o'clock in the morning, a rush and a scuffle quickly followed a strange noise in the ward. A poor man had nearly cut his head off with a razor. "Now," says Satan, "go and do thou likewise. You must be damned, and the sooner you die, the better for yourself; for the longer you live, the heavier will be your weight of guilt and condemnation."

Such, dear reader, was my first night in an army hospital, when the dear Lord first began with my soul, and taught me the truth of the following lines. That, what God willeth, will be :

"There is a period known to God,
When all His sheep, redeem'd by
blood,

Shall leave the hateful ways of sin,
Turn to the fold and enter in."

"The appointed time rolls on apace,
Not to propose, but call by grace,
To change the heart, renew the will,
And turn the feet to Zion's hill."

If the Lord will, other papers shall follow on this subject.
Salisbury.

THE KING'S OWN.

CONCLUSION OF FIRST ARTICLE.

(Continued from page 64.)

Mark what is said, "The wicked plotteth against the just, and gnasheth upon him with his teeth. The Lord shall laugh at him, for He seeth that his day is coming." "The wicked watcheth the righteous, and seeketh to slay him. The Lord will not leave him in his hand, nor condemn him when he is judged." Again we read, by the prophet Isaiah (51st chapter, 12th and 13th verses), "I, even I, am He that comforteth you: who art thou, that thou shouldest be afraid of a man that shall die, and of the son of man which shall be made as grass; and forgettest the Lord thy Maker, that hath stretched forth the heavens, and laid the foundations of the earth; and hast feared continually every day because of the fury of the oppressor, as if he were ready to destroy? and where is the fury of the oppressor ?” As much as to say, and what comes of all his threatenings, taunts, sneers, and scoffs? Oh, mark, dear reader, what the Prophet was commissioned, in a previous verse, to declare, "Fear ye not the reproach of men, neither be ye afraid of their revilings. For the moth shall eat them up like a garment, and the worm shall eat them like wool." As much as to say, a simple and silent, unpretending and unsuspected, destruction shall overtake them; whilst, on the contrary, that blessed truth shall be ratified and confirmed, "Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright, for the end of that man is peace.'

66

But the nearer ! Ah! beloved, how near-yea, how very, very near-with some of us. How many who have entered this new year will never see its close. Our present number gives an instance of one dear tried-and-troubled pilgrim being called away, at one-and-thirty, after a few hours' illness. How little did he imagine, a few hours before, how near his race was run; how well nigh his pilgrimage was ended; how all but run out the sand-glass of his little life; and how very, very near the termination of all the turmoil and the pain and the anguish. How near for the buffetings of the great adversary to cease; how near for the besetments and entanglements and cares and perplexities of the world to come to an end; how near for the flesh to be eternally conquered.

Beloved, we may well think of the "nearer," as well as the "salvation," mentioned in our text; and, as we think, the very reflection, in the hands of the eternal Spirit, may well reconcile us to the crook or the cross for yet a little while, knowing "that soon He that shall come will come, and will not tarry." Oh, that this fact may be a stimulus to any poor tried and troubled brother, helping him to say "The cup that my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it?" for "yet a season "-and oh, how short-yea, how very short-that season

very

"Yet a season, and we know

All our sorrows left below,
Happy entrance shall be given; | And earth exchang'd for heaven."

St. Luke's, Bedminster, Jan. 12th, 1874.

THE EDITOR.

POSTSCRIPT.-As bearing upon the "nearer," upon which we have been dwelling in the foregoing paper, we may state that, just as the proof-sheet came to hand, we were informed of the sudden and most unexpected removal of a friend, with whom we have occasionally had most refreshing conversation. We have often thought of him when Paul's words to his son Timothy have been brought to the mind, "being mindful of thy tears." Our departed friend, after one conversation in particular, withdrew weeping. It touched us greatly, so that we have never forgotten it, nor ceased to feel a special interest in his case. His meekness and teachableness, as well as his very great earnestness on that occasion, served to convince us that there was real spiritual life in his Spirit-awakened soul. We felt a particular blending of heart as we contemplated the mellowness and tractableness which he exhibited; and there was a special outgoing of heart on his behalf. The very rareness of these seasons serves the more to impress and endear them. They are not to be roused by any fleshly effort of the creature. They are as distinct from the merely natural or human as can be. They are of the Spirit, and leave an unction and a power and a dew to which our poor Adamfall nature cannot attain. The dear friend in question had been in unusually good health; was of a sudden seized with giddiness, which immediately preceded apoplexy; and, in a few minutes, he was, we feel assured, "for ever with the Lord." Enviable translation! One moment, as it were, in the body, with all its toil and travail-its frailty, infirmity, and corruption; the next eternally free from all sin and all sorrow-the wilderness crossed, the Jordan waded, the eternal heights climbed, the pearly gates of the celestial city entered, Jesus seen in His own essential and unveiled glory, the myriads of the redeemed joined, to unite with them in singing uninterruptedly and for ever the song of Moses and the Lamb. As we contemplate these eternal realities, together with the repeated proofs day by day brought before us of the vain, uncertain, and unsatisfying character of life, into what thorough insignificance and worthlessness does everything connected with this poor dying world dwindle. How absolutely is "vanity of vanities stamped upon all. At the same time, how brightly and blessedly does the believer's hope shine forth over a dark, sin-steeped world.

Dear reader, the Lord grant that the dealings of His providence, confirming as they do the testimony of His own blessed Word, may lead us yet more and more to sit loosely to the things of time and sense, and to be more and more earnestly and ardently "looking for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God

and our Saviour Jesus Christ.'

Jan. 20, 1874.

"Nearer, my God, nearer to Thee."

THE

GOSPEL MAGAZINE.

"COMFORT YE, COMFORT YE MY PEOPLE, SAITH YOUR GOD."

"ENDEAVOURING TO KEEP THE UNITY OF THE SPIRIT IN THE BOND OF PEACE." "JESUS CHRIST, THE SAME YESTERDAY, AND TO-DAY, AND FOR EVER." "WHOM TO KNOW IS LIFE ETERNAL.

The Family Portion;

OR, WORDS OF SPIRITUAL CAUTION, COUNSEL, AND COMFORT.

"Who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God."-2 Cor. i. 4.

PILGRIM-SIGHS AND PILGRIM-SONGS.

"Thy statutes have been my songs in the house of my pilgrimage."— PSALM CXix. 54.

You may complain of your bad memory, dear reader, and of your inability to retain the Word which at times you have read or heard with both profit and pleasure; but, notwithstanding, no mere memoryeffort, or literal storing up of the Word (however good it may be in its place) will give that loving, sacred, unspeakably-blessed power which the Holy Ghost, and the Holy Ghost alone, can impart with the precious droppings of His own inspired Word into the soul. Whatever may have been the previous darkness, doubts, or dread, one word spoken with His own divine unction into the heart has an instantaneous and unutterably-precious effect. Such as will bear up the soul, and solace and strengthen it, in the direst calamities and bitterest of sorrows. It is not the creature-appeal, dear reader; not the seeking to "reason or argue" the poor trembling one into this or that notion or belief of things; but it is that power which the Lord the Spirit Himself, as the Speaker, the Expounder, and the Applier of His own Word, alone can give. We must, reader, earnestly contend for this in these days, when men are, as it were, taking the place and usurping the province of the Holy Ghost. Some may be doing so unwittingly, we grant; the fact remains, nevertheless. God the Holy Ghost reserves unto Himself His own power, His own divine authority, His own rightful prerogative. The mere appeal to, and apparent convincing of, the judgment will not suffice. This there may be the simple assent or consent of the natural mind, but the convincing, controlling, comforting power is a totally different thing. The former there may be, but still withal a something wanting. That special something God the Holy Ghost alone can supply. The Lord Himself, in His personal ministry, brings the same truth before us, where, speaking of Himself as the Shepherd, He says: "He calleth His own sheep by name, and