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"Hast Thou, then, man created,
An image of Thyself?-
And is he only fated

To scheme and toil for pelf?

"Is there no higher labour,-
No part in plans of Thine,-
No power to help his neighbour
Live by the Light Divine?"

And then, though none were round me
A Still Small Voice I heard ;-
A Living Witness found me ;-
Again my heart was stirred.

In air these accents floated,
"The Lord hath need of ALL
Who, with pure hearts devoted,
Await their Master's call.

"Heed not the erring voices
That dare to bid thee stay!
Tis only Hell rejoices

To see God's workers stray.

"Press onward nothing daunted,
God's purposes fulfil!
Be not with doubtings haunted,
But trust His goodness still!

"His mighty counsels fail not;
His ways are not as thine.
The powers of Hell prevail not
Against His plans divine.

"See! see! the sky is glowing
With signs of import high,-
Signs that to man are showing
God's Day of Glory nigh.

"And each, whose life is holy,
May speed that coming time:
For some with actions lowly,

And some with deeds sublime,

"And some with gifts of teaching,
Must help the world along ;-
And some with gifts of preaching,
And some with gifts of song,

"And some by cheerful giving,
By soothing pain or grief,
And some by only living

True to the soul's belief.

"Come, leave the paths of sadness
Thy erring feet have trod,
And reap with joy and gladness
The harvest-fields of God."

T. FREDERICK BALL.

While some professors are labouring to mitigate the rule of Christ, let us be solely taken up in seeking that powerful help of the Holy Spirit, which renews the strength of the fainting soul, and enduing her with power from on high, shall, in truth, make the most rigid practice easy. While some strive to accommodate the road to their strength, let us, by relying on God, seek from Him strength adequate to the difficulties of the way; let us avoid the error of softening down Christianity to the low standard of general practice.—Memoirs of Port Royal.

Meditation is done in silence. By it we renounce our narrow individuality, and expatiate into that which is infinite. Only in the sacredness of inward silence does the soul truly meet the secret, hiding God. The strength of resolve, which afterwards shapes life and mixes itself with action, is the fruit of those sacred solitary moments. There is Divine depth in silence. We meet God alone.-F. W. Robertson.

"Every species of intolerance," says Paley, "which enjoins suppression and silence, and every species of persecution which enforces such injunctions, is averse to the progress of truth; forasmuch as it causes that to be fixed by one set of men at one time, which is much better and with much more probability of success left to the independent and progressive inquiries of separate individuals. Survey the page of ecclesiastical history; mark the intervals of languor when the right of private judgment was denied -then was the church of Christ debilitated and pestered with a heterogeneous mass of errors. No man can write down truth. Inquiry is to truth what friction is to the diamond. It proves its hardness, adds to its lustre, and excites admiration.'

DEATH AS A CHRISTIAN SHOULD
REGARD IT.

THE fear of death, the shrinking from that mysterious separation between soul and body which, as the inheritance of the children of Adam, every one of us knows awaits him individually, is inherent in the nature of man, of man in his natural state. To leave this bright and familiar world, to be called away, it may be through pining sickness, or by the accident of a moment, to lose sight of dear and well-known faces as we pass out into the dimness of the unseen future; all these things are more than enough to appal the human heart, even without the addition of the far greater terror, "the fearful looking-for of judgment to come" which is the portion of the unregenerate.

From our very infancy death is connected with images of fear. Who can remember without a shudder the day-be it ever so far away now in the misty past--when he first came face to face with the Destroyer, when for the first time it was told him that one of his beloved, one of the immediate family circle, was to die? The strange incredulous feeling, the battling against conviction, at last giving place to awful certainty, the gathering around the bed, the farewells never to be renewed, and then the darkened house and all the gloomy preparations for the last offices to the dead; each one of these sad circumstances, so distinct in itself, and all joining together in one terrible whole to produce an impression never to fade from the mind? Funerals, graveyards, everything as it were, seem to unite in deepening the shadow around the inevitable doom of mankind,

until, from custom perhaps as much as from anything else, every one habitually alludes to death and all its accompaniments with reluctance and awe.

But is this as it ought to be? Is it thus that Christians,—and it is exclusively of and to such that I would now speak,-is it thus that Christians ought to view a topic of such solemn and yet of such unspeakably blessed import to them, as that summons which bids them lay aside these poor earthly garments for the robe of immortality? Ought we from habit, from human weakness, or from lack of faith thus to treat, or by our example and words teach our children and those around us thus to treat, the moment when, at the word of the Father, hope is changed to sight, and for the first time, at the feet of Jesus, the ransomed soul comprehends the heights and depths of redeeming love and mercy?

It seems to me that in this matter we are neither wise as regards ourselves, nor jealous as regards the honour of our God. We either forget or fail to understand our true relations with our earthly and heavenly homes. We call our daily life a warfare, a struggle, a scene of perpetual doubt and fear and temptation; we confess that we are strangers and pilgrims here below seeking a better country; and sometimes when troubles throng around most thickly we look upward towards that promised land, and wish for an entrance within its borders; but these desires are only the occasional guests of our spirits, not their constant companions. When the stream of life glides smoothly on, we feel no wish to leave it for the eternal shore: practically, though not confessedly, we act as if this earth were the best part of our heritage, and only to be exchanged for the other when cares and perplexities have accumulated here beyond our power of remedy.

But is Heaven merely a refuge,-just a place of

rest after storm and tempest, whither, shut out by gates of adamant, grief cannot follow to assail us any more? Is this our highest conception of that realm which the Eternal Father has called his throne, where He who fills the entire of creation makes his special abode, and where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God? I am afraid that in many cases it is only too surely so. Our very phraseology is calculated to suggest and foster such an idea, but assuredly this is not the light in which God would have us regard it; it is not thus that as reconciled sons, as dear children, we ought to esteem that home whence we are now exiled, but to which, at some period fixed by the Father, we are each one promised a joyful return. This earth may be bright and happy, our kindred ties may be many and strong and precious, our paths may in the orderings of Providence lead us among green pastures and beside still waters; or all these things may be wholly reversed, without in any degree altering the relation of heaven to the redeemed soul; it is still its country, its native place, the spot where its intensest affections are centred, and that hour in which the recall thither is uttered, will be one of holy triumph.

Are these hard sayings to some loving spirit, gazing round on its household treasures and inwardly crying: "Call me not yet away, Lord;" or to some timid one on whom the weakness of the flesh lies heavily, and who, in the very passage of the river of death, sees almost too much of mortal anguish to allow glimpses of the glories beyond to conquer his terror? And yet it is to these and such as these that I would specially address myself, for it is on them that the dimness of perception of which I have spoken lays its worst burden, asking the one not to cease loving, for that would be not only impossible, but contrary to God's law; but so to love that Christ

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