extant, showing a thorough grasp of the subjects treated, and a lovely Christian spirit. In one letter to John Wesley she

says:

"However anxious you may be in searching into the nature or in distinguishing the properties of the passions or virtues of human kind, for your own private satisfaction, be very cautious in giving nice distinctions in public assemblies; for it does not answer the true end of preaching, which is to mend men's lives, and not to fill their heads with unprofitable speculations. And after all that can be said, every affection of the soul is better known by experience than by any description which can be given of it. An honest man will more easily apprehend what is meant by being zealous for God and against sin, when he hears what are the properties and effects of true zeal, than the most accurate definition of its essence."

We must here give a short paragraph which we met with many years ago, without the author's name, and which has always seemed to us one of the most comprehensive and useful sentences ever written. It occurs in one of Mrs. Wesley's letters.

"Would you judge of the lawfulness or unlawfulness of pleasure; of the innocence or malignity of actions? take this rule: Whatever weakens your reason, impairs the tenderness of your conscience, obscures your sense of God, or takes off the relish of spiritual things; in short, whatever increases the authority of your body over your mind, that thing is sin to you, however inuocent it may be in itself."

But Mrs. Wesley did not confine her labors to her own family. In her husband's absence, which was at times prolonged, on account of his being elected to attend the London convocations, she endeavored to make up to her children for the want of their father's instructions on the Sabbath, by religious reading, conversation and prayer. Some neighbors happening once to be present, and finding it good to be there, many who heard of their interest requested leave to attend, and more than two hundred were soon assembled. Mr. Wesley's curate, who seems to have been but indifferently qualified for his place, became envious of Mrs. Wesley's efforts to do good, and wrote to her husband that she had turned the parsonage into a conventicle. The rector immediately wrote to inquire into the matter, and Mrs. Wesley's replies to his objections are worthy of so energetic and

conscientious a spirit. She mentions the informal manner in which the meetings originated, and regards the opportunity for good thus given as one which she is under obligation to improve.

"I dare deny none that ask admittance. I never durst positively presume to hope that God would make use of me as an instrument in doing good; the furthest I durst go was, It may be; who can tell? With God all things are possible." "As for your proposal of letting some other person read. Alas! you do not consider what a people these are. I do not think one man among them could read a sermon without spelling a good part of it, and how would that edify the rest?"

She is, however, uncertain as to the propriety of a woman's praying thus publicly.

"Last Sunday I would fain have dismissed them before prayers; but they begged so earnestly to stay that I durst not deny them." "I need not tell you the consequences," she goes on, "if you determine to put an end to our meeting. . . . I can now keep the people to the church, but if it be laid aside I doubt they will never go to hear him," the curate," more. But if this be continued till you return, which will not now be long, it may please God that their hearts may be so changed by that time, that they may love and delight in His public worship, so as never to neglect it more."

What meekness, yet what firm adherence to her convictions of right do these expressions manifest. She concludes:

"If you do, after all, think fit to dissolve this assembly, do not tell me that you desire me to do it, for that will not satisfy my conscience; but send me your positive command, in such full and express terms as may absolve me from all guilt and punishment for neglecting this opportunity of doing good, when you and I shall appear before the great and awful tribunal of our Lord Jesus Christ."

The chief value of Mr. Kirk's book appears to us to be in its careful verification of dates, and discriminating criticism of some anecdotes prejudicial to Mr. Wesley, which have been repeated unhesitatingly by former biographers of the family. That he was naturally harsh and irascible, seems to be beyond dispute, but that he was indifferent to his family, or unkind to his wife, is proved to be unsubstantiated. The oft told story of his leaving

home for a year, because Mrs. Wesley would not join in the prayer for the king (William of Orange), is shown by Mr. Kirk, by a comparison of dates and occurrences, to be at least exceedingly improbable, and the charge of incurring needless expense in attending convocations is disposed of reasonably enough, by instancing the importance of the occasions which called him from home. Mr. Kirk very pertinently remarks:

"Were our censure to fall anywhere, it would be upon the system which requires a poor parish priest to pay his own expenses while attending to the business of a public appointment, rather than upon the man who made heavy personal sacrifices to discharge what he believed to be an important duty to his church, at the request of his brethren."

Which sentence may not be without suggestiveness in this country at present.

Whatever may have been the truth as to these family matters, it is certain that Mrs. Wesley was devotedly attached to her husband. And what was unlovely in his character seems to have softened as he drew near the close of life. His death, in 1735, was joyful and even triumphant. Mrs. Wesley survived him seven years. Being obliged to quit the Epworth home, she passed her time in the families of her children. Her trials were not yet over. Her sons, John and Charles, went on their mission to Georgia, and returned disheartened and broken in health. John Wesley had felt much reluctance to go to Georgia on account of leaving his mother so soon after his father's decease. Having laid the case before her, however, she declares herself in favor of his going. "Had I twenty sons," she said to him, "I should rejoice that they were all so employed, though I should never see them more." Her eldest, Samuel, "son Wesley" as she always called him, who had been her special comfort and support, died suddenly in 1739. In 1741, her daughter Kezzy, who had always been of a feeble constitution, passed away. And her daughters who survived were not in happy or prosperous circumstances. Women of much talent, sensitiveness and refinement, some of them were married unfortunately; and to at least one of them, death was a long looked for and most welcome release.

Mrs. Wesley spent the last two or three years of her life with

John Wesley at the "Foundry" in Moorfields, an old building which he had purchased and fitted up as a dwelling-house and place of worship. Here she had many peaceful hours, and sank gently and without violent disease, to her repose, at the age of seventy three. Six children stood around her death-bed and fulfilled her last request: "Children, as soon as I am released, sing a psalm of praise to God!"

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ARTICLE VII.

SHORT SERMONS.

"O that there were such a heart in them, that they would fear me, and keep all my commandments always, that it might be well with them, and with their children forever."-Deut. v. 29.

GOD has long had a beloved people in Egypt. But he can not there give them a code of laws and order of life, that would be practicable. Therefore, with great power and signs, he brings them out of Egypt; and now they are at Sinai, three months on their way to the promised land. Valley and hill, plain and ravine about Sinai are covered with them, while the Law is given, the Great Law, moral, ceremonial, social, private and international.

It is a sublime sight; one blood, one religion, one destiny, under one God. This was a time for God to reveal himself, and make a declaration of his own feelings, as well as his law for this people. This he now does in four particulars as set forth in the text.

1. The intense compassion of God is declared.

We recall the circumstances. The scenery is rough, wild and frowning, and the mountain is smoking and burning and trembling. God is there in all his majesty and glory. Yet his overmastering desire in it all is: "That it may be well with them." The words are full of sympathy, tenderness and anxiety. Amid all those awful surroundings, there is the loving heart of a Heavenly Father.

2. Infinite benevolence takes the form of Law, for its best form and exercise.

It is a human notion, and a human weakness, too, to let those we love have their own way. Some parents, and all non-resistants and anti-prison men, have this. But not so the divine love: "Keep my commandments, that it might be well with them." Our sinfulness, weakness, ignorance, as well as desires for happiness, imperatively

demand a divine law. The highest human prosperity runs on the most carefully drawn lines. The noblest benevolence, and purest philanthropy call for the most careful legislation. And so Sinai as truly shows the love of God as Calvary.

3. God shows that his desire for human happiness can be gratified, only through man's free and coöperative consent.

"O that there were such a heart in them." No almighty, invincible force compels men to virtue, safety and happiness. All the means of grace assume our freedom. "He gave them their request; but sent leanness into their soul." "Their feet shall slide in due time." 4. The well-being of children is wrapped up in the conduct of the parents.

"Keep all my commandments

with their children."

that it might be well

Adam begat a son in his own likeness, and many children are beloved of God "for the fathers' sakes." Achan, Timothy, and the drunkard's child, show that there is a law of moral as well as physical inheritance.

And so we see:

1. That views of God and his Law, as unfeeling and stern, are unjust views.

2. God has peculiar tenderness for sinful men, and his law is the evidence and channel of it.

3. Men destroy themselves despite the compassion and endeavors of God.

"For we know, that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens."-2 Cor. v. 1.

"THE earthly house" is evidently the human body; the "dissolution" is death; the "building of God," "eternal in the heavens," is the immortal and glorious body of the believer. When St. Paul says he "knows" that such a blessed change and state await him, he expresses perfect confidence, assurance, of his salvation.

Then others may have this assurance, and many do, as: (a) The devout, godly man. (b) The dying Christian often. (c) The mere moralist, who is "alive without the law." (d) The believer in universal salvation. (e) The unthinking man of no religion.

Then we must discriminate between a true and false assurance. The accompaniments of St. Paul's assurance will enable us to do this, as shown in the context.

1. Trials sanctified the apostle, 2 Cor. iv. 17. In separating him