ted, and every time a guest shook the door, he entreated that he might go out and "talk to God." She could not persuade him to rest, so, giving him some bread, she lay down, and secure that the door was bolted, fell into a deep sleep. At last in the very dead of night she awoke, but Matt was not there. She laid her hand upon the bolt: it was drawn back, which showed her that Matt had opened the door. She ran on to the cottage where Matt had lived. It was locked up, so she turned to the cave. When she reached it, the voice she so longed to hear arrested her on her way: "God! God!” it said, "O send for poor Matt! let Matt go away!"

In the entrance of the cavern, with the moon shining on his white face, and the bitter wind blowing about his thin clothing and uncovered hair, and driving the frozen snow over his feet, stood the boy.

The little girl touched him; he was as cold as ice. She shook his sleeves, but could not rouse him from his deep abstraction. "God! God!" he uttered more perfectly still, "and Man that paid, O take poor Matt away!"

Then she took off the shawl that formed her own scanty covering; and, as she lapped it over him, he said faintly, "Matt shall see God some day, and Matt shall never be cold any more."

She heaped some driftwood between him and the entrance of the cave, to keep the wind away, and then she set off to run home again for help; but before her exhausted feet, in the grey of the winter morning, had reached the cottage threshold, the fishermen, after their perilous voyage, landed a mile or two higher up, and, going into the cavern for rest and shelter, found Matt on his frozen bed. Happy Matt! the summons had been sent to him to go and join that God whom he had sought so long. The days of his darkness and feebleness are over: he will never be cold any more!

YET once more, saith the fool, and is it not a little one?

Spare me this folly yet an hour, for what is one among so many?

And he blindeth his conscience with lies, and stupifieth his heart with doubts;-
Whom shall I harm in this matter? and a little ill breedeth much good;
My thoughts, are they not my own? and they leave no mark behind them;
And if God so pardoneth crime, how should these petty sins affect him?-

So he transgresseth yet again, and falleth by little and little,

Till the ground crumble beneath him, and he sinketh in the gulf despairing.

For there is nothing in the earth so small that it may not produce great things,

And no swerving from a right line, that may not lead eternally astray.

A landmark tree was once a seed; and the dust in the balance maketh a difference;

And the cairn is heaped high by each one flinging a pebble:

The dangerous bar in the harbor's mouth is only grains of sand;

And the shoal that hath wrecked a navy is the work of a colony of worms:

Yea, and a despicable gnat may madden the mighty elephant;

And the living rock is worn by the diligent flow of the brook.

Despise not thou a small thing, either for evil or for good;

For a look may work thy ruin, or a word create thy wealth:

The warrior that stood against a host may be pierced unto death by a needle;
And the saint that feareth not the fire, may perish the victim of a thought:

A mote in the gunner's eye is as bad as a spike in the gun;

And the cable of a furlong is lost through an ill-wrought inch.
Commit thy trifles unto God, for to him is nothing trivial;

And it is but the littleness of man that seeth no greatness in a trifle.

PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY.

4

Cloud of Tulitnesses.

In the time of the apostles, the work of the Christian ministry was broken into manifold departments, and we then beheld the goodly spectacle of a well-going church, having its business conducted and carried forward by a well-stocked agency. The tendency now is in an opposite direction-to abridge and economize, and thus mutilate and impair the original machinery of a Christian Church.-Dr. Chalmers.

Christianity has broken down the wall of separation between priests and laity, spiritual and secular persons.—Ñeander.

As no particular priestly class is established among christians, but all are comprehended in one priestly generation, so also the priestly office and the worship of God, are no longer confined to this or that special act, but all acts are now considered as having a priestly character, as a kind of divine service for the worship of God in spirit and in truth.-Ibid.

We are through Jesus Christ devoted as one man to God the Creator of the universe; through the name of his first-begotten Son we put off our defiled garments, that is, our sins; and being influenced by the word of his calling, we are the true high-priestly race of God, as God himself testifies, saying that in every place among the Gentiles pure and acceptable sacrifices shall be offered to him. Justin Martyr.

All righteous persons have the dignity of priests.-The Jews devoted their tithes to God, but Christians who have attained freedom devote their all joyfully and freely to the Lord's service.Irenæus.

All Christians are now in the position of those who were priests under the Old Testament dispensation; the particular Jewish priesthood was a prophetic type of the universal Christian priesthood. We are priests, being called for that purpose by Christ. The highest priest, the great priest of the heavenly Father, Christ, since he has clothed us with himself (for as many of you as are baptized have put on Christ,' Gal. iii. 27), 'has made us kings and priests to God and his Father.' Rev. i. 6.-Tertullian.

I particularly exhort you not to neglect your meetings for edifying one another. I do not mean those meetings, when only one speaks and the rest hear. These, when the Gospel is faithfully preached, there can be no doubt, are a great blessing, and a powerful means of revival and edification. These I need not recommend to you; but they are not sufficent for the Christian, nor are they those only which are enjoined in the several passages of Scripture. See 1 Cor. xii. 5-12, 22, 28; xiv. 23, 24-26, 31-40. The meetings, of which I now speak, are those where all may exhort, and all are edified; where each one may sympathize in the knowledge, the graces, and the experience of his brother. In one word, where each one may alternately give and receive, teach and reprove. These are the only meetings which may be truly called mutual.-Felix Neff.

Pearls of Truth.

EDUCATION.-We cannot fashion human nature but in the soft clay of its infancy and childhood. "As the twig is bent, the tree's inclined."

OPINION AND FAITH.-Opinions are after all, but probabilities. They can never rise higher than a strong probability; but faith produces in many instances absolute certainty, and is evidently intended to be a most powerful principle of action.

HOW SOLEMN !-It is one of the most awful points of view in which we can consider God, that as a righteous governor of the world, concerned to vindicate his own glory, he has laid himself under a kind of holy necessity to purify the unclean, or to sink him into deeper perdition.-Cecil.

ORTHODOXY.-Orthodoxy is, indeed, very arbitrary and whimsical in its decisions. To-day it reprobates what it commended yesterday, and will to-morrow reprobate what it approves to-day. Power and number consecrate every thing: hence, while parties are weak and struggling into power, they are always deemed erroneous and heretical by those in authority; but when they triumph over their rivals, the sin of heterodoxy no more adheres to them.

LITTLE THINGS.-The eating of an apple brought sin and death into our world, and has already swept the earth clean of all its inhabitants more than one hundred times. Let no one, therefore, regard any. thing in religion or morals as excessively minute, or unworthy of the highest conscientious regard. There is sometimes more in a monosyllable than in a folio. A Yes, or No has slain millions; while a thousand volumes have been written and read without any visible disaster to any human being.

TIME AND ETERNITY.-Years roll on: the pulse of time never ceases the wheels of nature carry down all the living with a constant and rapid motion. We are born, we live, we die and are forgotten amidst the bustle of coming years. We are now the actors, the dramatis persona on the stage of time. Each one plays his part, and retires behind the curtains of death. But the sequel is on another theatre before other spectators and auditors. The plaudits and the hisses are eternal. We play for crowns and kingdoms; for deathless fame and imperishable treasures. A heaven is lost, or a heaven is won, at the close of the last act.

Correspondence.

THE HOLY SPIRIT.-QUERY AND REPLY.

DEAR BROTHER MILNER.-What is the doctrine of Scripture respecting the Holy Spirit in relation to the world and the church? Please say and oblige

Manchester.

A BROTHER IN THE LORD.

The human will is very erratic. It is seldom content with simple revelation. It either refuses to accept all that is written or it seeks for

more. Now, the province of faith is simply this-to repose on what God has said. And this implies that nothing that is given by inspiration be refused, and that nothing more be asked. But alas! for both the world and the church, this godly contentment is far from common, and on few subjects is its absence more marked than on those on which man is most truly ignorant. There is no theme on which, unaided by inspiration, he can say less to profit than upon questions affecting the divine nature-there is none on which he is so absolutely obliged to the Bible. Yet, precisely on this most transcendent of themes has reason assumed to speak most dogmatically. The Holy Spirit in relation to the world and the church is one branch of this august subject, and of this we are profoundly convinced that the silence of Scripture, as well as its oracles manifests the wisdom of the divine Revealer. There is enough revealed for faith, but nothing for curiosity, and to ask more than what is written is to ask more than we can give.

We do not suppose the brother who puts this query wishes us to attempt being wise above what is written, but with so general a question before us, we do not know that we can give a better answer than to suggest that all that is given by inspiration of God be studied and believed, and that nothing more be asked, however clamant curiosity may be for more.

By way of aiding the student we may suggest that it has frequently appeared to us that quite too partial a view is taken of the work of the Spirit. It is too often forgotten that this agency is represented by the Bible as present over the creation, and that man is said to be indebted to it for his understanding. The Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters; by his Spirit he hath garnished the heavens.' There is a spirit in man, and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth him understanding.' We have thus in nature a base of operation, if we may so speak, for the divine Spirit, in order to the illumination, conviction and salvation of man. We find that what we commonly call the providence of God' is constantly leading men into circumstances calculated to produce consideration and conversion. We observe the careless arrested in every variety of manner, by mental and physical, personal and relative discipline. We notice that the 'providences' have always more or less to do with the conversion of such as are led to turn to the Lord. Such are the facts we observe. Now, in stating these simply as facts, we do not seek to infer from them any doctrine which they do not manifestly teach: nor do we wish to call them by names of mysterious theological mien. We simply note that all men are the subjects of them-that they are corroborative of the apostle's question, Wilt thou know, O vain man, that the goodness, and forbearance, and longsuffering of God thee leadeth to repentance? We do not call them the drawings or influences of the Holy Spirit, simply because the Bible does not so designate them. But we dare not say that the Spirit of God has nothing to do with them-that he is not to be thought of in connexion with them-that he is to be looked upon as banished from the creation and from the affairs of men since the time that by his Spirit God garnished the heavens and inspired man with understanding. We call attention to the Bible stated fact that the Spirit is connected with man and his affairs in creation and in nature, as well as in revelation! And therefore that when we speak of the work of

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the Spirit in regard to man, we are apt to forget his primeval relation to nature and to confine our attention exclusively to his agency in revelation.

But having submitted these facts, to be taken for what they are worth, we suggest further, that in New Testament teaching the work of the Holy Spirit in relation to the economy of Redemption, is presented in the following aspects :

1. Advocacy. He is called the Paraclete, strictly the Advocate of the Messiah; by consequence, the Comforter of his people. Compare John xiv. 15-17,26; xv. 26, 27, xvi. 1-15. Here observe that the advocacy of the Spirit is associated with the testimony of the apostles. 'He,' said Jesus, 'shall testify of me, and ye also shall bear witness." 2. Promise. The Spirit in this new relation was promised by God. Compare Joel ii. 28 &c., with Luke xxiv. 49, and Acts i. 4, 5, and ii. throughout.

3. Baptism. The baptism of the Spirit, was the result of that miraculous and plenary out-pouring, accomplished first on Pentecost, and again in the household of Cornelius, by which those so baptised, were miraculously gifted. Compare Acts ii. 17, 18, with x. 45, 46, and 1 Cor. xii. 1-13.

4. Reception. The last quoted passage distinguishes between the baptism and the imbibing of the Spirit. The receiving or imbibing is common to all christians; the baptism was special to some only, in the first age of the Gospel. The Spirit is received by faith; the unbelieving cannot receive him. Compare John xiv. 17, with Gal. iii 14, and Eph. i. 13.

5. In-dwelling. The Spirit received by faith, dwells in the heart insomuch that the believing are pronounced the temple of Go through the Holy Spirit that dwelleth in them. Compare 1 Cor. iii 16, vi. 19, with Eph. ii. 21, 22.

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6. Operation. The Spirit works or operates in the church, as the Spirit of God, of Christ, of grace, of holiness, of sonship. possession of the Spirit of the Son, leads the adopted to cry to God Abba, Father, and to the attaining and manifesting of the filial char acter. Compare Rom. viii. 1-29, with Gal. iv. 4, 7.

7. Gifts. The various gifts of the brotherhood are said to be the bestowments of the Spirit. There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit: a manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man (it the church,) for the good of all. Compare Rom. xii. 4, with 1 Cor xii. 4-11, and 1 Peter iv. 10, 11.

8. Fruits.-The Spirit thus possessed and operant manifests itsel in characteristic fruits, for the bearing of which the brethren an responsible. Compare Gal. v. 16-26, and vi. 8, with Eph. v. 9.

9. Earnest.-The Spirit of sonship now in possession of the children of God, is God's pledge to them of the ultimate realization of the inheritance of the Father's estate. Compare Rom. viii. 16-29, with Eph. i. 13, 14. And

10. Resistance.-The Spirit is said to strive with men; the rejec tors of his testimony are said to resist him; believers are exhorted not to grieve or quench the Spirit; and apostates are characterised as doing despite to the Spirit of grace. Compare Gen. vi. 3, with Acts vii. 51, Eph. iv. 30, 1 Thess. v. 19, Heb. iii. 7 and 29.

Printed by Samuel Owen, Newtown.

ED.