completed yet; but as I continued in prayer through the week, gradually that reserve gave way, and before the week was ended I was ready and willing and anxious to confess Christ before the world, though all the world should forsake me. And this I did on the following Sabbath in our union church, triumphantly and without fear, in the presence of a large congregation.

And in the days immediately following, I experienced a sense of calm security and restfulness and light-heartedness which I had never felt before. O, I could laugh then! The gloom was all dispelled, and the beautiful Heaven seemed just a little overhead; while the difficult passages of the Bible all seemed cleared up, and a consistency and a harmony ran through the whole, which the discord of sectarian strife and the teachings of the 'higher criticism' have never yet been able to disturb. And though I have since, at times, wandered far, far from the path in which I first set out, and have said and done many foolish and wicked things, yet thro' all these years God has not forsaken me,

and I truly feel that I am one more example of his patience and long-suffering with them that believe.

And now, my friends! will you accept the riches of God's grace on these liberal and easy terms? If you are timid and bashful, as I was, and have a dread of arising to express your determination in public, be not in the least discouraged; but in the retirement of your own homes carefully study the Scriptures -- read attentively the words of promise and instruction uttered by our Savior, as found recorded in the first four books of the New Testament, and pray to your Heavenly Father! asking all things in the name of the Savior, who stands ready to intercede for you.

Be earnest and persevering, and the glorious light will surely come; and you will have courage and confidence then-you will not shrink from coming to the church or to the prayer-meeting and confessing Christ before men, as he reasonably requires; that he may also confess you before his Father in Heaven. And though worldly prosperity

may not directly follow, yet God will give you Christian fortitude to bear those ills of life which are common to all.

You will not dread to grow old then; but each trace of advancing years, each monitor of life's waning day, will be to you a mark of progress toward your Heavenly heritage; and if sorrow and affliction come, you will be sustained by the reflection that Christ said to his own beloved disciples, "For in the world ye shall have tribulation, but be of good cheer-I have overcome the world." St. John, 16: 33· And that he also said,

"He that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved!" Matt. 24 : 13.

O, Christian soldier and cross-bearer!mid the tumult of daily life, the assaults of skepticism, the clash of creeds, the fall of dynasties and the wreck of worlds!-keep your eye ever on this bright beacon-light, "He that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved!"

And from what shall we be saved? From all further poverty and toil, sickness sorrow and death; for there shall be no more death

there! From the snubs and extortions and overreachings of the proud and selfish and avaricious, for they will not be there;-no more cold winter's storms nor sultry summer's heat, but one perpetual Spring-time of life and light, peace and plenty, health and rest and joy;-reunion with the dear ones, and communion with the truly good and great from every Age and Clime, in a World without end-FOREVER!

I had purposed ending here, but one more thought is suggested by attendant circumstances, which unexpressed, would leave my effort altogether incomplete:- -My words have thus far been addressed more particularly to the mature, the middle-aged, and to those well advanced in life; but I see before me many of the young, the hopeful and the happy those to whom life still seems, as it were, an unwritten poem, and the future a blissful dream.

Far be it from me to willingly say aught that would in the slightest measure detract from the innocent pleasures of Youth, but as the firm friend of, and sympathizer with