ment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory."

He is the happy man who dwells most on the thoughts of heaven. Like Enoch, he walks with God. Like Job, he can say, "I know that my Redeemer liveth," &c. Like David, he glories, "Thou wilt show me thy salvation." Like Paul, he triumphs, "for I am now ready to be offered," &c.

This happiness we sometimes witness; but where have we found it? In the house of prosperity, where death has never invaded the family circle; where all have more than heart could wish; where health, and opulence, and honour unite to expel all care? No! but in the hovel of the poor, where one affliction hath followed another, till earthly hope is almost extinct. In the darkened chamber of mourning, whence all that was most loved and cherished has taken its last flight. In the bed of lingering, incurable disease, and in the very gasp of death! Here religion hath set up her trophies; here is happiness, here, where things hoped for are substantiated to the believing soul, where things unseen are evidenced to faith by divine influence.

In every case of suffering it is the prime wisdom of the Christian to fix his eyes upon the heavenly crown. In every other hope you may be disappointed, in this you cannot. Try, as you may, all other fountains for your solace, there is a time coming when you must be driven to this. Become familiar with the meditation of heavenly glory! Daily contemplate that joyful deliver

∞

ance from evil, that indissoluble and ecstatic union with the Lord Jesus Christ! Then, when death lays upon you his cold hand, you can say, "I am prepared for this hour. I have longed for this deliverance to meet my Lord in his temple. I have lived in communion with the blessed Lord of heaven." "Lo, this is my God, I have waited for him, and he will save me, this is the Lord, I have waited for him; I will rejoice and be glad in his salvation."

ALEXANDER.

SCRIPTURAL SELECTIONS.

FOR he doth not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men. Wherefore doth a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins?-Lam. iii. 33, 39.

Surely it is meet to be said unto God, I have borne chastisement, I will not offend any more:

That which I see not, teach thou me: if I have done iniquity, I will do no more.-Job, xxxiv. 31, 32.

Howbeit, thou art just in all that is brought upon us; for thou hast done right, but we have done wickedly.-Neh. ix. 33.

Before I was afflicted I went astray: but now have I kept thy word. It is good for me that I have been afflicted; that I might learn thy statutes.-Ps. cxix. 67, 71.

By this therefore shall the iniquity of Jacob be purged.—Is. xxvii. 9. And I will turn my hand upon thee, and purely purge away thy dross, and take away all thy tin.-Is. i. 25.

CHRIST THE PURIFIER.

"He shall sit as a refiner, and purifier of silver.”—MAL. III. 3.

HE that from dross would win the precious ore,
Bends o'er the crucible an earnest eye,
The subtle searching process to explore,

Lest the one brilliant moment should pass by,
When in the molten silver's virgin mass
He meets his pictured face as in a glass.

Thus in God's furnace are his people tried;
Thrice happy they who to the end endure:
But who the fiery trial may abide?

Who from the crucible come forth so pure?

That He whose eyes of flame look through the whole,

May see his image perfect in the soul?

Nor with an evanescent glimpse alone,

As in that mirror the refiner's face;

But, stampt with heaven's broad signet, there be shown

Immanuel's features full of truth and grace.

And round that seal of love this motto be,

"Not for a moment, but-eternity!"

III.

THE STONES OF THE HEAVENLY TEMPLE

PREPARED ON EARTH.

"And the house, when it was in building, was built of stone made roady before it was brought thither : so that there was neither hammer, nor axe, nor any tool of iron, heard in the house while it was in building."-1 KINGS, VI. 7.

THE

HE Temple of Solomon was the noblest structure ever built by human hands.

In the Architect who devised it, in the materials employed, in the labour bestowed, in the costliness of the work, and in the grandeur of its whole design, it surpassed the proudest edifices of the world. From its first erection in the wilderness until the time of Solomon, over four centuries, the "Tabernacle," containing the ark of the covenant and its sacred treasures, was but a movable tent pitched where peace or convenience would permit. When David selected Jerusalem to be his royal city, and "the Lord had given him rest round about from all his enemies," he said to the prophet Nathan, "Lo, I dwell in an house of cedars, but the ark of the covenant of the Lord remaineth under cur tains," thus expressing his uneasiness that he should be more sumptuously lodged than the ark of God, and inti