our delight. Our inner life is hidden from their rude ken, our secret communion with the Lord they are utter strangers to, and our sorrows and our joys they cannot be affected with, for our sorrows they know not, and our joys they share not. What cause, then, have we, most dearly beloved, to bless and to praise our God for inner-life and secret love!

"Eternity will fail to prove

The vast immensity of love."

"Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the flood drown it:" and when "the great love wherewith He loved us" is realized in the heart, when it is shed abroad in the soul, when it is opened up and unfolded to the mind, what peace flows in! What holy joy abounds! What sacred delight ensues! We are then happy in the Lord, joyful in our God, and ravished with the beauties and glories of our Beloved. We can then feelingly commit our way into His hands, and experimentally acknowledge Him in all our goings. There is no cloud to overspread our spiritual horizon, there are no dark shades to eclipse the blest rays of our Sun of righteousness, and there are no wilderness cares and sorrows to teaze, perplex, and bewilder our mind. He grants us peace, and none can cause us trouble. He warms our heart with the fire of His love; He cheers our spirits by the odour of His blood; He refreshes our mind with the disclosure of His grace-thoughts and glory-purposes, and we can joyfully and cheerfully sing,

"I'm happy, all is well!"

And now, beloved, for the time being I must say farewell. The Lord go on to bless you, indeed! We well know that

"He who whispers pardon'd sin

Was never known to lie."

and "Blessed is she that believed: for there shall be a performance of those things which were told her from the Lord." "The Lord is not slack concerning His promise," and "If we believe not, yet He abideth faithful."

With our best and united love, believe me to remain,

Yours ever affectionately,

JEDIDIAH.

A DREAM.

So far from dreams as a rule being pleasant or agreeable to me, they are for the most part the very opposite. I often sympathize with Job, where he says: "When I say, My bed shall comfort me, my couch shall ease my complaint; then Thou searest me with dreams, and terrifiest me through visions." At such seasons I am reminded of a dear child of God, who, on one occasion, told one of his fellow-pilgrims that he literally feared to go to sleep, because of the dreadful dreams with which he was harassed. Hence he had, from time to time, to pray earnestly that in this respect the adversary might be kept at a distance, and not allowed to worry and torment him. The dream, however, of which I am about to speak was quite an exception to the general rule, as far as I am concerned. I had passed a very restless night, and it was long after day-light, when, falling asleep, I dreamt that with a friend I was walking through a wide-spread churchyard; reaching the centre, to my amazement, I found some dozen

EE

to twenty tombs with the slabs which covered them half open, like the lid of a chest partially raised upon its hinges. Glancing beneath I saw occupant after occupant in the act of rising as if from a most refreshing sleep. There was not the semblance of death or any of the gloomy associations of the grave; but, as each person gradually rose, the countenance was irradiated with a brightness, a peacefulness, a serenity-yea, a joy-which words utterly fail to describe. Each looked in the full bloom of health and vigour, and as though consciously entering upon some unspeakably-blessed triumph and reality. My whole soul was perfectly entranced as I contemplated that marvellous, never-to-be-forgotten scene, and, addressing my friend, I exclaimed, "Oh, it is a blessed covenant hope, the eternal waking up from all sin and sorrow." As I then really awoke from one of the most glorious dreams with which I was ever indulged, the words came to my mind, "As for me, I will behold Thy face in righteousness; I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with Thy likeness." This portion was immediately followed with the very solemn words of the prophet, "And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt."

I have to thank God for the afore-named dream, which, for want of language to depict so glorious a scene, I have most imperfectly described. The savour of it still rests upon my heart, and has served under God to lift me up above much of the gloom and depression of which for a long time I have been the subject. I have had since a little taste of the sweetness of living by the day, and am praying my gracious Lord that He would kindly and mercifully enable me to give heed to His own most blessed word: "Take therefore no thought for the morrow; for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." It is a blessed word: Lord, Lord, give me yet more and more to realize its precious power and unspeakable satisfaction.

D. A. D.

THE PATIENCE OF HOPE.

"And now, Lord, what wait I for? my hope is in Thee."-PSALM Xxxix. 7.

WHY dost thou tarry here below,
Poor, weary one? I fain would know,
Why dost thou not take upward flight
To that fair home where all is bright,
Where none are weary, none are sad,
Where Jesus makes each spirit glad?
Why not go home?

Though oft impatient to behold
The glories which are yet untold,
Yet still I wait, with anxious ear,
Listening that joyful sound to hear,
When to the blessed home above
The voice of mercy and of love
My soul shall call.

My Lord and Master hath not yet
His servant called-doth He forget?
Ah! no; forgetfulness is mine,
Not His; I know His love divine

Cannot forget the graven name
Which on His hand remains the same
My name is there.

And every waiting day I live,
To God, my God, myself I give-
Soul, body, spirit, all-that He
May glorify Himself in me.
Nought that I have or am is mine!
It is His own that I resign
Into His hand.

Nor will I weary waiting here
If Jesus to my soul is near;
His heart is but on love intent;
His ear to each complaint is lent;
His presence can the lonely cheer;
His hand can wipe away the tear.
With Him I wait.

The Triumphs of Grace over Death and the Grave;

OR, WHISPERS FROM THE DYING PILLOWS OF GOD'S SERVANTS.

"Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright: for the end of that man is peace."-PSALM Xxxvii. 37.

A "WISE SON," WHO MADE A "GLAD FATHER.”

(Continued from page 32 .)

THE mind well taught of God immediately recognizes His sovereign parental hand in all the events of life; nor will those who walk in faith's implicit obedience seek for their daily supplies from any other source. Thus, referring to the abundant mercies of every day's bestowment, dear Josiah said, "God knows exactly what we need, and He will be sure to give us what is really necessary for us to have." Again he said, "But those who are without affliction of some sort do not feel their need of crying to the Lord." No, indeed, they do not; it is only "the poor" that useth "entreaties," and the afflicted that are the really necessitous : these will "cry unto God in their trouble," and He will "bring them out of all their distresses." Such were the daily exercises of our mind at this time of need and prayer. Furthermore, on being told of a person who said "he could live a whole day without sinning," Josiah replied, "Then more shame for him if he does not live so every day;" adding, "The thought of foolishness is sin." Yes, "if we say that we have no sin we deceive ourselves," and there are some who live and die in this self-and-soul-deception. But blessed be God my son was taught of the Lord to know and hate himself, and it tended much to our good hope of him "through grace," that such an innate consciousness of heart-andlife-depravity kept him sensible of his state as a sinner to the last. It was his mercy also to know that grace must reign continually, to keep down and subdue the incessant risings of sin in some of its insidious forms or other. Indeed, so alive was Josiah to its secret workings within, that, though humbled as he was under the mighty hand of God, yet (as he said), "of that very humility he grew proud." Has the reader ever. taken a walk through the chambers of imagery within? If so, he has seen all these abominations portrayed on the walls of his heart; and then self-abhorrence and self-loathing must surely be his companions by way. This is the necessary discipline of all those who are taught to love and seek the Lord; and it is only where the fruits of the flesh are thus felt and lamented, that the "law of Christ's righteousness" will be found in the mind, "warring against," disallowing, and hating the "law" of sin" in our members.

the

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My son was chastened of the Lord" unto a discovery of these deathworking principles within, which created necessities in his heart for the inwrought purity of the law of the Spirit of life, that Christ might reign supreme. Indeed, it was by the "rod" and the "reproof" (both administered in love) that he obtained much of the "wisdom" he possessed; and by which he "clean escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.” Herein lies all the difference between those who are taught of God, and those whose tuition is of man. A "knowledge of

sin" can no sinful creature impart. It is the "Spirit of truth" alone that convinces thereof, and therefore the distinction between the righteous and the wicked is made manifest by the Holy Ghost, thus, sins are open beforehand, going before to judgment; and some men they follow after" (1 Tim. v. 24).

some men's

Oh, what a mercy if our sins are laid open to our view by the searching law of God in the conscience, and "thus go before us unto judgment;" the judgment of God, who giveth us a judgment also concerning them; so that we see them somewhat as He sees them, and are reconciled to His decision in their destruction, for it is only by the disclosure which this "candle of the Lord" makes in our hearts, that we are filled with horror, indignation, and self-hatred at the sight, and whereby we are henceforth led to humiliation, repentance, confession, and prayer. But we are thus judged of the Lord in time, "that we should not be condemned with the wicked hereafter." And herein lies the eternal mercy of our God to all His chastened, afflicted, and exercised people.

Among this favoured host was found my suffering son, who, being now so far loosened in the mental part, and unpinned in the mortal, was "separating" himself by "desire" (after Christ) from all that is earthly, that he might "intermeddle" with the purer glories of the heavenly. He had wellnigh dwelt long enough in this mount, and was soon about to be called up higher; therefore our thoughts were now turned to that coming celestial time, and that holy approaching place, where our corruptible selves shall have no more inheritance either in ourselves or in others, all being made perfect and complete in another, even in Christ. Thus among the number of our sick-room conversations was one on the subject of personal recognition in heaven; a pleasing and prevalent doctrine supposed to be derivable from the letter of Scripture, but which loses all its force and significance when viewed in the light of the Spirit for how can we identify those in heaven we have loved on earth, without associating the earthly with the heavenly, which is contrary to the analogy of faith and the word of God (1 Cor. xv. 40, 48)? Or how can the husband recognize the wife, or the wife her husband, when "there is neither male nor female in Christ Jesus?" (Gal. ii. 28.) Or how are parents to find out their children, when all parentage among the adopted and redeemed is centred in God, who calls His one family by a name "better than that of sons or of daughters ?" No, my dear reader, we shall all be changed, into the "same image" it is true; but that is not the earthly image, but the heavenly, even the likeness of our Lord Jesus Christ. Nor yet is it into half the image of the "first Adam," and half into the likeness of the "Second Adam;" but as mortality is swallowed up of life, so will creatureship be in Christ. For as "flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God" even here upon earth, so neither can the principles of flesh and blood have any place in the spiritual kingdom above. The body terrestrial is one thing, and the body celestial is another. In the flesh we know no man after the Spirit, and in the Spirit we know no man after the flesh. There may be "children of God," whilst at the same time they are the children of men on the earth; but there cannot be children of men when they are the children of God in heaven. Here all affinities cease but the one eternal relationship subsisting between Christ and His Church.

"The Lord gave "-that is the beginning of all creature-union with us "and the Lord hath taken away"-that is their ending; and it is for

us to bow, and say, "Blessed be the name of the Lord." Such a Scripture is God's call upon us to deny ourselves as creatures, and cheerfully to give up ours to Ĥim. "Cease ye from man," means not simply from your fellow-man, or from false and treacherous neighbours or friends; but from the very man-nature which we ourselves inherit, possess, and propagate. Our "affections" as well as our "lusts" (and the affections, being strongest, are put first) must be crucified; and, if they are not so in our lives, they will have their termination at the tomb. The grave is the burial-place of all memorials, and where a man's "love" as well as his "hatred" perishes for ever (Eccl. ix. 5, 6). God the Father hath made the concentration of all celestial felicities to centre in the Person of His Son; and, if our treasure is in heaven, our hearts must be in Him who constitutes that heaven, wholly and everlastingly fixed in Him. He alone is the true believer's "treasure in the heavens that faileth not." Christ Jesus the Lord is the fulness, perfection, and glory of God; and He who is God the Father's everything, must be the ransomed believer's all.

The reader will pardon me if I proceed further with this interesting subject, and which I desire to do, not merely because the dear departed so fully entered into the discussion, but so many kind and well-meaning sympathizing friends having sent me their condolence at my bereavement, founded upon the supposed (and to relatives sweet) idea that "the Lord will give me again in a better world this lost treasure."

Now my fond heart (second in affection, and perhaps creature-idolatry, to none) could wish it were so; that one so amiable, so virtuous, and so "wise," could be my own again. But of the "ransomed of the Lord" Не says, "They shall be mine in that day when I make up my jewels." And time is fast hastening on unto the restitution of all created intelligences unto God their Creator, who gave to mortality breath and to immateriality spirit and life. And the persuasion of this prevents me from cherishing the thought that He will restore anything unto me but that which "He took not away;" namely, the pristine holiness of God in Christ Jesus which I possessed in Him before the world began. 'Tis true, the "earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God;" but it is the "sons of God," and not the children of men, and that viewed in sole relationship to Him "of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named.” The Lord's portion is His people, and Jacob is the lot of His inheritance;" and the Lord alone shall possess Jacob or Judah as His portion for ever in the perpetually holy land.

For "there is one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in Him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by Him:" inseparably, unpluckably, and everlastingly one. "One spirit with Him." And so essential is the manifestation of this vital union, to the glory of God, that Jesus founded His prayer to the Father expressly on this wise: "That they all may be one, as Thou, Father, art in me, and I in Thee." All then are made 66 one, one new man ;" and one becomes all. "My dove, my undefiled, is but one." Their distinctiveness is lost in Christ's consociation with the Father, and their personality in His perfection; and thus as there are no two loves (or twain sexes) in our glorified Lord, so neither is there aught of duality in the mystical sanctified members of His body. Being "made perfect in One," they possess oneness among themselves in His perfection. And as is their nature, such is their employment.