dervise took up a large clod of earth,
and struck him on the head with it.
The man went to the cadi, and
said, "I proposed three questions
to a dervise, who flung such a clod
of earth at me as has made my head
ache." The cadi, having sent for
the dervise, asked, "Why did you
throw a clod of earth at his head,
instead of answering his questions?"
The dervise replied, "The clod of
earth was an answer to his speech.
He says he has a pain in his head; brethren.-Krummacher.
let him show me the pain, and I
will make God visible to him. And

call Him Abba, Father." Then the
Gentile and the Jew regarded each
other with surprise. Said one, "Your
word is the nearest and the highest;
but who gives you courage to call
the Eternal thus ?" "The Father
Himself," said the Christian, who
then expounded to them the plan
of redemption. Then they believed
and lifted up their eyes to heaven,
saying, "Father, dear Father," and
joined hands and called each other

why does he exhibit a complaint to you against me? Whatever I did was the act of God. I did not strike him without the will of God, and what power do I possess? And as he is compounded of earth, how can he suffer pain from that element?" The man was confounded and the cadi highly pleased with the dervise's answer. J. H. Vincent.

Persian, Jew, and Christian.A Jew entered a Persian temple, and saw there the sacred fire. He said to the priest, "How do you worship fire ?" "Not the fire: it is to us an emblem of the sun and of his animating lit," said the priest. Then aske Jew, "Do you adore the sun as a deity? Do you know that he also is a creature of the Almighty?" The priest answered that the sun was to them only an emblem of the invisible light which preserves all things. The Israelite continued, "Does your nation distinguish the image from the original? They call the sun their god, and kneel before the earthly flame. You dazzle the eye of the body, but darken that of the mind; in presenting to them the terrestrial light, you take from them the celestial." The Persian asked, "How do you name the Supreme Being?" "We call Him Jehovah Adonai; that is, the Lord who was, who is, and shall be." "Your word is great and glorious, but it is terrible," said the Persian. A Christian approaching said, "We

Omnipotence of God.-Power is that glorious attribute of God Almighty which furnishes the rest of His perfections. 'Tis His omnipotence that makes His wisdom and goodness effectual, and succeed to the length of His will. Thus His decrees are immutable, and His counsels stand; this secures His prerogative, and guards the sovereignty of His being; 'twas His power which made His ideas fruitful, and struck the world out of His thought. 'Twas this which answered the model of the creation, gave birth to time and nature, and brought them forth at His first call; thus, He spake the word, and they were made; He commanded, and they were created. 'Tis the Divine power which is the basis of all things, which continues the vigour of the second causes, and keeps the sun and moon in repair. This holds everything constant to appointment, and true to the first plan; thus, the revolutions of the seasons, the support of animals, the perpetuity of species, is carried on and maintained. Without this, things would soon run riot, and ramble out of distinction; the succours of life would be cut off, and nature drop into decay. Omniscience and goodness without a correspondent power would be strangely short of satisfaction; to know everything, without being able to supply defects and remedy disorders, must prove an unpleasant speculation; to see so many noble schemes languish in the mind and prove abortive, to see the most consummate wisdom, the

most generous temper, fettered and notion, the grandeur is perfect and disarmed, must be a grievance; but the pleasure entire. Jeremy when omnipotence comes into the Collier.

GODLINESS.

"Godliness with contentment is great gain.”—1 Tim. vi. 6.

ALL the Christian hath, or desires as a Christian, is heavenly.Gurnal!.

THOUGH the way be narrow, yet it is not long; and though the gate be strait, yet it opens into everlasting life. Beveridge.

BETTER it is not to begin in a good course than to desist and break off. The Lord rejects that blossom that never comes to fruit, as the husbandman cares not for that blade that comes not to ripeness.Thomas Taylor (1600).

Profession and Practice.-Christians must always profess godliness, and always practise it; their life must always be green, and their fruit always ripe. There should not be a day or an hour wherein they should not be doing good, or ready to do good, and bear new fruit.-William Greenhill.

Godliness Great Gain.-An aged Christian was once asked by some thoughtless people why he deprived himself of so many worldly pleasures. "It is all very well," said they, "to serve God, but you ought to serve yourself too." " That is the very thing," replied he, "that I am trying after; for I have long since found out that I get ten times more in obeying God than I do in obeying my own evil heart."

The Godly and the Ungodly.When the ungodly and the godly fall into the same sin, how can we distinguish between them? By a simple test-a test by which you may know a sheep from a swine, when both have fallen into the same slough, and are, in fact, so bemired that you can hardly tell the one from the other. The unclean animal, in circumstances agrecable to its nature, wallows in the mire; but

the sheep (type of the godly) fills the air with its bleatings, nor ceases to struggle to get out.-Guthrie.

Faith and Godliness.-True faith and a godly life cannot be separated one from another, no more than the foundation can be separated from the building, or the root from the branches, the fire from the heat, the water from the moisture, the sun from the light. In a word, they are as two twins, who are born together, live together, and die together. Howsoever, in the house and power of darkness, and in the vehemency of tentation, we may and do fail very often. Therefore, where true faith is not, there can be no godly life.-Richard Roger (1603).

Power of Godliness.-The power of godliness, among other things, hath these three advantages. It and mightily; and whatever might makes a man do everything strongly take a man off from duty, or distract or disturb him in it, all falls to nothing before this power. It makes a man inflexible in the ways of God, that he shall neither turn to the right hand nor to the left, but take straight steps towards the mark set before him. It makes a man invincible from all evils and enemies, because all the power against him is but the power of the creature, but the power in him is the power of God. And the power of God easily overcomes the mightiest power of the creature, but is never overcome by it. To conclude: the power of godliness is the doer of every duty in God's kingdom, the subduer of every sin, the conqueror of each tribulation and temptation, the life of every performance, the glory of each grace, the beauty of a Christian's life, the stability of his

conversation, the lustre of his re- self in the Church of God; for by ligion, his great honour and excel- faith the Lord arises on us, and by lency both in doing and suffering; this power of godliness His glory is yea, it is the very glory of God Him- seen upon us.-W. Dell.

GOSPEL.

"It is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth."

-Rom. i. 16.

THE Gospel deals much in pro- | The Gospel is the glass wherein we nouns, in which consists a believer's see the glory of Christ more than in comfort.-Luther. any other way; therefore the words of Christ are much more sweet to a believer's taste than honey or the sweetest of spices are to the mouth. —John Robotham.

SUPPOSE you were attending to hear a will read, where you expected a legacy; would you employ the time in criticising the manner in which-A weak and dying hand may the lawyer read it? No; you would be giving all attention to hear if anything had been left to you. So you ought to hear the Gospel.

6

eminent minister, "since a boat's crew left their ship to reach the Hervey Islands. One of the passengers upon that boat desired to land, but the boat's crew feared to do so, as the cannibals were gathered together on the shore. Holding up the Bible in his hand, he said, Live or die, put me ashore.' They would not go near the land; he plunged into the surf, and held high the Book. He reached the land. The cannibals did not kill him, but he won their favour and lived among them, and, for aught I know, he died among them. Thirty years afterwards another ship reached the same Hervey Islands, bringing literally a cargo of Bibles. They were all wanted, and were taken with the greatest eagerness and paid for by these people. This was the result of the labours of that heroic young man who said, 'Live or die, put me ashore.'

greenhouse, and the hothouse, they are theirs; but the quiet moonlight, the nightly heavens with their multitude of shining worlds, the sun spreading his splendour over a sky of cloudless blue, or lighting up the clouds of evening with a thousand gorgeous hues; the air, perfumed in its passage over fields and heath; the lovely flowers of the wild and hedgerow these are provided by a beneficent God for rich and poor alike. And who would leave these for the painted gaieties of art? So the blessings of the Gospel are not for the learned alone. They may taste the beauties of the inspired poetry better, and penetrate more deeply into the few obscurities of Holy Writ; but the comforts of the Bible pardon of sin, reconciliation with God, peace, and holiness, and heaven these are for all; these gladden the heart of the labourer at his toil, of the patient of an hospital on his dying bed. And beware, then, how thou quittest these Divine consolations for all that learning can offer.—Salter.

Gospel Seeds. I have seen a waste of stones with scarcely any thing of soil amongst them; yet even there were one or two solitary flowers in blossom. The wind had showeth us our sin," says an old Law and Gospel.-" The Law scattered there the seeds, the dews writer, "the Gospel showeth us a of heaven had fallen upon them, the little germs within had found remedy for it. The Law showeth us our condemnation, the Gospel something wherein to strike root, showeth us our redemption. The and the plants had sprung up and Law causeth wrath, the Gospel is flowered unobserved. Those plants the word of grace. The Law is shall wither there, and decay, and the word of despair, the Gospel is form a vegetable mould, the fit re- the word of comfort. The Law ceptacle of other seeds that shall spring up into other flowers, till says, Pay thy debt; the Gospel says, the stony waste be covered with saith, Thou art a sinner, despair Christ hath paid it. soil, and the soil with verdure and and thou shalt be damned; the thee; be of good comfort, thou Gospel says, Thy sins are forgiven shalt be saved. The Law saith, Make amends for thy sin; the Gospel saith, Christ hath made it for thee.

bloom. Thus are the seeds of the

Gospel carried abroad into heathen lands; thus are they fostered by the blessed Spirit of God; thus do they find in one or two happy hearts a soil wherein to strike; and thus do they spring up into the beautiful flower of a holy life. -Salter.

Blessings of the Gospel.-Think not that the beauties of this world are for the rich and great alone. The illuminated drawing-room, the

The Law

Father in heaven is angry with The Law saith, Thy thee; the Gospel saith, Christ hath pacified Him with His blood. The Law asks, Where is thy righteousness, goodness, and satisfaction? The Gospel saith, Christ is my righteousness, goodness, and satis

THE NEW HANDBOOK OF ILLUSTRATION.

faction. The Law saith, Thou art bound and indebted to me; the Gospel saith, Christ hath delivered thee from them all. He that believeth not God's word believeth not God Himself. The Gospel is God's word; therefore he that believeth not the Gospel believeth not God Himself."

divine. In the time of tentation I confess that I myself do not know how to do it as I ought. Now the way to discern the one from the other is to place the Gospel in heaven and the Law on the earth; to call the righteousness of the Gospel heavenly, and the righteousness of the Law earthly, and to put as great difference between the The Every Christian's Duty. righteousness of the Gospel and of moment you believe that you are the Law as God hath made between on the side of the Lord Jesus Christ, heaven and earth, between light your duty lies in the direction of and darkness, between day and the individual men round about night. Let the one be as the light you, and of the business of life, and the day, and the other as the just as much; because you have darkness and the night. entered upon that great campaign which means to recreate the forces

And

would to God we could yet further
of the earth, and to change the separate the one from the other!
Wherefore, if the question be con-
organisations of society, and fill
cerning the matter of faith and
them with moral magnanimities, conscience, let us utterly exclude
and discharge from them the cor- the Law, and leave it on the earth;
rosive selfishness and predominant
but if we have to do with works,
animalism which has controlled
then let us lighten the lantern of
them. Our battle is not accom-works and of the righteousness
plished in our own salvation. We of the Law. So let the sun and
are God's soldiers to transform the inestimable light of the Gospel
this world. The mere technical

spread of the Gospel is itself a great
gain, but it is only the beginning
of the work. The Gospel is spread,
so far as its technical spread is con-
cerned,into continents; but the Gos-
It
pel is to spread in another way.
is to go down into society as well as
to lie upon the surface of it. As a
creed, it is to lie in the disposition,
and transform the processes of it.
And the very first step that a man
takes when he becomes a Christian,
after the regeneration of his heart,
is to carry those regenerating forces
straight along with him. Wherever
he goes, that light is to shine; and
it is to shine on business, to shine
on love, on pleasure, on wealth, on
honours, on everything. Wherever
he goes, he is to carry the trans-
forming power of the Spirit of God,
so that he shall do his part as one
of the soldiers of the Lord's host.

Beecher.

grace

and shine in the day, and the
lantern of the Law in the night.
Wherefore, if thy conscience be
terrified with the sense and feeling
of sin, think thus with thyself:
Thou art now remaining upon
earth; there let the ass labour and
travel, there let him serve and

carry

the burden that is laid upon him that is to say, let the body with his members be subject to the Law. But, when thou mountest up into heaven, then leave the ass with his burden upon the earth; for the conscience hath nothing to do with the Law, or works, or with the earthly righteousness. So doth the ass remain in the valley, but the conscience ascendeth with Isaac into the mountain, knowing nothing at all of the Law or works thereof, but only looking to the remission of sins and pure righteousness offered and freely given unto us in Christ.-Luther.

Conscience and Law.-Who so
Gospel Dissemination.-"At the
then can rightly judge between the
Law and the Gospel, let him thank close of the last war with Great
God, and know that he is a right | Britain," says Dr. Wayland, “I was