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my flesh and blood, but because she had such sweet, humble, and devout feelings. Now, I rejoice that she is with her heavenly Father. . . . And as the times grow darker and darker, I desire for myself and for all mine, for you, also, and for all yours, the same faith, the same peace at the last hour: this is truly to sleep in Jesus, and not the agonies of death."

When the body of his daughter was put into the coffin, Luther looked at it a long time, and said, "My dear Magdalene, the Lord has been good to thee. Thou shalt rise, and thou shalt shine as the stars, yea, even as the sun." He said again, "My spirit rejoices, but my flesh is sad. The flesh shrinks from the separation. How strange to know that she is happy and at peace, and yet to be so afflicted!"

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When the people came to attend the funeral-service, Luther said, "I have sent a saint to heaven; yes, a living saint. O that we may have such an end! I would gladly accept such an end, even at this hour." Everyone loves to keep his own," said a man in the crowd. "Yes," replied Luther, "flesh is flesh, and blood is blood: nevertheless, I rejoice to see her gone to heaven." When the earth was thrown upon the coffin, he said, "There is a resurrection of the flesh."

After their return from the burial he said, "My daughter is now separated from us both in her body and in her soul. We Christians have nothing to complain of; we know that it must be so. We are assured of the life to come; God has promised it to us by His Son, and He cannot lie."

As the mother wept, and refused to be comforted, Luther said to her, "My dear Katharine, think of the place to which our daughter has gone. She is well; she is where she ought to be. Children do not require great arguments; they believe what is taught them. Everything is simple to children. They die without sorrow,

without doubt, without conflict, as if they were falling into a quiet sleep."

Do we not see here a model of paternal affection and of Christian piety?

SIN A VOLUNTARY THING.

THE guilt of transgression is its wilfulness. Man lost is voluntarily lost. He pursues the course of his own appetites and desires, and bears the simple responsibility of his own choice. If he be wise, he is wise for himself; and if he scorneth, he alone must bear it. This is the leading, discriminating fact in the Saviour's story of the prodigal son. The sheep went astray, but it was in unconscious wandering, and he might become conscious of his danger, and possibly return. The case was not hopeless. The piece of silver was lost, and the loss there was complete and entire. It could never accomplish its own recovery, nor receive the least consciousness of its condition. But the story of the lost son fills up all these absent particulars of the lost one's condition. He wanders voluntarily ; and however partially, yet really feels and knows at every step that he is going astray, in a path of doubtful success and possible ruin. This new, important, and painful addition to the illustration of the case is to be considered.

It might be asked of the shepherd or the woman, why greater care had not been employed to prevent the evil. If these were the only exhibitions of the sinner's state, he might seem to have some excuse in throwing part at least of the responsibility of his sin upon God, who failed adequately to prevent it. But the story of the lost son answers this. There sinful man appears before us lost by his own wilful transgression. He has wandered in his life, because his own heart and desires wandered first. Wherever he is seen away from the God of his sal

vation, away from the path of virtue, holiness, and peace, he is a wilful rebel, and a voluntary exile. Whatever extent or consequences of guilt he may have attained, the fearful sentence, "Thou hast destroyed thyself," still sounds in his conscience in a constant repetition for ever. It is the remembrance and acknowledgment of this which awakens him, if he be ever restored; or fills him with the bitterness of remorse, if he reap in death the wages of his sin. When the Spirit arouses him to recall him to God, this is the trumpet-sound in his soul, constraining him to cry out, "Where is God my Maker; even the Most High, my Redeemer ?" And if he pursue his wandering path to its utmost extent, he can never outrun this fearful conviction of the responsibility of his error upon himself.

"A dread

ful sound is in his ears; in prosperity, the destroyer shall come upon him. Trouble and anguish shall make him afraid; they shall prevail against him as a king ready to the battle."

This is the sadness of his condition, in the terrors which take hold of him within. The story of the son lost illustrates it in an affecting manner. There was stupidity and ignorance in the sheep. There was unconscious helplessness in the money buried out of sight. But in the wandering son there was fearful chosen rebellion and ingratitude. An ungrateful child dealing harshly with a tender and indulgent father, is the new illustration of the lost one. He leaves his father's house, slights his father's love, dishonours his father's name, squanders his father's property, spends upon his own base lusts his father's kind and liberal gifts. Yet in his whole course he is deeply alive to his father's love, and never pretends to charge his waywardness and crimes to any unkindness on his father's side. How every particular adds to the force and the application of the illustration, and makes the sinner's ruin the more fear

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ful in the complete exhibition of the fact that it is so voluntary!

A LIE.

THE commandments are exceeding broad. When Christ, who was announced as a refiner's fire, interpreted the Scriptures, many things that aforetime had been accounted innocent were shown to be criminal. What is a lie? It is any evasion of the truth. It is any equivocation, which, while it utters not a palpable lie, would make a lie seem truth. It is

any deception; let it be made by

word or deed. The aim is to lead astray. It is any snare, or trap, or stratagem, laid for others to fall into. It is any hypocrisy. It is any scandal. It is any It is any affectation.

plagiarism. Because in all these things it literally or impliedly affirms that to be truth which is not truth. A lie is a blot, a blighting, withering, scorching curse. It is a curse. It paralyses the efforts of the good in the spread of light and knowledge; therefore it is a drawback. And if it affects, apparently, but the individual who perpetrates it, how disastrous are its consequences indeed, if it shut him out from the light and happiness of heaven, and shut him up in hell! How well we ought to weigh our words! I ought to think twice before I speak O my Father, keep me from even thinking a deception!

once.

THE TWO SIDES OF
REDEMPTION.

REDEMPTION has two sides, says the Rev. W. Arnot, an upper and a lower, both glorious: but the upper side hath a glory that excelleth. The sinner gets a Saviour: that is a precious truth, but it is the lower side of salvation,--the side most readily seen from our stand-point on the earth. The Saviour gets a portion to

satisfy His soul, a people to rejoice in and to rejoice with for ever: this is the upper side of this same salvation, as seen from heaven, and shining in the light of God.

It is not easy for us in the body to get a glimpse of our own redemption on its higher and heavenward side. That aspect of it, on which its Author's eyes are ever set, is too lofty for our position, too bright for our vision. So accustomed are we, even in our more earnest moments, to the nearer aspect and more subdued light of the lower side, that we abide babes, unskilful in the deeper departments of the word of righteousness. "What must I do to be saved?" comes readier to the lip of an anxious inquirer, than, "What delight has Jesus in saving me ?" To think of ourselves as the portion wherein the Lord delights, is certainly consistent with thorough humility; but pride lies, or seems to lie, so nearly in the same line, that we are afraid to aim so high lest we should miss the mark, and diverge into presumptuous sin. To realize the joy with which my Redeemer rejoices over me, as His portion, and yet to know how vile I am, is difficult, and seems dangerous. He must have been a skilful archer who dared to point his arrow at an apple on his own child's naked head. A man with a fainting heart and a faltering hand would abandon the chance of securing a great gain, rather than run the risk of incurring so great a loss.

CONVERSION IN TWO ASPECTS.

Two things lie in the conversion of St. Paul, and in every conversion : the man gets an Almighty Saviour, and God gets a willing servant. The true instinct of the new creature burst forth from Paul's breast as soon as he knew his Saviour, and before he was lifted from the ground,-"Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do ?" The

answer, sent through Ananias in Damascus, after the tumult had subsided, indicated to the convert what he should be, rather than what he should do: "He is a chosen vessel unto Me." We get a glimpse here of the two tendencies, the human and the Divine. "I shall do," says the disciple in the ardour of a first love. "Thou shalt be," answers that wise and kind Master, who knows that the spirit in the disciple is willing, but the flesh weak. To be like Christ is the most effectual way of working for Christ. "I shall bear the vessels of the Lord," volunteers the ransomed sinner, when he feels that he is not his own, but bought with a price: the reply to this offer requires a less positive, more passive, and yet greater thing,"Thou shalt be the vessel of the Lord." It is a great thing that I should take up instruments and do a work for Christ in the world; but it is a greater that Christ should take me in His hand, and work out His purposes with me. "A people near unto Him," is an ancient appellation of the saved. Surely they are near Him who are held as a vessel in His hand. This is our security alike for safety and usefulness. The star that is in His right hand is held up so that it cannot fall, and held out so that it shines afar. When He chooses a vessel, He uses it; but neither keeps it idle, nor casts it away.

THE WORLD SERVING THE

CHRISTIAN.

THE world on a Christian's side! We thought it was one of his chief foes. So it is. There is no contradiction here, and no confusion. The world, under direction of its god, wars against the soul. But our Father in heaven holds that enemy in the hollow of His hand, and compels it, in His own time and way, to serve His sons. The world is a birthplace for the new

creature, and an exercise-ground for invigorating the spiritual life. The very fires of temptation which the wicked one kindles to destroy the heirs, are employed by the love and power of the Spirit to heat the furnace in which their dross is purged away, that they may be meet for the inheritance. Mark the world as the property of the King's sons.

LIGHT IN A DARK PLACE. "Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee. For, behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people: but the Lord shall arise upon thee, and His glory shall be seen upon thee." (Isai. lx, 1, 2.)

ABOUT forty years ago, an English Missionary stood in one of the wild valleys of Africa, where a quiet Christian village with its church and school now stands as a memorial of successful labours; and, surrounded by the Pagan Chief and his councillors, he opened to them the news of salvation by Christ, and inquired whether they would receive his message, and submit to the teaching of the Gospel. After consultation, it was said in reply, "We never before heard these things about the soul. We have had doubts and fears; uneasy feelings and sorrow have come; but we did not know where to find rest. Before you spoke we were like people in an egg-shell: it was dark; we could see nothing ; we could understand nothing. There was the sky, there were the mountains, there were lilies; but we did not know who made them, nor could we tell where we came from, or where we were going. Stay and teach us, and we will hearken."

About 1233 years ago, a lone Missionary stood on the banks of the Derwent, in East Yorkshire, not far from the little town of Wighton, or "the Town of the Altar," and waited the result of a deliberation on the

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part of Edwin, a Pagan Anglo-Saxon Chief, and his court. The question then was, "Shall this new religion be received?" A Priest said, "O King, consider what this is which is now preached to us; for I verily declare to you, that as to my own experience, the religion which we have hitherto professed has no power nor utility in it. . . . It remains, therefore, if upon examination you find those new doctrines which are now preached unto us better and more efficacious, for us immediately to receive them without any delay." And then an honest straightforward man, an old Chieftain,—a "Thane" as he was called in the language of those days,-rose and said, "The present life of man upon earth, O King, seems to me, in comparison of that time which is unknown to us, like to the swift flight of a sparrow through the room wherein you sit at supper in winter, with your Commanders and Ministers, a good fire having been lit in the midst, and the room made warm thereby, whilst storms of rain and snow rage abroad: the sparrow, I say, flying in at one door, and immediately out at another, whilst he is within, is safe from the wintry storm; but, after a short space of fair weather soon passed over, he immediately vanishes out of your sight into the dark winter from which he had emerged. So this life of man appears for a short space, but of what went before, or what is to follow, we are utterly ignorant. If, therefore, this new doctrine contains something more certain, it seems justly to deserve to be followed." The question was settled as it was in the other case in the African valley; and the blessings of the same Gospel are now inherited alike by the children of the Yorkshire converts, and the Christian offspring of the old Namaquas.

THE DIVINE AUTHORITY, AND
UNIVERSAL AND PERPETUAL
OBLIGATION, OF THE SABBATH.

BY THE REV. GEORGE MAUNDER.
No. IV.
(Continued.)

THIRDLY.-It has been objected, that we have no authority in the New Testament for that exclusively sacred character with which we would invest the Lord's day,that Christ has considerably relaxed the strictness of the Sabbath law, and that many things are now permitted, which, under the old dispensation, were condemned.

We demur to this statement in detail, and as a whole. 1. We decline to be confined exclusively to the writings of the New Testament: we are not at liberty to cast aside any portion of the sacred volume, as not being authoritative and binding. The moral precepts of the Old Testament are as obligatory upon us as are those of the New. "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness;

hat the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works." (2 Tim. iii. 16, 17.) The civil and ceremonial laws of the Jews were local and temporary,-expressly declared to be such, and, consequently, have passed away but not so the moral law; that is eternal and immutable. We are not disposed to play into the hands of our adversaries by throwing overboard the larger portion of the Sacred Book. 2. Christ did not relax the law of the Sabbath, as that law is given in the fourth commandment. He swept away the excrescences with which Jewish interpretations and traditions had encumbered and perverted the law, but He left it in its original substance, and with all its primal beauty untouched. And the very fact that the Saviour took such pains to bring the Sabbath back to its original position, demonstrates that He intended it to be of perpetual obligation in His church. He did not abolish, but He

restored. He lifted from the neck of men the yoke which pharisaical assumption had bound upon them; but He left them under the beneficent operations of the Divine rule in reference to what God Himself calls, "MY HOLY DAY." (Isai. lviii. 13.) 3. That which constituted approved Sabbath-observance under the old dispensation, is Sabbath-observance still. We must banish from our minds -as not being legitimately connected with the Sabbath of God-those irksome and superstitious restraints which Pharisaism imposed upon its victims, and ask, "What is the Bible-law of the Sabbath?" He who runs may read :"- "Remember the Sabbath-day, to keep it HOLY." (Exod. xx. 8.) "Keep the Sabbath-day to SANCTIFY it." (Deut. v. 12.) This is still the law of the Sabbath ;-it is to be kept "holy;" to be "sanctified."

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"MY HOLY DAY," saith God. The Lord's day is to be the Lord's day,—then it is "hallowed." It is to be spent specially in His service, to His glory, and in copying His example, then it is "sanctified." If it be spent in secular toil, or in mere pleasure-seeking and amusement, or in absolute listlessness and idleness,-then it is not kept holy. The sanctification of the Sabbath, without doubt, forbids all labour,-works of necessity and charity excepted; all pleasure, not derived from moral and spiritual sources. The day, the whole day, is to be "the Lord's." The figment of canonical or church hours, is one of the most mischievous relics of Popery which professed Protestants have retained. Religious service in the morning, and secular engagements in the afternoon or evening, give not God the "day." The Sabbath-day is as long as any of the other days of the week; and God has a right to, and claims, the whole as His portion emphatically and pre-eminently, it is "the Lord's DAY."

It may be of importance to endeavour to ascertain in what manner the early Christians observed the Sabbath. Take, then, the testimony of one who, unques