Papers on Practical Religion (1879): a machine-readable transcription

Booth, Catherine Mumford (1829-1890)

Victorian Women Writers Project: an Electronic Collection

Papers on Practical Religion

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• 1996-12-03
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PAPERS ON PRACTICAL RELIGION.

BY

MRS. BOOTH.

(front)
London: Printed by Smyth & Yerworth, Holborn Buildings, Holborn, E.C.

(preface)
    

PREFACE

        Compelled in great measure to desist for a season from public speaking by bodily infirmity, I seize the opportunity to repeat on paper what I have been privileged to express in (to me) brighter days.

        I pray that I may thus be allowed to continue my testimony against the attempt, now so prevalent, to serve both God and mammon, and to warn and teach everyone to flee from the wrath to come by avoiding every sin and the very appearance of evil, and by devoting themselves without reserve to the service of God and the salvation of the world; and I trust that He who has given to me these thoughts and words may restore to me the power to speak again and to speak more boldly still.

CATHERINE BOOTH.             3, GORE ROAD, LONDON, E. CHRISTMAS, 1878.

(contents)
    

CONTENTS.

• The Training of Children--An Address to Parents 1
• Strong Drink versus Christianity 25
• Worldly Amusements and Christianity 38
• Heart Backsliding 54
• Dealing with Anxious Souls--An Address to Christian Workers 75
• "Compel Them to Come In" 88
• Female Ministry; or, Woman's Right to Preach the Gospel 95
• Hot Saints--An Address on Rev. III. 15: "I would Thou wert Cold or Hot" 124
• Conscience 129
• Aggression 138
• The Uses of Trial 143
• Prevailing Prayer 149

THE TRAINING OF CHILDREN.

AN ADDRESS TO PARENTS.

        I presume that all here are agreed as to the responsibility devolving on parents to give some sort of training to their children. There is not a mother here who would think it right to leave her child to grow up without discipline or training of some kind! Then the question for us to consider is, what sort

of training does God, and our duty to our children, require from us? In order to get at the answer to this question the first important matter for a parent to settle in her own mind is this: To whom does this child belong? IS IT MINE, OR IS IT THE LORD'S? Surely, this question should not need any discussion, at least by Christian parents! For do we not recognise, even before they are born, that they are peculiarly and exclusively a heritage from the Lord; and when they came into the world, the first effort we put forth was to hold them up and offer them to Him? And again, in our baptismal vows we acknowledged that they belonged to Him, and promised to train them for His glory. Now the keeping of this one fact before the mind of a mother will be the best guiding principle in training, and it is because Christian parents so often forget whose their children are, that they make such mistakes in training them. I say then to you mothers here, settle it in your minds that your child belongs absolutely to God and not to you--that you are only stewards for God, holding your children to nurse them and train them for Him.

        This responsibility arises--1st. Out of the command and ordination of God. Both under the old and new dispensations, the Lord has, in the most emphatic and solemn manner, laid the obligation on parents to train their children for Him; He commands it, to whom both parents and children exclusively belong.

        Secondly--This responsibility arises out of the nature of the relationship between parent and child. The parent is in the most complete sense the owner, the guardian, the director, and controller of the child; its utter helplessness and ignorance when it first comes into the world throws it completely under the power of, and at the discretion of, its parents. The poor little infant has no choice but to be led as its parents lead it--no option but to be directed, trained, and developed physically, mentally, and spiritually as its parents develop it; and it is during these early stages of helplessness and ignorance that the

impetus is generally given to its future life. There is an old adage that "They who rock the cradle rule the world," and they certainly do; but I am afraid that the world has been very badly ruled, just because those who rock the cradle have not known how to train the child. Napoleon once said, that the "great want of France was mothers," and I am afraid we may say to a greater extent than ever before in our history, that the great want of England is mothers--right-minded, able, competent, Christian mothers, who realize their responsibility to God and to their children, and who are resolved at all costs and sacrifices to discharge it.

        Thirdly--This responsibility arises out of our ability for the task. We are able to train our children in the way they should go, or God would not have enjoined it upon us. He required every father and mother in Israel to train their children for Him--He admitted of no exception, no excuse; and in the New Testament it is assumed as a first duty with believers to train up their children "in the nurture and admonition of the Lord." The training God requires is a moral training--THE INSPIRING OF THE CHILD WITH THE LOVE OF GOODNESS, TRUTH, AND RIGHTEOUSNESS, and leading him to its practice and exercise in all the duties and emergencies of life.

        Now, any parent, however poor, unlearned, or occupied, can do this if only she has the grace of God in her heart, and will take the TROUBLE. Training a child in the way he should go does not necessarily imply a scholastic training. All parents have not the power to educate their children, nor to do much for them temporally; they cannot put them in a position to get much of this world's goods, but these things are not included in right training. A child may be trained for the highest moral and spiritual development without these; and, where there is natural ability, for the highest mental development also. This is abundantly established in the histories of some of our great men. We know what kind of homes some

of them were trained in, what humble parentage some of them had, what little learning they had in their early days, but, nevertheless, they were trained in the way they should go, and having been set going in the right path, when they came to mature years they did not fail to help themselves. No poor parent need be discouraged because he cannot educate his children in the popular sense.

        God does not require of us more than we can do, and if we train our children, as far as is possible to us, in the way they should go, they will then go in that way for themselves; God's providence and spirit and their own bias will guide them on and on, as it has done many a son of poor parents, to prosperity, usefulness, and honour in this world, as well as to eternal glory in the next.

        But, Fourthly--This responsibility is increased by the opportunity which parents possess, and especially mothers, to train their children. Being thrown constantly with them, having them continually under our eye by night and by day, when no one else is there, being acquainted with all their peculiarities of disposition, and entering into all their joys and sorrows, what splendid opportunities occur daily for pruning, correcting, inspiring, leading and encouraging them as the case may require.

        Then, Fifthly--What an awful responsibility arises out of the influence which God has given us over our children. This influence is IRRESISTIBLE until parents by their own injudicious conduct fritter it away. A little child who has been rightly trained has unbounded, unquestioning confidence in its parents; what father or mother says, is to it, an end of all controversy, it never seeks for further proof. This influence wisely used will never wear out, but will spread like an atmosphere around the child's moral nature, moulding and fashioning all his future life. I sometimes meet with parents who tell me that at the age of sixteen or seventeen, their children have become quite unmanageable, and that they have lost all their

influence over them. I cannot tell you which I pity most, such children, or such parents. One of the worst signs of our times is the little respect which children seem to have for their parents. There are numbers of boys and girls of from twelve to seventeen years of age, over whom their parents have little or no control. But how has this come to pass? Did these children leap all at once from the restraints and barriers of parental affection and authority? Oh no, it has been the result of the imperceptible growth of years of insubordination and want of proper discipline--the gradual loss of parental influence until they have thrown it off altogether, and resolved to do as they pleased. Hence the terrible exhibitions we have of youthful depravity, lawlessness, and rebellion.

        Well, I think I hear some mother say: I see, I feel my responsibility, and I long to train my children in the way they should go, but

        How am I to do it?

        First let us look at the meaning of the word Train. It does not mean merely to teach. Some parents seem to have the notion that all they have to do in training their children aright is to teach them; so they cram them with religious sentiment and truth, making them commit to memory the Catechism, large portions of Scripture, a great many hymns, and so on. All very good as far as it goes, but which may all be done without a single stroke of real training such as God requires, and such as the hearts of our children need. Nay, this mere teaching, informing the head without interesting or influencing the heart, frequently drives children off from God and goodness, and makes them hate, instead of love, everything connected with religion. In the early part of my married life, when my dear husband was travelling very much from place to place, I was frequently thrown into the houses of leading families in churches for three or four weeks at a time, and I used to say to myself, "How is it that these children seem frequently to have a more inveterate dislike for religion and religious things, than the children of

worldly people who make no profession"? Subsequent observation and experience has shown me the reason. It is because such parents inform the head without training the heart. They teach what they neither practise themselves nor take the trouble to see that their children practise, and the children see through the hollow sham, and learn to despise both their parents and their religion. Mother, if you want to TRAIN your child you must practise what you teach, and you must SHOW HIM how to practise it also, and you must, at all costs of trouble and care, see that he DOES it.

        Suppose, by way of illustration, that you have a vine, and that this vine is endowed with reason, and will, and moral sense. You say to your vine-dresser, "Now, I want that vine trained"--i.e., made to grow in a particular way, so that it may bear the largest amount of fruit possible to it. Suppose your vine-dresser goes to your vine, every morning, and says to it, "Now, you must let that branch grow in this direction, and that branch grow in another; you are not to put forth too many shoots here, nor too many tendrils there; you must not waste your sap in too many leaves;" and having told it what to do and how to grow, he shuts it up and leaves it to itself. This is precisely the way many good people act towards their children. But, lo! the vine grows as it likes; nature is too strong for mere theory; words will not curb its exuberance, nor check its waywardness. Your vine-dresser must do something more effectual than talking. He must nail that branch where he wishes it to grow; he must cut away what he sees to be superfluous; he must lop, and prune, and dress it, if it is to be trained for beauty and for fruitfulness. And just so, mother, if you want your child to be trained for God and righteousness; you must prune, and curb, and propel, and lead it in the way in which it should go. But some mother says, "What a deal of trouble!" Ah, that is just why many parents fail; they are afraid of trouble; but, as Mrs. Stowe says, "If you will not take the trouble to

train Charlie when he is a little boy, he will give you a great deal more trouble when he is a big one." Many a foolish mother, to spare herself trouble, has left her children to themselves, and "a child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame!" Many parents teach their children in theory the right way, but by their negligence and indifference, train them in just the opposite. See that mother seated at some important piece of work which she is anxious to finish; her three little children are playing around her--one with his picture-book, another with his horse and cart, and baby with her doll. It is Monday afternoon, and only yesterday she was giving those children a lesson on the importance of love and good-will amongst themselves; that was the teaching, now comes the training. Presently Charlie gets tired of his pictures, and, without asking permission, takes the horse and cart from his younger brother, whereupon there is a scream, and presently a fight. Instead of laying aside her work, restoring the rightful property, explaining to Charlie that it is unjust and unkind to take his brother's toys, and to the younger one that he should rather suffer wrong than scream and fight, she goes on with her work, telling Charlie that he is a very naughty boy, and making the very common remark that she thinks there never were such troublesome children as hers! Now, who cannot see the different effect it would have had on these children if that mother had taken the trouble to make them realize and confess their fault, and voluntarily exchange the kiss of reconciliation and brotherly affection? What if it had taken half an hour of her precious time, would not the gain be greater than that which would accrue from any other occupation, however important? Mothers, if you want your children to walk in the way they should go, you must not only teach, you must be at the trouble to TRAIN.

        But, Secondly, HOW IS THIS TRAINING TO BE GIVEN?

        The first and most important point is to secure OBEDIENCE. Obedience to properly constituted authority is the foundation

of all moral excellence, not only in childhood, but all the way through life. And the secret of a great deal of the lawlessness of these times, both towards God and man, is, that when children, these people were never taught to submit to the authority of their parents; and now you may convince them ever so clearly that it is their duty, and would be their happiness, to submit to God, but their unrestrained, unsubdued wills have never been accustomed to submit to anybody, and it is like beginning to break in a wild horse in old age. Well may the Prophet enquire, "Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? Then may ye also do good that are accustomed to do evil." God has laid it on parents to begin the work of bringing the will into subjection in childhood; and to help us in doing it, He has put in all children a tendency to obey. Watch any young child, and you will find that, as a rule, his instincts lead him to submit; insubordination is the exception, until this tendency has been trifled with by those who have the care of him. Now how important it is, in right training, to take advantage of this tendency to obedience, and not on any account allow it to be weakened by encouraging exceptional rebellion! In order to do this, you must begin EARLY ENOUGH. This is where multitudes of mothers miss their mark; they begin too late. The great majority of children are ruined for the formation of character before they are five years old by the foolish indulgence of mothers.

        I am sometimes asked, "What do you consider the secret of successful training"? I answer, "BEGINNING SOON ENOUGH--not letting Satan get the advantage of us at the start." That is the secret of success. "Well, but," mothers say, "it is so hard to chastise an infant." There is seldom need for chastisement where mothers begin early and wisely. There is a way of speaking to and handling an infant compatible with the utmost love and tenderness, which teaches it that mother is not to be trifled with; that, although she loves and caresses, she is to be obeyed, and will be obeyed, and a child that is trained in this way

will not, as a rule, attempt to resist. In exceptional cases it may be tempted to become obstreperous, and then the mother must show her authority. Take an illustration. We will suppose that your son of six months old is in a fractious mood, and indisposed to take his morning nap; his nurse has put him in his cot and struggled with him till she is tired, and the child is tired too; at last you come and take the baby, after he has been rolling and tumbling about, and lay him down with a firm hand, saying with a firm voice, "Baby must lie still and go to sleep," putting your hand on him at the same time to prevent his rising in the cot or turning over after you have spoken. Now, if this child for the previous three months has been trained in this line, if this is not the beginning, he will, as a natural consequence, lie still and go to sleep; but if he has not been accustomed to this kind of handling, he will perhaps become boisterous and resist you; if so, you must persevere. You must on no account give up; no, not if you stop till night. If he conquers you this time he will try harder next, and it will get more and more difficult. Almost all mothers mistake here; they give up because they will not inflict on themselves the pain of a struggle, forgetting that defeat now only ensures endless battles in the future.

        Remember you MUST conquer in the FIRST battle, whatever it may be about, or you are undone. "Ah, but what time and patience this requires!" Yes, but it is only for once or twice; and what is that compared with the time and toil of conquering further on? But you say, "It is so hard." Not half so hard as the other way; for when the child finds that mother is not to be got over, he will yield as a matter of course. I have proved it, I think, with some as strong-willed children as ever came into the world. I conquered them at six and ten months old, and seldom had to contend with any direct opposition after. I have a son who is now preaching the Gospel, and a great joy to my heart. The only decided battle I ever fought with him was at ten months old. I do not say that he never

disobeyed me afterwards--he sometimes forgot himself and was disobedient--but I do say that I never remember him setting his will in direct antagonism to mine in all the succeeding years of his childhood. It was a painful struggle--that first contest, but has not the result paid for it a thousand thousand times? Oh, mothers, if you love your children, begin early to exact obedience. If chastisement be necessary, inflict it; and for every pang you suffer, every tear you shed, you shall reap comfort, honour, and glory. But, perhaps, there are some mothers who are saying, "Ah, I see it now; but it is too late; my children are too old." I say: better late than never. Begin and do all you can. Perhaps you can never undo ALL the mischief, but you may a part of it. Call your children around you; confess your past unfaithfulness in your dealings with them, fall on your knees before the Lord with them, and tell Him of your failure to train them for Him, and ask His help to enable you to do it in the future. When you rise from your knees tell your children in the most solemn manner that you see your mistake, and feel how awful it would be, if they were to be lost through your fault, and that from this hour you are going to be obeyed in everything. Begin at once to exact obedience. Be judicious and forbearing, remembering that your children's habits of disobedience are the result of your own folly, and deal as gently as the case will permit; but at all costs secure obedience, and never more allow your commands to be trifled with. Now is your only chance; a few more years, and your child is undone.

        Do not be afraid to use your authority. One would think, to hear some parents talk of their relations with their children, that they did not possess an iota of power over them. All they dare to do, seems to be to reason, to persuade, to coax. I have frequently heard mothers using all manner of persuasion instead of exerting the authority which God has given for the safeguard and guidance of their poor children. They give their commands in such a voice as leaves it optional whether the child shall

obey them or not, and this he understands very well; there is no command, no firmness, no decision, no authority, and the child knows it by its instincts just as an animal would. Men are much wiser in breaking in and training their horses than their sons, hence they generally get much better served by the former than the latter!

        What has God given you authority for, if He did not intend you to use it--if your child can do as well without it? He has sent your child to you to be guided and restrained by your authority, as much as to be inspired and encouraged by your love. How will you answer for the neglect or abuse of this wonderful power? You recollect the fearful punishment that came upon Eli, one of the most terrible strokes of vengeance recorded in the whole Bible. What was it for? Not for using profane language before his children, not for training them in unrighteousness or immorality, for he was a good and righteous man, but "because he restrained them not:" that means he did not use his authority on the side of God and righteousness. Doubtless, this had been his failing all the way through; he had indulged his sons in their own way, until at last they set both him and his God at open defiance. Alas! this has been the case with millions since his day: having sown the wind they reaped the whirlwind. What a contrast the conduct and fate of Eli present in this respect to the conduct of Abraham! "I know him," said Jehovah, "that he will command his children and his household after him." Not merely remonstrate, persuade, and threaten, as Eli did, but "command"--he will use his authority on My side; and, as a consequence, the Lord promised that "they should keep the way of the Lord, to do justice and judgment." Parents, if you fulfil your part of the covenant, never fear but that God will perform His. Only you train your children truly for Him, and He will charge Himself with their future; but do not expect, if you neglect your sacred trust, or abuse it by training them in the nurture and admonition of the world and the devil, that God will work a

miracle to convert them when they come to mature years, because you cry and pray and ask Him to do so. He makes no such promise; and we see, alas! in the experience of multitudes of sorrowing parents, that He does not hold Himself bound to work for the salvation of their children on any such conditions.

        Another important point in training a child in the way he should go is to train it in the practice of TRUTH and INTEGRITY. Human nature is said to go "astray from the birth--speaking lies;" and, doubtless, untruthfulness is one of the most easily besetting and prevalent sins of our race. To counteract this tendency, and to establish the soul in habits of truth and sincerity, must be one of the first objects of right training. In order to do this, parents should beware of palliating or excusing the tendency to falsehood in their children. In nothing have I been more amazed than in this. I have actually seen mothers smile at, and almost extol the little artifices of their children in their attempts to deceive them and to hide some childish delinquency. No wonder that such parents fail to inspire their off-spring with that wholesome dread of falseness which is one of the greatest safeguards to virtue in after-life.

        No mother will succeed in begetting in her child a greater antipathy towards any sin than she feels for it herself. Children are the quickest of all analysts, and instinctively detect in a moment all affectation of goodness. They judge not so much from what we say as HOW WE FEEL. They are not influenced so much by our teaching as by our spirit and example. For instance, a mother teaches her child that he is to be truthful, and on no account to tell a lie; but what effect will such teaching have if he hears her tell one, or sees her act one, the next day? Parents teach their children to be sincere, and take occasion to point out examples of the meanness and wickedness of deception, but by their own example they very frequently train them in the grossest insincerity. Take an illustration. A person calls to see you whose society your child knows that you neither esteem nor desire, but you are all smiles and compliments, pressing

her to come again, and assuring her that her visit has given you very great pleasure. What more effectual lesson could you give your wondering little one in deception and double-dealing than this?

        And yet how common is this kind of thing in many households? I once stayed in the house of a lady who had a fine promising boy of about eighteen months old. He used to kick and scream violently when he found that she was going out of the house. This, of course, was the result of previous bad training. but what did she do? Instead of facing the difficulty, and in a calm, firm, and affectionate manner curing her little son of this bad habit, she used to promise every time that she would bring him a pony that he could ride on, and the little fellow believed and believed until he got tired, and then put down his mother, in his baby-mind, as a liar. Of course he would not have understood such a definition, but the deception would be burned into his soul never to be eradicated. A child hurts himself against the table: the mother strikes it, and says, "Oh! naughty table! you have hurt baby;" but the child soon learns that the table was not to blame, and at the same time learns to distrust his mother, who said it was.

        A mother invites some little friends to spend an afternoon with her children, during which games are played requiring skill and tact in the winner. Her little boy wins several of the games, and although his brother or one of his little friends says that he was not fair--that is, that he cheated--she does not appear to notice it, but contents herself by saying, "Oh, you must be good children and not quarrel;" thus inflicting an unjust reflection on the child of honour and integrity, while encouraging the other in the meanest and most selfish form of sin--allowing him to rejoice over the victory won, through fraud or sleight-of-hand. Can such a mother wonder if her boy turns out a thief or a gambler? Well, but you say how unpleasant it would be in such a case to go into particular

investigation, spoil the enjoyment of the party, and expose your child as a cheat before them! Certainly it would be very unpleasant, and to a mother who is more concerned about her son appearing to be a cheat than she is about his being one the result would not be worth the fuss; but, to a mother who esteems the honour and integrity of her boy more than all appearances or opinions in the world, such an opportunity of correcting his fault and fortifying him against future temptation is more than the breaking up of a dozen parties. Oh, how many a promising child has been ruined because his mother would not endure the pain and trouble of an investigation? "He that covereth his sins shall not prosper." Neither does such a course win the good opinion of others. The children go away feeling that your son is a cheat just the same; and, what is worse, feeling that you are a party to his wickedness.

        Again, Charlie is ill, and it is needful for him to take a dose of unpleasant medicine; but he has been so badly trained that his mother knows he will not take it if she tells him it is nasty. So she resorts to stratagem, and tells him that she has got something good, and thus coaxes him to take it into his mouth, but before it is swallowed he detects the cheat, and medicine and mother's veracity are spit out together. In this way thousands of children are taught deception and untruth, and you may labour in vain in after years to make them truthful and sincere--the soil has been ruined by early abuse.

        Mothers, if you want your child to be truthful and sincere you must not only teach it to be so, you must be so yourself, and see that your child practises what you teach. You must not wink at, or cover up any kind of falseness or deception in him, because he is yours. Sin should be the more awful to you because you see it in those so dear, and those for whom you are responsible. If you have any reason to suspect your child of insincerity or falsehood, do not rest until you have bottomed the matter; never mind what trouble or pain it involves,

drag it out, even though it should bring for the time exposure and disgrace. This may prove a useful chastisement, and a warning in the future. Anything is preferable to sin covered up, and consequently encouraged. Resolve that you will make your child truthful and sincere, if you can do it no other way, from very despair of being able to hide anything from you. God acts on this principle with adults: why should not we with our children? "Be sure your sin will find you out."

        I know some children amongst whom it is a common remark, "It is of no use trying to hide anything from mamma, for she is sure to find it out; so it is best to tell her at once." How much misery it would save if it were thus in every family! Mothers, take the trouble to make your children TRUE, and God will enable you to do it. If you work for Him with your children, He will work with you in them, and you shall have the joy of seeing them grow up into Christ, their living Head in all things.

        But further. To train a child in the way it should go, we must not stop with those qualities and virtues which bear on man; but it must be trained in the exercise of devotion and piety towards God. Of course, none but truly Christian parents are equal to impart this kind of training. The Holy Ghost must needs be in the heart of the mother who undertakes to lead her child to God. The bias to evil is too strong to be turned aside by unassisted human wisdom or strength, however great. But, bless God! there is every encouragement to those parents who are truly His, to hope for success in training their children for Him.

        And, perhaps, the first important point in such effort is, to lead our children to regard themselves as standing in a special relationship to God. "The promise is to you and to your children."

        And there is a sense in which the children of believers are already set apart for Him. Many parents seem to lose sight

of this covenant relation, and bring up their children under the idea that they must needs live in sin till they come to be fifteen or sixteen years old, and then they hope God will convert them in the same marvellous and sudden manner in which drunkards and profligates are converted. Now, I am as firm a believer in conversion as any one can be; and I also believe that the children of believers need to be converted as much as others, but I say this is not the way to teach our children to expect it. What is conversion but the renewal of the mind by the Holy Ghost through faith in a crucified Saviour? And as there are "diversities of operations by the same spirit," why may not the minds of children be renewed very early? Why may they not be led to choose Christ and His yoke at seven or eight years old as well as at seventeen? If the will of a child be sincerely yielded to God, cannot the blessed spirit as easily and as effectually renew and actuate its heart and affections as those of an adult? And does not Jesus say "SUFFER the little ones to come unto Me"? Alas! how many Christian parents unwittingly forbid them?

        Because in the case of those who have had no previous light or training, conversion is necessarily sudden and followed by a great outward change, is that any reason why in the case of a child carefully trained in the "nurture and admonition of the Lord," the Holy Spirit should not work together with such training, adapting his operations to the capacity and requirements of the little ones who are already "of the kingdom of heaven"? thus gradually installing them in all the privileges, duties, and enjoyments of that kingdom. Of what advantage would it be to train them in the "nurture and admonition of the Lord," if He did not purpose to bless this training to their conversion and salvation? The very terms of this injunction show the sense in which the Holy Spirit uses them. "Nurture" means "nursing, feeding, strengthening, developing." "Admonition" means "reproof, caution, instruction." Here is the order of God, firstly, the feeding and strengthening of all that

is good in them; and secondly, the reproof and caution against evil; and thirdly, instruction in righteousness. If parents would only take the Lord's way, they would see their sons and their daughters taking their places in the temple of the Lord, as their natural and abiding home. Wisely and faithfully trained up for God, they would say, when solicited to go away, "To whom should we go"? "Ah," says some mother, "It is very easy to talk, but you don't know the natural antipathy which my children have to religion. I am sure I have tried to teach them the right way, and to make them love that which is good, but, so far, I see very little result of my labours." Perhaps, my friend, the failure has been in that you have taught but have not trained. You have told them the way to take, but have not led them in it. If you are to succeed you must do both, and that continually.

        Of course right training includes right teaching, for though there may be much teaching without training, there cannot be good training without teaching. Doubtless many parents and teachers fail here for want of tact and wisdom in their methods of instruction.

        The one great rule to be observed in all teaching is to make your lessons INTERESTING. If you cannot awaken the interest of your child you had better give up, and school and inform yourself till you can. I have not a doubt that many an impetuous, earnest, high-spirited child is driven to hate the Bible the Sanctuary, and religious exercises in general by the cold, spiritless, insipid, canting manner in which he hears them read and performed. He knows by instinct that this is not the way people go through things in which their hearts are deeply concerned. He hears father and mother and friends talk in a natural, easy, interesting manner on business and family matters, and consequently he listens with interest, but the moment they begin with religion he feels there is no heart in it, he feels that it is because they MUST, not because they LIKE. He is taught to sing "Happy, happy Sunday, the brightest of

the seven;" but he knows that in his home it is the dullest day of the week, and that the whole household are relieved when it is passed and they are able to be back at this world's employments and enjoyments.

        Now, if you want your child to love and enjoy the Sabbath you must make it the most INTERESTING day of the week. If you want him to love and read his Bible you must so tell him its stories, and elucidate its lessons as to make it INTEREST him. If you want him to love prayer you must so pray as to interest and draw out his mind and heart with your own, and teach him to go to God, as he comes to you, in his own natural voice and manner to tell Him his wants and to express his joys or sorrows. The themes of religion are of all themes most interesting to children when dealt with naturally and interestingly.

        I used to take my eldest boy on my knee from the time when he was about two years old and tell him the stories of the Old Testament in baby language and adapted to baby comprehension, one at a time, so that he thoroughly drank them in and also the moral lessons they were calculated to convey. When between three and four years old I remember once going into the nursery and finding him mounted on his rocking-horse, in a high state of excitement, finishing the story of Joseph to his nurse and baby brother, showing them how Joseph galloped on his live "gee gee" when he went to fetch his father to show him to Pharaoh. In the same way we subsequently went through the history of the flood, having a Noah's Ark, which was kept for Sabbath use; making the Ark itself the foundation of one lesson, Noah and his family of another, and the gathering of the animals of a third, and so on until the subject was exhausted.

        When my family increased, it was my custom before these Sabbath lessons to have a short lively tune. A short prayer, in which I let them all repeat after me, sentence by sentence, asking the Lord to help us to understand His word, and to bless our souls, and so on. After the lesson another short prayer, and then another tune or two. After this they would

adjourn to the nursery, where frequently they would go through the whole service again, the eldest being the preacher. When baby was asleep their nurse would read interesting infantile stories to the elder ones, or teach them suitable bits of poetry by letting them all repeat it together after her. Thus the Sabbath was made a day of pleasure as well as of instruction and improvement. I never allowed my children to attend public services till they were old enough to take some interest in them. We had no mission services then, or they would have been able to understand, and enter into a great part of them, but I deemed it an evil to make a child sit still for an hour-and-a-half, dangling its legs on a high seat, listening to what it could neither understand nor appreciate, for alas, there is little in the ordinary services of our day to interest or profit children, and I am satisfied that a great deal of the distaste for religious services so common amongst them has been engendered in this way. My experience has been that my children have come so highly to appreciate the privilege of attending service, that a promise of it during the week would insure extra good behaviour and diligence.

        Of course, mothers who have no one to leave with their children cannot always stay at home, and must take them as often as is necessary for their own edification. To those parents who are able to keep servants, I would say, make any sacrifice to keep a really good Christian girl with your children. I have made it a rule never to have any other as a nurse, and have sometimes put up with great inexperience and incompetency, because it was associated with goodness. Better take a girl whom you have to teach how to wash a child's face, or to stitch a button on, if she is true and sincere, than have one ever so clever who will teach your children to lie and deceive.

        But to return to the subject of teaching. Not only must you make your teaching interesting, but also practical, in the highest degree. Your children want to know how to comport themselves now in the little duties, trials, and enjoyments of

their daily life. It is to be feared that, as with adults so with children, a deal of so-called teaching is right away above their heads, dealing with abstract truths and far-off illustrations, instead of coming down to such every-day matters as obedience to parents and teachers; the learning of their lessons; their treatment of brothers, sisters, and servants; their companionships; their amusements; the spending and giving of their pocket-money; their dealings with the poor; their treatment of animals--in short, everything embraced in their daily life. The great end of Christian training is to lead children to realize the fact that they BELONG TO GOD, and are under a solemn obligation to do everything in a way which they think will please Him. Parents cannot begin too early, nor labour too continuously, to keep this fact before the minds of their children. In the family devotion in the morning, the father or mother, or whoever conducts it, should bring the children specially before the Lord, asking Him "to give them grace this day, to be obedient to those who have the care of them. To be diligent at their lessons, so that they many lay in knowledge, which shall make them useful to their fellow-creatures, and enable them to do something for God and souls, if He sees fit to spare them."

        Above all things, parents should labour to counteract the natural selfishness of the hearts of their children by showing them that they are not to live unto themselves--that they are not to be good, and industrious, and studious, in order that THEY THEMSELVES may be learned, or happy, or successful in the world. For these are the things after which the Gentiles--the unbelieving world--seek; but that they, as belonging to God, are to live unto Him, who hath given Himself for them, seeking first His kingdom and righteousness. Seeking first to glorify Him, and do good to their generation, leaving it with Him to fix the bounds of their habitation, and to choose their inheritance for them. Alas! how few Christian parents seem to understand this first principle of right training--hence their anxiety to push their children on, and up, in the learning, prin-

ciples, customs, and ambitions of this world. Surely "God is not mocked, for as they sow to the flesh, they of the flesh reap corruption;" and, alas! their poor children's SOULS are sacrificed in the bargain.

        Oh, mothers, don't be deceived if you want your children to be the Lord's when they grow up, if you want your boy to withstand the unknown temptations of the future--if you want him to come out a man of righteous principle, integrity, and honour--superior to all the doubleness, chicanery, and devilry of the world, you must train him to look upon all the world's prizes as dross compared with the joy of a pure conscience and a life of usefulness to his fellow-men. If you want your daughter to be a true woman, willing to sacrifice and to suffer in the interests of humanity and truth, you must inspire her NOW with a contempt for the baubles for which so many women barter their lives and their souls--you must teach her that she is an independent, responsible being, whom God will call to as severe a reckoning for the use or abuse of her talents as that of her brother man. Day by day, as it flies, you must labour to wake up your children's souls to the realization of the fact that they belong to God, and that He has sent them into the world, not to look after their own little petty, personal interests, but to devote themselves to the promotion of His! and that, in doing this, they will find happiness, usefulness, and glory.--Matt. xxv. 14-16.

        I would like, in conclusion, to add a few cautions against evils which I have seen to be very common in families, and which I believe exert a very baneful influence on the formation of character. First amongst these is an INORDINATE ESTIMATE OF THE VALUE OF MONEY. One would think, from the meanness and the discomfort of the ordering of many families, that money was the household god at whose shrine every consideration of comfort, health, friendship, and benevolence had been sacrificed. What will it cost? is the first question that meets every suggestion of improvement in any

direction, and this frequently, not because money is scarce, but simply because it cannot be parted with!

        Now, children soon find out the ruling principle in the family administration, and if they see it to be covetousness or avariciousness, parents may teach all the catalogue of Christian virtues from morning till night, but their children will grow up selfish in the very core of their souls. Like begets like the world over, and you show me a household where the spirit of covetousness reigns, and I will show you ungenerous, cunning children. "The LOVE OF MONEY is the root of all evil" is an axiom as true as it is neglected; and until parents, by their actions, show their children that they deem domestic comfort and religion, the claims of Christian hospitality, the blood and lives of their servants, the claims of the suffering and the destitute, and the crying need of the benighted multitude of more importance than the HOARDING OF MONEY, they must go on reaping the reward of their covetousness in the selfish indulgence, ungrateful neglect, and open profligacy of their children. Ah, how many a parent, who has sacrificed all the higher and nobler impulses of his own and his children's natures to money-making, has had it scattered by thousands by wicked, selfish sons?

        Another great evil which I have seen even in families where there has in the main been much good training, is the yielding in an emergency on points of principle for the sake of expediency. Take an illustration. Here is a family who are trained in the principles of abstinence from intoxicating drinks, as all Christian families undoubtedly ought to be. These parents have wisely taught their children that strong drink is an evil and bitter thing, and that all traffic and countenance of it brings a curse; but on a certain day, a letter comes announcing that General So-and-so, or Captain Somebody is coming to pay a visit to his cousin, on his return from India. Of course there is much excitement and expectation among the junior members of the

family, and a becoming anxiety on the part of the parents, worthily to entertain their guest, but a difficulty presents itself. The General is not an abstainer, he has always been accustomed to his wine and spirits. "What shall we do," says the mother, "he will think it inhospitable and mean to deny him his favourite beverage"? "Well, yes," says the father, "I don't see how we can do it in this instance; you see he is an old man, and would not appreciate our views or our motives. I fear we shall have to order a little wine for him. I don't like to bring it in sight of the children, but we must explain the circumstances to them, and we will hope no harm will come of it." These parents sacrifice principle to expediency, and admit the mocker to their family circle. Can they be surprised if one of their sons turns out a drunkard? "Ah!" said a broken-hearted father once to my husband--"I trained my boy in abstinence principles, but I did not keep him out of the society of those who thought there was no harm in moderate drinking, and now he is an outcast and an alien whom I cannot allow to cross my threshold--he has killed his mother, and will bring down my grey hairs with sorrow to the grave." "Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works--or instruments of darkness--evil." "Wine is a mocker." WINE ITSELF, not the abuse of it. Here is the secret why so many thousands of the fair and promising fall by it. Christian parents, fear it as you would the bite of a serpent, and as you value the souls of your children keep it out of their very sight.

        Another great enemy to the formation of righteous character is ambition for what is called position in society! Some parents are continually putting before their children future aggrandisement and fortune, as a stimulus to industry and effort, thus holding up to their young minds this world's prosperity and applause as the great aim and object of life. To get to be more learned, more genteel, more wealthy than men of their own class, so that they may be received into higher circles of worldly society. Such parents often fail, and

in the attempt to leap the chasm which bars his upward course, many a son falls headlong through the abyss of disappointed ambition, down to damnation, and many a daughter to that path, the steps of which "take hold on Hell." Ah, but some succeed! Yes, and what reward do the parents often get? The son and daughter, whom they toiled and struggled so hard to push up, get so high they can scarcely see the poor, neglected parents down below, and often leave them to die with a broken heart. Truly "Godliness with contentment is--Great Gain."

        I cannot close these remarks without lifting up my voice against the practice now so prevalent amongst respectable families, of sending children to boarding schools before their principles are formed or their characters developed. Parents are led away by the professedly religious character of schools, forgetting that, even supposing the master or governess may be all that can be desired, a School is a little world where all the elements of unrenewed human nature are at work with as great variety, subtlety, and power as in the great world outside. You would shrink from exposing your child to the temptation and danger of association with unconverted worldly men and women, why should you expose them to the influence of children of the same character, who are not unfrequently sent to these schools because they have become utterly vitiated and unmanageable at home? I have listened to many a sad story of the consequences of these school associations, and early made up my mind to keep my children under my own influence, at least until they had attained that maturity in grace and principle which would be an effectual safeguard against ungodly associations. To this end I have rejected several very tempting offers in the way of educational advantage, and every day I am increasingly thankful for having been enabled to do so. God has laid on you, parents, the responsibility of training your children, and you cannot possibly delegate that responsibility to another without endangering their highest interests for time and for eternity.

STRONG DRINK VERSUS CHRISTIANITY.

        Before entering directly on the subject, I want to make two or three preliminary remarks, and,

        I. It may be well to explain that we understand religious aggressive effort to be, that interference on the part of Christians with the thoughts and actions of ungodly men which the Bible shows to be necessary, in order to secure their present and eternal well-being.

        We, Christians, see around us everywhere men and women under the influence of false ideas, given up to selfish indulgences and evil practices, which enslave their faculties and render real happiness impossible to them, either in this life or in that which is to come. Now, religious aggressive effort implies measures taken for their deliverance from these evil habits, and from the bondage of Satan, and the actual bringing of these souls into the liberty, power, and blessedness of the family of God. It is, in short, a holy warfare, prosecuted under the direction and power of the Holy Spirit, to bring men from darkness to light, from the power of Satan unto God.

        II. I want to remark that the very nature of Christianity renders this aggressive effort incumbent on all Christians. Not only are there many passages directly enforcing this duty, but it is assumed as a fundamental principle, underlying the whole economy of grace, that the truly regenerate will be benevolently active for the good of others. A desire to save the lost seems to be a divinely-inspired impulse in the soul of every real child of God, as it were a holy instinct, in which the disciple ever resembles his master, and the servant his lord. I am aware that there is a great deal of professed Christianity in these days which lacks this lineament of the Divine likeness, and makes so much of faith that love is deemed almost superfluous. An inspired apostle, however, declares that there is something greater even than faith, which is charity, and though we have a faith that will remove mountains, if we have not charity it profiteth us nothing. Truly an inoperative faith neither profiteth its possessor nor those around him, but is only as sounding brass or tinkling cymbal. The faith which is of the operation of the Spirit "worketh by love," and ever leads its possessor to follow Him who went about doing good, and who persistently taught His disciples that self-love, self-interest, and self-indulgence must be sacrificed to the utmost, whenever the interests of His kingdom or the salvation of their fellow-men should demand such sacrifice.

        III. I want to observe further that THE USE OF INTOXICATING DRINKS AS A BEVERAGE IS THE CAUSE AND STRENGTH OF A VERY LARGE PROPORTION OF THE WICKEDNESS, CRIME, VICE, AND MISERY WHICH EXIST AROUND US. With this proposition many of us here are sadly too familiar; it needs neither proof nor illustration; indeed, with some little modification, it is coming to be admitted in almost all quarters, even amongst the greatest enemies of our principles. The time is fast passing in which there has existed a difference of opinion amongst the wise and good, as to the real character of these drinks. The baneful

harvest of crime and misery which their consumption has entailed on us as a nation, has opened the eyes of almost every thinking and patriotic mind to the fact that the drink, not the abuse of it, but the drink itself, is an evil thing, in very truth a "mocker," the product of Satanic art and malice, to be rejected and eschewed by all who have any regard for their own or their neighbour's well-being. We might adduce overwhelming evidence that strong drink is the natural ally of all wickedness. Unquestionable statistics have been produced which show that its stimulus is essential to the plotting and commission of almost every kind of villainy. The gambler seeks it to aid him in the craft and cunning by which he lures his victim on to financial ruin. The seducer has recourse to its deceptive power to pave the way for his cruel licentiousness. The burglar braces his courage and hardens his conscience by its exhilarating fumes. The harlot drowns in the intoxicating cup her sense of shame, and from it gathers strength to trample out the deepest, tenderest instincts of womanhood. The murderer is powerless to strike the fatal blow till maddened by its infernal stimulus. In short, all classes and sizes of criminals unite to testify, "By the influence of drink we are what we are," and missionaries, Bible-women, chaplains, jailors, magistrates, and judges, say, "Amen" to their testimony.

        We have no hesitation in affirming that strong drink is Satan's chief instrumentality for keeping the masses of this country under his power.

        IV. If the foregoing propositions are correct--If Christians are bound to aggress on the kingdom of Satan, and if strong drink constitutes one of the mightiest forces of that kingdom, then it follows inevitably that TO BE SUCCESSFUL IN AGGRESSIVE EFFORT CHRISTIANS MUST DEAL WITH THE DRINK. To attempt to make war on the enemy's territory without contemplating this gigantic force, is kindred folly to that of France in going to war with Prussia without having duly estimated the strategic

skill of their great general. Such folly must always be followed by failure and defeat. Doubtless one secret of the church's failure in nearly all aggressive measures has been her ignoring the power of this great adversary. Why, even heathen chiefs, the heads of savage tribes, have sent us word that "it is of no use to send them the Bible, if at the same time we send them strong drink." Alas! that Christians have been so slow to learn the power of this mitrailleuse of hell, but, thank God, some of them are beginning to appreciate it at last, and these are crying, What is to be done? How shall we deal with the drink? We answer, in the name of Christ and humanity, deal with it as you do with all other Satan-invented, Christ-dishonouring, soul-ruining abominations. Wash your hands of it at once, and for ever! And give a united and straightforward testimony to the world that you consider it an enemy of all righteousness and the legitimate offspring of Satan!

        I submit that there is no other way for Christians to deal with strong drink. All other ways have been tried and have failed. The time has come for Christians to denounce the use of intoxicating drinks as irreligious and immoral; and God Almighty will put immortal renown on those of His servants who are sufficiently true, and brave, and self-sacrificing first to run the gauntlet of earth and hell in doing this. "They shall be had in everlasting remembrance," and counted amongst the greatest benefactors of their race.

        We contend that the attempt to make what is termed the moderate use of strong drink consistent with a profession of religion has signally and ignominiously failed; and the common sense of mankind is turning upon those who have made it with these most pertinent questions--How can that which produces all this crime and misery be a good thing? and if it be an evil thing, how can it be moderately used?

        This question comes with overwhelming force to those who stand forth as labourers for the spiritual benefit of mankind.

At every step the drink difficulty meets them. They can no longer ignore it, it must be met and grappled with. In America, the importance of this question in its bearing on Christianity has been so fully recognised, that almost every Christian minister has become an abstainer; and I venture to affirm, that the religious instinct of Christians in both countries has pronounced this action to be consistent and praiseworthy. If consistent and praiseworthy in America, would it not be equally so in England? God grant that such may soon be the case here!

        But I must hasten to point out two or three particulars in which this principle is specially valuable in connection with religious aggressive effort.

        I. ABSTINENCE IS VALUABLE TO THOSE WHO ARE CALLED TO MAKE SUCH EFFORT--1st. As a source of strength.

        No man can deny himself, constrained by Divine love for the good of others, without improving his own moral nature and giving increased scope for the operation of the Divine Spirit within him. "Let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth. And hereby we know that we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before him."

        2. Abstinence is valuable to the Christian labourer as a safeguard against temptation. It is well known that a large majority of those who become subjects for church discipline, owe their fall directly or indirectly to drink. The man who never uses it can never fall through its influence. He is safe thus far, because he goes not into temptation.

        3. Abstinence is valuable to the labourer, because it helps to beget a conviction of his disinterestedness in the minds of those whom he seeks to benefit, which conviction is indispensable to his success. Doubtless the unwillingness of religious teachers to forego their own indulgence in the use of wine and spirits has greatly diminished their influence, and helped largely to beget that prejudice with which great numbers of the common people

regard them. We are satisfied that if the Gospel is to make any great advance on the masses of this country, those who seek to propagate it must abandon the use of drink. As Dr. Guthrie remarks, in his preface to "Scriptural Claims of Teetotalism," "I am astonished that so many ministers of the Gospel and Christian people can turn aside from the fight as they do. When I laboured among the lower, and, indeed, lowest classes of society in this city, I was met at every corner by the demon of drink. I found it utterly useless to attempt to evangelise the heathen and raise the lapsed masses without the aid of total abstinence. With all my trust in the promises of God, and blessings of the Holy Spirit, I felt that I must be able to say to the people not 'Forward,' but 'Follow.' This first induced me to become an abstainer; and I am convinced that it is the duty of every man, who would do his utmost for the glory of God and the good of his fellow-creatures, to discountenance by his example the use of intoxicating stimulants."

        II. WE REMARK FURTHER THE VALUE OF ABSTINENCE TO THOSE ON WHOM HE HAS TO AGGRESS. 1st. It is indispensable as a pioneer in reaching the drunkard. The motives, arguments, and persuasions of the Gospel are addressed to the reason, conscience, and feelings of men, and, of course, presuppose a sane condition of mind. Everybody knows that it is useless to present these to a man when intoxicated; therefore, in the case of thousands who live in a perpetual state of intoxication, the only chance of salvation is to rescue them from the influence of drink. Drunkenness is a physical, as well as moral disease, and if we would remove it, we must proceed on the same principle as we do with the insane; we must restore the reason before we can sanctify the heart. Some of our Christian friends object to this, and say, "Then it is the Gospel and total abstinence." We say emphatically, Yes, just in the same sense as in the case of a lunatic or a man raving in a fever; it is the Gospel and the Physician.

        If any of our friends doubt whether so many are thus perpetually under the influence of drink, let them pay us a visit in the East of London; and, alas! we can point them to multitudes of besotted, benighted beings, who are never sufficiently sober to be able intelligently to comprehend the truth, even if they could be got to listen to it. Their mental faculties are so benumbed with the imbruting drink, that a vacant stare is often the only response to the first attempt at arousing and reclaiming them; and all our labourers feel that there is but little hope unless they can by some means be kept from the drink, until reason and conscience have a chance to operate. Thanks be to God, many of this class have been reclaimed and transformed in connection with our mission work; but I am not acquainted with a single instance in which the drink has not been entirely abandoned. In our last year's report, "The Masses Reached," Mr. Booth has selected one hundred instances, out of hundreds of a similar character, of the power of the Gospel to save the vilest and worst of sinners, and at least eighty of these were drunkards of the most terrible description. Let any friends, sceptical as to the thoroughly imbruting effects of drunkenness, read these instances. It would be difficult to believe that man could fall so low, unless one had indisputable proof.

        We would ask those who object to the use of abstinence as an instrumentality in saving the drunkard, what plan they would suggest for his restoration to sense and reason?

        The plan hitherto adopted by many of them, we lament to say, has been simply to leave him to his fate. While giving countenance and patronage to the drink which has made him what he is, they have left him in his helplessness and misery to sink into a drunkard's hell! We might ask how it has come to pass that with such a confessedly alarming number of drunkards in our midst, there has not been put in operation one Christian organisation specially adapted to reach and save them! Has

not the felt inconsistency of trying to save the drunkard while patronising the drink, had something to do with this anomaly? It is a significant fact, that we rarely find any who are not abstainers who care for the drunkard. We admit, however, and believe, that the pioneering work to be done in order to reach the drunkard, and bring him under the influence of the Gospel, ought to be done by Christians; but until Christian ministers and people will forego their own indulgence, and undertake the labour of hunting down the drunkard, we say, for pity's sake, let those do it who will, for any man has a better chance of salvation sober than drunk, under any circumstances.

        2nd. Total abstinence is valuable in separating men from those associations and habits which prevent them hearing the Gospel. How shall they believe except they hear? We find large numbers of people who, though not drunkards, are so mixed up with, and hedged in by drinking customs, that it is impossible to get at them with religious truth. The streets and public thoroughfares are the only places where even a solitary sentence of Divine truth can be sounded in their ears, and, alas! there are but few Christians who attempt to catch them in this vulgar and out-of-season fashion: consequently, tens of thousands of them never hear at all that Word by which alone they can be saved. Now, abstinence reaches many of these, and by separating them from old associations, and creating a vacuum in their social life, throws them in the way of religious teaching and influence. When a man, who has been accustomed to spend his Sabbath evenings, as thousands do, in pleasure-parties, tea-gardens, or in family gatherings, where the social glass forms the principal bond of union, when such a one becomes an abstainer, he is thrown out of his orbit, and necessarily looks round for some way of disposing of himself. He wants somewhere to go, and somebody with whom to associate, and in numbers of instances betakes Himself to the House of God, because this offers the readiest way of meeting his difficulty.

We know of numbers who have thus been won to Christ and happiness, and doubtless there will be many more when the Church learns better to adapt her measures and services to the capacities and necessities of this class of hearers.

        3rd. Abstinence is a valuable ally of the Gospel in the case of those already under its influence, because it tends to keep the intellect clear and the conscience awake for the perception and application of Divine truth. There is every reason to believe that vast numbers who regularly sit under Scriptural teaching are enabled to stifle the voice of conscience and resist the claims of God, through the exhilarating or stupifying effects of what is termed moderate quantities of stimulating drinks. We have spoken with numbers of people after religious services whose breath has been laden with the fumes of wine or brandy, indicating that sufficient has been taken during the afternoon to blunt the moral susceptibilities and to beget a self-complacency just the reverse of that state of mind necessary for the proper reception of Divine truth. Satan seems to have got wiser for his malicious purposes since our Lord uttered the parable of the sower. He does not wait now till the seed is sown, but is, in the case of thousands, beforehand with the sower, rendering the soul impervious to the precious seed by deadly opiates of diabolical concoction. We believe this indirect result of drinking to be even more widespread and ruinous than the more direct; and that in the great day of account it will be found that multitudes in this Gospel-enlightened land of ours were enabled to resist the most pungent appeals of truth, to silence conscience, and effectually to resist the strivings of the Holy Ghost, only through the influence of strong drink.

        III. TOTAL ABSTINENCE IS A VALUABLE ALLY OF THE GOSPEL, AS A CONSERVING POWER. We must not only aggress on the kingdom of darkness, but we must use every means to keep the spoils. When the evil spirit is cast out we must do our utmost to keep him out, or the last state of our convert will be

worse than the first. When a man is brought under the influence of the Spirit, to see himself a sinner, and to embrace the Saviour, he should be taught that he has only just entered on his heavenward course, and in order that he may so run as to obtain, he must cast aside every weight, keep his body under, watch and pray, and keep out of temptation. In the case of those who have been addicted to intemperance, all but universal experience proves that there is absolutely no hope of their "standing fast" without the entire abandonment of the drink. Our Lord taught His disciples to pray to be kept out of temptation; and again and again we are warned and enjoined to keep ourselves out, and on this condition all His promises of grace and deliverance are suspended. God has nowhere promised to keep the man who needlessly, and for the sake of his own indulgence, runs into temptation. How fearful, then, the responsibility of those Christians who tell the reclaimed inebriate, aye who tell any man, "You may safely tamper with the drink! You may play with this fire of hell, and trust in God to keep you from being burnt." Alas, how do such counsellors unwittingly play the part of Satan in his cunning approaches to our Lord. "Cast thyself down, for it is written, He shall give His angels charge concerning thee; and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone." Oh, that all our brethren and sisters would ever bear in mind the memorable answer, "Thou shalt not tempt the Lord Thy God."

        But, further, not only is abstinence valuable, nay, indispensable, in order to preserve those rescued out of the power of this great destroyer, but it is equally valuable to prevent others from falling into it. We all profess to believe that prevention is better than cure; seeing, then, that strong drink is proved to be the most dangerous foe to perseverance in righteousness, and the most potent cause of declension, inconsistency, and apostasy, ought not Christians to strive, both by example and precept, to warn the young, the weak, and the inexperienced

from touching it? Can any man answer for the consequences of putting a bottle to his neighbour's mouth, be it ever such a small one, or ever such a genteel one? God has recorded His curse against the man who does this, and thousands of hoary-headed parents, broken-hearted wives, and weeping, blighted children groan their amens to the dreadful sentence! Perchance, there are some men who can take these drinks in what they call moderation, and suffer no visible injury; nevertheless, let that man beware who touches that which God has cursed, for there are injuries invisible more to be dreaded than all the plagues of Egypt!

        But, suppose some people could take these drinks without hurting themselves, will they dare answer for their children? Alas! there are thousands of parents to-day in connection with the various churches of our land, whose gray hairs are sinking in sorrow to the grave through the intemperance of sons and daughters, who first acquired a taste for drink by sipping out of their own glasses, never used but in moderation! I ask these parents, I ask you, Christians, was not the curse of God on the liquor rather than on the size of the glass which contained it; and might not these parents have known, if they did not, that if they sowed the east wind they must reap the whirlwind. If time would permit, we might give illustrations here that would almost wring tears from demons, but doubtless you are familiar with too many already. Christian parents, save your children from this moral pestilence; oh! as you value their happiness, their chastity, their godliness in this life, and their felicity in the next, save them from acquiring a taste for drink. Christian ministers, deacons, elders, members, warn your young people that they come not within the fatal gaze of this moral basilisk. Oh! warn them that they enter not the outermost circle of this eddying maelstrom of perdition, crimsoned already with the blood of myriads once as fair and pure, as virtuous and true, as they are now.

        Oh, Christians! by your peace of conscience on a dying bed;

by the eternal destinies of your children; by your concern for the glory of your God; by your care for never-dying souls; by the love you owe your Saviour, I beseech you BANISH THE DRINK. Banish it from your tables, banish it from your houses, and oh! for Christ's sake, banish it from His house. Put no longer the sacrifice of Christ and of devils on the same altar! Banish also those who manufacture this "distilled damnation" from your communion, aye, from your society. Have no fellowship with those who get rich by robbing man of his reason, woman of her virtue, and children of their patrimony and their bread. Cease to recognise, not only as Christians, but as men, those who fatten on the weakness, wickedness, and suffering of their fellow-men. Hoist the flag of death over their breweries, distilleries, and dram-shops, warning the unwary that death and damnation lurk behind their finely-decorated bars, and run like the lurid fires of perdition through their brightly-polished taps! CHRISTIANS OF ENGLAND! THE TIME HAS COME WHEN TO TRIM ON THIS DRINK QUESTION IS THE HIGHEST TREASON TO THE CAUSE OF CHRIST, AND THE GROSSEST INHUMANITY TO SUFFERING, PERISHING MILLIONS. Tell me no more of charity towards brewers, distillers, and publicans. YOUR FALSE CHARITY TO THESE HAS ALREADY CONSIGNED MILLIONS TO AN UNTIMELY HELL! Tell us not of a charity that takes sides with the Pharisees who devour widows' houses, and leaves the poor victims of avarice and power to groan, and suffer, and die.

        Tell us not of the charity that would have welded the shackles on three millions of slaves in America yonder, rather than have disturbed the comfort and impoverished the wealth of a few rich planters. Such charity savoureth of the old serpent, its speech betrayeth it. Such was not the charity of Jesus. His charity went out after the suffering multitudes, while it consigned those who gloated on their wrongs and sorrows to their own place, notwithstanding that they garnished the tombs of the prophets and paid tithes of mint, anise, and cummin! But, say some of our Christian friends, we must

have patience. We answer we have had long patience, and the times of ignorance both God and man were willing to wink at, but we submit the time for patience has passed. The land is flooded with light, and if these men do not see, it is because they will not. AND THIS IS THE CROWNING, FINISHING CONDEMNATION OF ANY CLASS OF SINNERS, THAT, "LIGHT IS COME INTO THE WORLD, AND MEN LOVE DARKNESS RATHER THAN LIGHT, BECAUSE THEIR DEEDS ARE EVIL," OR WE MIGHT INTERPRET IT, BECAUSE THEIR GAINS ARE GREAT.

        Charity, were we speaking of? O Christians! look on the multitudes who are led as sheep to the shambles by this great destroyer. Look on thousands, yea, tens of thousands, of your fellow-countrymen, husbands and fathers, robbed at once of their earnings, their manhood, their reason, and turned loose on their hapless wives and children, worse, more unreasonable, tyrannical and savage, than the wild beasts of the forest. Look upon thousands of poor suffering women called wives, who have to endure all a drunkard's tyranny and fury, while working for the children's bread, and struggling vainly to keep a home where they may lay their heads. Look on multitudes of our youth, lured from their homes, inspired with contempt of parental counsel, drawn into gay and immoral societies, dragged down from comparative innocence and virtue to idleness, debauchery, and crime!

        Look on hosts of helpless, neglected children, ten times more to be pitied than those whom the heathen mother casts into the Ganges or the Nile; look on their half-starved, half-clad bodies, their untaught, benighted minds and souls, and then say how long this modern Juggernauth shall roll down your streets unchallenged--this chief of Satan's empire sway his spectre over this vaunted Christian land!

        ARISE, CHRISTIANS, ARISE, AND FIGHT THIS FOE! YOU, AND YOU ALONE, ARE ABLE, FOR YOUR GOD WILL FIGHT FOR YOU! OH, COME UP TO HIS HELP AGAINST THIS MIGHTY CHAMPION OF HELL, AND HE WILT EMPOWER YOU TO LAY HIM LOW, AND TAKE ALL HIS ARMOUR WHEREIN HE TRUSTED.

WORLDLY AMUSEMENT AND CHRISTIANITY.

        We propose briefly in this paper to consider, First, is it lawful and secondly, is it expedient for CHRISTIANS either to provide or attend such entertainments as penny readings, concerts, private theatricals, and the like?

        I.--Is it lawful? To the law and to the testimony. What saith the Scriptures? "For thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God; the Lord thy God hath chosen thee

to be a special people unto Himself, above all the people that are upon the face of the earth." (Deut. vii. 6.) "And ye shall be holy unto me: for I the Lord am holy, and have severed you from other people, that ye should be mine." (Lev. xx. 26.) "Be not conformed to this world; but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God." (Rom. xii. 2.) "If ye were of the world, the world would love his own; but because ye are not of the world, therefore the world hateth you." (John xv. 19.) "For all that is in the world, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life is not of the Father, but is of the world." (1 John ii. 16.) "Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye SEPARATE, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing: and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty." (2 Cor. vi. 17-18) "Whosoever therefore will be the friend of the world is the enemy of God." (James iv. 4.)

        We presume that all Christians attach SOME meaning to such passages as these; but one says they do not apply to this worldly custom, and another says they do not apply to that, until, as in the case of the Mahometan pig, the whole is swallowed, and every worldly-minded professor manages to get the piece he likes best, or which appears most to his interest: thus the law of Christ is frittered away, and the whole body of his professing Church given over to the god of this world. What then is the conformity to, and friendship with the world, which these and a host of similar passages prohibit? In other words, what is worldliness?

        We reply--1st. We take that to be worldly which professes to be so. Neither men nor things are, as a rule, better than they profess to be.

        2nd. We take that to be worldly which, in sentiment and spirit, the children of the world love, esteem, and enjoy.

        3rd. We count whatever has no reference to God, righteous-

ness or eternity, which "savoureth not of the things of God," as worldly.

        4th. Everything that is adverse in spirit to the dignity, gravity, and usefulness of the Christian character we regard as worldly.

        It seems to us that these propositions are so self-evident, that no thoughtful Christian can gainsay them. Some professors seem to regard nothing as worldly which is not absolutely devilish, such as profanity, blasphemy, or obscenity. But the Scriptures carefully and clearly distinguish between the two. They prohibit Christians conforming to the world in all the habits and usages of daily life.

        They are not to talk like the world, in the way of foolish jesting, "swelling words," "insincere speech," &c. But, on the contrary, their conversation is to "be seasoned with salt, meet to administer grace to the hearers." It is to be "pure, proceeding from a good (not a doubtful) conscience." It is to be "in heaven, from whence we look for the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ."

        The Scriptures prohibit Christians dressing like the world. "Whose adorning let it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel." (1 Peter iii. 3.) "In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety, not with braided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array; but which becometh women professing godliness, with good works." (1 Tim. ii. 9, 10.) "Moreover the Lord saith, Because the daughters of Zion are haughty, and walk with stretched forth necks and wanton eyes, walking and mincing as they go: therefore the Lord will smite with a scab the crown of the head of the daughters of Zion." (Isa. iii. 16, 17.) We commend this whole chapter to the consideration of all whom it may concern, and we would suggest that as the Lord Jehovah regarded the dress of those Israelitish women as a sign of their backslidden condition, and thought it sufficiently

important to be recorded by his holy prophet, it may be well for us to consider how far the same signs are manifest amongst us in our day.

        The Scriptures prohibit Christians singing the songs of the world, for they expressly enjoin that when they are merry or glad they are to sing psalms and make melody in their heart UNTO THE LORD.

        The Scriptures prohibit Christians from joining in the amusements of the world; forbidding any fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, commanding to abstain from the very appearance of evil, and TO COME OUT FROM AMONGST THE UNGODLY AND BE SEPARATE; and our Lord declared that his real disciples were not of the world, even as he was not of the world.

        Now in light of these Scriptures, and of the propositions we have laid down, let us examine the character of some of the entertainments so popular with many professing Christians. We find that it is no uncommon thing for entertainments to be held in private drawing-rooms and in rooms connected with churches and chapels, over which ministers and leading men in churches preside, at which Shakespearian readings are given, with extracts from the works of the most popular and worldly novelists, and the same songs sung as are echoed and applauded in the public-house and the dancing-room.

        Now, viewed in the light of the Scriptures we have quoted and tried by the propositions we have drawn from them, how do these practices strike you, Christian reader?

        1st. Are they not professedly worldly? Do they not savour of the world, all of the world, and of the world only? Were not the authors of the things said and sung at such entertainments thoroughly Christless men, and some of them professed infidels?

        2nd. Are not these the songs and sentiments which worldlings have always claimed as their own? Are they not sung in their ball-rooms, theatres, and casinoes? And is not this proof

enough that they are congenial to their tastes, and in keeping with their spirit?

        3rd. Such songs, recitations, and performances have no reference whatever to God, righteousness, or eternity. God is not only "not in all their thoughts," but he is not in any of them, therefore they must be thoroughly worldly.

        4th. The spirit of such amusements is manifestly adverse to the dignity, gravity, and usefulness of the Christian character. What are its effects? Lightness, foolish jesting, a false estimate of creature delights, obtuseness to spiritual things, and frequently uproarious merriment and godless mirth.

        We put it to any Christian who has ever allowed himself to take part in such amusements whether these are not their inevitable and bitter fruits, and whether he has not found their spirit to be utterly antagonistic to the spirit of Christ? We have heard many backsliders in heart attribute their declension to mingling in such scenes of folly and frivolity, and we never met with one whom we had reason to believe had been renewed in the spirit of his mind who could say he could enter into them without condemnation.

        Doubtless there are thousands of professing Christians who live in perpetual strife with their consciences and with the Holy Spirit on this subject; and verily they have their reward. Trying to hold Christ in one hand and the world in the other, they lose both. They have no joy in their godless amusements, neither have they any joy in the Lord. All is darkness, condemnation, and death. "Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God?"

        The testimony of the Word is too explicit, and the voice of the Spirit too clear, for any child of God to err for want of light if he will but listen to his Divine counsellor. But, alas! too many seek to silence His voice by vain and worldly reasoning, lowering the standard which He has given them because somebody else does so. They do not hear him saying, "What is that

to thee? follow thou me." "Love not the world, neither the things of the world. If any man love the world the love of the Father is not in him."

        Not only is the testimony of the Word and of the Spirit against these amusements, but the testimony and example of the most devoted and intelligent Christians of all ages have been against them. The following are a few extracts bearing on the subject:--

        "There is no earthly pleasure which has not the inseparable attendance of grief--and that following it as closely as Jacob came after Esau. Yea, worldly delight is but a shadow; and when we catch after it, all that we grasp is substantial sorrow in its room. The honey should not be very delightful, when the sting is so near."--
Alleine.

        "If there be any sorceress upon earth it is Pleasure; which so enchanteth the minds of men, and worketh the disturbance of our peace with such secret delight, that foolish men think this want of tranquillity happiness. She turneth man into swine with such sweet charms, that they would not change their brutish nature for their former reason."--
Bishop Hall.

        "Consider, this is not the season that should be for pleasure! The apostle James lays it as a great charge upon many in his time, that they lived in pleasure on earth. This is the time to do the great business for which we were born."--
Ambrose.

        "How often shall it be protested to the Christian world, by men of the greatest seriousness and devotion, that it is vain to dream of entering the kingdom of heaven hereafter, except the kingdom of heaven enter into their souls in this life? How long shall the Son of God, who came into the world to be the most glorious example of purity, self-denial, and mortification--how long shall He lie by in his word as an antiquated pattern, only cut out for the apostolic ages, and only suited to some few morose and melancholy men? With what face can we pretend to true religion, or a feeling acquaintance with God, and the things of his kingdom, whilst the continual bleatings and lowings

of our souls after creature good betray us so manifestly, and proclaim before all the world, that the beast, the brutish life, is still so powerful in us?"--
Shaw.

        "I would, that you should use this world as not abusing it, that you should be crucified to the world, and the world to you, that you should declare plainly that you seek a better country, which is an heavenly. Ah! my dear brethren, I beseech you carry it like pilgrims and strangers, abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul; FOR WHAT HAVE WE TO DO with the customs and fashions of this world, who are strangers in it? Be contented with travellers' lots; know you not that you are in a strange land?"--
Joseph Alleine's Letters.

        "I would dissuade thee from unnecessary society of ungodly men, and unprofitable companions, though they be not so apparently ungodly. It is not only the openly profane, the swearer, the drunkard, that will prove hurtful to us; but the dead-hearted formalists, or persons merely civil and moral, or whose conference is empty, unsavoury, and barren, may much divert our thoughts from heaven. As mere idleness and forgetting God will keep a soul as certainly from heaven as a profane licentious life; so also will useless company as surely keep our hearts from heaven."--
Baxter.

        "In speaking of the laws and limits of recreation, observe generally, that whatever is offensive to God, whatever is injurious to others, whatever is hurtful, whether remotely or proximately to our own soul or body, is evil; to be avoided in ourselves and to be condemned in others. The principles involved in the foregoing remarks will answer the queries so frequently put--Is it right to frequent a theatre?--to attend the ball-room?--to sit at the card table?--to mingle indiscriminately in gay and fashionable society? The study of the Bible quotations so largely made will furnish a reply. Read and you will know."--
Samuel Martin.

        "'I bade farewell for ever,' she says, 'to assemblies which I had visited, to plays and diversions, dancing, unprofitable walks,

and parties of pleasure. The amusements and pleasures, so much prized and esteemed by the world, now appeared to me dull and insipid--so much so, that I wondered how I ever could have enjoyed them.'"--
Madame Guyon.

        "I heard also that this new clergyman preached against all my favourite diversions, such as going to plays, reading novels, attending balls, assemblies, card tables,&c.

        "I asked, 'Is it true that he preaches against dancing?' I said I was resolved to take the first opportunity of conversing with him, being certain I could easily prove such amusements were not sinful. Being told what arguments he made use of, I revolved them in my mind, fully determined if I found upon reflection I could answer them, I would.

        "I first considered if any Scripture example could be brought, .. but found nothing there which countenanced dancing in any measure. I then began to consider the objections urged against it. One of them was, that as it tends to lively and trifling mirth, so it enervates the mind, dissipates the thoughts, weakens if not stifles serious and good impressions, and quite indisposes the mind for prayer. I asked in my own mind, Is not this a truth? Conscience answered in the affirmative.

        After much controversy, consideration, and prayer, she says:

        "For my own part I was conscious that it led me to dress and expenses not suited to my present situation in life. These thoughts brought powerful convictions to my mind, notwithstanding my desire to resist them. I could not deny that truth, in particular, and those who habitually attend such pleasures lose all relish for spiritual things. God is shut out of their thoughts and hearts; prayer, if they use any, is full of wanderings, or perhaps, wholly neglected; and death put as far as possible out of sight, lest the thought should spoil their pleasure."--
Mrs. Rogers.

        Did our space permit we could give hundreds of quotations of similar bearing by such writers as Augustine, Thomas a'Kempis, Luther, Knox, Howe, Leighton, Newton, Cecil, Henry, Locke,

Bunyan, Whitfield, Wesley, Clarke, Barnes, Steir, Doddridge, Young, and others. But our space prevents the calling of these witnesses. Christian reader, let those we have called suffice.

        "As obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance, but as He which hath called you is holy, so ye be holy in all manner of conversation."

        II. We come now to the question of expediency.

        The principal arguments brought forward by Christians in favour of providing and attending worldly amusements are--

        1st. Seeing that our young people will have amusement, it is better to provide them with that which is moral and comparatively innocent, than to drive them to that which is positively vicious.

        2nd. Seeing that we cannot get hold of the unconverted by the Gospel, it is better to meet them half way, and try, as it were, to catch them by guile.

        These arguments look very plausible: let us honestly consider them in the light of Scripture and actual experience. 1st. On whose behalf are they urged? Are the young people referred to the children of Christian parents, or the children of votaries of this world? If the latter, we reply that Christians are nowhere taught, either directly or indirectly, that it is any part of their duty to provide amusement for the children of this world; nay, the direct teaching and the whole tenor of Scripture go to prove that it is their duty to seek to alarm and convict them. There is not a line in the whole Bible on which an argument can be built for amusing people while yet in their sins. The Scriptures ever represent the unconverted as under condemnation, in imminent danger, ready to be destroyed, a state rendering them far more fit objects for pity, concern, and earnest Christian effort than for amusement. To keep them amused and self-satisfied is just what Satan desires, and all the better for his purpose if he can get it done by professed Christians.

        Well, but, say some of our expediency friends, if by getting

unconverted young people to attend our penny readings, moral concerts, and private parties where dancing, charades, and such like pastimes are practised, we can show them that religion is not such a melancholy thing as they have imagined, and that to become Christians need not exclude them from such recreations, may we not hope so to induce them to attend our sanctuaries, and thus get them converted by our more direct Christian instrumentalities? We answer, IF you could thus promote good by doing evil, the end would fail to justify the means, for God says,"to obey is better than sacrifice;" but there is the if still undisposed of. We ask, does this worldly policy succeed? Do your evening parties, your miniature pantomimes, dancing, and song singing, lead to the conversion of "Our young people?" Do the hodge-podge mixtures of Christ and Shakspeare, Paul and Dickens of our times, serve to fill our sanctuaries, and bring the people to Jesus? Nay, verily; the crowds who will go fast enough to hear their favourite songs and flippant rhymes piped through the instruments of the temple on the week night, remorselessly leave those who have stooped to pander to their taste to chant the songs of Zion to empty pews on the Sabbath.

        But supposing that in some instances worldlings are won by these means, what of all the mischief that is done? These amusements are pleaded for on the ground that they will save our young people from those of a vicious and immoral character, but we contend that they are quite as likely, in many instances, to pave the way to the vicious, as in others to save from it. They will do this:

        1st. By throwing over that which is purely sensuous and godless, and therefore sinful, the sanctity of association with Christ and religion.

        2nd. By lowering the standard of the purity and sanctity of the Christian character.

        3rd. By destroying the respect and awe with which many of the unconverted have been accustomed to regard Christianity and Christian Ministers.

        4th. By begetting a sense of security in sin, leading them to say,"We cannot be so very far wrong, or these Christians would not associate with us, and find pleasure in our amusements. There is not so much difference between us after all." We fear that by these and similar means, the half-awakened conscience of many a young man and woman has been silenced, and their hearts hardened; and instead of being won from vice, they have been driven faster into it. Alas, who can tell the convictions that are stifled, the serious impressions that are lost, the good resolutions that are scattered, and the heavenly aspirations that are blasted in these religious pantomimes, these Christian-Belial festivities! Many sad stories come out, but eternity alone will reveal their full and awful consequences.

        But the argument of expediency is not only urged on behalf of our unconverted young people, but (O tell it not in Gath!) also on behalf of the children of professing Christians! "What are we to do?" say some professedly Christian parents. "Our children must have recreation and amusement, and unless we allow them to mingle to some extent in fashionable society, and attend such parties as you refer to, we must needs keep them out of society altogether, and make recluses of them, for all our Christian friends patronise such entertainments, and consider them innocent and lawful." If this be true, we reply, that it reveals more clearly than anything we could say, the backslidden and awful state of the professing Church, and calls loudly for some attempt to stem the tide of worldly conformity, while there remains a spark of spiritual life in her midst.

        Alas, and has it come to pass that there is no strictly Christian social intercourse and enjoyment? Have the topics of our glorious Christianity become so stale and uninteresting? Have the themes of Gospel enterprise and individual effort lost all their inspiration? Have the songs of Zion lost their enchanting and inspiriting influence? Has the voice of social prayer become quite silent? Has every spark of real enthusiasm in religion gone out, that when Christians want to find INTEREST and ENJOY-

MENT, they must seek it in themes and things peculiarly belonging to the god of this world, and his votaries? Has it come to pass that Christians have so little confidence in the God of the Bible, and the religion of Jesus, that they must seek an alliance between Christ and the world in order to interest their children and save them from open profligacy and vice? If so, how does this reflect on themselves? What sort of training does it imply? Have they trained their sons and daughters so truly in the spirit of the world, under the garb of a religious profession, that nothing but the most sensuous amusements of worldlings (who make any pretence to morality) will satisfy them? Has it come to pass that the children of CHRISTIANS must dress like harlots,--dance, sing songs, read novels, attend concerts, where worldly and even comic songs are sung, evoking uproarious laughter and unseemly jests? and all this for their amusement, their parents, and even ministers, looking on: and striving by the most blind and wicked perversion of the word of God, to justify their worldliness and salve their consciences? ALAS, IT HAS COME TO THIS! "Oh that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people."

        Well, I think I hear some Christian say, "What is to be done?" Done! Let every one who has any convictions on this subject ACT ON THEM. Half the mischief has resulted from Christians turning away from the simple teachings of the word in order to pander to one another; "measuring themselves amongst themselves," instead of measuring themselves by the standard of the Word. We have heard them say, "Well, I never felt quite satisfied that such things were right or consistent; but then, many far higher in Christian attainments than I am allow them; and it seems like condemning others, and making one's self to be holier than they." Thus the voice of individual conscience has been stifled, and the standard gradually lowered, until Christ and Shakespeare are openly affianced, and Paul and Dickens bracketed together as equal benefactors of their race.

        "But what am I to do?" is the still recurring cry of some timid Christian mother or father. "Must I keep my children out of society altogether?" Yes, verily, if you cannot find any truly Christian society for them. Humble yourself deeply before God for having trained your children with worldly tastes and associations, and set yourself, as far as possible, to remedy the evil. Get more spirituality, more real life, and you will find your religion astonishingly more interesting both to yourself and to your children. "Well, but my children must have companions." Oh no, there is no must in the case; better live without them than have such as lead them away from God, and into friendship with the world. If you have not yet learnt this, I fear you have never realised your responsibility to God for your children's souls. Do you regard your children as your own or the Lord's?--If your own, you will train them on worldly principles; but if the Lord's, you will surely train them for Him, that they may serve their generation according to HIS WILL. You have nothing to do with consequences; it is yours to obey. God will take care of His own. Act on your convictions of duty. If you stand alone in your family--your circle--your church--never mind; ACT for yourself, as you must give account for yourself. Perhaps, if you make a beginning, somebody else will follow. Somebody must begin--somebody must make a stand, why not you? You say,"I am so uninfluential--so weak--and the cross will be so heavy." All the more blessing in carrying it; and He who chooses the weak things will bless your testimony, and use it for His glory. Only "honour God, and He will honour you."

        But I must hasten to consider the second argument urged in support of this expediency Christianity.

        "Seeing that the Gospel fails to attract our young people, it is better to meet them half-way, and try, as it were, to catch them by guile." We reply, 1st, Is the success of the Gospel dependent on worldly expediency or on spiritual power? If on the former, we can see the force of this argument; but if on the latter, it is utterly irrelevant. There are but two kinds of

influence or power in operation in the Church; the material and the spiritual. Jesus Christ utterly and continually abjured the material as being of any value in His kingdom. He systematically ignored, both by example and precept, all the influence of mere learning--traditional religion--wealth--position--worldly power and policy: and steadily maintained that "His kingdom was not of this world." He solemnly abjured all other kinds of influence or power save that of the DIVINE, and laboured incessantly to imbue His disciples with the conviction that nothing short of this endowment could empower them for their work. (Acts i. 4,5; Luke xxiv. 48, 49; John xv.)

        We all know how completely Paul and his fellow apostles learnt this lesson, and how they continually gloried in the testimony that it was "not by might nor by power, but by the Spirit of the Lord," that they did all their wonderful works. While the early Christians were true to the example and teaching of their Master, we never find them bemoaning their lack of ability to attract or to convert the people. So mighty was their influence, though comparatively few in number, and insignificant in social position, that wherever they went they were said to have "turned the world upside down," and large and flourishing churches sprang up in all directions. THEY did not feel the necessity for any half-way meeting place between themselves and the world; they did not lower the tone of their Christian morality in order to meet the corrupt and heathenish notions of those around them; neither did they abjure their spirituality lest it should disgust them. On the contrary, the apostles and early Christians seem to have had the conviction that the more complete their devotion to their Master,--the more separate from the world,--the more truly spiritual and divine they were,--the greater would be their influence for God, and the greater their success in winning men to Christ. It never seems to have entered into their minds to descend from the high vantage ground on which their Lord had placed them, to fight the enemy with his own weapons, and to try to cast

him out by a partial conformity to his darling lusts (1 John ii. 16). The source of their power was DIVINE; therefore they needed no adjuncts of human policy, or of worldly expedience. They were mighty "THROUGH GOD," and could well dispense with the heathen poets and fashionable novelists of their times. Their preaching was "with the demonstration of the SPIRIT and of POWER;" consequently, multitudes listened, believed, and turned to the Lord.

        It was not until the primitive Christians began to admit worldly principles of action, and to substitute the material for the spiritual, that their influence began to wane, and their testimony to lose its power. It was the gradual substitution of the human for the divine, the material for the spiritual, that overspread Christendom for ages with papal darkness and death. During that long night of error and suffering, however, God raised up many witnesses to the sufficiency of the Holy Ghost to attract and convert men--many making long pilgrimages, and suffering great privations, in order to visit and converse with those endued with this Divine Gift. And when at length the light of the Reformation broke over the nations, this one great lesson was again engraven on the hearts of God's chosen instruments: "It is not by might, nor by power, but by MY SPIRIT, saith the Lord of Hosts!" Thus, after the lapse of ages, we find the Gospel, when preached with the old power, the same mighty instrumentality, both for attracting the multitudes and converting the soul.

        From the Reformation down to the present time, we find that wherever the same Gospel has been preached with the same accompanying power, the same results have followed, even when the preacher has been trammelled by a false creed, or beset with hosts of opposing influences from earth and hell. Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there spiritual miracles are wrought, and wherever miracles are wrought, the people will congregate; be it by the river-side, in the temple, in kirk, church, chapel, theatre, meeting-house, attic, or cellar. There is no quicker

detective of the presence of the Spirit of Jesus than the spirit which worketh in the hearts of the children of disobedience. But He has always been more than a match for would-be exorcists. "Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are ye?"

        You will perceive, Christian reader, that we regard this plea, "that the Gospel fails to attract," as a very suspicious one. We ask those who urge it, in the light of the foregoing summary of facts, to tell us, WHY IT FAILS? We have no hesitation in saying ONLY for want of the HOLY GHOST. The great desideratum in connection with all our organisations, societies, churches, agencies, and instrumentalities, is LIFE! LIFE!! LIFE!!! The people want a LIVING GOSPEL, preached by LIVING SPIRIT-BAPTIZED SOULS. Dare we, in the light of the past, instead of this Divine bread, give them the stone of materialism? If so we must prepare for the consequences.

HEART BACKSLIDING.

        1. Unto the angel of the church of Ephesus write: These things saith he that holdeth the seven stars in his right hand, who walketh in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks;

        2. I know thy works, and thy labour, and thy patience, and how thou canst not bear them which are evil; and thou hast tried them which say they are apostles, and are not, and hast found them liars:

        3. And hast borne, and hast patience, and for my name's sake hast laboured and hast not fainted.

        4. Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love.

        5. Remember therefore, from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent.

borne, and hast patience, and for my name's sake hast laboured, and hast not fainted." He sums up their character most carefully, giving them the utmost credit for all the fruits of the Spirit found in them. He remembers their labour, their patience, their hatred of evil, their zeal for His glory in their intolerance of false teachers, their constancy in suffering, their purity of motive, and their continuance in well doing. Not one of their good deeds is forgotten before Him; but the brilliancy and preciousness of the whole is marred by one defect which only he could see, but which his love and faithfulness compelled him to reveal and to reprove. "Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love."

        After such a repetition of their fidelities and graces, we, in our carnal wisdom, might have looked for a THEREFORE, instead of a NEVERTHELESS. We might have expected Him to say, "Thou hast laboured for me with much zeal, patience, and perseverance; therefore, I will excuse and pass over thy declension in love, thy defection of heart." This is the way in which many of God's people seem to imagine that He regards heart unfaithfulness; but not so the Lord Himself. Notwithstanding all their labours, sufferings, patience, and zeal, He had a nevertheless against them, which compelled his reproof and endangered his anger.

        And oh, is not this his attitude towards thousands of his people now? Is not this message to these Ephesian Christians equally applicable to multitudes in our day, who are serving Him with much zeal and patience; but they have left their first love, and are, notwithstanding all their outward professions and labour, backsliders in heart? Some of you start at the use of such a phrase, and you say, "But these Ephesians were not backsliders." Not in the general acceptation of the term, but in the estimation of their Lord they were backsliders in heart. They had partially fallen, partially gone from that whole-hearted service which once they rendered Him, and without

which all outward works, however worthy or zealous, will not suffice. I fear that after this manner the great majority of Christians are backsliders. I have conversed with numbers up and down this land, and many who have occupied prominent positions in Christian Churches, who have confessed that they were secret backsliders, having lost much that they once enjoyed, and walking far less carefully than they once did. Taking these as representatives of others in similar circumstances I say, I cannot but fear that a very large majority of professing Christians have, like these Ephesian converts, left their first love. I have no doubt that there are many of this class here this morning, and I desire to speak especially to these.

        Let me entreat you, my dear friends, to open your hearts to the reception of the truth. Forget the feeble instrumentality through which it comes, and if it commends itself to your consciences as God's truth, let it have its full weight upon your hearts. If you are right, it will do you no harm to examine yourselves. It will establish you and help you "to assure your hearts before Him." And if you are not right, who can tell the importance of making the discovery in time, while there is opportunity and grace offered by which you may be made right? I beseech you be honest with yourselves and with God. There is nothing to be gained by crying, "Peace, peace," when there is no peace. It is of no use trying to persuade yourselves that you are right with God if your consciences tell you that you are not. You will find your consciousness too strong for all the false theories of men and devils, and true peace will be impossible to you until you come back to your first love. I think I hear some one say, "Ah! That is just what I want! But how am I to do it? I know that I am a backslider in heart; it is not with me now as it once was; but I have tried and tried in vain to get back what I once enjoyed, and to live as I once lived." My dear friend, you have not tried in the right way. Try your Lord's way; take his counsel, obey his commands, and you shall not only get

back all you have lost, but an abundant increase of peace and power. This way, as pointed out here, seems to me to be--

        1. Remember:--realise your unfaithfulness.

        2. Repent:--humble yourself, confess and renounce your sin.

        3. Do your first works:--consecration and faith.

        1. Remember:--realise your unfaithfulness. Remember from whence thou art fallen. There are different degrees of backsliding; some have fallen from greater heights, and some to lower depths than others. But if you ever were higher on the ladder of Christian experience than you are this morning, to just that extent you are a backslider. Our Lord does not wish us to condemn ourselves for losing that which we never possessed; but to remember from whence, the exact degree of spiritual attainment we once realised, and to compare our present state with it. "Remember!" consider it, ponder over it; strive to realise it as the evil and bitter thing it is.

        We fear that numbers of Christians reach a fearful degree of backsliding without knowing it. "Gray hairs are here and there upon Ephraim, and he knoweth it not;" and no wonder; they are so occupied with the externals of religion; they are so absorbed in business, or care, or pleasure, that they have no time to remember. They never stop to compare notes, to observe the landmarks, or take the soundings of their spiritual state. They have no time for the old-fashioned duty of self-examination; or if they have, it is so distasteful that they prefer to read, or hear, or talk. Sometimes the Holy Spirit, by some word of God, some sermon, or providence, flashes the conviction on their minds that they have lost ground, that they "have forsaken Him, the fountain of living water, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water." But the conviction is painful; they are afraid of the revelation, they shrink from the consequences of its admission even to themselves, and instead of honestly examining into the

state of their hearts, they fall back upon their conversion and early experience, and say, "Surely it must be all right with me, although I have no communion with God, no sensible joy or peace, and but little power over sin. I must be a child of God. Salvation is by faith, not by works; God does not look at me, but at Jesus." Instead of remembering from whence they have fallen, they look only to what they have fallen, and try to accommodate the requirements of the word to their miserable experience. Having lost the faith that purifies the heart and manifests its existence by obedience, they try to take refuge in an antinomian faith, which does neither the one or the other--a faith which makes void the law of God, and makes Christ the minister of sin. Thank God, however, they cannot get peace this way; their countenances belie their creed, and their powerless lives tell to all around that they have only got the shell without the kernel, the form without the power.

        If there are any of this class here this morning, my friends, I beseech you take YOUR LORD'S counsel--"Remember from whence you have fallen." Reflect on what you once enjoyed. How was it with you in days gone by? Let me help you to remember by a few practical questions. Did you not once realise a sweet and blessed sense of your acceptance with God? and did not His Spirit witness with your spirit that you were a child of God? and did you not realise that "there is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit?" How is it with you now? As you received the Lord Jesus, have you so walked in Him that your path has been like that of the just, shining brighter and brighter unto the perfect day? or have you lost your roll and with it your peace and the joy of the Lord which once was your strength? Again, did you not once walk in daily communion with God, your prayers being not merely petitions, but mediums of sensible intercourse with Him?

and did not his candle shine brightly on your head? What of your present experience in this respect? Do you still rejoice in this light? or are you groping after Him as an absent and far-distant God? You once realised the power of Christ to rest upon you, so that you were more than conqueror over the world, the flesh, and the devil; sin had no more dominion over you; "old things were passed away;" the old spirit of bondage and the helpless misery of a merely convicted state were passed away, and you could sing, "Thanks be unto God, who giveth us the victory through Jesus Christ;" and, "I can do all things through Christ, which strengtheneth me."

        How is it with you? Do you walk in the liberty wherewith Christ made you free? or are you gone back to the spirit of bondage again to fear, and to the helplessness of your convicted state, by reason of which you are crying, "O, wretched man that I am!" If so, oh, "remember from whence thou art fallen."

        Your conscience was once tender as the apple of the eye; you eschewed evil, and kept as far from its very appearance as you could. You had no fellowship with the godless multitudes who crucified your Lord, and trampled under foot His blessed laws. You kept as far aloof from the world as you might, weeping over its sins, and looking down with pity on its hollow amusements. What is your present attitude in this matter? Are you still separate from sinners, following the Lamb wheresoever He goeth? or has the daughter of Zion come down from her holy mountain, and defiled herself with the abominations of the heathen round about? You were once full of zeal for the glory of your Divine Deliverer, and the salvation of those for whom He died. You could then reprove sin, and weep over and expostulate with sinners. You could deny yourself almost your necessary sleep and food, in order to promote the interests of your Redeemer's kingdom. Where is now your zeal for the Lord of Hosts? Can you deny self, sacrifice your ease, honour, reputation, or wealth, for his glory, as you once did? Re-

member! Compare your present state with your former one. Let conscience speak, let facts speak, and honestly admit the truth; and if you are condemned, write yourself down--Backslider in heart. You say, "I do not like the conclusion." Perhaps not; but if it be true, honesty will be the best policy here, as in everything else. Look the fact in the face, and try to realise its desperate meaning. I fear too many Christians have far too light an estimate of heart-unfaithfulness. I have sometimes heard them speak of five or ten years' half-heartedness as a very light thing, slurring it over, as it were, with a very thin and superficial sort of confession; but our Lord does not so regard it; He looks upon it as a very serious matter, a very heinous sin, a most God-dishonouring experience; so much so, that He threatens these Ephesian backsliders that, unless they repent, notwithstanding all their good works, He will come unto them in judgment, and remove their candlestick out of its place.

        This is a far greater sin than any you ever committed before you were converted; and you must look at it, reflect on it, remember it, until you have realised its bitterness. Do not be afraid because of the painfulness of the process. Painful operations are often necessary to save life. If you had a bad wound, which required examining and probing, you would not say to the surgeon, "I cannot bear to look at it; I cannot endure the pain of dressing; cover it up, and let it alone." No! you would know that, painful as would be the process of probing and dressing, it was necessary to save your limb, and perhaps your life; and you would, like a reasonable being, endure the pain, and save your life. Just so, if you have spiritual wounds; they need probing, and perhaps cauterising, before they can be healed; and it is of no use to shrink from the knife of the Great Physician. He knows that it will cause pain; yea, bitter anguish; yet he says, "Remember!" Oh, my backsliding friend, bare your heart before Him who walks amid the golden candlesticks, and ask Him to search it as with

a lighted candle. Ask for the realizing light of the Holy Spirit to reveal to you your backslidings, and to set your secret sins in the light of His countenance. Ask Him to help you to remember by quickening your spiritual perceptions, and opening your eyes, to see the monstrous ingratitude and cruel infidelity of which you have been guilty. Instead of refusing to remember, because of the mental suffering involved in the process, methinks we should rejoice to suffer. Seeing that we have wounded our Lord in the house of His friends, we ought to be willing to weep our lives away, at the remembrance of our sin, and if we could, to shed tears of blood, as an evidence of our penitence. To have been unfaithful to His saving grace; to have been untrue to His dying love; to have withheld from Him that which He purchased with His heart's blood, demands a deeper grief, a more bitter repentance, than that of our unconverted state. May the Lord help those of you who are convicted of this sin to remember; until the fallow ground of your heart is broken up, and your souls cry, "O, remember not against us former iniquities; let Thy tender mercies speedily prevent us, for we are brought very low. Help us, O God of our salvation, and deliver us, and purge away our sins, for Thy name's sake."

        2. The next step is repentance. Now, true repentance implies humiliation, confession, and renunciation. When the backslider has remembered until he realises his unfaithfulness in its true heinousness, he will be so deeply humbled that he will be willing to confess his sin before God and his people. I have known Christians deeply convicted of backsliding, who were yet too proud to confess it. I have known them cover up their sin, and struggle, and pray, and weep, and labour to get back their peace and power, till they were almost driven to distraction; but I never knew one succeed who refused to make an honest confession. While the backslider in heart is too proud to confess that he is one, the laws of mind, as well as the Word of God, forbid that he should be restored to pardon and peace.

        "When I kept silence," says David, describing such a state, "my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long; (then) I said I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord; and Thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin." If we sin against an earthly friend or benefactor, the laws of mind require that, before we can obtain a sense of reconciliation and peace, we must confess the wrong. And all God's requirements and conditions are beautifully adjusted to the laws of our nature; therefore he requires us to confess our sins, and then "He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins." Perhaps some one asks, But if I confess to God is not that enough? We answer, it depends on the nature of the offence; if it has been against God only, it may be so; but if it has involved or injured others, it must be confessed to them. "If thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath aught against thee, leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift." "Confess your faults one to another, that ye may be healed." Now, the backslider in heart has necessarily influenced and injured others by his coldness, deadness, and inconsistency, and in many cases so deeply, that nothing but an honest straightforward confession on his part can win for the truth any influence over them.

        The backsliding Christian falsely represents the religion of Jesus, and indirectly teaches men that it is what he exhibits it to be. Now, on conviction of his unfaithfulness, he is bound in common honesty to redeem his Christianity from the stigma which his inconsistency has brought upon it, and to tell those who have witnessed his life, that its defects have been attributable, not to the religion of Jesus, but to the want of it. I have sometimes thought, on hearing the professions of the Lord's people, that a little CONFESSION would do a great deal more good. There is a mighty power in confession. A thorough and honest confession of backsliding and inconsistency on the part of Christians would do more to convince and arouse the

unconverted within their influence than all their professions have done for years gone by; because it would convince the unsaved that they were REAL AND SINCERE, which at present they do not believe. Many of you will remember reading a beautiful illustration of what I am saying in the Report of the American Revival some seven or eight years ago, respecting a Christian merchant in that country. He does not appear to have been by any means an indifferent professor; on the contrary, he had felt some anxiety about the young men in his employ, and had, as he tells us, lent them books, and invited them to hear earnest ministers, and talked piously to them in a general and indirect sort of way; but all this, as it generally does, had failed to win any of them to Christ, or even to convince them that they were sinners. One day as he was walking through the streets, reflecting on the failure of all his efforts, he was led, doubtless by the Divine Spirit, to see the reason of this failure. He REMEMBERED. "Is it any wonder," said he to himself, "that I have failed, seeing how inconsistently I have often acted; what a worldly spirit I have exhibited, what an undue absorption in business, and how little real anxiety I have manifested about the souls of my young men? I never took one of them aside and spoke to him directly and feelingly of his accountability and danger. O, how cold and dead and indifferent I have been." These reflections so filled him with grief and humiliation, that he resolved on taking the first opportunity for confessing his unfaithfulness, and speaking pointedly and faithfully to them about their souls. This he did, and in a few weeks the majority of them were blessedly converted to God.

        This was the effect of confession. That merchant might have gone on talking good to those young men until now, and no effect would have been produced. While his practice was so far below his profession, all his direct efforts were neutralised, and thus it is with thousands of professing Christians; they are altogether indifferent about others, they try to do a little

for the Lord; but their endeavours are all lost, because of their half-heartedness and inconsistency.

        If there are any here who feel this to be true in their case, my dear friends let me urge you to follow the example of the merchant. Remember your unfaithfulness, till you are sufficiently humbled to be willing to confess it to those whom you have injured by it. This is just what is needful, and ALL that is needful in many an instance where Christians have been praying for years for unconverted relatives and friends. Suppose a Christian wife here this morning: you have an unconverted husband for whom you have been praying for many years; but you are conscious that he has witnessed much in your conduct and spirit which has been at variance with the Christianity which you have professed. Now, this discrepancy between your practice and profession lies like an enemy in ambush, against all extraneous efforts to bring saving truth to bear on the conscience of your husband; and no doubt an honest confession on your part would do more to break his heart and win him to the Saviour than all the sermons he has heard for years gone by. If you are in doubt try it. If you are convicted of backsliding, go home, and with meekness and tears of bitter penitence tell your husband so; tell him that the Spirit has convinced you of your half-heartedness and inconsistency; tell him that you are ashamed of the past, and resolved by God's grace to lead a new life. Put your arm round his neck, and ask him to join you: then get on your knees and pour out your soul in confession to God, and see whether your husband's heart will not be moved, and admittance gained for the truth and Spirit of God. And vice versa, let the husband do so with his wife. I tell you that your confession will do more than all your professions have ever done.

        And just so in the case of Christian parents who have lived in a half-hearted state before their children. Oh, how much has been said and written as to the reasons why so few comparatively of the children of Christians get converted in early life.

I think the answer could be given, and the mystery explained in one word--unfaithfulness. How can parents expect to win their children to Christ if they constantly exhibit an un-Christ-like spirit, and trample under foot the plainest teachings of his word? How frequently the children of professing parents seem to entertain a greater malignity against the religion of Jesus than do the children of thorough worldlings; and no wonder, seeing that the very name of Christianity has been made to stink in their nostrils by the inconsistency of the parents. They are taught in precept that they are to be sincere, truthful, unselfish, unworldly, but they see in practice the constant exhibition of principles directly contrary; and hence they learn to despise both their parents and the religion which they profess. If there are any inconsistent parents here this morning, my friends, if you desire the conversion of your children, go home and take down the barriers which your unfaithfulness has raised in their hearts against the reception of the Gospel. Go and confess to your children, or, if their youth renders this inexpedient, gather them around the family altar, and confess it all to God in their presence; make a fresh and full dedication of yourselves, of your children, of your all to Him; beseeching Him with strong cries and tears to give you grace to live wholly for Him. Do this with godly sincerity, your own hearts being truly broken up, and no matter how careless or ungracious your children may have been, you will find them melted into tenderness, and in all probability convinced of sin.

        So greatly does God delight in honesty of heart in his people, that He never fails to give the accompanying power of the Spirit to those who exercise it. I have not a doubt that an honest confession of backsliding on the part of all unfaithful ministers would open the windows of heaven, and bring down such a flood of grace on their barren and worldly churches as would shake our land from end to end.

        I remember reading a very striking and affecting illustration of this some years ago, in connection with the experience of a

dear man of God, who, during the early years of his Christian career, had been a man of extraordinary devotedness, zeal, and self-sacrifice, but gradually and almost imperceptibly to himself he had fallen from his first love. Though still abounding in good works, and looked up to by all as a pattern of piety, he had lost the power which once characterised him. The Lord showed him from whence he had fallen in a very simple and effective manner, by bringing him into close contact with a man filled with the Spirit, and burning with zeal for the salvation of souls, thus, by the law of contrast, flashing on him the conviction that he had lost his first love. The backslider in heart began to "remember." He said to himself, "I was once like that man; I felt as he does; I rejoiced as he does; I prayed as he does; I laboured as he does; but I am not like him now. Oh, my God, I am a backslider in heart." The discovery almost overwhelmed him. He realised its bitterness, and agonised over its consequences, until his distress reached a climax, and kneeling down he prayed in an agony, telling the Lord that if He would restore him to his first love, he would confess his heart-backsliding to his brethren, and do all in his power to counteract the evil effects of his former coldness and unfaithfulness. I need not say that the Lord heard and answered. This was all He wanted of His servant, in order to His pouring in the oil and wine of His love and consolation. Like the disciples on the day of Pentecost he rose from his knees filled with the Spirit. The next day there was an official meeting, in which he had to take part. At the appointed time some dozen of the leading men assembled. After the business was gone through, he asked to be allowed to make a few remarks; and then, with the simplicity of a little child, like an honest-hearted man as he was, he related the experience of the last few days. He confessed to his brethren his heart-backsliding, told them how the Lord had convinced him of it, and how graciously He had restored him to his first love. The brethren present were melted into tears; they sobbed and cried like children; and when he had done,

broke out into a general confession of backsliding and unfaithfulness. They continued in the deepest humiliation of soul, confessing and bewailing their sins until midnight. As one after another poured out his soul in confession and supplication, the Holy Ghost fell on them, and there commenced in that room on that memorable night a revival which swept hundreds into the Church of Christ, many of whom are now in heaven. All this was brought about by the power of confession. That man might have preached on until the end of his days, and never have done one tithe of the good which this one open, honest confession did.

        Oh, what a deal of praying there is for revivals, and for spiritual visitations, which is sheer hypocrisy. The Church might have a revival as wide and deep and powerful as she asks, if she would only comply with the conditions on which God can grant it--if she would remember her unfaithfulness, honestly confess and forsake her sins, and bring into God's storehouse the tithes of which she is so flagrantly robbing Him; but it is easier to utter vain repetitions and leave the responsibility of the damnation of souls upon God, than for Christians to humble themselves, confess before the world their fallen and powerless condition, and pay their vows unto the Lord. The Lord only wants a whole-hearted faithful people, and the walls of many a Jericho would fall, and a nation be born in a day. Oh, may the Lord send upon his backsliding Israel the spirit of conviction and of mourning! May He open her eyes to see from whence she has fallen, and enable her to repent, to come down into the dust, and cry "Unclean, unclean!" until her iniquity is purged, her backslidings healed, and her lips touched with living fire from off his pure and holy altar.

        But further, repentance not only implies humiliation and confession, but RENUNCIATION, sometimes the hardest of all. "Put away the evil of your doings," is an indispensable condition of restoration to the favour and peace of God. Christ Jesus came to save his people from their sins, not in them

and those who will not be saved from their sins prove beyond a question that they are none of his. I have known many professing Christians try hard to get peace while holding on to some sin, or allowing some idol, but I never knew one succeed. You may preach faith for ever to a soul thus temporising with evil, but its consciousness will be too strong for your theories. You must show that soul that it can never believe till it is willing to part with evil. Not that it must save itself, but that it must be WILLING TO BE SAVED FROM SIN.

        This was the principle on which Christ dealt with the young ruler, and which is insisted on again and again by Christ and His apostles. I am satisfied that thousands of professing Christians are kept in bondage and darkness through not understanding this fundamental principle of the economy of salvation. They hear so much about faith, and so little about the conditions of faith, that they get bewildered; and instead of repenting and putting away the evil, that their sins may be blotted out, they spend all their time in trying to work themselves up into a faith as unphilosophical as it is unscriptural. Consequently, they fail to get peace, and live in perpetual condemnation and misery. So it must ever be with those who ignore God's way, and take their own.

        I remember a striking illustration of this, in connection with some services I held in a distant part of the country. A gentleman called on me, and sent in to ask if I would see him without an introduction, as he did not wish to reveal his name. I said, "Oh, certainly; if I could be of any service to him, I did not wish to know who he was." Accordingly, he came in, and told me his story. He said that he had been attending my Thursday morning meetings for believers, and he thought perhaps I could help him, as he was in a most difficult and painful position. I found that he had once lived very near to God, and known much of His grace and love; but, in a time of partial backsliding, he had been induced to enter into partnership in business with an unconverted man. His partner, though

a respectable, moral man, after the standard of the world, practised and allowed things, in the management of the business, which my visitor's conscience condemned; "and though," said he, "I protest against them, and have no share in their preparation, yet I share in the profits of the business, and my name goes forth to the public as responsible for all that is done, and I feel condemned on account of it." He told me that he had lost his peace, and had tried in every way to regain it. He had fasted and prayed, and wept and struggled, till his body was quite worn. He had been to seek the advice of every minister for miles around, and had sought the counsels and prayers of his Christian friends, in vain. "What am I to do?" said he. "I have considerable capital invested; my friends are very anxious that I should get on; and others are involved in my success."

        I felt the importance of the case, and truly sympathised with the young man; but to me his path seemed plain as daylight.

        I looked up for a word that should convince him, and then said, "Well, my dear sir, I can only say, that for myself, I should as soon expect the favour of God in hell, as on earth, while I was doing or allowing anything for which my conscience condemned me." The arrow went home. He said, "I see, I see; I shall have to come out at all costs." I said, "I believe you will;" and then I tried to show him how much richer he would be with an approving conscience and the smile of God, even in poverty, if the Lord should so will, than with wealth and affluence in his present wretched state of mind. I afterwards learnt who he was, and was most thankful to find that he had followed the light, and given up the ungodly alliance. Now, I say, this young man might have wept himself into the grave, and never have regained his peace, unless he had RENOUNCED HIS SIN. It was utterly useless telling him to exercise faith for deliverance. It was as impossible for him to believe as it was for him to fly, while he was maintaining this controversy

with his conscience and with the Spirit. He must FIRST put away the evil, and then it was easy to believe.

        Another case illustrative of what I have been saying occurred in connection with my labours in the North of England. The gentleman in whose house I was staying said to me, one morning, on our return from the chapel, "Do you know what I have done? I have thrown my pipe and tobacco-box on to the dunghill and I have made up my mind to smoke no more." He then said that he had waged a controversy with his conscience and with the Spirit of God for fifteen years about this paltry gratification, living in a state of perpetual condemnation, and sacrificing the power and usefulness which he had once realised for the sake of this Idol. Immediately on putting away the indulgence, peace was restored to his soul, and he began to labour for the Lord as in days gone by.

        I could give numbers of similar illustrations; but these will suffice to show you that it matters not whether the controverted practice involves the loss of hundreds of pounds, or only of a pipe of tobacco. It is not the greatness or smallness of the matter in itself, but the principle of obedience which is involved in the controversy. While there is a vestige of insubordination to the requirements of conscience and of God, there can be no peace. On this point thousands of professing Christians mistake. They allow themselves in things which they feel to be unlawful, and then strive and pray to obtain a sense of acceptance through Christ. They want the Spirit to witness with their spirits that their ways please God, while they know that their ways are such as CANNOT please Him: therefore, they want the Spirit to witness to a lie, which is impossible.

        No! my backsliding friend, there is but one way back to peace and joy and usefulness, and that is your Lord's own way--repentance, which always implies forsaking sin, putting away the evil. Christ Jesus is too much in love with his Father's will to dwell with those who will not obey it; the unalterable

condition of his presence and his smile is doing the will of his Father. The "sons of God are led by the Spirit of God;" and if you refuse to be thus led, you cannot have the spirit of adoption. Do you see this? Do you feel it? If so, will you put away those sins and iniquities which have separated you from your God? Will you let your idols go, and now for ever renounce all that is contrary to his holy will? If you will, you will find it easy to take the next step in your Lord's way of restoration; nay, you will come with gladness to do "your first works."

        3. I think the Lord has enabled me to show you that restoration to first love is impossible without the renunciation of evil; so I think, by the aid of the Blessed Spirit, I shall be able to show that it is equally impossible without consecration to known duty. I have known backsliders in heart who have "remembered" till their hearts have been well-nigh broken, and who, I believe, have honestly put away the occasions of their backsliding, who have nevertheless shrunk from embracing the cross in the form of some suffering or duty to which the Spirit has called them, and thus have found it impossible to exercise the faith necessary to their healing.

        I once knew a widow lady, who, though she tried every method, and that for a long time, to regain her peace, could not, because she refused to conduct family prayer, to which duty the Spirit of God urged her. I have known others who have felt that they ought to confess their backsliding state, and they have tried anything and everything else in vain, but immediately on confessing have obtained a sense of acceptance. I have known some who have felt it a duty to be baptized, but refused because of the cross, but they got no peace till they yielded. I know a lady who maintained a controversy with the Spirit for four years, about giving up her husband to a work to which she believed God had called him, but which involved much sacrifice and trial. Many a time she said, with anguish of spirit, "Anything but this, Lord!" but this was the very

thing which the Lord required; and not until, like Abraham, she gave up the best beloved of her soul to the will of God, did she recover her peace and joy. I am acquainted with a minister, who, after trying for a long time to lead a deeply convicted sinner into faith, paused, and said, "Excuse me, madam, but I think there is something that you are not willing to give up, or to do." After a few minutes' silence, she burst out weeping afresh, and, after a terrible struggle, said, "Oh, I cannot forgive the murderer of my husband." Surely if any compromise in the conditions of salvation were possible in any case, it was in this. But no; the Spirit of God had already shown that lady what hindered her reception of Christ, and instead of urging her to believe, that minister, as a wise co-worker with the Spirit, told her that difficult as the duty might appear, she must embrace it and forgive the man who had so deeply injured her. She made the effort; that is, her will submitted; and immediately the Spirit helped her infirmities, and enabled her fully and freely to forgive. Almost at the same moment she was enabled to believe unto salvation.

        I might give you numbers of similar cases which have come under my own observation, but I trust these will be sufficient to show what I mean by consecration as a condition of faith. I think I may say, without exaggeration, that I have conversed with hundreds of backsliders of different degrees, and I never knew one restored to first love who refused compliance with known duty. "To him who knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him it is sin;" and in wilful sin there is no salvation. Do you see this, my dear friends, you who are mourning an absent God? Are you willing to consecrate yourselves this day unto the Lord? Do you honestly renounce those things through which you have lost your peace, and brought leanness into your souls? Do you embrace the will, the whole will of God, as your rule of life? Will you bring into His store-house the tithes of a whole-hearted service, and a cheerful obedience? In short, will you give Him that which He claims,--yourself

and your all? If so, His word to you is, "I will heal your backslidings, I will love you freely; for mine anger is turned away from you;" "I will betroth thee unto Me for ever; yea, I will betroth thee unto Me in righteousness, and in judgment, and in loving-kindness, and in mercies; I will even betroth thee unto Me in faithfulness, and thou shall know the Lord."

        Satan tempts you to shrink from a full consecration for fear you should not be able to live up to it; but if you will comply with the conditions, God will fulfil this promise. If you will only yield yourself up without reserve, He will work in you to will and to do of his good pleasure. Hear your Lord's word: "If a man love Me, he will keep My words; and My Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him." Surely, with the father and Son, you will be able to do and suffer all things. The reason for your past failures has been the WANT of God. When God comes to dwell in you, when he betroths you to Him in faithfulness for ever, you will fail no more; His strength will be made perfect in your weakness; you will be able to do all things through Christ, who strengtheneth you.

        I doubt not some of you are saying, "How shall I realise the fulfilment of these blessed promises?" I answer, by simple faith. Just as you trusted at first for justification, and rested not on your feelings, but on HIS PROMISES, so now you must cast yourself on His blessed assurances of healing and of strength. Having the testimony of your own spirit that you comply with the conditions, in putting away the evil and embracing the will of God, you have nothing to do but to throw yourself on His bosom, and rest in His love. The mercy-seat is sprinkled with the blood of an all-sufficient atonement, so that He can receive and pardon even backsliders, if they will only believe. He says, "Return unto me, and I will heal your backslidings." Now you DO return, will you not believe that He heals you? He says He will; dare you make Him a

liar? You have no alternative. If you come, He either does, or does not receive you. He says He does. O believe Him, and He will betroth you unto Him in faithfulness for ever.

DEALING WITH ANXIOUS SOULS.

AN ADDRESS TO CHRISTIAN WORKERS.

        I fear thousands have been mistaken here. Mere impression has been mistaken for conviction, and an intellectual faith for saving faith of the heart; hence so much of the spurious Christianity prevalent amongst us.

        We should be very careful, in all our dealings with anxious souls, first to find out their exact position with regard to sin. In all spiritual awakenings there are always numbers of individuals who are partially awakened and sufficiently impressed to become anxious, like the young ruler and Agrippa, but who, like them, are not sufficiently so to be willing to give up their sins. Such individuals frequently present themselves as penitents desiring to be saved, and too often those who have to

deal with them, instead of finding out their true state, and working together with the Holy Ghost to deepen conviction and drive them up to real submission to God, begin at once to talk of Christ having paid their debt and done everything for them, so that they have nothing to do but to believe and they are saved. Now it seems to me that to prevent such grievous mistake, with all its bitter consequences, every one who deals with souls should have a clear and definite understanding of the conditions on which alone God pardons and receives repenting sinners. These conditions always have been, and ever must remain, the same, seeing that the principles of the Divine government can never change.

        Hence we find that, alike under the old and new dispensations, GOD'S UNALTERABLE CONDITION OF PARDON IS THE FORSAKING OF EVIL.

        "Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and He will have mercy upon him; and to our God, and He will abundantly pardon." "Turn ye, turn ye, from your evil ways, for why will ye die, O house of Israel." Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked may die? saith the Lord God, and not that he should return from his ways and live? Of course the wicked were then to return in the appointed way of sacrifice and offering, but the condition of the acceptance of the offering, and the pardon of the transgressor, was the forsaking of evil. Just so now; the sinner must return to God by the new and living way, the "sacrifice once offered," but the condition of his acceptance through this sacrifice is the forsaking of evil. Unless he is willing to let go his sins and be separated from his idols, the sacrifice of Christ will avail him nothing but to increase his condemnation tenfold. It seems astounding that, with the Bible in their hands, so many professing to be guides of souls should mistake here; and, oh! it makes one's heart bleed to think of the consequences. We have thousands self-deceived, counting themselves believers, who never knew the

pangs of real repentance; whose hearts never really turned from sin to righteousness, from Satan to God; who suppose they have been converted, but who have manifestly never been regenerated: who live as the slaves and votaries of the world while they profess to be children of God; in short, who regard themselves as Christians while they are still in the gall of bitterness and in the bonds of iniquity. Let us mind not to be partakers of other men's sins in this matter. Let us settle in our minds that there can be no conversion without conviction of sin, and such conviction as makes the soul willing to abandon evil. Casting ourselves on the Spirit for the necessary tenderness in doing it, let us not be afraid to prove the wounds with which every unregenerate soul is covered, and above all things let us avoid giving false comfort and pressing the inquirer into a mere intellectual faith, while he is cleaving to idols. Let us ever remember that saving faith is impossible while the soul's desires are set on that which is evil. It must be so awakened and convicted as to turn its face towards God, and so intensely desire His favour and love as to be willing to give up all evil as a condition of attaining it.

        I repeat, it is astounding that, with the Bible in their hands, some teachers can so confound things that differ, and so, wrongly, "divide the word of truth as to make Christ the minister of sin," by preaching only "believe" to people who are holding on to sin. You will hear some of these good people asserting that we have nothing to do with conditions now, that repentance is not necessary to faith, &c. "Only believe and you shall be saved." "Jesus did it all, long, long ago." Truly! But what was it Jesus did? His own work, not mine? He lived, laboured, wept, suffered, and died and atoned for me, and He did it all--till he cried, "It is finished;" but I nowhere read that He "repented" and "turned to God," and did "works meet for repentance," and "believed" and "obeyed the Gospel" for me. This He commands every soul to do for itself, or perish. The only way in which Jesus is represented as saving men is in

"turning them away from their iniquities," and until a soul is willing to let Him save it from sin, He cannot save it at all. Let us always try to find out whether inquirers are willing or desire to be saved from evil, and are coming to Christ for this end, or whether they are only desirous of being saved from hell, and consequently holding on to sin. Here is just the difference between the true and a spurious repentance, and on this hinges the result whether we shall bring into the Church another mere professor, a Simon Magus, or one who will follow Christ in the regeneration of the spirit, having his heart purified by a living faith. "Oh," but say some, "what did Paul say to the jailer? He did not say anything about conditions or repentance, but simply, 'Believe,' &c." I answer we do not know all that Paul said on this occasion, for in the next verse we read that "they (Paul and Silas) spake unto him the word of the Lord, and to all his house." Mark! this was before his profession of faith and baptism.

        Now, who can tell how much this word of the Lord implied? Doubtless the Apostle explained on this, as on other occasions, what constituted that "obedience to the truth" through which the jailer, in common with all other penitents, was to be purified. But, supposing that the Apostle had spoken no other words than "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ," this would only prove that in this particular instance no other counsel was necessary, because the jailer was prepared for it. He had come to the point of full submission where saving faith first becomes possible. The whole tenour of the narrative shows that the jailer was a fully awakened, truly repenting, deeply humbled sinner, ready to do anything. "He sprang in, and came trembling, and fell down before Paul and Silas, and brought them out, and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved?" Observe, "He brought them out." He began immediately to bring forth fruits meet for repentance. The earthquake had torn the bandages from his eyes, and the Spirit, through its instrumentality, had shaken his guilty soul and made him

realise his danger in the hands of a God who could avenge the wrongs of His people after such a fashion.

        He was so deeply convicted, so fully turned round "from darkness to light," that he was ready to do anything. He was not ashamed to confess his wickedness--to kneel before his prisoners and plead with them to show him what to do. And if Paul had told him, as Jesus did the young ruler, to sell his goods and give to the poor, there cannot be a doubt but he would have embraced the command at once, as Zacchæus did the obligation to make restitution. The intense earnestness of his gesture and question shows that he was willing to be saved at any cost--ready to do anything--and, therefore, nothing more remained to be done but to believe.

        Now, wherever we find a soul in this attitude, be it our highest privilege--our chief joy--to point him to the Lamb of God, and to show him the way of faith more perfectly; but, oh! let us mind not to do it (except as a motive to submission) until this attitude is attained. Let us beware of a theoretical or sentimental faith, which leaves the heart unwashed, unrenewed, unsanctified. It is just here that thousands get the faith of devils, which is like the body without the spirit--dead! From this bitter root springs nearly all the Antinomianism of this age. With the untempered slime of the old serpent half the superstructure of the professing Church is joined together. Let us spurn it, and warn souls against it.

        Let us mind the ORDER OF GOD in our dealing with souls. He made them, and He knows best how to dissect them. It seems astonishing that any difference of view can have obtained on the point with passages so direct, full, and relevant as Acts xxvi. 18, 20. Surely our glorified Lord understood the constitution of the human soul, and knew best as to the method or order in which His truth and spirit operate upon it.

        There are two or three considerations which give this passage special weight. It comes from the lips of our risen Lord. It was given after the Gospel dispensation was opened

in all its fulness. It was given to Paul, the principal expounder of the doctrine of justification by faith, and therefore his views of faith could not have been contradictory to its teaching.

        It was applied alike to Jews and Gentiles. "To open their eyes"--to awaken and make them realise their danger as sinners, "and to turn them from darkness, or evil, to light or righteousness"--that is, from the choice or embrace of evil to the choice or embrace of righteousness, and "From the power of Satan unto God"--that is, from being committed to the power of Satan to committal to the power of God. "That they may receive forgiveness of sins and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me." Observe here what a deal has to be done in the soul before it can receive forgiveness of sins. Its eyes must be opened--to what? Its own sinfulness and danger and misery. Then, under the sight of this, it must be turned right round from the embrace or desire of evil, to the embrace or desire of righteousness (though yet powerless to DO, it must choose and desire righteousness). The attitude of the WILL MUST CHANGE with respect to evil and good. It must turn round from the one to the other in purpose and desire. Then "it must be turned from committal to the power of Satan unto God." It must abjure Satan as its rightful sovereign, and at least WILL to put itself under the power of God. And all this in order that it may receive forgiveness of sin. This is made an absolute condition of its receiving forgiveness. Now, I maintain that this is the only possible interpretation of this important text, not only of our version but of the original in all its purity; and if so, what becomes of the theory that there are no conditions, and that repentance and forsaking of evil and choosing good is not necessary to saving faith? Further, we see in the 18th verse how literally Paul understood, and how implicitly he followed, this Divine order, for he says he "showed unto them of Damascus, and all Jerusalem, and

throughout all the coasts of Judæa, and then to the Gentiles that they should repent and turn to God, and do works meet for repentance."

        Now, certainly Paul knew what he preached, and there could not be any contradiction in his mind between these necessary conditions of faith, and faith itself. Therefore, when he speaks of faith only being necessary to a sinner's justification, he must always assume that these conditions are complied with, otherwise he contradicts himself and sets aside the order of this Divine commission.

        I know that Paul teaches that faith alone is the hand that takes hold of Christ, but of course he assumes that the feet of repentance and submission have brought the soul near enough for this hand to reach Him; in other words, that, by the Spirit's power, he is so convinced of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment, as to be willing to forsake every evil way, and to flee for refuge to the hope set before him. It seems difficult to imagine how any idea of pardon and reconciliation can have obtained in the Church which does not pre-suppose these conditions, seeing that Jesus laid it down again and again as a fundamental principle that no man could become His disciple, or follow Him, till he was willing to renounce every thing, and every being, antagonistic to His supreme love and dominion in the soul (Luke xiv. 26,30; Mal. x. 37; Matt. v. 29,30). We find also that the Apostles invariably acted on the assumption that until the soul turned round from evil to God it could not believe (Acts xxiv. 25). I would ask, Why did not Paul press Felix to believe on the Lord Jesus? He trembled, as did the jailer. The reason is evident--he did not submit to God and forsake sin (Acts viii. 22, 23; Acts xx. 21; Luke xxiv. 47; Acts v. 31; Romans i. 18; Romans ii. 3-10.) The principle laid down in these texts is recognised by Jesus in His messages to the seven churches: there is no promise of pardon, even to backsliders, without such repentance as leads to the putting away of evil. This, then, is the test of genuine repentance,

WILLINGNESS TO PUT AWAY SIN. Until this is attained, let us not dare to attempt to comfort any soul, for in so doing we shall not be workers together with God, but the tools of Satan, doing exactly what he desires to be done. My dear friends, ponder on these suggestions: they will bear examination. Carefully compare scripture with scripture on this point, seeking the light of the Holy Spirit, and you will be saved from healing the health of the Lord's people slightly--from increasing the number of those who have a form of godliness without the power.

        The next important step in dealing with anxious souls is to present them THE PROPER OBJECT OF FAITH, which is CHRIST JESUS HIMSELF, and not merely Divine testimony concerning Him.

        There is a vast difference between these two objects of faith. The one ends with the intellect, the other purifies the heart. That method of leading souls into faith which presents the truth as a system, or declaration, on the reception or belief of which the soul is to reckon itself saved, fails to bring the soul into contact with a living, personal Christ, and possesses no living principle by which to graft it into the vine as a living branch.

        Truly the Divine testimony concerning Christ must be received and believed; but this is not to be the ultimate object of faith, but only the medium through which the soul's trust is to be transferred to the living person testified of. Here arises another fatal error of this day, through which, I fear, numbers never realise any other God than the Bible, or any other Saviour than a powerless, intellectual belief in the letter of it. They believe the truth about Christ, about His life an death, His sacrifice and intercession; they believe, as inquirers often tell me they do, that Jesus died for them, and that He intercedes for them; but they do not believe that His sacrifice actually satisfies the Father for their sins, or that His intercession so far prevails with God for them that He does now actually pardon and receive them because of it. If they believed this,

of course their anxiety would immediately cease, and they would begin to sing the new song of praise and thanksgiving.

        The mind is too often occupied with the theory of Divine truth instead of the living person whom the truth sets forth. Now, it seems clear to me that the Divine testimony concerning Christ may be believed, and frequently is believed, without there existing a particle of saving trust in Him as a personal Saviour. Here is the secret of so many apparently believing and devout people living in systematic disobedience to God. Their minds are convinced of the truth, and their emotions are frequently stirred by it; but they have no life, no spiritual power in them by which to resist temptation or live above the world, because their faith does not embrace a living Saviour able to save them to the uttermost, but only the truth about Him.

        Take an illustration. Suppose you are sick almost unto death. A friend brings you a testimony concerning some wonderful physician who has cured many such cases, and is fully able and willing to undertake yours. Now, you may receive the record of your friend concerning the skill and success of this physician's treatment, and you may fully believe it, and yet there may be some reason why you shrink from putting yourself into his hands and trusting him with your life. You may believe all that is said about him, and yet fail so to trust in his person as to give yourself up fully into his power. Just so there are numbers who believe God's testimony concerning His Son, that Jesus has atoned for their sin, and that His treatment would cure them of its disease, who do not trust Him to do it for them--no, not for a single moment. Here is the difference between a dead and a living faith; between a faith that lies useless on the shelves of the intellect, or bubbles up on the waves of mere emotion, and that which renews the soul in righteousness, and makes it the abode of an indwelling Christ.

        The term faith is used in several different senses in the

Scripture, but when used to designate that act through which the soul is justified before God, and renewed by His Spirit, it always signifies trust in, or committal to, a living Saviour. The word used to signify this trust is sometimes rendered "commit," as in John ii. 24: "But Jesus did not commit Himself unto them, because He knew all men." He did not believe in them, or trust them with His person--He did not commit Himself into their power. This is just what God requires the sinner to do in order to be saved--to commit himself to the faithfulness and power of Jesus. Again, we have the same word in Luke xv. 11: "If, therefore, ye have not been unfaithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will 'commit' to your trust the true riches"--who shall give over into your keeping, or power, the true riches.

        Now, it is evident that the Scriptural idea of saving faith is that of the absolute committal of the whole being over to the faithfulness and power of Jesus, and not merely a belief, however firm, of the records of certain facts concerning Him. I may believe that He is the Saviour--that He died for me--that He intercedes for me--that He has promised to save me, as thousands do; and yet I may have no trust in Him as now doing all this for me, and consequently draw no sap, no spiritual virtue, from Him.

        Saving faith consists in a firm trust in the person of Jesus, and committal of the soul to Him by an unwavering act of confidence in Him for all that the Bible presents Him to be, as the Redeemer and Saviour of men--"For I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day" (2 Tim. i. 12). And as soon as this trust is exercised, the testimony of the Spirit is given to adoption, and the soul knows that it is passed from death unto life. Of course this trust is exercised through the testimony of God to His Son, but the SON is the object of trust, and not the testimony merely. This is most important to bear in mind in our efforts to lead souls into saving faith.

        And now it becomes a question of deepest interest--how best to lead true penitent sinners to exercise this trust. The first thing generally to be done is to present Jesus as willing to meet the realised desperateness of the sinner's case, as every true penitent thinks himself the chief of sinners, and his own a peculiarly bad case. We should try to show him that the question of salvation does not hinge on the greatness or smallness of a sinner's guilt, but on the fact of his accepting Jesus as a sufficient atonement for it. We should try to show him how almost all the instances of conversion recorded in the Bible were great sinners, and how Jesus came to seek that which was absolutely lost, and how the depths of His love can only be shown on very bad cases.

        When we have succeeded in leading the soul to apprehend the sufficiency of the atonement to cover, and the willingness of Jesus to pardon, the past, unbelief will generally fasten on the future, and the inquirer will say, "Ah! but if I were forgiven, I should fall again into sin." Now is the time to bring the soul face to face with a personal, living Saviour. We must present Christ's ABILITY to save to the uttermost--of the soul's need and circumstances--all them who come unto God by Him. We must get the soul's eye fixed on Jesus, not only as a sacrifice but as a SAVIOUR, a Deliverer, an Almighty Friend, who has promised to dwell and abide with the believer, delivering him out of the hands of all his enemies. We should not give up till, by the help of the Spirit, we can lead the soul to expect in Jesus the supply of all its needs. When this is accomplished, we should lead the soul on to claim this Saviour NOW.

        When arrived at this point, I have sometimes found it very helpful to ask, Well, now, when did Jesus pardon and receive the penitents who came to Him in the days of His flesh?--waiting for an answer, thus compelling the mind's attention to the point. The inquirer will generally say, "I suppose when they came to Him." I reply, Of course that was the only time

to receive them--when they came, not an hour before or an hour after, but at the moment they came, and it is the same now. He receives returning sinners when they come. Now, you come, confessing and forsaking all your sins, and willing to follow Him wherever He may lead you. Does he receive you? He said He would in no wise cast you out if you came. Does He cast you out? The penitent will generally say, "No, I trust not." Then what does He? He must either take you in or cast you out just now, because you come just now. Which is it? Sometimes we get the answer, "I hope He takes me in." Then we try to show that this is not the place for hope. Only to HOPE that Jesus means what He says is to insult Him and drive Him away. You must trust Him and believe now that He takes you in. Oh, what struggles I have often witnessed just at this point! Satan understands the power of this committal, and withstands it with all his subtlety and malice; but if we are firm, and armed with the power of the Spirit, and persistently and relentlessly press the soul up to present trust, the result is certain. Condemnation is taken away, light breaks on the soul, and the new song bursts spontaneously from the lips, even praise and thanksgiving to our God.

        In some cases it requires no little sympathy, tact, and firmness to meet the wiles of unbelief and the stratagems of Satan even in dealing with very sincere and truly submissive souls. Fear of being deceived is generally one of the greatest difficulties. In such cases it is well to explain to the penitent that there is no ground for this fear, seeing that this way of salvation is of God's own appointing, and that, although it seems an easy way to be saved, after living so long in sin and rebellion--the ease of it is all on the sinner's side, and not on the side of the Saviour--we should explain at what a terrible cost of sacrifice and suffering to the Son of God this simple, easy way was opened, and how ungrateful it is to put it away, as if it were too good to be true, because God has made it so simple.

        It is well to encourage the inquirer to trust by reminding him

that every truly saved soul on earth, and every redeemed spirit in heaven, was saved in this way--by simple faith alone. It is often very helpful to get the penitent to use the language of faith with his lips, even before his heart can fully go with it. I have seen many a one rise into faith while repeating after me the text, rendered in the first person, "He was wounded for my transgressions," &c; or, "Thou hast said, Him that cometh to Thee Thou wilt in no wise cast out. Lord, I come; Thou dost not cast me out; Thou takest me in;" or, "'Tis done--the great transaction done; I am my Lord's, and He is mine;" or, "I can believe--I do believe--that Jesus saves me now," repeating such passages or stanzas over and over again till the heart follows the tongue and the venture is made.

        Of course we cannot give counsels for every individual case; there are great diversities in the temperaments and circumstances of different individuals requiring a wise adaptation of treatment at the moment for which the spirit alone can endow us. Let us, however, only be clear and faithful on the two momentous points of a TRUE AND THOROUGH REPENTANCE, and an intelligent and implicit TRUST IN A LIVING SAVIOUR, and every minor question will easily be met, and the souls whom the Lord shall honour us to bring into His family will not be stillborn ghosts of a sinewless sentimentalism; but strong, hardy, cross-bearing, Christ-honouring, soul-winning men and women, able to open heaven and shake hell by their faith and zeal and effort in our Redeemer's kingdom.

"COMPEL THEM TO COME IN."

and trembling with a sense of my utter weakness, I stood still for a moment, looked up to heaven, and said, "Lord, if Thou wilt help me, I will try;" and without stopping longer to confer with flesh and blood, turned back and commenced my work.

        I spoke first to a group of women sitting on a doorstep; and oh! what that effort cost me, words cannot describe; but the Spirit helped my infirmities, and secured for me a patient and respectful hearing with a promise from some of them to attend the house of God. This much encouraged me: I began to taste the joy which lies hidden under the cross; and to realise, in some faint degree, that it is more blessed to give than to receive. With this timely, loving cordial from my blessed Master, I went on to the next group standing at the entrance of a low, dirty court. Here, again, I was received kindly, and promises were given--no rude repulse, no bitter ridicule were allowed to shake my new-found confidence, or chill my feeble zeal. I began to realise that my Master's feet were behind me; nay, before me, smoothing my path and preparing my way.

        This blessed assurance so increased my courage and enkindled my hope, that I ventured to knock at the door of the next house, and when it was opened, to go in and speak to the inmates of Jesus, death, judgment, and eternity. The man, who appeared to be one of the better class of mechanics, seemed to be much interested and affected by my words, and promised with his wife to attend the revival services which were being held at the chapel farther on. With a heart full of gratitude and eyes full of tears, I was thinking where I should go next, when I observed a woman standing on an adjoining door-step, with a jug in her hand. My Divine Teacher said, "Speak to that woman." Satan suggested, "Perhaps she is intoxicated;" but after a momentary struggle, I introduced myself to her by saying, "Are the people out who live on this floor?" observing that the lower part of the house was closed. "Yes," she said, "they are gone to chapel;" and I thought I perceived a weary

sadness in her voice and manner. I said, "Oh, I am so glad to hear that: how is it that you are not gone to a place of worship?" "Me!" she said, looking down upon her forlorn appearance; "I can't go to chapel; I am kept at home by a drunken husband. I have to stop with him to keep him from the public-house, and I have just been fetching him some drink" I expressed my sorrow for her, and asked if I might come in and see her husband. "No," she said, "he is drunk; you could do nothing with him now." I replied, "I do not mind his being drunk, if you will let me come in; I am not afraid; he will not hurt me." "Well," said the woman, "you can come if you like; but he will only abuse you." I said, "Never mind that," and followed her up the stairs.

        I felt strong now in the Lord, and in the power of His might, and as safe as a babe in the arms of its mother. I felt that I was in the path of obedience, and I feared no evil. Oh, how much the Lord's people lose through disobedience to the leadings of the Holy Spirit! If they would only keep His words, He would dwell with them, and then they need fear neither men nor devils. The woman led me to a small room on the first floor, where I found a fine, intelligent man, about forty, sitting almost double in a chair, with a jug by his side, out of which he had been drinking that which had reduced him beneath the level of the beasts that perish. I leaned on my heavenly Guide for strength and wisdom, love and power, and He gave me all I needed. He silenced the demon, Strong Drink, and quickened the man's perceptions to receive my words. As I began to talk to him, with my heart full of sympathy, he gradually raised himself in his chair and listened with a surprised and half-vacant stare. I spoke to him of his present deplorable condition, of the folly and wickedness of his course, of the interests of his wife and children, until he was thoroughly waked up and aroused from the stupor in which I found him.

        During this conversation his wife wept bitterly, and by frag-

ments told me a little of their previous history. I found that she had once known the Lord, but had allowed herself to be dragged down by trouble, had cast away her confidence, and fallen into sin. She told me that her husband had a brother in the Wesleyan ministry, who had done all that a brother could do to save him; that they had buried a daughter two years before, who died triumphantly in the Lord, and besought her father with her dying breath to leave off drinking, and prepare to meet her in heaven; that she had a son, then about eighteen, who, she feared, was going into a consumption; that her husband was a clever workman, and could earn three or four pounds per week as a journeyman, but he drank it nearly all, so that they were compelled to live in two rooms, and often went without necessary food. I read to him the parable of the prodigal son, while the tears ran down his face like rain. I then prayed with him as the Spirit gave me utterance, and left, promising to call the next day with a temperance-pledge book, which he promised to sign.

        I now felt that my work was done for that time. Exhausted in body, but happy in soul, I wended my way to the sanctuary, just in time for the conclusion of the service, and to lend a helping hand in the prayer-meeting.

        On the following day I visited this man again. He signed the pledge, and listened attentively to all I said. Full of hope I left him, to find others similarly lost and fallen. From that time I commenced a systematic course of house-to-house visitation, devoting two evenings per week to the work. The Lord so blessed my efforts that in a few weeks I succeeded in getting ten drunkards to abandon their soul-destroying habits, and to meet me once a week for reading and expounding the Scriptures, and prayer. We held three or four blessed little meetings, and I doubt not our numbers would have increased more and more, but, in the inscrutable workings of Divine Providence, my health gave way, and I was most reluctantly compelled to abandon my happy and promising sphere of labour.

I was shortly after removed from the town, and my way opened to a new and still more fruitful work in the vineyard.

        You will not be surprised, dear reader, after this little sketch, to hear me say that I esteem this work of house-to-house visitation next in importance to the preaching of the Gospel itself. Who can tell the amount of influence and power which might be brought to bear on the careless, godless inhabitants of our large towns and cities--nay, on our whole nation--if all real Christians would only do a little of this kind of work! The masses of people look upon Christians as a separate and secluded class, with whom they have no concern and possess nothing in common. They watch them go past their houses to their various places of worship with utter indifference or bitter contempt; and, alas! has there not been too much in our past conduct calculated to beget this kind of feeling, much of Pharisaic pride and selfish unconcern? If the zeal of the Lord's house had eaten us up,--if we had realized more fellowship with Christ in his sufferings,--if we had understood the meaning of his words, "Compel them to come in," if we had been baptized with Paul's spirit, when he could almost have wished himself accursed from Christ for his brethren's sakes, should we not have gone out amongst the people as our Master did, by the road-side and into their houses, to have spoken to them the "words of this life,"--to have persuaded, implored, and compelled them to come in? Alas, we are verily guilty; nor has it been in many instances for want of light, or for want of the leadings of the Holy Spirit; but it has been for want of OBEDIENCE, and because of our pride, or shame, or fear.

        O that, with all who read this, the time past might suffice to have walked after the flesh in this matter! O that from this hour you, my dear reader (if you are a child of God), would set yourself individually to this work; YOU CAN DO IT. However weak, timid, or "slow of speech," He says, "I will be with thy mouth, and teach thee what thou shalt say;" and "It shall be given you in that same hour what ye shall speak."

All that is needful is for you to give yourself up to the leadings of the Spirit. Lean on Him for all you want. He will inspire you with the constraining love, the melting sympathy, the holy zeal, and the mighty faith alone necessary for the task.

        This is the work that most needs doing of any work in the vineyard. There are teeming thousands who never cross the threshold of church, chapel, or mission-hall, to whom all connected with religion is as an old song, a byword, and a reproach. They need to be brought into contact with a living Christ in the characters and persons of His people. They want to see and handle the Word of Life in a living form. Christianity must come to them embodied in men and women, who are not ashamed to "eat with publicans and sinners"; they must see it looking through their eyes, and speaking in loving accents through their tongues, sympathising with their sorrows, bearing their burdens, reproving their sins, instructing their ignorance, inspiring their hope, and wooing them to the fountain opened for sin and uncleanness. Dear reader, here is a sphere for you! You have long wished to do something for your "blessed, blessed Master." Here is work, boundless in extent, and momentous beyond an angel's power to conceive. For it, you need no human ordination, no long and tedious preparation, no high-flown language, no towering eloquence; all you want is the full baptism of the Spirit on your heart, the Bible in your hand, and humility and simplicity in your manner. Thus equipped, you will be mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds. You will find your way to many a heart long since abandoned by hope and given up to despair; and in the great day of account you shall have many a sheaf as the result of your labour, and the reward of your self-denial.

        I think I hear some timid one saying, "Ah! I wish I could: the Lord knows how I long to be doing some real work for him; but I am so weak, and so little adapted to this kind of labour, I fear I should not succeed."

        My dear brother,--sister,--we are of little use in any department of the vineyard until we have been made to realise our own weakness. The weaker we feel ourselves to be, the better. It is not a question of our STRENGTH, but of our FAITH. "Why look ye so earnestly on us (said Peter to those who marvelled at the miracle wrought on the lame), as though by our own power or holiness we had made this man to walk? . . . Faith in the name of Jesus has made this man strong, whom ye see and know." God does not call us to any work in our own strength; He bids us go and do it in His. "Give ye them to eat," said He to the Disciples, but He knew who must supply the bread; so now He requires us to break the Bread of Life to the multitude, trusting in Him for the supply. He hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the mighty. Why? That the excellency of the power may be seen to be of God, and not of man.

        No matter how simple the words, or how tremulous the voice, if He blesses, then it shall be blessed. The "Does you love God?" of a little child, accompanied by the "demonstration of the Spirit and of power," will do more for Christ and souls than the most talented and eloquent sermon without it; for "it is not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord of Hosts." Dear reader, are you willing to be one of God's chosen ones? or will you anger Him by saying, "Send by who Thou wilt, but not by me?" Are you willing to trample on self, and, taking hold of the strength of omnipotence, to go in the power of His might, and do what you can? If so, His word to you is, "Fear not; be strong, and of a good courage; neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest;" and "Lo, I am with you alway, even to the end of the world."

FEMALE MINISTRY;

OR, WOMAN'S RIGHT TO PREACH THE GOSPEL.

qualifications for public speaking. We admit that want of mental culture, the trammels of custom, the force of prejudice, and one-sided interpretations of Scripture, have hitherto almost excluded her from this sphere; but, before such a sphere is pronounced to be unnatural, it must be proved either that woman has not the ability to teach or to preach, or that the possession and exercise of this ability unnaturalizes her in other respects; that so soon as she presumes to step on the platform or into the pulpit, she loses the delicacy and grace of the female character. Whereas, we have numerous instances of her retaining all that is most esteemed in her sex, and faithfully discharging the duties peculiar to her own sphere, and at the same time taking her place with many of our most useful speakers and writers. Why should woman be confined exclusively to the kitchen and the distaff, any more than man to the field and workshop? Did not God, and has not nature, assigned to man his sphere of labour, "to till the ground, and to dress it"? And, if exemption is claimed from this kind of toil for a portion of the male sex, on the ground of their possessing ability for intellectual and moral pursuits, we must be allowed to claim the same privilege for woman; nor can we see the exception more unnatural in the one case than the other, or why God in this solitary instance has endowed a being with powers which He never intended her to employ.

        There seems to be a great deal of unnecessary fear of women occupying any position which involves publicity, lest she should be rendered unfeminine by the indulgence of ambition or vanity; but why should woman any more than man be charged with ambition when impelled to use her talents for the good of her race? Moreover, as a labourer in the GOSPEL her position is much higher than in any other public capacity; she is at once shielded from all coarse and unrefined influences and associations; her very vocation tending to exalt and refine all the tenderest and most womanly instincts of her nature. As a matter of fact it is well known to those who have had oppor-

tunities of observing the private character and deportment of women engaged in preaching the gospel, that they have been amongst the most amiable, self-sacrificing, and unobtrusive of their sex.

        "We well know," says the late Mr. Gurney, a minister of the Society of Friends, "that there are no women among us more generally distinguished for modesty, gentleness, order, and right submission to their brethren, than those who have been called by their Divine Master into the exercise of the Christian ministry."

        Who would dare to charge the sainted Madame Guyon, Lady Maxwell, the talented mother of the Wesleys, Mrs. Fletcher, Mrs. Elizabeth Fry, Mrs. Smith, Mrs. Whiteman, or Miss Marsh with being unwomanly or ambitious. Some of these ladies we know have adorned by their private virtues the highest ranks of society, and won alike from friends and enemies the highest eulogiums as to the devotedness, purity, and sweetness of their lives. Yet these were all more or less public women, every one of them expounding and exhorting from the Scriptures to mixed companies of men and women. Ambitious doubtless they were; but theirs was an ambition akin to His, who, for the "joy that was set before Him, endured the cross, despising the shame:" and to his, who counted all things but dung and dross, and was willing to be regarded as the off-scouring of all things that he might win souls to Jesus and bring glory to God. Would that all the Lord's people had more of this ambition.

        Well, but, say our objecting friends, how is it that these whose names you mention, and many others, should venture to preach when female ministry is forbidden in the word of God? This is by far the most serious objection which we have to consider--and if capable of substantiation, should receive our immediate and cheerful acquiescence; but we think that we shall be able to show, by a fair and consistent interpretation, that the very opposite view is the truth; that not only is the

public ministry of woman unforbidden, but absolutely enjoined by both precept and example in the word of God.

        And, first, we will select the most prominent and explicit passages of the New Testament referring to the subject, beginning with 1 Corinthians xi. 1-15: "Every man praying or prophesying, having his head covered, dishonoureth his head. But every woman that prayeth or prophesieth with her head uncovered, dishonoureth her head; for that is all one as if she were shaven," etc. "The character," says a talented writer, "of the prophesying here referred to by the apostle is defined 1 Corinthians xiv. 3, 4, and 31st verses. The reader will see that it was directed to the 'edification, exhortation, and comfort of believers;' and the result anticipated was the conviction of unbelievers and unlearned persons. Such were the public services of women which the apostle allowed, and such was the ministry of females predicted by the prophet Joel, and described as a leading feature of the gospel dispensation. Women who speak in assemblies for worship under the influence of the Holy Spirit, assume thereby no personal authority over others; they simply deliver the messages of the gospel, which imply obedience, subjection, and responsibility, rather than authority and power." Dr. A. Clarke, on this verse, says, "Whatever may be the meaning of praying and prophesying in respect to the man, they have precisely the same meaning in respect to the woman! So that some women at least, as well as some men, might speak to others to edification, exhortation, and comfort. And this kind of prophesying or teaching was predicted by Joel ii. 28, and referred to by Peter (Acts ii. 17). And, had there not been such gifts bestowed on woman, the prophecy could not have had its fulfilment. The only difference marked by the apostle was, the man had his head uncovered, because he was the representative of Christ; the woman had hers covered, because she was placed by the order of God in subjection to the man; and because it was the custom both among Greeks and Romans, and among the Jews an express

law, that no woman should be seen abroad without a veil. This was and is a custom through all the East, and none but public prostitutes go without veils; if a woman should appear in public without a veil, she would dishonour her head--her husband. And she must appear like to those women who have their hair shaven off as the punishment of adultery." See also Doddridge, Whitby, and Cobbin.

        We think that the view above given is the only fair and common-sense interpretation of this passage. If Paul does not here recognise the fact that women did actually pray and prophesy in the primitive Churches, his language has no meaning at all; and if he does not recognise their right to do so by dictating the proprieties of their appearance while so engaged, we leave to objectors the task of educing any sense whatever from his language. If, according to the logic of Dr. Barnes, the apostle here, in arguing against an improper and indecorous mode of performance, forbids the performance itself, the prohibition extends to the men as well as to the women; for Paul as expressly reprehends a man praying with his head covered as he does a woman with hers uncovered. With as much force might the Doctor assert that in reproving the same Church for their improper celebration of the Lord's Supper (1 Cor. xi. 20, 21), Paul prohibits all Christians, in every age, celebrating it at all. "The question with the Corinthians was not whether or not the woman should pray or prophesy at all, that question had been settled on the day of Pentecost; but whether, as a matter of convenience, they might do so without their veils." The apostle kindly and clearly explains that by the law of nature and of society it would be improper to uncover her head while engaged in acts of public worship. We think that the reflections cast on these women by Dr. Barnes and other commentators are quite gratuitous and uncalled for. Here is no intimation that they ever had uncovered their heads while so engaged; the fairest presumption is that they had not, nor ever would till they knew the apostle's mind on the subject.

We have precisely the same evidence that the men prayed and preached with their hats on, as that women removed their veils, and wore their hair dishevelled, which is simply none at all. We cannot but regard it as a signal evidence of the power of prejudice, that a man of Dr. Barnes's general clearness and acumen should condescend to treat this passage in the manner he does. The doctor evidently feels the untenableness of his position; and endeavours, by muddling two passages of distinct and different bearing, to annihilate the argument fairly deducible from the first. We would like to ask the doctor on what authority he makes such an exception as to the following: "But this cannot be interpreted as meaning that it is improper for females to speak or to pray in meetings of their own sex." Indeed! but according to the most reliable statistics we possess, two-thirds of the whole Church is, and always has been, composed of their own sex. If, then, "no rule of the New Testament is more positive than this, viz. that women are to keep silence in the Churches," on whose authority does the doctor license them to speak to by far the larger portion of the Church?

        A barrister writing us on the above passage, says "Paul here takes for granted that women were in the habit of praying and prophesying; he expresses no surprise nor utters a syllable of censure, he was only anxious that they should not provoke unnecessary obloquy by laying aside their customary head-dress or departing from the dress which was indicative of modesty in the country in which they lived. This passage seems to prove beyond the possibility of dispute that in the early times women were permitted to speak to the 'edification and comfort' of Christians, and that the Lord graciously endowed them with grace and gifts for this service. What He did then may He not be doing now? It seems truly astonishing that Bible students, with the second chapter of the Acts before them, should not see that an imperative decree has gone forth from God, the execution of which women cannot escape; whether they like or not, they 'shall' prophesy throughout the

whole course of this dispensation; and they have been doing so, though they and their blessed labours are not much noticed."

        Well, but say our objecting friends, hear what Paul says in another place:--"Let your women keep silence in the Churches, for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law. And if they will learn* anything, let them ask their husbands at home; for it is a shame for women to speak in the Church" (1 Cor. xiv. 34, 35). Now let it be borne in mind this is the same apostle, writing to the same Church, as in the above instance. Will any one maintain that Paul here refers to the same kind of speaking as before? If so, we insist on his supplying us with some rule of interpretation which will harmonise this unparalleled contradiction and absurdity. Taking the simple and common-sense view of the two passages, viz. that one refers to the devotional and religious exercises in the Church, and the other to inconvenient asking of questions, and imprudent or ignorant talking, there is no contradiction or discrepancy, no straining or twisting of either. If, on the other hand, we assume that the apostle refers in both instances to the same thing, we make him in one page give the most explicit directions how a thing shall be performed, which in a page or two further on, and writing to the same Church, he expressly forbids being performed at all. We admit that "it is a shame for women to speak in the Church," in the sense here intended by the Apostle; but before the argument based on these words can be deemed of any worth, objectors must prove that the "speaking" here is synonymous with that concerning that manner of which the Apostle legislates in 1 Corinthians xi.
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* "Learning anything by asking their husbands at home," cannot mean preaching. That is not learning, but teaching "the way of God." It cannot mean being inspired by the Holy Ghost to foretell future events. No woman having either taught or prophesied, would have to ask her husband at home before she knew what she had done, or understood what she had said. Such women would be only fit to "learn in silence with all subjection." The reference is evidently to subjects under debate.

Dr. A. Clarke, on this passage, says, "according to the prediction of Joel, the Spirit of God was to be poured out on the women as well as the men, that they might prophesy, that is, teach. And that they did prophesy or teach is evident from what the apostle says (1 Cor. xi.), where he lays down rules to regulate this part of their conduct while ministering in the Church. All that the Apostle opposes here is their questioning, finding fault, disputing, etc., in the Christian Church, as the Jewish men were permitted to do in their synagogues (see Luke ii. 46); together with attempts to usurp authority over men by setting up their judgment in opposition to them; for the Apostle has reference to acts of disobedience and arrogance, of which no woman would be guilty who was under the influence of the Spirit of God."

        The Rev. J. H. Robinson, writing on this passage, remarks: "The silence imposed here must be explained by the verb, to speak (lalein), used afterwards. Whatever that verb means in this verse, I admit and believe the women were forbidden to do in the Church. But what does it mean ? It is used nearly three hundred times in the New Testament, and scarcely any verb is used with so great a variety of adjuncts. In Schleusner's Lexicon, its meaning is traced under seventeen distinct heads, and he occupies two full pages of the book in explaining it. Among other meanings he gives respondeo, rationem reddo, præcipio, jubeo; I answer, I return a reason, I give rule or precept, I order, decree." In Robinson's Lexicon (Bloomfield's edition), two pages nearly are occupied with the explanation of this word; and he gives instances of its meaning, "as modified by the context, where the sense lies, not so much in lalein (lalein) as in the adjuncts." THE PASSAGE UNDER CONSIDERATION IS ONE OF THOSE TO WHICH HE REFERS AS BEING SO "MODIFIED BY THE CONTEXT." Greenfield gives, with others, the following meanings of the word: "to prattle--be loquacious as a child; to speak in answer--to answer, as in John xix. 10; harangue. plead, Acts ix. 29; xxi. To direct, command, Acts

iii. 22." In Liddel and Scott's Lexicon, the following meanings are given: "to chatter, babble; of birds, to twitter, chirp; strictly, to make an inarticulate sound, opposed to articulate speech; but also generally, to talk, say."

        "It is clear then that lalein may mean something different from mere speaking, and that to use this word in a prohibition does not imply that absolute silence or abstinence from speaking is enjoined; but, on the contrary, that the prohibition applies to an improper kind of speaking, which is to be understood, not from the word itself, but, as Mr. Robinson says, from 'the context.' Now, 'the context' shows that it was not silence which was imposed upon women in the Church, but only a refraining from such speaking as was inconsistent with the words, 'they are commanded to be under obedience,' or, more literally, 'to be obedient:' that is, they were to refrain from such questionings, dogmatical assertions, and disputations, as would bring them into collision with the men--as would ruffle their tempers, and occasion an unamiable volubility of speech. This kind of speaking, and this alone, as it appears to me, was forbidden by the apostle in the passage before us. This kind of speaking was the only supposable antagonist to, and violation of 'obedience.' Absolute silence was not essential to that 'obedience.' My studies in 'Biblical criticism,' etc., have not informed me that a woman must cease to speak before she can obey; and I am therefore led to the irresistible conclusion, that it is not all speaking in the Church which the apostle forbids, and which he pronounces to be shameful; but, on the contrary, a pertinacious, inquisitive, domineering, dogmatical kind of speaking, which, while it is unbecoming in a man, is shameful and odious in a woman, and especially when that woman is in the Church, and is speaking on the deep things of religion."

        Parkhurst, in his lexicon, tells us that the Greek word "'lalein,' which our translation renders speak, is not the word used in Greek to signify to speak with premeditation and prudence, but is the word used to signify to speak imprudently and without

consideration, and is that applied to one who lets his tongue run but does not speak to the purpose, but says nothing." Now unless Parkhurst is utterly wrong in his Greek, which it is apprehended no one will venture to affirm, Paul's fulmination is not launched against speech with premeditation and prudence, but against speech devoid of these qualities. It would be well if all speakers of the male as well as the female sex were obedient to this rule.

        We think that with the light cast on this text by the four eminent Greek scholars above quoted, there can be no doubt in any unprejudiced mind as to the true meaning of "lalein" in this connection. And we find from Church history that the primitive Christians thus understood it, for that women did actually speak and preach amongst them we have indisputable proof. God had promised in the last days to pour out His Spirit upon all flesh, and that the daughters as well as the sons of mankind should prophesy.

        And Peter says most emphatically, respecting the outpouring of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost, "This is that which is spoken of by the prophet Joel," etc. (Acts ii. 16, 18.) Words more explicit, and an application of Prophecy more direct than this does not occur within the range of the New Testament.

        Commentators say, "If women have the gift of prophecy, they must not use that gift in public." But God says, by His prophet Joel, they shall use it, just in the same sense as the sons use it. When the dictation of men so flatly opposes the express declaration of the "sure word of prophesy," we make no apology for its utter and indignant rejection.

        Presbuteros, a talented writer of the Protestant Electoral Union, in his reply to a priest of Rome, * says:--

        "Habituated for ages, as men had been, to the diabolical
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* We strongly commend this pamphlet to the perusal of our readers. It contains much valuable information as to the origin of much of the popish nonsense of our times. Published by the Protestant Electoral Union 14, Tavistock Street, Covent Garden, Price 6d.

teaching and delusions practiced upon them by the papal 'priesthood,' it was difficult for them, when they did get possession of the Scriptures to discern therein the plain fact, that among the primitive Christians preaching was not confined to men, but women also, gifted with power by the Holy Spirit, preached the gospel; and hence the slowness with which, even at the present time, this truth has been admitted by those giving heed to the word of God, and especially those setting themselves up as a 'priesthood' or a 'clergy.' As shown in page 66, God had, according to His promise, on the day of Pentecost poured out His Holy Spirit upon believers--men and women, old and young--that they should prophesy, and they did so. The prophesying spoken of was not the foretelling of events, but the preaching to the world at large the glad tidings of salvation by Jesus Christ. For this purpose it pleased God to make use of women as well as men. It is plainly the duty of every Christian to insist upon the fulfilment of the will of God, and the abrogation of every single thing inconsistent therewith. I would draw attention to the fact that Phebe, a Christian woman whom we find in our version of the Scripture (Rom. xvi. 1) spoken of only as any common servant attached to a congregation, was nothing less than one of those gifted by the Holy Spirit for publishing the glad tidings, or preaching the gospel. The manner in which the apostle (whose only care was the propagation of evangelical truth) speaks of her, shows that she was what he in Greek styled her, a deacon (diaconon) or preacher of the word. Our translators speak of her (because she was a woman) only as 'a servant of the Church which is at Cenchrea.' The men 'deacons' they styled ministers, but a woman on the same level as themselves would be an anomaly, and therefore she was to be only the servant of men ministers, who, in the popish sense, constituted the Church!" The apostle says of her--"I commend unto you Phebe our sister, who is a minister (diaconon) of the Church which is at Cenchrea: that ye receive her in the Lord, as becometh saints,

and that ye assist her in whatever business she hath need of you." To the common sense of disinterested minds it will be evident that the apostle could not have requested more for any one of the most zealous of men preachers than he did for Phebe! They were to assist "her in whatever business she" might require their aid. Hence we discern that she had no such trifling position in the primitive Church as at the present time episcopal dignitaries attach to deacons and deaconesses! Observe, the same Greek word is used to designate her that was applied to all the apostles and to Jesus Himself. For example: "Now I say that Jesus Christ was a minister (diaconon) of the circumcision" (Rom. xv. 8). "Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers (diaconoi) by whom ye believed" (1 Cor. iii. 5). "Our sufficiency is of God; who also hath made us able ministers (diaconous) of the new testament" (2 Cor. iii. 6). "In all things approving ourselves as the ministers (diaconoi) of God" (vi. 4). The idea of a woman deacon in the "three orders!"--it was intolerable, therefore let her be a "servant." Theodoret however says, "The fame of Phebe was spoken of throughout the world. She was known not only to the Greeks and Romans, but also to the Barbarians," which implies that she had travelled much, and propagated the gospel in foreign countries. See Doddridge, Cobbin, and Wesley, on this passage.

        "Salute Andronicus and Junia, my kinsmen and my fellow-prisoners, who are of note among the apostles; who also were in Christ before me" (Rom. xvi. 7). By the word "kinsmen" one would take Junia to have been a man; but Chrysostom and Theophylact, who were both Greeks, and consequently knew their mother tongue better than our translators, say Junia was a woman. Kinsmen should therefore have been rendered kinsfolk; but with our translators it was out of all character to have a woman of note amongst the apostles, and a fellow-prisoner with Paul for the gospel: therefore let them be kinsmen!

        Justin Martyr, who lived till about A.D. 150, says, in his dialogue with Trypho, the Jew, "that both men and women

were seen among them who had the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit of God, according as the prophet Joel had foretold, by which he endeavored to convince the Jews that the latter days were come."

        Dodwell, in his dissertations on Irenæus says, "that the gift of the spirit of prophecy was given to others besides the apostles; and, that not only in the first and second, but in the third century--even to the time of Constantine--all sorts and ranks of men had these gifts; yea, and women too."

        Eusebius speaks of Potomania Ammias, a prophetess, in Philadelphia, and others, "who were equally distinguished for their love and zeal in the cause of Christ."

        "The scriptural idea," says Mrs. Palmer, "of the terms preach and prophesy, stands so inseparably connected as one and the same thing, that we should find it difficult to get aside from the fact that women did preach, or, in other words, prophesy, in the early ages of Christianity, and have continued to do so down to the present time to just the degree that the spirit of the Christian dispensation has been recognised. And it is also a significant fact, that to the degree denominations, who have once favoured the practice, lose the freshness of their zeal, and as a consequence, their primitive simplicity, and, as ancient Israel, yield to a desire to be like surrounding communities, in a corresponding ratio are the labours of females discountenanced."

        If any one still insists on a literal application of this text, we beg to ask how he disposes of the preceding part of the chapter where it occurs. Surely, if one verse be so authoritative and binding, the whole chapter is equally so; and therefore, those who insist on a literal application of the words of Paul, under all circumstances and through all time, will be careful to observe the apostle's order of worship in their own congregations. But, we ask, where is the minister who lets his whole Church prophesy one by one, and himself sits still and listens while they are speaking, so that all things may be done decently and in order? But Paul as expressly lays down this order as he does the rule

for women, and he adds, "The things that I write unto you are the commandments of the Lord" (ver. 37). Why then do not ministers abide by these directions? We anticipate their reply--"Because these directions were given to the Corinthians as temporary arrangements; and, though they were the commandments of the Lord to them at that time, they do not apply to all Christians in all times." Indeed; but unfortunately for their argument, the prohibition of women speaking even if it meant what they wish, was given amongst those very directions, and to the Corinthians only: for it reads, "Let your women keep silence," &c.; and, for aught this passage teaches to the contrary, Christian women of all other Churches might do what these women were forbidden to do; until, therefore, learned divines make a personal application of the rest of the chapter, they must excuse us declining to do so of the 24th verse; and we challenge them to show any breach of the Divine law in one case more than the other.

        Another passage frequently cited as prohibitory of female labour in the Church, is 1 Timothy ii. 12, 13. Though we have never met with the slightest proof that this text has any reference to the public exercises of women; nevertheless, as it is often quoted, we will give it a fair and thorough examination. "It is primarily an injunction," says the Rev. J. H. Robinson, "respecting her personal behavior at home. It stands in connection with precepts respecting her apparel and her domestic position; especially her relation to her husband. No one will suppose that the apostle forbids a woman to 'teach' absolutely and universally. Even objectors would allow her to teach her own sex in private; they would let her teach her servants and children, and perhaps, her husband too. If he were ignorant of the Saviour, might she not teach him the way to Christ? If she were acquainted with languages, arts or sciences, which he did not know, might she not teach him these things? Certainly she might! The 'teaching,' therefore which is forbidden by the apostle, is not every kind of teaching any more than,

in the previous instance, his prohibition of speaking applied to every kind of speaking in the Church; but it is such teaching as is domineering, and as involves the usurpation of authority over the man. This is the only teaching forbidden by St. Paul in the passage under consideration."

        "If this passage be not a prohibition of every kind of teaching, we can only ascertain what kind of teaching is forbidden by the modifying expressions with which didaskein stands associated: and, for anything these modifying expressions affirm to the contrary, her teaching may be public, reiterated, urgent, and may comprehend a variety of subjects, provided it be not dictatorial, domineering, nor vociferous; for then, and then only, would it be incompatible with her obedience."

        The Rev. Dr. Taft says, "This passage should be rendered 'I suffer not a woman to teach by usurping authority over the man.' This rendering removes all the difficulties and contradictions involved in the ordinary reading, and evidently gives the meaning of the apostle." "If the nature of society," says the same writer, "its good and prosperity; in which women are jointly and equally concerned with men; if in many cases their fitness and capacity for instructors, being admitted to be equal to the other sex, be not reasons sufficient to convince the candid reader of woman's right to preach and teach because of two texts in Paul's epistles, let him consult the paraphrase of Locke, where he has proved to a demonstration that the apostle, in these texts, never intended to prohibit women from praying and preaching in the Church provided they were dressed as became women professing godliness, and were qualified for the sacred office."

        "It will be found," says another writer, "by an examination of this text with its connections, that the teaching here alluded to stands in necessary connection with usurping authority, as though the apostle had said, the gospel does not alter the relation of women in view of priority, for Adam was first formed, then Eve."

        "This prohibition," says the before-named barrister, "refers exclusively to the private life and domestic character of woman, and simply means that an ignorant or unruly woman is not to force her opinions on the man whether he will or no. It has no reference whatever to good women living in obedience to God and their husbands, or to women sent out to preach the gospel by the call of the Holy Spirit."

        If this context is allowed to fix the meaning of didaskein in this text, as it would be in any other, there can be no doubt in any honest mind that the above is the only consistent interpretation; and if it be, then this prohibition has no bearing whatever on the religious exercises of women led and taught by the Spirit of God: and we cannot forbear asking on whose skirts the mischief resulting from the false application of this text will be found? Thank God the day is dawning with respect to this subject. Women are studying and investigating for themselves. They are claiming to be recognised as responsible human beings, answerable to GOD for their convictions of duty; and, urged by the Divine Spirit they are overstepping those unscriptural barriers which the Church has so long reared against its performance.

        Whether the Church will allow women to speak in her assemblies can only be a question of time; common sense, public opinion, and the blessed results of female agency will force her to give us an honest and impartial rendering of the solitary text on which she grounds her prohibitions. Then, when the true light shines and God's words take the place of man's traditions, the Doctor of Divinity who shall teach that Paul commands woman to be silent when God's Spirit urges her to speak, will be regarded much the same as we should now regard an astronomer who should teach that the sun is the earth's satellite.

        Another argument urged against female preaching is, that it is unnecessary; that there is plenty of scope for her efforts in private, in visiting the sick and poor and working for the tem-

poralities of the Church. Doubtless woman ought to be thankful for any sphere for benefiting her race and glorifying God. But we cannot be blind to the supreme selfishness of making her so welcome to the hidden toil and self-sacrifice, the hewing of wood and the drawing of water, the watching and waiting, the reproach and persecution attaching to her Master's service, without allowing her a tittle of the honour which He has attached to the ministration of His gospel. Here, again, man's theory and God's order are at variance. God says, "Them that honour me I will honour." Our Lord links the joy with the suffering, the glory with the shame, the exaltation with the humiliation, the crown with the cross, the finding of life with the losing of it. Nor did He manifest any such horror at female publicity in His cause as many of His professed people appear to entertain in these days. We have no intimation of His reproving the Samaritan woman for her public proclamation of Him to her countrymen; not of His rebuking the women who followed Him amidst a taunting mob on His way to the cross. And yet, surely, privacy was their proper sphere. On one occasion He did say, with reference to a woman, "Verily, I say unto you, wheresoever this gospel shall be preached in the whole world, there shall also this, that this woman hath done, be told for a memorial of her" (Matt. xxvi. 12; see also Luke vii. 37-50).

        As to the obligation devolving on woman to labour for her Master, I presume there will be no controversy. The particular sphere in which each individual shall do this must be dictated by the teachings of the Holy Spirit and the gifts with which God has endowed her. If she have the necessary gifts, and feels herself called by the Spirit to preach, there is not a single word in the whole book of God to restrain her, but many, very many to urge and encourage her. God says she SHALL do so, and Paul prescribes the manner in which she shall do it, and Phebe, Junia, Philip's four daughters, and many other women actually did preach and speak in the primitive

Churches. If this had not been the case, there would have been less freedom under the new than under the old dispensation. A greater paucity of gifts and agencies under the Spirit than under the law. Fewer labourers when more work to be done. Instead of the destruction of caste and division between the priesthood and the people, and the setting up of a spiritual kingdom in which all true believers were "kings and priests unto God," the division would have been more stringent and the disabilities of the common people greater. Whereas we are told again and again in effect, that in "Christ Jesus there is neither bond nor free, male nor female, but ye are all one in Christ Jesus."

        We commend a few passages bearing in the ministrations of woman under the old dispensation to the careful consideration of our readers. "And Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lapidoth, she judged Israel at that time," etc. (Jud. iv. 4-10). There are two particulars in this passage worthy of note. First, the authority of Deborah as a prophetess, or revealer of God's will to Israel, was acknowledged and submitted to as implicitly as in the cases of the male judges who succeeded her. Secondly, she is made the military head of ten thousand men, Barak refusing to go to battle without her.

        Again, in 2 Kings xxii. 12-20, we have an account of the king sending the high-priest, the scribe, etc., to Huldah, the prophetess, the wife of Shallum, who dwelt at Jerusalem, in the college, to inquire at her mouth the will of God in reference to the book of the law which had been found in the house of the Lord. The authority and dignity of Huldah's message to the king does not betray anything of that trembling diffidence or abject servility which some persons seem to think should characterize the religious exercises of woman. She answers him as the prophetess of the Lord, having the signet of the King of kings attached to her utterances.

        "The Lord gave the word, and great was the company of those that published it" (Ps. lxviii. 11). In the original

Hebrew it is, "Great was the company of women publishers, or women evangelists." Grotius explains this passage, "The Lord shall give the word, that is plentiful matter of speaking; so that he would call those which follow the great army of preaching women, victories, or female conquerers." How comes it that the feminine word is actually excluded in this text? That it is there as plainly as any other word no Hebrew scholar will deny. It is too much to assume that as our translators could not alter it, as they did "Diaconon" when applied to Phebe, they preferred to leave it out altogether rather than give a prophecy so unpalatable to their prejudice. But the Lord gives the word and He will choose whom He pleases to publish it; not withstanding the condemnation of translators and divines.

        "For I brought thee up out of the land of Egypt, and redeemed thee out of the house of servants; and I sent before thee Moses, Aaron, and Miriam" (Mic. vi. 4).

        God here classes Miriam with Moses and Aaron, and declares that He sent her before His people. We fear that had some of our friends been men of Israel at that time, they would have disputed such a leadership.

        In the light of such passages as these, who will dare to dispute the fact that God did under the old dispensation endue his handmaidens with the gifts and calling of prophets answering to our present idea of preachers. Strange indeed would it be if under the fulness of the gospel dispensation, there were nothing analogous to this, but "positive and explicit rules," to prevent any approximation thereto. We are thankful to find, however, abundant evidence that the "spirit of prophecy which is the testimony of Jesus," was poured out on the female as fully as on the male disciple, and "His daughters and His handmaidens" prophesied. We commend the following texts from the New Testament to the careful consideration of our readers.

        "And she (Anna) was a widow of about fourscore and four

years, which departed not from the temple, but served God with fastings and prayers night and day. And she coming in that instant, gave thanks likewise unto the Lord, and spake of Him to all them that looked for redemption on Jerusalem" (Luke ii. 37, 38). Can any one explain wherein this exercise of Anna's differed from that of Simeon, recorded just before? It was in the same public place, the temple. It was during the same service. It was equally public, for she "spake of Him to all who looked for redemption in Jerusalem" (see Watson on this passage).

        Jesus said to the two Marys, "All hail! And they came and held Him by the feet, and worshipped Him. Then said Jesus unto them, Be not afraid: go, tell my brethren that they go before me into Galilee" (Matt. xxviii. 9, 10). There are two or three points in this beautiful narrative to which we wish to call the attention of our readers.

        First, it was the first announcement of the glorious news to a lost world and a company of forsaking disciples. Second, it was as public as the nature of the case demanded; and intended ultimately to be published to the ends of the earth. Third, Mary was expressly commissioned to reveal the fact to the apostles; and thus she literally became their teacher in that memorable occasion. Oh, glorious privilege, to be allowed to herald the glad tidings of a Savior risen! How could it be that our Lord chose a woman to this honour? Well, one reason might be that the male disciples were all missing at the time. They all forsook Him and fled. But woman was there, as she had ever been, ready to minister to her risen, as to her dying, Lord--
"Not she with traitorous lips her Savior stung,
Not she denied Him with unholy tongue;
She, whilst apostles shrunk, could danger brave;
Last at the cross, and earliest at the grave." But surely, if the dignity of our Lord of His message were likely to be imperiled by committing this sacred trust

to a woman, He who was guarded by legions of angels could have commanded another messenger; but, as if intent on doing her honour and rewarding her unwavering fidelity, He reveals Himself first to her; and, as an evidence that He had taken out of the way the curse under which she had so long groaned, nailing it to His cross, He makes her who had been first in the transgression, first also in the glorious knowledge of complete redemption.

        "Acts i. 14, and ii. 1, 4. We are in the first of these passages expressly told that the women were assembled with the disciples on the day of Pentecost; and in the second, that the cloven tongues sat upon them each, and the Holy Ghost filled them all, and they spake as the Spirit gave them utterance. It is nothing to the point to argue that the gift of tongues was a miraculous gift, seeing that the Spirit was the primary bestowment. The tongues were only emblematical of the office which the Spirit was henceforth to sustain to His people. The Spirit was given alike to the female as to the male disciple, and this is cited by Peter (16, 18), as the peculiar speciality of the latter dispensation. What a remarkable device of the devil that he has so long succeeded in hiding this characteristic of the latter day glory! He knows, whether the Church does or not, how eminently detrimental to the interests of his kingdom have been the religious labours of woman; and while her Seed has mortally bruised his head, he ceases not to bruise her heel; but the time of her deliverance draweth nigh."

        "PHILIP THE EVANGLELIST HAD FOUR DAUGHTERS, VIRGINS, WHICH DID PROPHESY." FROM EUSEBIUS, THE ANCIENT ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORIAN, WE LEARN THAT PHILIP'S DAUGHTERS LIVED TO A GOOD OLD AGE, ALWAYS ABOUNDING IN THE WORK OF THE LORD. "MIGHTY LUMINARIES," HE WRITES, " HAVE FALLEN ASLEEP IN ASIA. PHILIP, AND TWO OF HIS VIRGIN DAUGHTERS, SLEEP AT HIERAPOLIS; THE OTHER, AND THE BELOVED DISCIPLE, JOHN, REST AT EPHESUS."

        "And I entreat thee also, true yokefellow, help those women

which laboured with me in the gospel, with Clement also, and with other my fellow-labourers" (Phil. iv. 3).

        This is a recognition of female labourers, not concerning the gospel but in the gospel, whom Paul classes with Clement, and other his fellow-labourers. Precisely the same terms are applied to Timotheus, whom Paul styles a "minister of God, and his fellow-labourer in the gospel of Christ" (1 Thess. iii. 2).

        Again, "Greet Priscilla and Aquila, my helpers in Christ Jesus; who have for my life laid down their own necks; unto whom not only I give thanks, but all the Churches of the Gentiles" (Rom. xvi. 3, 4).

        THE WORD RENDERED HELPERS MEANS A FELLOW-LABOURER, ASSOCIATE, COADJUTOR,* WORKING TOGETHER, AN ASSISTANT, A JOINT LABOURER, A COLLEAGUE.+ IN THE NEW TESTAMENT SPOKEN ONLY OF A CO-WORKER, HELPER IN A CHRISTIAN WORK, THAT IS OF CHRISTIAN TEACHERS.++ HOW CAN THESE TERMS, WITH ANY SHOW OF CONSISTENCY, BE MADE TO APPLY MERELY TO THE EXERCISE OF HOSPITALITY TOWARDS THE APOSTLE, OR THE DUTY OF PRIVATE VISITATION. TO BE A PARTNER, COADJUTOR, OR JOINT WORKER WITH A PREACHER OF THE GOSPEL, MUST BE SOMETHING MORE THAN TO BE HIS WAITING-MAID.

        Again, "Salute Tryphena and Tryphosa, who labour in the Lord. Salute the beloved Persis, which laboured much in the Lord" (Rom. xvi. 12). Dr. Clarke, on this verse, says, "Many have spent much useless labour in endeavouring to prove that these women did not preach. That there were prophetesses as well as prophets in the Church we learn, and that a woman might pray or prophesy provided that she had her head covered we know; and, according to St. Paul (1 Cor. xiv. 3), whoever prophesied spoke unto others to edification, exhortation, and comfort, and that no preacher can do more every person must acknowledge. Because, to edify, exhort, and comfort, are the prime ends of the gospel ministry. If women thus prophesied, then women preached."

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* Greenfield.

        "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither male nor female, for ye are all one in Christ Jesus" (Gal. iii. 28). If this passage does not teach that in the privileges, duties, and responsibilities of Christ's Kingdom, all differences of nation, caste, and sex are abolished, we should like to know what it does teach, and wherefore it was written (see also 1 Cor. vii. 22).

        As we have before observed, the text, Corinthians xiv. 34, 35, is the only one in the whole book of God which even by a false translation can be made prohibitory of female speaking in the Church; how comes it then, that by this one isolated passage, which, according to our best Greek authorities,* is wrongly rendered and wrongly applied, woman's lips have been sealed for centuries, and the "testimony of Jesus, which is the spirit of prophecy," silenced, when bestowed on her? How is it that this solitary text has been allowed to stand unexamined and unexplained, nay, that learned commentators who have known its true meaning as perfectly as either Robinson, Bloomfield, Greenfield, Scott, Parkhurst, or Locke have upheld the delusion, and enforced it as a Divine precept binding on all female disciples through all time? Surely there must have been some unfaithfulness, "craftiness," and "handling of the word of life deceitfully" somewhere. Surely the love of caste and unscriptural jealousy for a separated priesthood has had something to do with this anomaly. By this course divines and commentators have involved themselves in all sorts of inconsistencies and contradictions; and worse, they have nullified some of the most precious promises of God's word. They have set the most explicit predictions of prophecy at variance with apostolic injunctions, and the most immediate and wonderful operations of the Holy Ghost in direct opposition "to positive, explicit, and universal rules."

        Notwithstanding, however, all this opposition to female ministry on the part of those deemed authorities in the Church,
___________________

* Disinterested witnesses every one will allow.

there have been some in all ages in whom the Holy Ghost has wrought so mightily, that at the sacrifice of reputation and all things most dear, they have been compelled to come out as witnesses for Jesus and ambassadors of His gospel. As a rule, these women have been amongst the most devoted and self-denying of the Lord's people, giving indisputable evidence by the purity and beauty of their lives that they were led by the Spirit of God. Now, if the word of God forbids female ministry, we would ask how it happens that so many of the most devoted handmaidens of the Lord have felt themselves constrained by the Holy Ghost to exercise it? Surely there must be some mistake somewhere, for the word and the Spirit cannot contradict each other. Either the word does not condemn women preaching, or these confessedly holy women have been deceived. Will any one venture to assert that such women as Mrs. Elizabeth Fry, Mrs. Fletcher of Madely, and Mrs. Smith, have been deceived with respect to their call to deliver the gospel messages to their fellow-creatures? If not, then God does not call and qualify women to preach, and His word, rightly understood, cannot forbid what His Spirit enjoins. Further, it is a significant fact, which we commend to the consideration of all thoughtful Christians, that the public ministry of women has been eminently owned of God in the salvation of souls and the edification of His people. Paul refers to the fruits of his labours as evidence of His Divine commission (1 Cor. ix. 20). "If I am not an apostle unto others, yet doubtless I am to you: for the seal of mine apostleship are ye in the Lord." If this criterion be allowed to settle the question respecting woman's call to preach, we have no fear as to the result. A few examples of the blessing which has attended the ministrations of females, may help to throw some light on this matter of a Divine call.

        At a missionary meeting held at Columbia, March 26th, 1824, the name of Mrs. Smith, of the Cape of Good Hope, was brought before the meeting, when Sir Richard Otley, the chair-

man, said, "The name of Mrs. Smith has been justly celebrated by the religious world and in the colony of the Cape of Good Hope. I heard a talented missionary state, that wherever he went in that colony, at 600 or 1,000 miles from the principal seat of government, among the natives of Africa, and wherever he saw persons converted to Christianity, the name of Mrs. Smith was hailed as the person from whom they received their religious impressions; and although no less than ten missionaries, all men of piety and industry, were stationed in that settlement, the exertions of Mrs. Smith alone were more efficacious, and had been attended with greater success than the labours of those missionaries combined." The Rev. J. Campbell, missionary to Africa, says, "So extensive were the good effects of her pious exhortations, that on my first visit to the colony, wherever I met with persons of evangelical piety, I generally found that their first impressions of religion were ascribed to Mrs. Smith."

        Mrs. Mary Taft, the talented lady of the Rev. Dr. Taft, was another eminently successful labourer in the Lord's vineyard. "If," says Mrs. Palmer, "the criterion by which we may judge of a Divine call to proclaim salvation be by the proportion of fruit gathered, then to the commission Mrs. Taft is appended the Divine signature, to a degree pre-eminently unmistakable. In reviewing her diary, we are constrained to believe that not one minister in five hundred could produce so many seals to their ministry. An eminent minister informed us that of those who had been brought to Christ through her labours, over two hundred entered the ministry. She seldom opened her mouth in public assemblies, either in prayer or speaking, but the Holy Spirit accompanied her words in such a wonderful manner, that sinners were convicted, and, as in apostolic times, were constrained to cry out, 'What must we do to be saved?' She laboured under the sanction and was hailed as a fellow-helper in the gospel by the Revs. Messrs. Mather, Pawson, Hearnshaw, Blackborne, Marsden, Bramwell, Vasey, and many other equally dis-

tinguished ministers of her time." The Rev. Mr. Pawson, when President of the Wesleyan Conference, writes as follows to a circuit where Mrs. Taft was stationed with her husband, where she met with some gainsayers:--'It is well known that religion has been for some time at a very low ebb in Dover. I therefore could not help thinking that is was a kind providence that Mrs. Taft was stationed among you, and that, by the blessing of God, she might be the instrument of reviving the work of God among you. I seriously believe Mrs. Taft to be a deeply pious, prudent, modest woman. I believe the Lord hath owned and blessed her labours very much, and many, yea, very many souls have been brought to the saving knowledge of God by her preaching. Many have come to hear her out of curiosity, who would not have come to hear a man, and have been awakened and converted to God. I do assure you there is much fruit of her labours in many parts of our connection."

        Mrs. Fletcher, the wife of the sainted vicar of Madeley, was another of the daughters of the Lord on whom was poured the spirit of prophecy. This eminently devoted lady opened an orphan house, and devoted her time, her heart, and her fortune, to the work of the Lord. The Rev. Mr. Hodson, in referring to her public labours, says, "Mrs. Fletcher was not only luminous but truly eloquent--her discourses displayed much good sense, and were fraught with the riches of the gospel. She excelled in the poetry of an orator which can alone supply the place of all the rest--that eloquence which goes directly to the heart. She was the honoured instrument of doing much good; and the fruit of her labours is now manifest in the lives and tempers of numbers who will be her crown of rejoicing in the day of the Lord." The Rev. Henry Moore sums up a fine eulogium on her character and labours by saying, "May not every pious churchman say, Would to God all the Lord's people were such prophets and prophetesses!"

        Miss Elizabeth Hurrell travelled through many counties in England, preaching the unsearchable riches of Christ; and

very many were, through her instrumentality, brought to a knowledge of the truth, not a few of whom were afterwards called to fill very honourable stations in the Church.

        From the Methodist Conference, held at Manchester, 1787, Mr. Wesley wrote to Miss Sarah Mallett, whose labours, while very acceptable to the people, had been opposed by some of the preachers:--"We give the right hand of fellowship to Sarah Mallett, and have no objection to her being a preacher in our connection, so long as she preaches Methodist doctrine, and attends to our discipline."

        Such are a few examples of the success attending the public labours of females in the gospel. We might give many more, but our space only admits of a bare mention of Mrs. Wesley, Mrs. Rogers, Mrs. President Edwards, Mrs. Elizabeth Fry, Mrs. Hall, Mrs. Gilbert, Miss Lawrence, Miss Newman, Miss Miller, Miss Tooth, and Miss Cutler, whose holy lives and zealous labours were owned of God in the conversion of thousands of souls, and the abundant edification of the Lord's people.

        Nor are the instances of the spirit of prophecy bestowed on women confined to by-gone generations: the revival of this age, as well as of every other, has been marked by this endowment, and the labours of such pious and talented ladies as Mrs. Palmer, Mrs. Finney, Mrs. Wightman, Miss Marsh,* with numberless other Marys and Phebes, have contributed in no small degree to its extension and power.

        We have endeavored in the foregoing pages to establish, what we sincerely believe, that woman has a right to teach. Here the whole question hinges. If she has the right, she has it independently of any man-made restrictions which do not equally refer to the opposite sex. If she has the right, and
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* The record of this lady's labours has long been before the public. "English Hearts and Hands," in a truly fascinating manner, describes the wonderful success with which those labours have been attended. Well has it been for the spiritual interest of hundreds that no sacerdotal conclave has been able to place the seal of silence upon her lips, and assign her to 'privacy as her proper sphere.'

possesses the necessary qualifications, we maintain that, where the law of expediency does not prevent, she is at liberty to exercise it without any further pretensions to inspiration than those put forth by that male sex. If, on the other hand, it can be proved that she has not the right, but that imperative silence is imposed upon her by the word of God, we cannot see who has authority to relax or make exceptions to the law.

        If commentators had dealt with the Bible on other subjects as they have dealt with it on this, taking isolated passages, separated from their explanatory connections, and insisting on a literal interpretation of the words of our version, what errors and contradictions would have been forced upon the acceptance of the Church, and what terrible results would have accrued to the world. On this principle the Universalist will have all men unconditionally saved, because the Bible says, "Christ is the Saviour of all men," etc. The Antinomian, according to this rule of interpretation, has most unquestionable foundation for his dead faith and hollow profession, seeing that St. Paul declares over and over again that men are "saved by faith and not by works." The Unitarian, also, in support of that soul-withering doctrine, triumphantly refers to numerous passages which, taken alone, teach only the humanity of Jesus. In short, "there is no end to the errors in faith and practice which have resulted from taking isolated passages, wrested from their proper connections, or the light thrown upon them by other Scriptures, and applying them to sustain a favourite theory." Judging from the blessed results which have almost invariably followed the ministrations of women in the cause of Christ, we fear it will be found, in the great day of account, that a mistaken and unjustifiable application of the passage, "Let your women keep silence in the Churches," has resulted in more loss to the Church, evil to the world, and dishonour to God, than any of the errors we have already referred to.

        And feeling, as we have long felt, that this is a subject of vast importance to the interests of Christ's kingdom and the

glory of God, we would most earnestly commend its consideration to those who have influence in the Churches. We think it a matter worthy of their consideration whether God intended woman to bury her talents and influence as she now does? And whether the circumscribed sphere of woman's religious labours may not have something to do with the comparative non-success of the gospel in these latter days.

HOT SAINTS.

        Read in your own heart and mind, in this respect, a transcript of His, and see the reason why He says, "I would thou wert cold or hot." I want you to note two or three characteristics of hot saints so that you may know whether you belong to the

number. To be hot implies the possession of--I. Light; II. Purity; III. Pungency; IV. Power.

        I. Light.--Hot saints have such a halo round about them that they reveal--make manifest sin in others. They do this--1st, by contrast. "What fellowship hath light with darkness?" The light of God flashed from a hot saint on the dark consciences of sinners makes them feel their sin, misery and danger, and if they will receive it, leads to their conversion. It "opens their eyes," and if they will follow it, leads them to Jesus. "Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian." "Come, see a man which told me all things that ever I did." "Ye are the light of the world." If sinners reject this light their rejection seals their sins upon them, and renders their condemnation double. "If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin; but now they have no cloak for their sin." What a fearful responsibility rests on all sinners who are brought into contact with saints who are filled with the light of God. Some of you here are living under this light: How are you using it? Beware!

        2nd. Light reveals sin by antipathy. "Everyone that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved." The presence of a certain degree of spiritual light must produce either repentance or opposition. A dark soul cannot dwell in the presence of a soul full of light without either repenting or opposing, if it does not submit it will rebel. It was under the hot blaze of this light that the Jews round about Stephen "were cut to the heart, and gnashed upon him with their teeth." The effect of his light on their darkness was to reveal their enmity and scorch them into a fury of opposition. When intense spiritual light and darkness are brought in contact, their innate antipathy makes them reveal each other. The devil could not endure the presence of Jesus without crying out, "I know Thee who Thou art, the Holy One of God."

        How is it with you saints here in this respect? Can you get

along with dark souls without eliciting their enmity? If so, depend upon it you have not much light--not that light which accompanies great heat. If you don't want to be spued out of the mouth of God see to it, that you get it!

        3rd. Light reveals sin by reproof. Hot saints will "rebuke their neighbour and not suffer sin upon him." They are full of zeal for the glory of God, and jealousy for His honour; it breaks their hearts because men keep not His law. They know that they have the light of life, and they feel that they must hold it up over the wrong-doing, deception, and hypocrisy of their fellow men in order to "open their eyes, and turn them from darkness to light." You never hear them apologising for sin or calling it by smooth names; they feel towards sin, in their measure, as God feels towards it. It is the abominable thing which they hate, and therefore they cannot in any case allow it, pander to it, or excuse it. Hot saints will mercilessly turn the blazing lamp of God's truth on the conscience of the sinner with reproof as pungent, pointed, and personal as Nathan gave to David, Jehu to Jehosaphat, or Jesus to the Jews.

        II. Purity.--Heat cleanses, purges away dross, destroys noxious vapours. So the burning fire of the Holy Ghost purifies the soul which is filled, permeated with it, hence hot saints are pure. They purify themselves, as He is pure. Their garments are white, they keep themselves "unspotted from the world." They improve the moral atmosphere wherever they go. Their very presence reproves and holds in check the unfruitful works of darkness, and sinners feel as Peter felt when he said, "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord."

        III. Pungency. Heat burns. Hot saints set on fire the hearts of other saints. They singe the consciences of sinners, burn the fingers of Pharisees, melt the hearts of backsliders, and warm up those who have left their first love.

        IV. Power.--Hot saints are mighty. The spirit is not given

by measure unto them. They may not be very intellectual or learned, but their heat makes more impression on the hearts of sinners, and stirs more opposition from hell than all the intellect and learning of a whole generation of lukewarm professors. The fishermen of Galilee produced more impression on the world in three years than all the learning of the Jewish had done in centuries, because they were hot in the love and service of God. Hot saints are more than a match for their enemies. Satan himself is afraid of them. "Paul I know, " said he; yea, and he knows and fears all such. Wicked men cannot stand before them; the power of their testimony cuts them to the heart, and makes them either cry out, "What must we do to be saved?" or, "Away with him! away with him." Hot people are not only able to work, but to suffer. They can endure hardness, suffer reproach, contend with principalities and powers, fight with wild beasts, hail persecution and death!

        V. To be hot ensures opposition--1st, From Pharisees. They look with contempt on hot people, call them fanatics, extreme people, troublers of Israel, disturbers of the peace of the Church, occasions of reproach to the respectable and reasonable part of the Church.

        The Pharisees were the bitterest enemies of Him who said, "The zeal of thine house hath eaten Me up." And they are still the bitterest enemies of those who are filled with His Spirit. It matters not that they have now a Christian creed instead of a Jewish; the spirit is the same, and will not tolerate "God manifest in the flesh." A formal, ceremonious, respectable religion they do not object to; but a living, burning, enthusiastic Christianity is still Beelzebub! to them.

        2nd. To be hot ensures opposition from the world. The world hates hot saints, because they look with contempt on its pleasures, set at naught its maxims and customs, trample on its ambition and applause, ignore its rewards, abjure its spirit, and live altogether above its level. "Because ye are not of the world, therefore the world hateth you." It can tolerate warm

religionists--rational, decent people, who appreciate this world as well as the next, and can see how to make the best of it; but these "hot," "pestilent," "mad" "fools," who obtrude their religion everywhere, who are at everybody about their souls, who are always talking about God, death, judgment, heaven, and hell--"Away with them! they are not fit to live."

        3rd. To be hot ensures opposition from the devil. Oh, how he hates these hot saints! What trouble he takes to trip them. He knows they are worth it. Many a council is held in hell over these. They set fire to his standing corn. They rout his best trained legions. They shake the foundations of his throne. They take the prey out of his very jaws; they pull it out of his fires. He must do something! He sets his principalities and powers to work on them. Loose and feeble fiends will do for lukewarm people, but these he must take in hand himself, and try all the guile and force of his gigantic intellect on them. He troubles them on every side, and at last, when God permits, he has their heads off. He got Paul's, but they defy him even when they are between his teeth; he cannot swallow them; they escape out of his very jaws to glory, and who knows the mischief they work his kingdom, up there. Hallelujah! our arch enemy is a conquered foe. Let me remind you, in conclusion, that to be hot ensures God's special favour, protection and fellowship, and our final victory. "Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life." Whereas to be lukewarm is to be spued out of His mouth, which indicates special dislike, disgrace, and final abandonment.

        WHICH WILL YOU BE, HOT OR LUKEWARM?

CONSCIENCE.

"And herein do I exercise myself, to have always a conscience void of offence toward God and toward men."--ACTS xxiv. 16.

        Now it seems to me that a great deal of failure in faith is simply the result of a defiled conscience, and if those who find themselves weak and sickly in spiritual life would turn their attention to the condition of their consciences they would soon discover the reason for all their failure. The fact is, we have a great deal of so-called Christianity in these days which dis-

penses with conscience altogether. We sometimes meet with persons who tell us that they are not under the law, but under grace, and therefore they are not condemned, do what they will.

        Now the question is, Does the Gospel contemplate such a state? Does it propose to depose or abjure conscience, or to purify and restore it to sovereign control?

        I.--Let us define conscience.

        Conscience is that faculty of the soul which pronounces on the character of our actions (Rom. ii. 15). This faculty is a constituent part of our nature, and is common to man everywhere and at all times. All men have a conscience; whether enlightened or unenlightened, active or torpid, there it is: it cannot be destroyed. therefore Christianity cannot propose to dispense with it , as God in no case proposes to destroy, but to sanctify, human nature.

        There has been much philosophising as to the exact position of conscience in the soul--whether it be a separate faculty, as the will and the understanding, or whether it be a universal spiritual sense pervading and taking cognisance of all the faculties, as feeling in the body. It matters little which of these theories we accept, seeing that the vocation of conscience remains the same in both.

        II.--Let us glance at the office which conscience sustains to the soul.

        This office is to determine or pronounce upon the moral quality of our actions--to say whether this or that is good or bad. Conscience is an independent witness standing as it were between God and man; it is in man, but for God, and it cannot be bribed or silenced. Some one has called it "God's Spirit in man's soul." Another, "God's viceregent in the soul of man;" and certainly it is the most wonderful part of man. All other of our faculties can be subdued by our will; but this cannot; it stands erect, taking sides against ourselves whenever we transgress its fiat: something in us bearing witness against us when we offend its integrity.

        Now it is a question of vital importance to our spiritual life whether the Gospel is intended to deliver us from this reigning power of conscience, and make us independent of its verdict; or whether it is intended to purify and enlighten conscience, and to endow us with power to live in obedience to its voice. Let us examine a few passages on this point. First, let us see what is done with conscience in regeneration. Heb. ix. 14: "How much more shall the blood of Christ, who, through the eternal Spirit, offered Himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?" See also Heb. x. 22. Second, let us see the office which conscience sustains in regenerate men. 1 Tim. i. 19: "Holding faith and a good conscience, which some, having put away, concerning faith have made shipwreck." Romans ix. 1: "I say the truth in Christ; I lie not; my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost." See 1 Tim. iii. 9 and Acts xxiii. 1. We have also set forth the consequences of allowing conscience to become defiled. 1 Tim. iv. 2: "Speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their conscience seared with a hot iron." Also Tit. i. 15.

        There are many other texts quite as much to the point, but these are abundantly sufficient to show that Paul had no idea of a wild, lawless faith, which ignored the tribunal of conscience, and talked of liberty while leaving its possessor the bond-slave of his own lusts. The Apostles clearly show that true Christianity no more dispenses with conscience than it does with the great moral law by which conscience is set, and to which it is amenable. Hence Paul tells us in our text that he exercised himself to have always a conscience void of offence.

        III. We want to point out what is implied in having a conscience void of offence.

        This implies,

        First, a "purged" conscience made clean; must be made clean before it can be kept clean. The residuum of all sin settles on the conscience; and, as all have sinned, there can be no clean

consciences by nature. There is only one way by which consciences can be purified--purged from guilt and made ready for new service. Heb. ix. 14: "From dead works"--from all pollution, uncleanness, sterility. Conscience is not only polluted by sin, but outraged, incensed, made angry; it needs to be pacified as well as purged, and this can only be done by the blood of atonement. Every believer remembers the precious sense of purity and peace which spread over his soul when first he realised a saving interest in the blood of Christ; how sweet it was to feel that all the stains left by the sins of a past life were washed out--to realise that the anger and vengeance of an aggrieved conscience were appeased--that God, having accepted the Lamb as a sufficient atonement, conscience accepted Him also, and was pacified! The offence and condemnation of past sin is washed away, and now the conscience is void of offence, clean, and ready to serve the LIVING God. There is a beautiful significance in the word "living" in this connection; it seems to intimate that there is a fitness, an appropriateness, between the character of the Being to be served and the quality of that faculty of the soul which has specially to preside over His service. It is now not only made clean, but light, quick, tender, ready to detect and reject everything old, rotten, impure, unholy, and to keep it out of the sanctuary of the believer's soul, as unfit for the service of the living God, who sees every thought, motive, and desire. And oh, how true is conscience to its trust if only the soul would exercise itself always to obey!

        The Apostle laboured to have always a conscience void of offence. This must have been possible, or he could not have exercised himself to maintain it; he was too good a philosopher for that. What unpardonable and wilful mistakes are made about Paul's experience! His personification of the ineffectual struggles of a convicted sinner in the words, "Oh, wretched man that I am," I have been wrested from their explanatory connection and set in solitary and mocking contradiction to every

exposition of his experience from the hour of his conversion to that of his martyrdom. Paul was either a sanctified man, "more than conqueror,"--"doing all things through Christ strengthening him"--counting all things but "loss and dung"--"knowing nothing amongst men save Jesus Christ and Him crucified," or he was the greatest egotist that ever lived. Neither was he honest, for we have not a word about failure or defeat after he once attained the liberty wherewith Christ Jesus made him free; and yet no Apostle gives us so much of his personal experience as Paul. He continually exhorts the churches to follow his example, to walk as he walked; and tells Agrippa that he would both he and all that heard him were altogether such as he was, save his bonds. He continually challenged his enemies to point out a single selfish or inconsistent action, declaring that whatever he did, or wherever he went, or whatever he suffered, it was all for the interests of his Redeemer's kingdom; and when his work was done, like some mighty conqueror about to seize the crown of victory, he stretches forth his hand and cries, "I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight; I have finished my course, I have kept the faith." Surely Paul had found it possible to maintain a conscience void of offence! And so may we; but this implies, Secondly, systematic obedience to the dictates of conscience. Being made pure, light and quick, and set on the throne of the soul to communicate the light and truth of God, and to witness impartially whether it is obeyed or not, of course there can be but one way to keep this conscience void of offence, and that is by so acting as not to offend, grieve, or incense it again! You see, if the soul--nay, the whole being--refuses to be in subjection to it--will not obey it--then conscience must needs take offence again, because it cannot be cheated, or bribed, or silenced. To be kept void of offence it must be obeyed with promptness; to parley is to defile. How many a soul has dated its ruin to temporising with a sug-

gestion which conscience asserted ought to have been put down at once!

        Thirdly, to keep a conscience void of offence requires unremitting effort, exertion, "exercise," determination; a bringing up, so to speak, of all the other powers and faculties of the being; "herein do I exercise myself"--the whole man, soul, mind, body--myself.

        Here is need for "exercise" indeed; this signifies no child's play, no mere effervescing emotion, expending itself in sentimental songs or idle speculations. Here is "the fight of faith" THE faith of the saints, which can dare, and do, and suffer anything rather than defile its garments. Only those who thus fight have the Apostle's kind of faith. Satan knows this, and he waylays such souls with every temptation possible to them. He tries considerations of ease, interest, honour, reputation, friends, fashion, health, life! and sometimes puts all these in one scale at the same time, over against a pure conscience in the other. Alas! how many for such considerations "have put away a good conscience, and concerning faith have made shipwreck."

        It is no uncommon thing to meet with people in this condition, who, "having built again the things they once destroyed, have made themselves transgressors." Conscience is defiled and incensed, and demands that the evil shall be put away and repented of, and the soul cast afresh on the blood of atonement for pardon and healing. Instead of doing this, however, we are constantly meeting with people who try to cling on to what they call faith, and who quibble and reason to try to make it out that they are right; but between their sentences we can hear their consciences mutter, "You know you are wrong, you know you are guilty; confess, and forsake your sin." I know a young lady, a professing Christian, who was deeply convinced by the Spirit of God that the business in which she was engaged was inconsistent with her profession, and also with her becoming a real follower of Jesus. After much controversy

she took three days to debate with conscience as to whether she should give it up or not. Minister, friends, everybody but conscience said, No. She yielded, and "put away a good conscience" in order to keep a good business. Shortly after she married a young man with the same sort of religion as her own; they rushed into imprudent and extravagant expenditure; he soon failed, and now she is in seas of trouble and sorrow. Surely "Thine own wickedness shall correct thee, and thy backslidings shall reprove thee."

        IV. To keep a conscience void of offence requires the subjection of the whole being to the will.

        As conscience is the reigning power of the soul, the will is the executive, and in order to keep a pure conscience the will must act out its teaching. When inclination lures, when the flesh incites to that which conscience condemns, the will must say, No! and be firm as adamant, counting all things but dung and dross. When Satan takes us up to the pinnacle and says, "All these things will I give thee" if thou wilt do this or that, the will must say, No! and repel the tempter. This is just the point where human nature has failed from the beginning. Our first parents fell here. Their consciences were on the right side, but their wills yielded to the persuasions of the enemy. This is sin. The committal of the will to unlawful self-gratification. Joseph's conscience thundered the right path, and his will acted it out. Pilate's conscience also thundered the right course, but his will failed to carry it out. In one we behold a hero, in the other a traitor!

        Young man, when you have got the fiat of your conscience act on it. At all costs carry it out. Better be counted a fool, and die poor, than be damned as a traitor to God and righteousness!

        Young woman! what says your own conscience about accepting that unconverted lover? I entreat you, obey! Never mind what friends say--what inclination says--what apparent interest says; they all lie if they contradict God! And

miserable comforters will they all prove when His chastisements overtake you. Let your will be firm, though it slay you. Man of business! conscience intrudes even on the arena of trade. You hear its voice about this and that practice, or such and such a scheme. Does your will carry out its dictates? Do you resolutely say, I will not "do this thing and sin against God?" This is the test of faith. Real faith dares trust God with consequences; a spurious faith must look after consequences itself! It must save its life whatever becomes of a good conscience. Judge ye how much it is worth!

        V. To keep a pure conscience requires great vigilance lest by surprise or inattention we defile it.

        "What I say unto you, I say unto all--watch." Our enemy is always watching to put an occasion of stumbling in our way. He knows the power of surprise. He lays many a snare to take us unawares; many a nicely-laid plot; many carefully-adjusted circumstances to catch us by guile. Oh, what need for vigilance! If by subtlety we ever get overcome, what must we do? Lie down in guilt and despair--allow conscience to remain polluted and incensed? No! up and confess, and forsake, and wash again.

        VI. To keep a pure conscience requires patience.

        Often necessitates our walking in an isolated path--taking a course which men condemn. Men judge from outward appearance; they do not see the intricacies of individual experience. The very course which they condemn may be that which conscience insists on, and which must be done or suffered, or conscience and God be grieved and offended.

        Patience will wait till God, by time and providence, justifies our course. Paul said it was a small matter with him to be judged of man's judgment. Why? Because his conscience acquitted--justified, and God witnessed that he was right. Such a soul can go on with all the world up in arms against it. This is just what the martyrs did--nothing more, nothing less.

        Lastly.--A pure conscience is its own reward.

        No matter who condemns, if it approves, there is peace and sunshine in the soul. And whatever our trials or persecutions, we can draw near to God without wavering, for "If our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence towards God; and whatsoever we ask we receive of Him, because we keep His commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in His sight" (1 John iii. 21, 22). As a clean conscience is its own reward, so an offended conscience is its own punishment. Conscience frequently offended soon becomes "seared"--mark, not destroyed; quick and raw enough underneath, ready to be probed and fretted by the worm that dieth not, and scorched by the fire that never goes out--but seared on the surface, of no use for present service; numbed, dark, useless. People with their consciences in this state often tell us they do not feel condemned for dispositions and practices which are evidently forbidden by the Word of God, nor for things which they once would have trembled to do. Poor things, they do not see that their consciences are seared. A lady once told us that early in her religious experience, she would have felt very much condemned if she had gone to a theatre, but now she could go there, and feel that she was sitting with Christ in heavenly places at the same time! She had got such an increase of light, or rather darkness, that the godless entertainment, the worldly multitude, the flippant jokes, and pothouse-songs, did not strike her as inconsistent with the teaching and profession of Him who said, "They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world." Truly, it is an awful thing to have a seared conscience! There is but one step between that soul and everlasting death. Is there one of this class here? My friend, make haste back to the foot of the Cross, confessing and forsaking your sins, and get your "conscience purged again from dead works to serve the living God." For "without holiness no man shall see the Lord!"

AGGRESSION.

MARK XVI. 15. ACTS XXVI. 15-18.

commission has foreseen and provided for this result. "I will appear unto thee, delivering thee from the people, and from the Gentiles unto whom now I send thee" (verse 17).

        II. Then it is implied in both these commissions that this aggression will provoke opposition. Of course it will. Who ever heard of aggression on the territory of an enemy without opposition according to the power possessed by that enemy? Such a thing is impossible naturally, and even more so spiritually. "The whole world lieth in the arms of the wicked one." "The strong man armed keepeth his goods;" and if we armed, by a stronger than he, take them, we must expect opposition. Our Lord systematically taught His disciples, to expect and prepare for persecution. He taught them that their principles, motives, and objects, would be so incomprehensible to men of a worldly spirit, whether Pharisees or worldlings, that they would inevitably persecute and oppose them. Such we find was the case wherever the Gospel was introduced. Magistrates, rulers, and mobs, set themselves in array against both the preachers and their truths. I take it as one of the worst signs of the Christianity of this age, that it provokes so little opposition, for it is as true now as it ever was, that if we are not of the world, the world will hate us, and he that is born after the flesh will persecute him who is born after the spirit.

        III. I want you to note that the only law laid down in the New Testament for the prosecution of this aggressive warfare is the law of adaptation.

        "I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some" (1 Cor. chap. ix. v. 22). "And of some have compassion, making a difference; and others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire" (Jude, verses 22 and 23). The Gospel message is laid down with unerring accuracy, in unalterable terms. We are not at liberty to change even the order of it as given from the glorified lips of our risen Lord to Paul. "To open their eyes, and turn them from darkness to light,

from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and inheritance among them that are sanctified by faith that is in me." Here is the Divine order--1st, conviction; 2nd, repentance; 3rd, forgiveness; and woe be to the man who transposes this order. He makes as great a mistake as one would make in putting the key into the lock upside down. He who made man laid down this order, and its fits our mental and spiritual constitution. Let us take care to preserve it intact. Let us keep the message itself unadulterated and the order of it undisturbed; but in our modes of bringing it to bear on men, we are left free as the air and sunlight.

        Adaptation, expediency, is our only law. I may convey it in any kind of language so that it carries the true meaning to the mind of the hearer--words are nothing, only as they convey ideas. I may send it through any kind of agent, from the acute and polished intellect of a profound theologian down to the new-born babe in Christ, scarcely able to read a letter in the book. Any man, however common or unclean he may have been, if God hath cleansed him, may be used to open the eyes of his fellow-men, and turn them from darkness to light. Adaptation is the great thing we ought to consider. If one method or agent fails, we should try another--God does so. How He tries by various methods and strokes of providence to bring men to Himself! In how many ways did He strive with you, my brother, my sister. He did not try one providence, one sermon, one consideration, one call, but oh, how many, with some of us, before our stubborn hearts yielded to His grace! And as He works, so He calls us to work with Him. In this sense, to become all things to all men, if by any means we may save some; of some making a difference, pulling them out of the fire. That is, adapt ourselves and our measures to the social and spiritual condition of those whom we seek to benefit. It is here, I conceive, that our churches have fallen into such grievous mistakes with reference to the propagation of the Gospel in our own times. We have stood to our stereotyped

forms, refusing to come down from the routine of our forefathers, although this routine has ceased to be attractive to the people, nay, in many instances, the very thing that drives them away.

        The most thoughtful writers on education tell us that the first essential in a teacher of youth is to be able to interest his pupils. True. This is equally true of the people--if you would benefit and bless them, you must interest them. You must clothe the truth in such garb and convey it by such mediums as will arouse their attention and interest their minds. In short, we must come down to them. Whatever has caused it, it is a fact, that the masses of the people have come to associate ideas of stiffness, formality, and uninteresting routine with our church and chapel worship, and if we are to be co-workers with God for them, we must move out of our jog-trot places and become all things to them in order to win them. If they will not come inside our consecrated buildings we must get at them in unconsecrated ones, or out under the canopy of heaven. And has not Jesus by His blood consecrated every spot of earth to soul-saving purposes? If they will not listen to our college-trained and polished divines, we must send them men of their own stamp, whose habits of thought and modes of expression are familiar and congenial to them, and who, washed and filled with the Holy Ghost, are as well adapted to preach to them as were the fishermen of Galilee to the men of their generation.

        Why did not our Lord fit and call the divines of His own times to go to the people? He certainly could have done so! Surely he must have had a sound and philosophical reason for choosing fishermen. He acted on the principle of adaptation. Instead of working a miracle to unteach and set loose the divines for this work, He acted on existing natural law, as He always did when there was no necessity to break it, and chose the best adapted instruments for His purpose; hence He chose men from amongst the people to be workers together with Himself, and sent them out into the bye-ways and hedges, the fields, the market-place, the sea-shore, and the hill-side; in short, He

sent them wherever the people were to be got at. Oh! if the Church had steadily adhered to the tactics of our Lord, who can tell whether the kingdoms of this world would not long since have been subjected to His sway?

        For our part, at any rate, we cannot hesitate for a moment as to the conduct demanded of us by the teachings of our Master, and of experience, as well as by the exigencies of a perishing world. We would a thousand times rather err in too readily utilising men and means that are manifestly suitable to the accomplishment of the great end in view than in rejecting any man or any means as "common" or "improper" which may aid us in the gigantic labours which a dying world stands in such terrible need of.

THE USES OF TRIAL.

"Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is very pitiful and of tender mercy."--JAMES v. 11.

        It may help us, however, to "endure chastening" if we consider two or three of the gracious ends, or uses of our trials.

        I. Trial reveals us to God.

        There is a sense, doubtless, in which trial reveals us to God; makes manifest to Him what is in our heart. Perhaps some

one may object, and say, no, no; we need nothing to make manifest to God what we are, He understands us perfectly. He knows what is in man, and needs not anything to tell Him. True! and yet He says of Abraham, "Now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, from me." And to the Israelites, "And thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee and to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldst keep My commandments or no." Now God knew that Abraham feared Him, and He also knew how far Israel would keep His commandments, but He did not know as a matter of actual fact until the fact transpired. He must have the latent principle developed in action before he could know it as action. Thus Abraham by his obedience to the painful command made his love manifest to God. Not that God had previously any doubts of Abraham's love, but He desired a practical manifestation of it towards Himself, or to know it in action. The Divine love is like all other love in this respect, it delights in practical proof of love in return, nor will it be satisfied without. Remember this, Christian, in thy various afflictions. The Lord is leading thee about in the wilderness to prove thee, and to see (to make manifest to Himself) what is in thy heart, and whether thou wilt keep His commandments or no. Remember also that in nothing is love made so manifest as in willing, cheerful suffering for the sake of its object. It is easy, nay, joyful to labour, but patient, cheerful suffering requires a deeper love, a more perfect self-abandonment. "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." "We glory in tribulations also."

        II. Trial also reveals us to ourselves.

        Although we do not agree with the adage that untried grace is no grace at all, yet unquestionably much fancied grace has proved itself, in the hour of trial, to be but as the early cloud and the morning dew. "How many who have received the

Word with joy and for a while have believed, in time of temptation have fallen away." How many a professing Christian if he could have had predicted to him the effect of adversity upon his heart and life, would have said with Hazael, "Is thy servant a dog that he should do this?" And yet when the true test of character was applied he fell. When he had eaten and was full then his heart rebelled, or when he was chastened by the Lord he grew weary and said, "Verily I have cleansed my heart in vain, and washed my hands in innocency." There is no surer test for the Christian as to the state of his heart than the way in which he receives affliction. How often when all has appeared prosperous and peaceful, and the child of God has been congratulating himself on spiritual growth and increased power over inward corruption has some fiery trial overtaken him, when, instead of being met with perfect submission and cheerful acquiescence, it has produced sudden confusion, dismay, and perhaps rebellion, revealing to him that his heart was far from that state of Divine conformity which he had hoped and supposed.

        Thus the Christian often suffers more from a consciousness of insubordination under affliction than from the affliction itself. Dear reader, how is it with you in this respect? When trials overtake you, are you able to say, "It is the Lord, let Him do what seemeth Him good," and "I know that Thou in faithfulness has afflicted me." Are you able to realise that "whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth," and that these light afflictions are working a future increase of glory? If so, happy are you. This is the best of all evidence to yourself that the Divine Spirit is working in you to will and to do of your Father's good pleasure. This fruit does not grow on the corrupt soil of unregenerate nature; it springs only from a heart renewed by the Holy Ghost and baptized into fellowship with Christ in His sufferings. But is it otherwise with you? Does your heart chafe, and fret, and rebel? Are you saying, "All these things are against me?" If so, this is proof that the work of grace is

at a low ebb in your soul, that your faith is weak, and your spiritual perceptions dim. It is high time for you to awake out of sleep and cry mightily unto God for a revival of His work in your heart and for a sanctified use of the affliction which has overtaken you. "If God dries up the water on the lake, it is to lead you to the unfailing fountain. If He blights the ground, it is to drive you to the tree of life. If He sends the cross, it is to brighten the crown. Nothing is so hard as our heart; and as they lay copper in aquafortis before they begin to engrave it, so the Lord usually prepares us by the searching, softening discipline of affliction for making a deep lasting impression upon our hearts."

The fire our graces shall refine,Till, moulded from above,
We bear the character Divine,
    The stamp of perfect love.
        III. Trial also reveals us to the world.

        As the greatest manifestation of God to the world was by suffering, so the most influential revelation of His people to the world has been by suffering. They are seen to the best advantage in the furnace. The blood of martyrs has ever been the seed of the Church. The patience, meekness, firmness, and happiness of God's people in circumstances of suffering, persecution, and death, have paved the way for the gospel in almost all lands and all ages. A baptism of blood has prepared the hard and sterile soil of humanity for the good seed of the kingdom, and made it doubly fruitful. The exhibition of the meek and loving spirit of Christianity under suffering has doubtless won thousands of hearts to its Divine Author, and tamed and awed many a savage persecutor, besides Saul of Tarsus. When men see their fellow-men enduring with patience and meekness what they know would fill them with hatred, anger, and revenge, they naturally conclude that there must be a different spirit in them. When they see Christians suffering

the loss of all things, and cheerfully resigning themselves to bonds, imprisonment, and death, they cannot help feeling that they have sources of strength and springs of consolation all unknown to themselves.

        Patient suffering, cheerful acquiescence in affliction and anguish, mental or physical, is the most convincing proof of the Divine in man which it is possible for humanity to give. "Truly this was the Son of God," said those who stood by the cross when they saw how He suffered. And how many who have been thoroughly sceptical as to the professions of their converted kindred, and have most bitterly persecuted them, and withstood every argument and entreaty advanced in health and activity; have yielded almost without a word before the patience and peace with which the billows of suffering and death have been braved, nay, welcomed! Such evidence is too mighty, such proof too positive to be resisted, even by persecutors and blasphemers.

        Abraham might have written a book and preached all his life long, as doubtless he did, but the whole, ten times told, would not have convinced his family, his contemporaries and posterity, of the depth and fervency of his love to God, as did that holy calm surrender of the best beloved of his soul to the requirements of God. Job might have been the upright, benevolent, righteous man he was, but probably we should never have heard of him but for his wonderful submission, patience, and faith, under suffering. It is this which lifts him up as an example and a teacher to all succeeding generations. It was when sitting on the dunghill, apparently forsaken of God and man, and suffering the direst physical agony which Satan could inflict, that Job attained his greatest victory and made that wonderful exhibition of trust in God which has been the comfort and admiration of God's people from that day to this.

        It was in the fiery furnace that Shadrach, Meschach and Abednego won such glory to the God of Israel, that even a heathen king proclaimed His majesty and dominion, and com-

manded his subjects to worship Him who could deliver after this manner. It was in the furnace of persecution that Stephen, Peter, James, John and Paul proved the divinity of their characters and the genuineness of their faith. Without suffering the world could never have known the strength of their faith, the fervency of their love, or the purity of their lives. Their trials made them "spectacles unto the world, to angels and to men," and won for their Master the ears and hearts of thousands.

        When an apostle would present to us the mightiest achievements of faith and the most wonderful exhibitions of the power of Divine grace, he refers us not so much to the doings of God's people, as to their cheerful and triumphant sufferings. (Heb. xi.) Dear reader, how are your afflictions revealing you to those around you? Are you adding your testimony to that of the cloud of witnesses who are gone before, to the sufficiency of Divine grace to sustain and comfort in the hour of sorrow and suffering? Is your patient endurance saying to those who are watching you, I can do (and suffer) all things through Christ which strengtheneth me?

PREVAILING PRAYER.

        1st. Living and abiding union with Jesus. "If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you." (John xv. 7.)

        2nd. Systematic obedience to the teaching of the word and of the Spirit. "Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God. And whatsoever we ask, we receive of Him, because we keep His commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in His sight." (1 John iii. 21, 22.)

        3rd. Unwavering faith in the veracity and faithfulness of God. "But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering; for he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea, driven with the wind and tossed. For let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord." (James i. 6, 7.)

        Of course there are many other passages of similar bearing and of equal weight, but I regard these three as clearly setting forth the conditions of prevailing prayer, constituting, as it

were, the three steps of successful approach to the mercy seat. They are like three links of a golden chain connecting our souls with God, and if one be missing or defective, the power to prevail in prayer is lost. Does not this explain the reason why there is so much ineffectual prayer in our day? Christians get hold of a promise, and try to work themselves up to faith for its fulfilment, but, alas! one of the conditions is wanting, one of the links is broken; their own hearts condemn them; "then have they (no) confidence toward God, and whatsoever they ask they receive (not) of Him, because they keep (not) His commandments, and do (not) those things that are pleasing in His sight." How can a man approach God in confidence when he is living in the daily practice of something for which his own heart condemns him? Impossible! As soon might Satan offer effectual prayer. Before that man can truly approach to God, he must "cleanse his hands," "purify his heart," and "put away his iniquity."

        No matter what our creed or opinion, God has made it a law of our spiritual being, that without submission and obedience there can be no confidence. Faith in Jesus is God's expedient for bringing us back to obedience, and not for saving us in disobedience. And all the way through the New Testament He refuses to accept any other proof of discipleship than that of obedience. No less than six times in the 14th and 15th chapters of John is this criterion insisted on. "Faith without works (obedience) is dead," and therefore has no power to take hold of God, or to appropriate His promises. I am satisfied that this is the "missing link" in the experience of multitudes of professors; and in vain do they cry "Lord, Lord, while they do not the things that He says." In vain do they try to assure their hearts before Him, while they love not in deed, but only in word and in tongue. I am afraid there is much antinomianism abroad, which makes Christ the minister of sin, and which is always crying, "Faith! faith! only believe!" while consecration and obedience, as indispensable conditions of faith,

are entirely lost sight of. "How can ye believe," said our Lord to some in His day, "while ye receive honour one of another, and seek not the honour that cometh from God only?" And we may say to some in our day--how can ye believe who prefer self-indulgence, wealth, or worldly conformity, to Christ and his cross, and the extension of his kingdom? Is it not still true that "if any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him," and that "the friendship of the world is enmity towards God"? Saving faith in the sinner, and prevailing faith in the believer are alike impossible without full consecration to known duty. If any one disputes this, let him try to exercise faith in any given promise or for any given blessing, while he is refusing obedience to the claims of God, or withholding part of the price which God requires, and he will find, whatever may be his preconceived notions on the subject, that it is simply impossible. Herein is the solution of the question so often asked--How is it that there are so few answers to prayer? David affirmed it when he said, "If I regard iniquity in my heart the Lord will not hear me." Neither will God hear and answer us, call we ever so loudly, and ever so long, if we willingly consent to any known unrighteousness. How fares it with your prayers, dear reader? Do you know that God hears you by the answers He vouchsafes? If not, may not this be the reason for the miscarriage? God is unchanged and unchangeable, the promise faileth not. "All things whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive." God must be true; and if your experience contradicts the sure word of promise, you may be certain that it is your experience which is at fault. Examine yourself. Repent, and do your first works. He is faithful and just to forgive the sins of His people, and to cleanse them from all unrighteousness. And then bring all the tithes of a whole-hearted, loving, and believing service into His storehouse, and prove Him therewith, and see if He will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out such a blessing that there shall not be room enough to receive it.

Watched by the world's malignant eye,
    Who load us with reproach and shame;
As servants of the Lord Most High,
    As zealous for His glorious name,
We ought in all His paths to move
With holy fear and humble love.

That wisdom, Lord, on us bestow,
    From every evil to depart:
To stop the mouths of every foe,
    While, upright both in life and heart,
The proofs of godly love we give,
And show them how the Christians live.

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THE SALVATION ARMY.

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        NOTHING is more commonly set up as a plea for the neglect of such living as is described in the foregoing papers than that "there are no people who carry religion to such an extreme as this."

        Wretched as is this excuse, I thank God that, as a result of the delivery of these and similar addresses, by myself, my husband, our natural and spiritual children, and those others whom we have set to work from time to time, God has raised up for Himself a people who are acting, in no small degree, up to the light which they have received.

        "THE SALVATION ARMY," formerly called "THE CHRISTIAN MISSION," is a force consisting chiefly of working men and women who have been turned from lives of unbelief and open wickedness to serve the living God with all their might.

        From July, 1865, when my husband commenced the work alone in the East of London, up to the present time, December, 1878, permanent Corps or bands of these soul-savers have been established in some eighty large towns, and districts of the metropolis.

        Here are thousands of men and women, who have either been compelled to come in from the streets and lanes to listen to a Gospel they do not care to hear, or have been roused from a state of heart backsliding and led to give themselves afresh to God with all the ardour of first love.

        From amongst these, up to the date just mentioned, no less than 204 persons have been wholly employed in the Lord's work, either as Ministers, Missionaries, Evangelists, Scripture Readers, Colporteurs, or Bible Women, while more than seventy Female Ministers have been sent forth, preaching to thousands in Theatres and Music Halls as well as in the open air, daily, proving their Divine call to the work by miracles and signs and wonders wrought amongst the Gentiles through their instrumentality.

        These people having, in multitudes of cases, been at one time the slaves of Strong Drink, not only flee from it themselves,

but teach everyone to abstain from its use, and from tobacco, and finery, and Worldly Amusements.

        Having known what it is to be in real anxiety about their own souls' salvation and to be really saved from sin and fear and guilt, and shamed into righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost, these ignorant and unlearned men and women understand Dealing with Anxious Souls as, alas! many better instructed and more highly stationed do not.

        I fear that many of these--who have themselves rather been "dragged up by the hair of their head," as one of them expressed it, than brought up--little understand The Training of Children. But of one thing I am thankful to feel confident, namely, that thousands of children are being brought up to devote all available time and strength to the salvation of others.

        Full, detailed information as to the system by which these slaves of sin have been rescued from the tempter's snares and made soldiers of the King of kings, and reports of the conquests being daily made by this Army, may be found in its magazine, "The Salvationist," One Penny Monthly, Morgan & Scott, Paternoster Buildings, E.C.; "Heathen England," boards One Shilling, cloth Two Shillings.--S. W. Partridge & Co., Paternoster Row, E.C.

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NEW UNDERTAKINGS.

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ALWAYS WANTED:

CATHERINE BOOTH.
P.S.--Funds to assist in the raising and equipment of Corps in all parts of the country and the training of young Officers, are always greatly needed, and may be paid into the National Provincial Bank of England, or sent to William Booth, 3, Gore Road, Victoria Park Road, London, E.

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