nothing but misery and wretchedness and sin cleaving to the fleshly Adam. It is all bad, all vile! nothing could be worse. "Earthly, sensual, devilish," is the scriptural definition. Nothing could be truer. But it is of Divine condescension, Divine mercy, Divine faithfulness we wish to speak. The Lord enabling us, we will testify of our God, let devils roar, or men say what they may. Two sick and dying beds in particular have we stood by, where the departing ones have so regretted their previous reluctance in speaking of Jesus and His kind and gracious acts. Reader, we may well all plead guilty on account of the self-same thing. But do not let us make bad worse. The Lord keep us from A GUILTY SILENCE where His love and His goodness and His faithfulness are such as to call for testimony in the face of a perverse and gainsaying generation. If the children of God do not speak out now, who will? Shall we dare we-be tongue-tied in this dark and gloomy day-a day of rebuke and blasphemy-when at the same time God is so wonderfully speaking, by His providence as well as by His word? No, no; the Lord help us to speak whilst yet we have the opportunity and the privilege so to do. We shall not long be thus favoured. Be it ours meanwhile to show that the God of the Bible still lives, and that He is exercising the same loving, tender, and gracious interest in His people now as in Bible-days. Yes, He stoops to their mean affairs; He condescends to their low estate; He watches over, and He leads and guides now as ever; blessed be His dear and holy name!

Listen, then, dear reader, to another proof of His watchfulness and the kind and gracious interest of which we speak, and which so ratifies and confirms the promise, "He that watereth shall be watered also himself." We had only returned to our desolate home some four or five days, when we received an earnest request-but kindly and delicately put that we would (if possible) officiate at a funeral. It was to commit to the same grave where we had in past seasons interred a very aged couple the remains of one who had been summoned in a moment through heart-disease! Some years ago we visited him, when laid aside in consequence of a fractured limb, and had often, subsequently, felt much on his account, as we have seen him from time to time seated attentively among the congregation. His weeping widow informs us, that only a month since he stood with her and a friend over the very grave he was so soon to occupy, and commented upon the brevity of life, and stating what a little time it would be ere they, too, passed away; but, as if he had a premonition of a something about to happen, added, "I suppose they will not bring me here." On the 10th of this month he was in London on business; had ascended to the top floor of one of those lofty warehouses in the City, and in one moment fell down and died, without uttering a word! How solemn, reader, are these facts, and how repeated their occurrence, in the present day especially! Well might the survivors insert upon the departed's mourning card, "Be ye also ready; for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of Man cometh."

When the request came that we should inter the departed, we felt an ardent wish not to shrink from the path of duty. We desired to waive our own personal feelings. It might be an opportunity not to be lost, as far as survivors and those assembled on the occasion were concerned. Hence, repugnant as funerals are to us as a rule, and with the probable encounter of much personal feeling, we consented to officiate on the occasion in question. We met, at the house of mourning, the weeping friends, and found it indeed a season for speaking of the solemn realities of death and eternity-the very one now about to be interred having so recently been present at the similar assembling together of the parties now again collected. Several wept as prayer was offered. But, when we came to the cemetery-which we approached with trembling of heart, as we reflected on the last funeral we had attended-no sooner had we read the first Scripture portion, "I am the Resurrection and the Life, saith the Lord he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die," than there flowed into the heart the sweetest and most unbounded comfort. We had a most blessed uplifting of soul. Instantaneously we thought, "Well, fearing and doubting as I have of late done, pressed down almost above measure as I have been, still I have been quickened ; I am alive from the dead, and I do believe in Him;' and here is the promise, I shall never die."" Oh, reader, it was with most blessed power that these words came home to the heart; yea, we think we may say, with more sealing POWER than any word for many weeks past; and, as a consequence, we never remember to have read the solemn burial service with greater personal interest and enjoyment. Again we say, we testify of these things, in order that you may see how the Lord is pleased to make such special use of the most unlikely times and seasons for the opening up and the sealing home of His most blessed word. Such facts may well serve to check our fears, and cause us less to shrink from circumstances which He, in His infinite wisdom and boundless love, may cause to contribute the very peace and comfort which our souls have long and ardently craved.

"Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take;

The clouds ye so much dread

Are big with mercy, and shall break
In blessings o'er your head."

Oh, who teacheth like Him? and whose words so powerful, so precious, so marvellously suitable and appropriate, as the Lord's words?

Now, the two facts which we have thus mentioned by way of illustration, we desire to press upon our beloved readers' attention. We know that, under distress and trouble, there is oftentimes too great an inclination to shut ourselves up in self; to sit down in pensive sorrow and weeping over circumstances; to refuse to be comforted; and especially to absent ourselves from the house of God. Ah, this

is all wrong! The exhortation is, "Wait upon the Lord; be of good courage" the promise that accompanies it is, "and He shall strengthen thine heart." Again comes the exhortation, as if to lay additional stress on it, "Wait, I say, on the Lord." Again, how gracious the assurance," They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint."

How emphatic is the language of David in his 84th Psalm, "My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of the Lord: my heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God." Again he says, "I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of the Lord." Moreover, what was the course which the Psalmist adopted when he heard of the death of his child? "When David saw that his servants whispered, David perceived that the child was dead: therefore David said unto his servants, Is the child dead? And they said, He is dead. Then David arose from the earth, and washed, and anointed himself, and changed his apparel, and came into the house of the Lord, and worshipped."

Again, in Hezekiah's trouble, under the threatenings of Rabshakeh, what did he do? "Hezekiah received the letter from the hand of the messengers, and read it: and Hezekiah went up into the house of the Lord, and spread it before the Lord.”

Further, when he was afterwards in sore affliction, and "turned his face toward the wall, and prayed unto the Lord;" in the midst of his anguish, he asked, "What is the sign that I shall go up to the house of the Lord?"

Dear reader, how significant and how suggestive are these precepts and examples! May the Lord prompt us and enable us to act upon them! We speak indeed from personal experience when we say, Depend on it, we shall be benefited thereby.

O the house of the Lord! the house of the Lord! Never, never may we neglect or be indifferent to the house of the Lord!

Dear reader, here for the present would we close with the precious words of the poet

"I'll speak the honour of Thy name,
With my last labouring breath;
And, dying, clasp Thee in my arms,
The antidote of death."

Bristol, January 18, 1868.

THE EDITOR.

Every heart is naturally as a citadel fortified against God.
Every step above the bottomless pit is a mercy to sinful man.

There is no greater evil on this side of hell than hardness of heart: it is the growing evil of all impenitent sinners.

Nothing more effectually promotes hardness of heart than trifling with convictions of conscience.

No elevation of rank can exempt a man from coming down into the dust before God.

Tayside Notes.

THE WANT OF ASSURANCE.

"When thine eye is single, thy whole body also is full of light."-LUKE xi. 34. BELOVED, if one is privileged to have intercourse with many of the members of the Lord's living family scattered up and down in this wilderness world, he will not be long in discovering that the common lack among them is a want of assurance. It is not that they doubt for a moment the truth of God's word, the completeness of Christ's salvation, or the security of God's people in Him; but the point with them is this, "Is it for me? I do not feel that personal certainty that I could desire; I remain a doubter." Now it is to such we want a little familiar conversation at this season, and, while thinking of this prevailing state of experience, and saying within, "Is there not a cause, for effect must follow cause," the above passage dropped into the mind, and seemed to meet the inquiry: "When thine eye is single, thy whole body also is full of light; but when thine eye is evil, thy body also is full of darkness."

Oh, may God enable us so to write upon this all-important subject, that some poor fellow-pilgrims may take encouragement, and realize a greater measure of assurance of their interest in covenant love, than they have ever felt before! Grant this, O Lord, for our dear Redeemer's sake, Amen. Now, our blessed Lord's words (for they are His own) lead us, first, to self-examination "When thine eye is single ;" and, second, to His declaration "Thine whole body also is full of light.'

I. SELF-EXAMINATION.

"When thine eye is single."

But is it single? Now, before we put this inquiry to the test, personally and experimentally, we must observe that it is quite certain that there is such a thing as having a name to live, and yet being dead-to be even found amidst God's people, as if one of them, assenting to the doctrines of grace, professing to esteem the Gospel, and yet having an eye which is full of evil, and consequently a body full of darkness; or, to use our dear Lord's expression, "Take heed that the light within thee be not darkness." It is useless to conceal this fact; it was so with the children of Israel of old, it is so now. "Moreover, brethren," saith the apostle Paul, "I would not that ᎩᎾ should be ignorant how that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea; and were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea; and did all eat the same spiritual meat; and did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ. Bur [mark, beloved, that "but "] with many of them God was not well pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness. Now, these things were our examples, to the intent we should not lust after evil things "as they also lusted."

Then, again, one has but to observe things to see plainly enough that there is a large class of persons living and dying with a false assurance. Such say, "I am as good as my neighbour. I owe no man anything; I've done my best, and never wronged any one; and, when a man has done all he can, I don't see that God would be a just God to condemn him. I'm not afraid to die." This assurance is the work of the devil, and the assertions, if put to the test, will be found to be a tissue of falsehoods. Such is never

G

the language of a child of God; his will be the very contrary: "I am altogether vile.' 'If Thou, Lord, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand?' God would be acting justly in my condemnation. I am often afraid to die, but I trust entirely in the blood and righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ."

There are, then, those who have "light in the head," but are all darkness within-hypocrites that need to be uncovered, and those who are crying, "Peace, peace; when there is no peace."

Now, God forbid that in exposing the character of such we should wound one little one in Zion-our religion is not worth having if it will not bear testing, and we have much to say to the encouragement and comfort of those who are earnestly desiring an increased measure of assurance of their interest in the covenant of grace. But with regard to its absence we have said, Is there not a cause? There must be; and to probe this shall now be our object: "When thine eye is single, thy whole body also will be full of light;" and not before.

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Now, it is quite certain that this want of assurance cannot be attributed any unfaithfulness on the part of a covenant God, who is the unchangeable One; nor can it arise from any weakness in His promises, which are all yea and amen in Christ Jesus; nor from any flaw in the work of salvation for poor sinners, which was finished upon the cross by our dear Redeemer: then it must arise from ourselves, from something within. Now, beloved, this brings us to close examination-Why have we such a lack of assurance? Is it traceable to

1. Any darling sin that is being nurtured and producing an estrangement from the Lord?-There are secret sins as well as outward sins; little foxes that spoil the grapes, as well as roaring lions that affright our souls. Idolatry is not alone to be found on the shrines of the Papist; it is set up often upon the altar of our hearts. If, then, we would gain assurance, our secret sins must be repented of; the little foxes must be run down, and the Dagons within must be broken to pieces, for nothing makes us so shy at the throne as the fostering of some secret sin.

Reader, we should spurn such, as we would do a reptile. Again, is it traceable to

2. The fear of man, producing a throwing off one's convictions in their presence, and the showing off of a worldly spirit before the world?-This will not do. It is certain to bring us into bondage. If we yield to fleshly expediency, God will find it expedient to punish us in the flesh. Oh the deadening influence of the world! Truly indeed does the apostle write, "To be carnally-minded is death." Or, furthermore, is it traceable to3. An attempt to serve God and mammon?-To unite that which God has for ever put asunder-to try to make the best of both worlds-is to try to marry that which God has parted. To be crucified to the world, and to have the world crucified to us, may be a trying ordeal, but it must be done if we would be "vessels of honour for the Master's use." God is a jealous God; He says, Son, give me thine heart "-not half of it, or a portion of it but "thine heart." It must be an entire service—" Ye cannot serve God and mammon."

Or, lastly, is this want of assurance traceable to—