no one, except those who have passed | have always looked upon it as a most through the same tribulated path, can striking evidence of my husband's strong conceive the desolation I feel. I see faith, and exalted views of God's wishim everywhere we were so united in dom and love, in his appointment of a heart-such a oneness of spirit, and his suffering body, and that for a period of sufferings drew forth such sympathy, just 29 years-that he never was tempted as a sickly child causes double anxiety to beg of the Lord to remove this thorn and love to a fond mother; and, although in the flesh how convincing the proof, I have been so long anticipating the sad that when the Lord gives great trials, event for his decline was daily percep- He gives more grace-and also a sweet tible, and his earnest wish to depart-evidence, that sanctified affliction humto use his own words, "Hoping, expecting, waiting," and he would often cry, "O Lord, how long? when wilt thou say, 'Come up hither ?"" yet, when it came it was like a flash of lightning to

me.

With every wish for your spiritual welfare,

I remain,

My dear Sir,

Your sincere but afflicted Friend,

Plymouth, April 5th, 1856.

L. M.

yours

of the

bles-for he often said, "I know it is needful for me to have pain; were it removed, I might be carried away to do something wrong."

It is now quite evident to me, that the Lord was weaning him from every earthly prop-and he would often say, "I don't wish to be brought back to the world again-I can now leave wife, and all-I wish to be forgotten.' ""* My dear Sir, Yours sincerely and faithfully, L. M. MY DEAR SIR-I received Plymouth, April 15th, 1856. 11th inst., yesterday, and in reply beg Forgotten he never will be; for, to say you are quite at liberty to make as we have previously intimated, he lives known the Lord's gracious dealings in our remembrance, and in the rememwith my beloved husband-as I well brance of many who, with ourselves. know, by experience, how encouraging to the timid believer is such a testimony of the Lord's faithfulness to his dear people, when passing through the valley of the shadow of death-I have only to request you will withhold my name. I

knew his worth: and we rejoice to have this opportunity, at the closing of the year, of recording the power and allsufficiency of Divine grace, as exhibited in our long-afflicted but signally-blessed friend and brother.-ED.

GOOD OLD SAMUEL RUTHERFORD.

We question if ever there was a more | walls rang with the praises of Immanstriking example, since the days of uel. the apostles, of the result of sanctified Oh, for more tastes of that cup of affliction, than in that good old divine, divine consolation of which SAMUEL SAMUEL RUTHERFORD. Throughout RUTHERFORD drank so deeply. One his remarkable Letters, there is a desires intensely the consolation, but "sweet savour of Christ." He basked dreads the cross which was the great in the sunshine of his countenance, means of securing it. So cowardly is and sang upon the very heights of poor fallen nature. However" willZion. Of him it might emphatically ing indeed the Spirit," the "flesh is be said, "He brought him into his weak." banqueting-house, and his banner over him was love.". Never did mortal dwell more upon the glories of Christ, the excellency of his person, the wonders of His love, than did SAMUEL RUTHERFORD. His prison was his palace. And, as with Paul and Silas at Philippi, the very prison

At much pains, and through the instrumentality of a beloved Brother in the Lord, we have obtained a copy of the Letters as they were written by dear RUTHERFORD himself. This edition, therefore, has not undergone the "cutting and pruning" to which other editions have been submitted;

but it comes, as it were, fresh from the fountain, without mutilation or marring. We durst not attempt to extinguish, either in whole or in part, the heavenly flame kindled by Divine love in RUTHERFORD'S heart, and which burst forth so brightly and blessedly to the praise of covenant mercy. God forbid that we should venture to damp his heavenly ardour by a single stroke of our-in such case-polluting pen. On the contrary, we feel it a holy privilege to be allowed to send forth to the world, in these Christ-despising days, such a book as the Letters of the immortal SAMUEL RUTHERFORD. His zealhis love-his single eye and devotedness to his great Master's cause, are sweetly set forth in the following Letter addressed

To the persecuted Church in Ireland.

MUCH HONOURED, Revd., AND DEARLY
BELOVED IN OUR Lord,—

Grace, mercy, and peace be to you all. I know there are many in this nation, more able than I, to speak to the sufferers for, and witnesses of Jesus Christ; yet pardon me to speak a little to you, who are called in question for the Gospel, once committed to you. I hope ye are not ignorant, that as peace was left to you in Christ's Testament, so the other half of the Testament was a legacy of Christ's sufferings, John xvi. 35, "These things I have spoken, that in me ye might have peace; in the world ye shall have trouble." Because then ye are made assigns and heirs to a life-rent of Christ's cross, think that fiery trial no strange thing: for the Lord Jesus shall be no loser by purging the dross and tin out of his church in Ireland: his wine-press is but squeezing out the dregs, the scum, the froth, and refuse of that church. I had once the proof of the sweet smell, and the honest and honourable peace, of that slandered thing, the cross of our Lord Jesus. But though (alas !) that these golden days that then I had, be now in a great part gone; yet I dare say, that the issue and out-gate of your sufferings shall be

the advantage, the golden reign and dominion of the Gospel, and the high glory of the never-enough-praised Prince of the kings of the earth, and the changing of the brass of the Lord's temple among you into gold, and the iron into silver, and the wood into brass; "your officers shall yet be peace, and your exactors righteousness," Isa. lx. 17, 18. Your old fallen walls shall get a new name, and the gates of your Jerusalem, shall get a new style; "they shall call your walls, Salvation, and your gates, Praise." I know that deputy, P- Papists, temporizing lords and proud mockers of our Lord, crucifiers of Christ for his coat, and all your enemies have neither fingers nor instruments of war to pick out one stone out of your wall, for each stone of your wall is salvation. I dare give you my royal and princely Master's word for it, that Ireland shall be a fair bride to Jesus, and Christ shall build on her a palace of silver; Cant. viii. 9. Therefore, weep not as if there was no hope, fear not, put on strength," put on your beautiful garments," Isa. lii. 1. "Your foundation shall be sapphires," Isa. liv. 11, 12. "Your windows and gates precious stones." Look over the water and behold and see who is on the dry land waiting for your landing; your deliverance is concluded, subscribed, and sealed in heaven: your goods that are taken from you, for Christ and his truth's sake, are but arrested and laid in pawn, and not taken away. There is much laid up for you in his store-house, whose the earth and the fulness thereof is; your garments are spun, and your flocks are feeding in the fields; your bread is laid up for you, your drink is browen, your gold and silver is at the bank, and the interest goeth on and groweth; and yet I hear, that your task-masters do rob and spoil you and fine you; your prisons (my brethren) have two keys, the deputy, P- and officers keep but the iron keys of the prison wherein they put you; but He that hath created the smith, hath other keys in heaven; therefore ye shall not die in the prison.

QUERY-IS IT RIGHT TO LABOUR OR TO LOITER IN THE LORD'S VINEYARD?

into the open chasm of the divided waters. Faith in the Shunammite cries, "It is well," at the same time agonizing at the prophet's feet-towards whom she had journeyed with all speed-exclaiming, "As the Lord liveth, I will not leave thee."

To Dr. L., Liverpool.--We hold the eter- | the world, and preach the Gospel to every nal verities of which our correspondent creature; he that believeth and is bapspeaks, perhaps, as strongly as he does. tized, shall be saved; and that believeth We have no more fear than he has of a not shall be damned ?" "Inasmuch as vessel of mercy being overlooked: that in you lies, do good unto all men, espeevery such vessel of mercy will be called cially to those who are of the household -justified-glorified, we have not the of faith." shadow of a doubt. But has not God To us it appears, that Dr. L. mistakes ordained the means and the instruments the nature of faith, which is at once by which these great and glorious ends active and passive-an apparent contraare to be accomplished? Otherwise, diction, we admit; but this seeming conwhat becomes of Paul's "foolishness of tradiction is a part of "the mystery of preaching ?" what is meant by the "work godliness." Faith loves "to stand still of faith" and "labour of love," upon and see the salvation of God," whilst which he congratulates the Thessalo-almost at the same moment, it is dashing nians? What does he mean by Rom. x. 14-17? Why need Paul to take upon him daily, "the care of all the churches?" Why wish himself "accursed from Christ for his brethren, his kinsmen according to the flesh ?" If we mistake not, the Apostle Paul held the covenant verities of our covenant salvation, as well as Dr. L., and yet, in his holy zeal for his Lord and Master's cause, and in his wish to open out, instrumentally, His eternal purposes of love and mercy, he was "In journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by his own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; in weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness. If Dr. L. had happened to have lived in the Apostle's days, we presume he would have rebuked Paul for what he chooses to call, "Arminian striving."

Does Dr. L. remember that there are such passages as these: "The harvest truly is plenteous, and the labourers are few; pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he would send forth labourers [NOT LOITERERS] into his harvest ?" "Work whilst it is called to-day, knowing the night cometh in which no man can work ?" "In the morning sow thy seed, and in the evening withhold not thy hand, knowing not which shall prosper either this or that, or whether they shall be both alike good?" "Go ye into all

We lay no more stress upon human efforts than does Dr. L. We rejoice in the fact quite as much as he can do, that "It is not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts ;" and, notwithstanding the discomfort with which he says he rises from the perusal of the GOSPEL MAGAZINE, we will defy him to produce from its pages a single expression of ours which will bear, honestly, the construction, that we lay a feather's weight, or attach the tiniest importance, to any effort of the creature abstractedly considered. What the believer-be he layman, or Minister, or Editor, does effectually or acceptably, he does by that wondrous power not his own, of which the Apostle speaks when he says, "And yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.' ." Hence he, and every follower of his-however humble and remoteeither in point of time, zeal, or abilitycan say and will say, Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto thy name be the glory, for thy mercy and for thy truth's sake." "Having done all," most cheerfully and blushingly will they say, we are unprofitable servants." EDITOR.