Him, resting in His love, and realizing His companionship.

"When on Calvary I rest,
God, in flesh made manifest
Shines in my Redeemer's face,

Full of beauty, truth, and grace." 1871, though like its forerunners in many respects, differs from some of them in this, that it begins its course with the praiseful worship, holy adoration and sweet repose of "the day of rest." This is the Lord'sday. One would like every year to begin on such a morn as this. No birthday suits the glad new year so well as the first day of the week, the day of our Saviour's Resurrection; and certainly no work is so well and wisely done as that which is begun in the spirit of this day. A peaceful Sabbath in the soul is a sublime qualification for Christian enterprise. To slip away from the loud world, and its corrupting passions, into the calm of the divine pavilion, is to be filled afresh with peace, and strength, and hope, and made ready for the race that is set before us. betake ourselves to the Redeeming God this day, and in secret pour out our hearts before Him, with all eagerness and fervour, lest we should fail of His grace even in our setting out. If the Lord go not up with us we had better remain. Except the Lord build the house they labour in vain that build it." May each one hear the word at this season. "( My presence shall go with thee and I will give thee rest."

Let us

Start we may and must, forgetting the things that are behind," save in so far as the recollection may aid us in our present work, and stimulate us to greater devotedness. There are some things in the past we ought always to remember. We have read of a Persian King who met with a shepherd in his travels of such striking and impressive wisdom that he forthwith raised him to a position of dignity and authority in the state. As years passed away it was noticed that the shepherd statesman often frequented a lonely house

us.

Thou shalt remember all the way the Lord hath led thee, and be mindful of His benefits and of thy faults, so that thou mayest be stimulated to start again for perfection in the spirit of grateful praise and confiding hope.

Still we have to "forget" if we would start as well as we ought. The world has little that is new in it to some of us. Tennyson says,

"And forth across the world they went
In that new world which is the old."

Yes, which "is the old." We move
to-day amongst familiar scenes. The
hills and valleys are the same now
as in our romping boyhood. Old
strains fall on our ears.
Old songs

are on our lips. Old truths cheer our hearts. Old habits govern our lives, and rudely push themselves in the way of any bold invention or daring enterprise that may yet be left us. The fearful pressure of the past crushes the life out of some men, makes the "actual present" unreal and its demands unimportant. Many start again this morning who will use their experience to strangle their life, their habits to fetter their freedom, and their wide knowledge of

men only as a dead weight of caution. They imprison themselves in the things that are behind, and are as unfit for pressing on to the things that are before as the armour in the Tower of London is for the warriors of France and Germany. The past is not "dead." Thousands find it a living tyrant. The spirit of conventionalism seizes us, and we are in imminent danger of becoming its slaves. "As your fathers did so do ye," is not always a commendation. Stephen made it part of his indictment against the Jews, and declared that in the spirit of ignorant subjection to their ancestors they had put to death the Prince of Life. And the same feeling would now persecute the Lord Jesus if He were to come again, and, in His own free and bold way, upbraid us for our social caste, receive sinners for His friends, dine with reprobates, and tear to pieces the flimsy veils with which men Cover their hypocrisies.

How vast the change made in us merely by putting us into a new position and giving us a fresh start. For months life flows on full and deep as a river fed by many streams. We are enterprising, inventive, exhaustless. Difficulty excites to action. Opposition fires zeal. Convictions live and speak. Faith is victorious. Hope veils all obstacles with a cloud of light and glory. We are watchful, sober, and defiant as sentinels set to guard interests dearer than life. Alas! for us, our work and all its surroundings soon age, and obedience takes the place of enthusiasm, and the stimulus of love is superseded by the quiet force of habit. Trials increase. Invention is dead. Difficulties block the way. Emergencies swallow us up. Memory is the only part of our nature that is alive, and that is so used as to convert us into mere machines, started again to do work not so much by living faith in the loving God, as by the unexhausted strength

of old habits. These things ought not so to be. The new life of Christ should be in us, and should flow out of the midst of us, in forms ever fresh and fruitful. A painful discontent with ourselves should give eagerness and intensity to the pursuit of perfection in preaching, teaching and loving Christ. We must not spare ourselves or our work: but treat both with rigorous fidelity. The divine ideal of life and labour, Christ Jesus, must be kept distinctly and fully in view. We must know Him in all the various aspects of His character, enjoy Him in the fulness of His gracious and personal communications, and then we shall start this new year with a freshness that will give pleasure to our hearts, zest to our work, and profit to the church and the world.

Suffer one word more. Some of us make our start with a new year for the last time. This may be the the year of my departure. Am I sure that, through faith in the Lord Jesus, the ending of my life will be its begining in the mansions above, where there is no more sin, no more sorrow, no more death? Do I know that my work, being built upon the true foundation, Christ Jesus, is of gold, silver, and precious stones, and therefore prepared for the day of fire? May such be the reader's humble confidence as he prays this New Years morning,

"Lead, kindly light, amid the encircling gloom
Lead thou me on!
The night is dark, and I am far from home,
Lead thou me on!

Keep thou my feet: I do not ask to see
The distant way: one step's enough for me.
I was not ever thus, nor prayed that thou
Would'st lead me on;

I loved to see and choose my path, but now
Lead thou me on.

I loved the garish day, and, spite of fears,
Pride ruled my will: remember not past years.
So long thy power hath kept me, sure it still
Will lead me on!
O'er moor and fen, o'er crag and torrent, till
The night is gone,
And with the morn those angels faces smile,
Which I have loved long since and lost awhile!"

J. CLIFFORD.

IT is easy to believe that when the beloved disciple made this statement he spake as he was moved by the Holy Ghost. He achieved a task to which, unaided, human wisdom would have been unequal. In one short sentence he embodied the chief truth of revelation, and set forth the deepest and divinest consolation the children of men can have! He expressed the great and gracious meaning of the Cross of Christ in words so few that the dullest scholar can learn them, and the frailest memory cannot forget them! God is Love! What a record it would be if one could write a complete history of the happy influence this inspired declaration has exercised, and the holy results it has secured! Is it possible to find, in any language spoken on earth another sentence which, being like to this in brevity, is also like to it in power? Have not these three words dried up more tears, and hushed more sighs, and healed more wounded spirits, and bound up more broken hearts, than any other three words that ever fell from mortal lips? Have they not fostered more contentment, and inspired more gratitude, and created more kindness, and constrained to more obedience, than any other words the world ever listened to? They have set the bow of hope in the stormiest skies; they have given songs of cheerfulness in the gloomiest night of affliction; they have flooded with heaven's own light the darkest prison-houses of calamity into which human spirits have been thrust; and to multitudes which no man can number they have been an anchor to the soul, sure and steadfast, when the waters of tribulation were wildest, and even when the waves of death were breaking.

This old truth has lost none of its truthfulness. He, of whom the apostle spake, is without variableness or shadow of a turning. Love lived and reigned in His heart before there was one sorrow to excite its compassion, or one sinner to need its forgiveness. It will outlast all the griefs and all the guilt of His children, for it is like God Himself without beginning of days or end of years. As the truthfulness of the apostle's words abides, so does their power. They are as full of light and hope for us as they were for our fathers, and they ought to produce in us the same contrition for sin, the same contentment with our lot, the same charity toward one another, and the same confidence in our God. We are about to enter upon a new year, and we know not what lies before us in the untrodden paths. Many old experiences will doubtless be repeated, and new difficulties and dangers may arise. Let come what will come, we shall be prepared for it, if we know and believe the love that God hath to us. God is Love! If we fill our minds with this eternal truth, we shall have light for every time of darkness, a defence against every temptation, a solace for

every season of sorrow, a restraint upon all our wanderings, and a refuge in every time of trouble,

The old truth will be adapted to the new time because the new time will be certain to bring us temptations. Whatever else goes out with the old year this mystery still abidesGod has placed us where the strength of our principles is sorely tried every day, and our frail natures are constantly borne down upon by mighty forces of evil which would fain sweep us far away from Him. We

In

can neither understand this state of things, nor make our escape from it. If we forsake the haunts of our fellow-creatures, and flee to the solitudes of the wilderness, we carry with us our own hearts, which are everywhere fruitful sources of temptation. Those who try to run away from the world have not yet built the monastery whose walls are thick enough and the gratings of whose gloomy cells are close enough together to shut out the tempter. Men cannot in this life attain to a spiritual greatness which exempts them from further conflict. temporal battle fields, individuals and nations may win such victories that henceforth they go unassailed and unchallenged; but in the regions of spiritual warfare no man can be so triumphant in the present as to escape all attack in the future. The success of yesterday will make us stronger for the struggle of tomorrow, but it will not secure for us a long peace in which we can put off our armour and turn our watchtower into a castle of indolence. History warns us against this delusion; for it tells us of great heroes in the earthly hosts of God, who, after years of resistance, and after many a glorious triumph, were again assailed, and, alas! were overthrown. That sad defeat whereby Noah was disgraced and defiled came after the patriarch had victoriously fought against the world, the flesh, and the evil one for centuries. Peter wept bitterly over his cowardice and unfaithfulness, and proved the sincerity of his sorrow by his subsequent courage and fidelity; but we get glimpses of his old danger and his old failing too in that matter for which Paul withstood him to the face because he was to be blamed.* He yielded his own convictions to popular prejudice, and in the presence of clamorous bigots was halfafraid to say and to do what he had elsewhere said and done Galatians ii. 9-14.

because he believed it was right. This fact shows us that, notwithstanding his tears and struggles and successes, Peter had not risen altogether beyond the reach of the temptation which in former days had beset and conquered him. The highest and only perfect example may be quoted to shew that present victory does not secure future exemption. Three times our Lord vanquished the tempter, and then the tempter left Him. We must not overlook the significant words in Luke's gospel," And when the devil had ended all his temptations he departed from Him for a season." The adversary was defeated, but not destroyed; and with zeal as imperishable as his malignity he returned again to the conflict. It was near the close of His life that Jesus said, "the Prince of this world cometh and hath nothing in me." Down to the last the tempter maintained the hopeless onset. If Jesus were SO persistently assailed, is it likely that we shall abide in peace? Our natures, charred by former sins, are ready to take fire at the touch of the first spark of temptation, and the enemy knows his chances of success too well to leave us alone.

What, then, must we do in order to prepare ourselves for these temptations? Meditate upon the oft-proved truth that God is love. This is the way to clothe ourselves with an impenetrable armour. Sometimes the dread of detection is strong enough to keep us back from sin; but there are other seasons when the fear of being found out can no more restrain us than the green withs of the Philistines could hold captive the limbs of the aroused Samson. There are times when the fear of punishment has force enough to hold men back, but there are other periods when an utter recklessness of consequences rules in the sinner's heart, and to gratify his darling lusts he will dare the fires of very perdition. But who could rush into

sin if he always kept the lovingkindness of the Lord before his eyes? One of the greatest victories over temptation was achieved by him who filled his mind with thoughts of divine goodness, and then said to the tempter, "How can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?" The first temptation succeeded in paradise because the subtle serpent insinuated into the hearts of the tempted doubts of the perfect love of the Creator. The woman's attention was directed to what was forbidden instead of to what was freely granted. "Yea, hath God said, ye shall not eat of every tree in the garden?" Discontent and suspicion were excited, the shield of faith in God's fatherly goodness was dropped, and the vulnerable spirit was soon transfixed by the fiery dart of the wicked one. The less people believe that God cares for them, the less they will care for themselves. The more they believe that He is Love, the more they will be afraid and ashamed to grieve Him by one transgression.

Many years since, a boy who had been in prison for his crimes was brought to us that we might speak to him, and pray with him. We pleaded with him, and sought to awaken the desire and determination to lead a better life. We spoke of the shame of sins like his, but no blush burned in his cheek; we referred to what he had already suffered, but no vivid memory of past penalties seemed to come between him and the repetition of his wickedness; we dwelt upon the certain issues of vice, but no dread of ruin arose to arm him against future temptation; we pourtrayed the degradation into which he was sinking, but we could not call forth from him a strong self-respect to defend him against his own evil passions. It was a moment of failure when one was glad that he believed in the Holy Ghost, and could silently seek a guidance more than human. Help was sought that if there were one

unbroken string in the poor boy's nature our clumsy fingers might find it out and make it tremble into melody. He was asked how it had affected her who loved him as she only could love him. Instantly he was melted into tears, and with difficulty he told us that it had well nigh broken her heart. Thinking of her grief, and how he had brought her to the brink of the grave, he was ready to promise, with all his heart and soul and strength, that if God would help him, he would never again be so unworthy of her love. It was a lesson never to be forgotten; the one great thing that came between that boy and the repetition of his sin was-not his conscience denouncing the wrongness of it-not his lawful pride dreading the shame of it, not his wise self-love fearing the issues of it, but the conviction that there was one who loved him with a deathless love, and who, for her love's sake must not be dishonoured and grieved by him. If belief in the goodness of an earthly parent have this power, what must be the force of a living trust in our Heavenly Father's unfailing love? Suppose on the new-year's day some prophet of the Lord were to come and tell us that to-morrow we must fight the Marathon or the Waterloo of our spiritual battles? How could we best prepare ourselves for the conflict on which so much depended? Would not our wisdom be to spend all the intervening hours in thinking of the goodness and mercy which have followed us? If we could perfect our faith in the one truth, "God is Love," we should be able to meet the foe with good hope of our being brought off more than conquerors!

Ye that are tempted, never let your temptations find you far away from the cross! It is not left to you to decide whether or not there shall be conflict; but it is left to you to decide where the conflict shall take place. If you will, you may