I not have brought to Christ, and what durable benefit to my own soul. But I did not so spend them, and they were lost; and I was lost also, till Christ in His mercy came to seek and to save me, and by saying "LIVE," to a man who had been dead for more than forty years, prove that nothing was too hard for Him. That month was to me the beginning of months, and I pray God that that day may ever be to me for a memorial.

Surely such thoughts as these are calculated to make time appear very valuable. Not a moment of our life ever comes to us in which, if we employ it as the Holy Ghost would have us, we may not bring glory to God, and lay up treasure for ourselves in heaven; and every moment that is not so employed is A MOMENT LOST. Not only in active service, but whether we eat, or whether we drink, we may bring glory to God; and when we glorify Him, we benefit ourselves. The counsel of Christ to His saved people is "Lay up treasure in heaven;" and He does not scruple to call that

man A FOOL who heapeth up earthly riches for himself, and is not RICH,-not saved only, but RICH towards God. "Thou fool," is His address to the man who boasted that he had much goods laid up for many years,-" Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee, then whose shall those things be that thou hast provided?" and then He adds this little recognized but most solemn truth,-" So is he (a fool) that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not RICH towards God."

Should we not then enquire diligently, each one for himself, whether we are amongst these fools in God's sight? Are there not many who, if they have not already lost forty, have lost a dozen, sixteen, eighteen, or twenty years of this time of exceeding value; and who so far from having laid up treasure in heaven, have never even entered into God's kingdom?

Oh, let me ask such-Does not the recollection of what you are, when compared with what you might have been, distress and sadden you? What have you gained by following the counsels

of your own heart, and refusing to believe on the Lord Jesus? Can you honestly say, as in God's presence, that you think you are happier at this moment in the possession of what you have got through following your own will than you would have been if you had followed His? Has the past paid you? Will the future pay you if you still listen to the same counsellor? You heard of Jesus when you were a child, and He asked you to take His yoke upon you, and to learn of Him, and YOU WOULD NOT; and you are now twenty, or thirty, perhaps sixty or seventy years of age, and if you were to die this moment, so far from having treasure in heaven, your portion would BE HELL, without even a drop of water to cool your tongue.

Oh, if you had taken up your cross and followed Christ when He first called you,—if instead of the life-time on which you have to look back, you could look back on a life-time spent in His service, and of treasure laid up in heaven, how rich, and how truly happy you

would be. And even if you should be spared for years to come, and still go on under the leading and teaching of your own spirit, do you think the future will be more profitable than the past? Be not deceived! Listen no longer to the voice of your own lying heart. You have already lost what worlds could not re-purchase. Oh, do at once, this very moment, the best thing that is left you to do: ask God for Christ's sake to forgive and forget all the past years of your life, and to help you for the future to believe and follow Jesus, and to lay up treasure in heaven.

Then this shall be to you indeed a spiritual birthday, the beginning of months, and the beginning of days; and peradventure the Lord, who is very good and with whom nothing is impossible, will yet restore both to you and to me the years which the "locust and the cankerworm have eaten." (Joel ii. 25.)

VIII.

God's Way of Salbation.

"Not by works of righteousness uhich we have done."

AM now about to try to place before you a clear and simple statement of God's way of salvation; and for Jesus Christ's sake may the Holy Spirit teach me every word I write, and enable you, oh, reader, to receive the truth He teaches.

But in order to tell you how you can be saved, I shall begin by telling you how you most surely cannot.

I commence with this plain and simple statement, you cannot in any way save yourself, either in whole or in part, by your own works.