the apostles had passed away except the lonely prisoner. Persecution raged on every hand. Hearts were ready to sink. But He who upholds all things by the word of His power appeared, saying, "Fear not; ""Behold, I make all things new." The visible and the material may pass away, but the unseen and the spiritual shall abide The glory of the old Jerusalem is for ever gone, but John new Jerusalem coming down from God, out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband."

for ever. sees a

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The walls of this beautiful city rest upon twelve foundation-stones, and in them are the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb. What, then, are we to understand by this part of the vision? What is signified in the fact that the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb are seen in the twelve foundations on which the walls of the city rest? The apostles were divinely appointed teachers. They received their instruction and their commission from the Lord Himself. As public instructors they were preserved from error both in their conceptions and expressions. Their teaching is infallible. The doctrines they inculcated form the only solid masonry on which the Church architecture of all ages may safely rest. Whenever the Church has left the doctriné of the apostles, and taken the teaching of the Fathers, or mere human authority, as the ground of her action, she has always got wrong, and endangered the stability of her building.

Other passages may be adduced in support of the metaphorical language used by St. John. The Bible is a self-interpreting book. In the gospel by St. Matthew we read: "Jesus said unto his disciples, Whom say ye that I am? And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood hath not revealed this unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. And I say unto thee that thou art Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." Peter, by virtue of his noble confession, and by virtue of his power as a prophet or teacher, was to be in a preeminent sense, but by no means in an exclusive sense, one of these foundation stones. That Peter was not to be the sole foundation stone, as the Papacy teaches, is made evident by the teaching of Paul in an instructive passage in the Epistle to the Ephesians: "Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God; and are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone; in whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord; in whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit." The apostles are the great representatives of divine and all-important truth. Their writings form a depository of all wholesome doctrine. The apostles were the witnesses of the words, the miracles, the death,

and resurrection of Christ. They were in an extraordinary manner illumined with the Spirit of God. They were qualified to explain all the aspects of Gospel truth. Get away from the groundwork which they were commisioned to lay down, and there is no knowing on what mud or sand you may build. The enormous corruptions of Popery have grown out of a departure from the Scriptures as the ground of faith. The Church which is founded on the words of the apostles, and on them alone, shall abide all the storms and stress of time. It shall endure the fires of persecution, and shine forth with undimmed splendour when earth and heaven have passed away.

Such a Church John sees in the form of a beautiful and glorious city. In it God unveils His brightness, diffuses His blessedness. It is the habitation of His Spirit, the throne of His holiness. Nothing impure or unrighteous is allowed to have a place in it.

This city, in her exalted, perfected, and glorified state, possesses a life immortal, a happiness unbounded, a glory everlasting. Here all crying is hushed, all sorrow banished, faith is turned into sight, hope into possession, and labour into rest.

Shall I be permitted to have a humble place in the fellowship and joy of this holy city? Shall I be reckoned among its blessed inhabitants? This depends upon my relationship to the twelve apostles of the Lamb. Those who sincerely trust in Christ for salvation, and obey His words as spoken by the twelve apostles, shall without doubt enter into the glorious city. Submission and obedience are the wings of the soul-which lift it above the world, and carry it to heaven.

Leaving, then, all merely human foundations; casting aside all purely human inventions; renouncing all ordinances and ceremonies which have no ground in the teaching of the twelve apostles of the Lamb; repudiating the pride of reason, the self-righteousness and the self-sufficiency of the corrupt human heart, let us hold fast to the pure doctrines of the New Testament; and then, supported by this sublime faith, and fortified by this immortal hope, we shall have strength to bear the burden of life, and at last shall participate in the increased blessedness and augmented glories of the city of God. Sheffield.

Little did they guess, as they ran to meet him-each with a wonder in his heart if Murray was changed, which showed in his greeting-how the boy saw it in all of them, and earnestly prayed he might not bring dishonour to his Master's name.

But as they watched him the first day or two they could see no tangible change; he was different, just how they couldn't tell.

"Our saint," Tom Ladd called him one time. Ed. Baker turned upon him. "Just you hold up your sneers about Murray; if he's a Christian he'll be a true one. For my part, I like him better for it, though none of us needed a change for the better so little as he."

There were no more sneers after that, and soon they half forgot it, all but Ed. He kept close watch of his friend to see if he held out in the way he, too, was "almost persuaded" to tread.

Nearly all Dr. Dale's boys were sons of well-to-do fathers, though a few were helped, or were struggling alone themselves. One of the latter class, Joe Hosmer, belonged with our friends to the graduating class. He was a peculiar boy, and not very well liked by the others; but Ed. noticed that this term Murray took more notice of him-seemed trying to win him from his moroseness to a more genial state of mind. At first Ed. was inclined to look upon Murray's kindness to Joe as intruding upon his own rights ; but

his better nature conquered, and he too befriended Joe.

"Just for variety's sake, boys," he said, "I should have been eager as any to bow before him if he were 'flush.' I'm only varying monotony of life by bowing because he's empty-handed."

the

At the beginning of the course a prize had been offered to the one who stood highest at the close. It had been offered by an old friend of Dr. Dale's, who, having no near relatives, had left his property to schools and poor boys working their way. Thus far Murray and Joe stood side by side, and Ed. "just ready to jump in if they fell out," he said.

With Joe it was a serious matter. If he won, he could go on uninterruptedly with his studies; if not, he must work for a year or two any way, perhaps longer. At that thought he would bend to his studies with redoubled energy. In fact, Ed. told him that should he and Murray continue losing flesh till examinations, there would not be enough left of either to obtain the prize-in that case it would be his.

It had been Murray's ambition to graduate with highest honours. Often had he pictured to himself the day when he would take home to his invalid mother the glad news of his victory. Then, too, had not Uncle Murray promised him a trip on the Continent, if successful?-he would need it to "recuperate," he told him.

As for Ed., he said if Murray got it he should want to forget Joe entirely; shouldn't have a minute's peace till he could. And, on the other hand, if Joe was the victor, the thought of poor Murray would make him miserable. “Surely, I wouldn't be the one myself, for with both on my heart I shouldn't survive it long."

The time passed along till the last week had come; the very last day came finally. It was Monday

morning. Tuesday the examina- room that I had finished using my Problem Book? You can have it as well as not. I shall congratulate you after all, Joe."

SHUT THE GATE!

WHAT endless mischief comes from not shutting the gate! It did not occur to you, as you went through into your neighbour's field, that vast results swing on those hinges. Look at the facts. Our

farmer John cut his foot slightly on Saturday. He made little of the wound, and expected no trouble from it. But during that night some one opened the gate of the river pasture and neglected to shut it. So in the morning thirty head of cattle, of all sorts and sizes, were out upon the road. It was a hot and muggy morning. Farmer John was out early to look about. He soon missed the cattle, and went through bushes, streams, alders, and forest, searching for them. Hour after hour he ran one way and another, and at last toward noon the cattle were shut up again, the gate was closed, and John went to his house. The chase brought great excitement and fatigue. A feverish condition came on. John's leg was swollen, and the wound took on a morbid character at once. Two doctors came to see him. Inflammatory rheumatism set in. Pain and exhaustion ensued. Here was a prospect of a month's sickness, and untold mischief, just on the eve of haying time. When the rheumatism was subdued, what should come next but that Modoc sort of disease, erysipelas, which is always lurking around to attack us when we are down? So on the case dragged itself, until poor John seemed at death's door. After three weeks of suffering he began to get out of doors on his crutches. Everything had gone amiss for want of his care. Other men had blundered. The cattle had trespassed on our neighbour's oat-field, and a large bill of damages had to be paid; and so on through a wondrous chain of mischiefs and miseries, direct and indirect. But we will cut short the story, and only add that our farm-gate was left open several times during this period of John's sickness, and once the fence was taken down by a party who wanted to enjoy a picnic in the beech grove.

Now all this, which is naked truth only half told, all this suffering and loss, came simply of neglecting to shut the gate. We leave our farm troubles to carry the lesson into regions of higher and more lasting importance. There are gates all along the road of life which are often left open, and the mischief is endless.

See that gate of strife, so needlessly left open. One finger's force, a single kind word, the omission of a word, would have shut the gate once; but now years have passed, and through that gate have been marching mischiefs of vast dimensions. Families have been involved, lawsuits have wasted thousands of pounds, the church has been agitated and rent with the widening quarrel, children have absorbed into their sensitive nature all the malaria of the controversy, and the ungodly have exulted over the rending of Zion's walls. And all this because the gate of strife was left open for a night, and the precept neglected, "Let not the sun go down upon your wrath."

Then see the gate of temptation so carelessly left open. How easily it might have been shut at first! But neglect begat neglect, craving followed craving, and by-and-by what troops of sins were seen moving along the road which the closed gate would have made impassable ! Alas, these little gates ajar in the lives of men! Cupidity and lust, appetite, poverty, and ruin, come pressing through them. We see the