FAITH IN THE ABSENT ONE.

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side, to see if there be a flaw. So when Christ converts a man, He does not at once convey him to heaven, but suffers him first to be beaten upon by many temptations, and then exalts him to his crown.

1328.-FAITH IN THE ABSENT ONE.

I Peter i. 8.-"Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see Him not, yet believing, ye rejoice' with joy unspeakable and full of glory." [R.V.]' Greatly.

Illustrative. -An old writer says Faith and Reason may be compared to two travellers: Faith is like a man in full health, who can walk his twenty or thirty miles at a time without suffering; Reason is like a little child, who can only with difficulty accomplish three or four miles. Well, says this old writer, on a given day Reason says to Faith, "O good Faith, let me walk with thee." Faith replies, "O Reason, thou canst never walk with me." Well, they set out together; when they come to a deep river, Reason says, "I can never ford this." When they reach a lofty mountain, there is the same exclamation of despair; and in such cases Faith, in order not to leave Reason behind, is obliged to carry him on his back; and, adds the writer, "Oh, what a luggage is Reason to Faith!"

"Faith," says Latimer, "is a noble duchess; she ever hath her gentleman usher going before her, the confessing of sins; she hath a train after her, the fruits of good works, the walking in the commandments of God. He that believeth will not be idle, he will walk, he will do his business. Have ever the gentleman usher with you. So if you will try Faith, remember this rule, consider whether the train is waiting upon her."

And cannot a child believe in an absent one? Why, is there not some such conversation as this going on in many a household in our country now? —" Mamma, where is papa?" "He is a long way off in India." "What is he doing?" "Why, he is engaged in defending the country." "Did I ever see papa?" "Oh yes, my child, you saw him, but you were too young then to know him." "And what was papa like?" "Oh, when he was here, before he went, he was a very fine man; and he is a very loving man, and loves mamma very much, and he is always writing letters to mamma." "Well, mamma, I think I love papa too; I love him with all my heart." And do you not think there would be an influence upon that dear child's mind, flowing from mamma's lips with the very name of papa? And though we have never seen Thee, O blessed Jesus, yet still it is true-" In whom, though now we see Him not, yet believing we re joice with joy unspeakable and full of glory."-DR. Davis.

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REDEMPTION BY JESUS CHRIST.

"What do you do without a mother to tell all your troubles to?" asked a child who had a mother, of one who had not.

"Mother told me whom to go to before she died," answered the little orphan; "I go to the Lord Jesus; He was mother's friend and He is mine."

"Jesus Christ is up in the sky; He is a long way off, and has a great many things to attend to in heaven. It is not likely He can stop to mind you."

"I do not know anything about that," said the orphan; "all I know is, He says He will, and that's enough for me.”

1329.-REDEMPTION BY JESUS CHRIST.

I Peter i. 18, 19.-" Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot." [R.V.] 1 Handed down.

Illustrative.-Captain Hedley Vicars.-It was the thought of "the blood" which led him to be decided. Whilst waiting, in Canada, in November, 1851, the arrival of a brother officer in his room, and idly turning over the leaves of the Bible, his eye caught the well-known words, "The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin." Closing the book, he said, "If this be true for me, henceforth I will live, by the grace of God, as a man should live who has been washed in the blood of Jesus Christ."

It is recorded of Samuel Pearce, a useful minister at Birmingham, that at the time of his conversion, having read Doddridge's "Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul," he took up the idea suggested in that book, and resolved formally to dedicate himself to the Lord. He drew up a covenant accordingly, and to make it more solemn and binding, ke signed it with blood drawn from his own body. But afterwards, failing in his vows, he was plunged into great distress. Driven therefore into a more complete examination of his motives, he was led to see that he had been relying too much on his own strength; and carrying the bloodstained covenant to the top of his father's house, he tore it into pieces and scattered it to the winds, and resolved henceforth to depend upon the peace-making and peace-keeping blood of Christ.

Do you know what a Redeemer is? It is one who helps another out of any trouble, or difficulty, or punishment, by paying the penalty in his stead.

REDEMPTION BY JESUS CHRIST.

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Some little children once had a pet lamb. They had taken care of it since it was very small; it ran after them, and played with them, and ate from their hands. But one morning, when their lessons were done, and they ran as usual to play with "Snowy," as they called it-it was so white-the lamb was nowhere to be found.

So off they started, in hope of finding their pet. All the way they were calling "Snowy! Snowy!" and running to look behind every little hillock that they passed; but they saw nothing of it, until they had almost reached the town. Then, as they were hurrying along, they heard, down a cross-road which they had almost reached, the bleating of a lamb. "Oh! that's Snowy !" they all cried eagerly; "there she is now!" and running forward, they reached the corner of the road just as a large rough-looking boy came along, dragging a little white lamb by a rope around its neck.

"What are you going to do with Snowy?" exclaimed the children, running up to him; "that's our lamb."

"It won't do you much good, now you have found her, I reckon," said the boy; "my master bought her this morning, and she is so nice and fat that I am taking her to the slaughter-house now."

66 To the slaughter-house ! Kill our Snowy! you shan't do it!" cried Ralph, with crimson cheeks and sparkling eyes, while the other children broke out into loud exclamations, putting their arms around Snowy, and one of the boys trying to snatch the rope out of the butcher's hand. Just then a gentleman rode up on horseback, and asked what all that noise was about.

"It is our lamb, sir," said Ralph, half choked with trying not to cry. "It was stolen from us last night, and he's going to kill it."

The butcher explained that it had been sold to his master, and that he must do as his master ordered him.

"Oh, nonsense!" said the gentleman; "there, there, children, stop crying; the lamb shan't be killed this time! Give them the rope,

Bill. I'll pay your master what he gave for the lamb. Ah, here he comes."

And, sure enough, the butcher, attracted by the noise, was coming to see what was the matter. He did not like giving up the lamb at all at first, but the gentleman insisted upon his doing so, and, paying him out of his own purse, told the children to take the lamb home.

How glad those children were then! how they hugged poor Snowy, who had been in so much danger, and thanked the gentleman for his kindness! Now this was REDEMPTION: poor Snowy could not save herself, and the children, dearly as they loved her, could not save her, for they had not money enough to pay the price. But the gentleman paid the money, and redeemed the little lamb from death, and the children from the sorrow of losing her.

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RE DEMPTION BY JESUS CHRIST.

PRECIOUS BLOOD.-One evening two soldiers were placed as sentries at the opposite ends of a sallyport or long passage, leading from the rock of Gibraltar to the Spanish territory. One of them, from the reading of the sacred Scriptures, was rejoicing in God his Saviour; while the other, from the same cause, was in a state of deep mental anxiety, being under strong conviction of sin, and earnestly seeking deliverance from the load of guilt that was pressing upon his conscience. On the evening alluded to, one of the officers, who had been out dining, was returning to the garrison at a late hour, and coming up to the sentry on the outside of the sallyport, and who was the soldier recently converted, he asked, as usual, for the watchword. The man, absorbed in meditation on the glorious things that had recently been unfolded to him, and filled with devout gratitude and love, on being roused from his midnight reverie, replied to the officer's challenge with the words, "The precious blood of Christ." He soon, however, recovered his self-possession, and gave the correct watchword. But his comrade, who was anxiously seeking the Lord, and who was stationed as sentry at the other or inner end of the sallyport, a passage specially adapted for the conveyance of sound, heard the words, "the precious blood of Christ," mysteriously borne upon the breeze at the solemn hour of midnight. The words came home to his heart as a voice from heaven: the load of guilt was removed, and the precious blood of Christ spoke peace to the soul of the sin-burdened soldier. He was afterwards, with others of his regiment, drafted for service in India, and proceeded to the island of Ceylon, where a long career of usefulness opened up before him, and where he became the honoured instrument, in the hands of the Lord, for the completion of a great and important work. Soon after arriving in Ceylon, his discharge was procured from his regiment, that he might fill the office of master of the principal school in Colombo, for which he was well qualified by a good education in early life. He soon acquired an intimate knowledge of the Cingalese language, and as a translation of the Bible into that tongue was lying in an unfinished state, owing to the death of the individual who commenced the work, he set himself to the task, and completed the Cingalese version of the Scriptures, which was afterwards printed by the British and Foreign Bible Society in four quarto volumes. The remainder of his life was spent in India, devoted to the service of his Lord and Master! and ere he was called to his rest, the converted soldier became possessed of an intimate acquaintance with no less than thirteen languages.

LIVING STONES.

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I. PETER II.

1330.-LIVING STONES.

I Peter ii. 5.-"Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house." [R.V.] Living.

Illustrative.-We read in a recent work :- "The stones from the wall said, 'We come from the mountains far away, from the sides of the craggy hills. Fire and water worked on us for ages, but only made us crags. Human hands have made us into a dwelling where the children of your immortal race were born, and suffer, and rejoice, and find rest and shelter, and learn the lessons set them by our Maker and yours. But we have passed through much to fit us for this. Gunpowder has rent our very heart; pickaxes have cleaved and broken us; it seemed to us often without design or meaning, as we lay misshapen stones in the quarry; but gradually we were cut into blocks, and some of us were chiselled with finer instruments to a sharper edge. But we are complete now, and are in our places, and are of service. You are in the quarry still, and not complete, and therefore to you, as once to us, much is inexplicable. But you are destined for a higher building, and one day you will be placed in it by hands not human-a living stone in a heavenly temple.""

Of course a living stone means a human being. The figure takes its origin from the seeming life of radiant stones, whose gleams and flashes have the seeming, at times, of will and life.

A man is said in the Bible to be more precious than the gold of Ophir; and of a woman it is said, "Her price is far above rubies." These were common comparisons. There is something in the glow of precious stones that peculiarly fits them to serve for such spiritual figures. There is about them a subtile light-a brilliancy-that burns without fire; that consumes nothing, and requires no supply; that for ever shines without oil; that is ever-living, unwasting, unchanged by any of the natural elements. A diamond that glows in the sunlight flashes yet more beautifully in the night. No mould can get root upon it; no rust can tarnish it; no decay can waste it. The jewels that were buried two thousand years ago, if now dug up from royal and princely tombs, would come forth as fair and fresh as they were when the proud wearer first carried them in his diadem. Fit emblems by which to represent spiritual qualities, and the beauty and imperishableness of Christian virtue. And a company of holy men, resting upon the Lord Jesus Christ, may well be compared to a palace built upon broad foundations, and sparkling to the