1881. 66 CHRIST IS ALL AND IN ALL." Alexts and @houghts for the Dew Year. "Hitherto the Lord hath helped us." "The Lord bless thee and keep thee; the Lord make His face to shine upon thee and be gracious unto thee; the Lord lift up His countenance upon thee and give thee peace. "We shall see Him as He is." "What manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness?" BELOVED READER,-Here is a fourfold cluster of precious sentences from our Father's book presented for consideration, well adapted to comfort, encourage, animate, and cheer the heart of the living, loving, trusting, obedient child of God. Spared, as we are, to the commencement of another year, it is well to reflect a little on the past; to examine ourselves as to the present state of matters between God and our own souls; solemnly to ask for the promised blessing of our covenant Triune Jehovah, to be with us and upon us during the year we have now just entered upon; to think a little on the glorious prospect before us in the future of heaven, if we be true believers in the Lord Jesus; and to resolve in the strength of grace divine, to walk more as children of the light in the future of our life on earth than we have hitherto done. As to the past, every child of God who will calmly and conscientiously take a review of the past year, will be filled with a deep and humbling sense of his own manifold shortcomings, and of the wondrous mercy and goodness of his heavenly Father in His dealings with him, during the whole of its revolving months, weeks, and days. Chiefly will he be impressed with an adoring grateful sense of the kindness and faithfulness of his God in preserving him in the way of peace and truth, in supplying his numerous wants, in bearing with his waywardness and follies, and forgiving his sins on confessing and forsaking the same; in restoring his soul from time to time, when, through neglecting prayer and other means of grace, uubelief, or other causes, it had become cold, barren, and distant from God. He will remember the loving-kindness of the Lord in His good providence in various forms and ways, and especially in the love visits vouchsafed to him in the closet, the sanctuary, reading the word, in meditation, and in those occasional happy moments when, without any apparent connection with the use of means, the Lord gives him a token of His love, and assures his soul that He is his salvation-thus filling him with joy and peace in believing. These and similar reminiscences will call forth the grateful exclamation, "Hitherto the Lord hath helped me, even unworthy me. Then may well follow the No. 577.-JANUARY, 1881. A earnest, heartfelt prayer, that the blessing wherewith the Lord God of Israel promised to bless his ancient people, may be greatly realized and enjoyed during the year now entered upon. Translated into New Testament language, that most gracious benediction reads thus-"The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost be with you." In each reading the blessing is the same-the blessing with which a gracious Triune Jehovah blesses those on whom He puts His name, and of whom he says, "I will bless them." And surely that must be a blessed man indeed whom our Covenant God, in His Trinity of Persons, condescends to bless. Be this the happy lot of every spiritual reader of the Gospel Herald all through the year of our Lord 1881. With Jabez of old, let each one pray fervently, "Oh that Thou wouldest bless me indeed." Oh that God would keep me, make His face to shine upon me, and be gracious unto me, lift up the light of His countenance upon me, and give me peace. And our gracious God will hear and answer the prayer thus humbly and earnestly presented in the name of Christ Jesus our Lord; so that in the experience of every such weeping and praying Jabez, it shall be found, as with him of many centuries gone by, that "the Lord our God will grant that which is thus requested of Him." Thus shall our Heavenly Father's love, the saving grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the sanctifying communion of the Holy Ghost, even the blessing of the covenant Triune God, be with us. Amen. So may it be, most gracious God, throughout the year now entered upon, and all the days and years of our earthly pilgrimage, be they few or more. Then should it please the Lord to call us away from these earthly scenes during the year now commenced, as He did many whom we knew and loved in the past year-what then? It shall be well with us if we are truly lovers of Christ, for we shall "see Him as He is," and be with Him for ever. This our beloved brother Paul considered to be far better than tabernacling here below. The desire of every living child of God is to behold the King in His beauty. The support and solace of the Church throughout the ages of persecution, tribulation, and waiting, has been the believing expectation of beholding the Bridegroom's face in that goodly inheritance, Jerusalem above. "The King there in His beauty It were a well spent journey, Though seven deaths lay between. "The Lamb with His fair army "Oh! Christ, He is the fountain, "There to an ocean fulness The Lamb is all the glory He has promised that where He is, there His servants shall be also; they do not, however, expect the honour and happiness on the ground of their service but of His. He gives His loved ones eternal life. He came on earth that they, by His service and sufferings, might have life—and might have it more abundantly, more freely, more securely, more lastingly, and more blessedly than the life that Adam possessed in his state of innocence. The life He gives them is eternal; they go out no more, for ever, from the Paradise of God-because Christ lives, they shall live also, and see His face, and never, never sin. This honour, this perfect bliss, shall be possessed by all His saints, by all who humbly serve Him here below, trust in His precious blood and righteousness, and love His dear and holy name. Yes, with dear Joseph Swain, every one of this truly blessed company may confidently sing: "For ever I shall see Him shine- Whom heaven's high hosts adore ; These are good and comfortable words-the Lord give the readers of the Gospel Herald faith to receive them and enjoy the blessed consolation and glorious anticipations they are calculated to inspire, all through the year. But as servants of the living God, and followers of our holy Lord, there are other things to be attended to whilst we are on earth, besides our own comfort and assurance of an interest in the glory that shall follow the present state. These are briefly expressed or implied in the fourth passage cited at the head of this paper, viz.-What manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness?" The idea of responsibility is involved; this arises from the relation in which we stand as children of the Most High God, partakers of the heavenly calling, avowed disciples of Christ, and heirs of eternal glory. Seeing that we stand in such distinguished relationship, have received so distinctive a mark of divine favour as to be called from moral darkness into marvellous heavenly light, have made open profession of our faith in and obedience to our divine Lord and Master, and are looking to spend a holy and happy eternity with Him in heaven ;—it becomes us to walk in a manner corresponding therewith, whilst it shall be His pleasure for us to dwell on earth. And as the enjoyment of the Divine favour in the soul is very closely connected with a holy and consistent walk and conversation, it is necessary for our own happiness that, as obedient children, we have respect unto all our Father's commandments, esteeming them in all their varied forms to be good, and right, and profitable for the soul, as well as glorifying to His name to be observed and obeyed. Thus, with a grateful remembrance of divine mercies, and a humbling sense of our own mauifold shortcomings in the past; with earnest and devout prayer for the promised blessing of our God, and a humble resolve in His strength and by His grace to walk in the paths of righteousness, truth, and peace, may we begin this year. And in like manner spend all our allotted days on earth, looking unto Jesus, hoping and anticipating through His rich grace to be with Him for ever in that bright world of light, love, holiness, and joy, when He shall be pleased to call us hence. Amen. Echoes from the Sanctuary. THE UPLIFTED HAND. BY ISRAEL ATKINSON. "And say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God; in the day when I chose Israel, and lifted up mine hand unto the seed of the house of Jacob, and made myself known unto them in the land of Egypt, when I lifted up mine hand unto them, saying I am the Lord your God." Ezek. x. 5. The children of Israel were divinely distinguished and were raised to a singular elevation mainly because they were constituted a typical people. God's relation to them and his conduct with them were intended to exhibit typical resemblances of his relation to, and of his conduct with his elect, whom in the fulness of time he purposes to redeem from among all the nations. Hence the wonderful analogies, between the redemption of the one and the other, of which some are presented here. Among those noticeable may be mentioned,-First, a revelation of covenant relation. God made himself known by Moses to the Israelites in Egypt as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; and, therefore, as their God according to his covenant with their fathers. What he made known he confirmed by corresponding acts of favour. In the fulness of his pity he compassionated them in their wretchedness, and by sundry miracles of power he delivered them from the house of their bondage. In a similar manner he makes himself known as the God of his elect. He pities these in their misery, and emancipates them from their thrall. He convincingly shows himself to be their God, by doing in them, and for them what God only is competent to do. His work in them is spoken of, for appropriate reasons, sometimes as a creation, at others as a resurrection, at others as a regeneration, and at others as a transformation. As in every view of this wonderful work it is necessarily God's, and demonstratively a covenant favour, so, therefore, in whomsoever it is wrought it proves beyond doubt that God is the God of that person. Thus that immensely important question, "Am I his, or am I not ?" receives a satisfactory answer. If that has been done to me which God only can do, and which is an undoubted covenant favour, this is proof that the Lord is my God; a proof too that will stand the soul in stead when all confidences in dreams or visions seen asleep or awake, in impulses, in impressions, and what not beside of this sort of thing, may become as "a broken tooth or a foot out of joint." A second thing noticeable is a claim asserted on the relation revealed. God chose Israel," saying, I am the Lord your God." He enforced this claim against Pharaoh. "Moses and Aaron went in and told Pharaoh, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Let my people go, that they may hold a feast unto me in the wilderness." In like manner God enforces his claim against every withholding power in the deliverance of his elect. He says "to the north, give up and to the south, keep not back." His claim, be it observed, is enforced by right; by an original sovereign right, overriding the subsequent claims of all "other lords." His people have, indeed, yielded themselves servants to obey "other lords," and according to established usage they have become the property of those lords to whom they have so yielded themselves, so far as their own rights are concerned. But they could not by their unrighteous self-disposal prejudice the right of their Divine Lord. His right to them and claim of them are not injured by their revolt. If through their wickedness, according to established usage, they may have forfeited all claim on God as their Lord, nothing could deprive God of his original sovereign claim to them. Moreover, as God enforces His claim |