them to this searching test, "Know ye not that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?" It was not sufficient to settle this important question of their being in the faith, or of faith being in them, that they professed their belief in a Saviour, who was externally revealed in the Gospel, unless this Saviour was internally revealed in their hearts, and there formed the hope of glory. Could many nominal Christians only be persuaded to examine themselves, they might speedily discover the emptiness of their profession and the utter delusiveness of their hopes. They might soon be convinced that all the faith which they ever had is merely the effect of educational instruction, because, in point of fact and of sober reality, they believe not one single article of that creed which they profess to believe. For of all that the Bible affirms to be in them as depraved or renovated creatures, they find nothing true, or substantially verified, or transformed into matter of experience. And what reason have they, then, to believe that the things which are external to them, and which they have never seen, are actually in existence?

We read, that he that believeth in the Son of God hath the witness in himself. Now there is an external and a manifold testimony borne to the Divinity of the Saviour by a variety of evidence. But, notwithstanding this abundant testimony to a particular fact, it is a truth which is without us-it is of that which we have no experimental knowledge, until we actually believe with the heart unto righteousness. It is only by coming to the Saviour that we have the testimony in ourselves that he is indeed the Son of God. But to those who do so it is no longer a matter of hearsay, or report, or barren speculation; for all who exercise faith upon him can adopt the language of the inhabitants of Samaria, addressed to the woman of Samaria, with reference to every external testimony, "Now we believe, not because of thy saying, for we have heard him ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world." But it is only by acting faith upon the things which are revealed that we can feel the efficacy, and realize the power of the truth as it is in Jesus. It is thus that we may attain to evidence and assurance of the things which are revealed. Those who act faith upon these things, who make experiment of their reality by searching the Scriptures and

comparing them with the tablet of their inner man, who have recourse to the Redeemer upon the warrant of his own invitation, and to his blood, which cleanseth from all sin, who pray for his Spirit, and feel his renewing and sanctifying influences purifying their hearts from the love of all iniquity, and transforming them into the Divine image,—those who are thus exercised in practical righteousness, and with whom their Christianity is not a speculative contemplation, or a mere philosophical theory, but a business of urgent and imperative and diligent solicitude, can from their own assured and well-authenticated knowledge produce, as it were, the duplicate of the word, because there is a perfect adjustment between what it asserts and what they have attained. As they have read and heard from the testimony of Scripture, so they have seen and found from the testimony of experience. In this case there is an entire consonance betwixt the declarations of the Bible and the depositions of a believer's consciousness. He has the full assurance of understanding with respect to what he has learned in the exercise of faith. His experimental knowledge has incorporated the truth of Scripture with the tablet of his mind, and makes them one in their testimony. He has homologated the record, and this produces a permanent belief and an inexpugnable conviction with respect to Divine realities. These realities are revealed from faith to faith, from the doctrine of faith in the Word to the grace of faith in the heart, and between these two there subsists a complete correspondency.

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But, in order to attain the altitudes of Christian experience, or a knowledge of the deep things of God, it is necessary that we begin by believing the simple and elementary truths of Christianity; must become as little children, that we may enter the kingdom of heaven; we must be willing to unlearn all our speculative orthodoxy, that we may learn the truth as it is in Jesus, that is, that we may learn it practically and to profit. " If any man among you seemeth to be wise in this world, let him become a fool that he may be wise." The basis of all saving and sanctifying knowledge is laid in a deep conviction and persuasion of the primary and fundamental doctrines of our original depravity, and the necessity of regeneration; and the process of illumination is gradual, yet glorious; in virtue of which, the disciple of the

ministers of the Gospel. Are there none of us who stand self-convicted and selfcondemned at the recollection of our petulance, impatience, want of forbearance, provoking to wrath, self-will, pride, envy, jealousy?

As memory calls up the past, and hope gilds the future, does conscience witness any dark leaven of envy in the heart, because of the prosperity, or attainments, or any other advantage of a brother or a sister, over us? Does the Spirit of love see anything of this root of bitterness working within the secrecies of our hearts? How must it grieve him! Does it not put us to shame, and make us blush, as we look forward to the day when it shall be all openly revealed before assembled worlds? O, beloved brethren, let us love one another, for love is of God. Let us all keep our eyes on the day of judgment, and ask ourselves how our words and looks and acts will appear before the great white throne of God? This will serve as a check against all provoking words, sour looks, angry tempers, and will lead us to cultivate tones of love towards others, and to put the hand of love on the chords of human passion, and draw out the sweetest melodies of heaven.

What a miniature heaven of love our Church would possess in herself, and exhibit to the God-hating world around, if all her ministers were examples of love to their flocks, if all her elders ruled in love and the fear of the Lord,-if all her deacons were full of the Holy Ghost, and gathered and distributed the fruits of love for the more general diffusion of the Gospel, which is itself heaven's glad tidings of love, and if all her members were drinking in large draughts of love from the fulness of Him that filleth all in all. This would be heaven below, and it would ripen us more for heaven above. And why should it not be so? God is love; and if all were under the influence of this heaven-born affection, we would avoid giving or taking offence; we would be modest in expressing our own opinions, and pay great respect to the opinion of brethren; we would guard against that reckless spirit which pursues its heedless way of self-will, and tramples beneath its iron heel the best feelings of a brother's heart; a spirit which, under a cloak of pretended faithfulness and zeal, cares not about results, while, with unsparing hand, it inflicts the severest wounds. Surely, if there be one temper

or spirit which makes a man tenfold more the child of hell than another, it is that which can permit him to invoke the God of heaven for the forgiveness of his own trespasses, as he forgives them who trespass against him; and, after all, can think evil and speak evil of his offending brother, perhaps meet him without exercising towards him one feature of this Christian love, proving by his very conduct that he does not freely and frankly forgive and love him as he professed while pleading with God, for Christ's sake, to love and forgive himself. And, on the other hand, if there be a single exercise of Divine grace in which the believer most resembles God, it is in the exercise of that love which forgives offences. In what exercise is God so like himself as in forgiving sinners? Beloved, let us love one another, and imitate God in the exercise of love, for love is of God.

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Does the reader recollect at this moment any one who has offended him, or whom he has offended? Beloved, you will overcome evil with good, and convince your offender that you are like your elder brother in spirit and affection, growing daily in conformity unto Christ's death. Take your stand at the cross; raise your eyes to the expiring Redeemer. See how He deals with his offenders. They inflict on Him the deepest and deadliest wounds: He blots out their sins, and the remembrance of them, by the very blood they shed. As He endured the severest agony, He lifts up his eyes to heaven and prays, Father, forgive them.' How fearfully at that moment He might have otherwise acted! It would only have been an act of his justice to have crushed his enemies beneath his wrath, and have avenged himself of his adversaries. But no; his power and greatness were on the side of mercy and forgiving love. Beloved, have we his mind, his spirit, his affection? Then let us love one another, and be like him. Who will say, I cannot forgive? Enmity may say it, but love cannot. True love knows no bounds to forgiveness; while human affection will not extend its forgiveness beyond the seventh offence, Divine love will constrain us to stretch out the hand of love to an offending brother, and teach us to forgive him till seventy times seven. Just reflect how God your Father has dealt with your poor perverse self. When you were without strength God commended his love

of God himself. And the more we grow in the exercise of love the more we grow in conformity to the spirit and character of God, and in meetness for those peaceful regions where strife, and ambition, and discord, and pride, and envy, and selfishness, are unknown! Brethren, suffer a fellow-worm to exhort you all to be like your Lord and Master in loving one another, and forgiving one another. This is the only time when we can be like Him in this. When death comes the opportunity will be gone!

We will not regret it on a bed of death, nor on the day of judgment. Let us

cherish love more in our church meetings, in our church courts, and in our families, until under its holy and self-subduing influence we all love as brethren, and ripen in meetness for that happy world where love reigns in every bosom and breathes forth from every lip, and where we shall drink it in everlastingly from the infinite fulness of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, the God of love! Beloved, let us love one another, for if a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar; for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?"

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LATE one winter evening, after a hard day's work, we set ourselves down to have a fireside journey through "The Lands of the Bible." How far we penetrated into the first volume at that

sitting we must not say, lest Dr. Wilson should think we had skipped some of his learned foot-notes, or left undeciphered some of his oriental quotations. We accompanied the author and his fellow travellers from Bombay to Aden and Suez, across the desert to Cairo, thence amidst the Pyramids and other ancient but ever new wonders of Egypt; and again from Suez toward the Red Sea and the Great Wilderness. The narrative increased in interest as we got into the footsteps of the march of ancient Israel, and it was not till amidst the solitude and snow on the summits of Mount Sinai, that we perceived the fire at which we sat had died out unheeded, the mind being far away in scenes of world-lasting, if not everlasting sacredness.

"We had still a narrower defile before us for a quarter of an hour after we got to the highest point, but it began to expand as we advanced. A few palm trees and green bushes were tokens of the possibility of life amidst the awful desolation which the heights on all sides presented to our view. The first snow

The Lands of the Bible visited and described. By John Wilson, D.D., Honorary President of the Bombay branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, and Missionary of the Free Church of Scotland.-Two Vols., 8vo. William Whyte and Co., Edinburgh; Longman and Co., London.

which I had seen for fifteen years covered the peaks and filled the crevices of JebelSalsal-Zeit in our front.

It is

little to the left hand, a broad quad"On a sudden, when we had defected a rangular plain, but of much greater bounded at its farthest extremity by a length than breadth, lay before us. mountain of surpassing height, grandeur, and terror; and this was the very 'mount of God,' where he stood when he descended in fire, and where rested the cloud of His glory, from which he spoke all the words of the law.' The plain itself was the Wádí-er-Ráhah, the Valley of Rest,' where stood the whole congregation of the sons and daughters of Israel when gathered together before the Lord. As of old, the everlasting mountains by which it was bounded on every side, were the walls, and the expanse of heaven itself the canopy of this great temple. Entered within its court, so sacred in its association, we felt for a time the curiosity of the traveller lost in the reverence and awe of the worshipper. Never before, perhaps, were

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wondrous locality. Our emotions were so strangely affected as in this then incapable of analysis, as they now are of description. more than excited by the contemplation I trust they were of past realities and enduring solemnities that they were directed Godward by the great Spirit of truth Himself."-Vol. I., p. 210.

Next day, from the convent the party ascended to the summit of Jebel Muza, or the Mountain of Moses.

"From the chapel of Elijah, the last halting-place, to the summit is the steepest part of the mountain, and it occupies in the ascent about half an hour.