luted bosoms, and sanctify them to God's service, to holy purity and love. Before this is done, the soul's condition is most deplorable, cankered with sin, separate from God, and consequently has no real enjoyments, is an heir of perdition, and exposed to all evil. But, sanctified by the spirit, it is brought back to God, made the subject of his favor, secured from ill, and prepared for the participation of good. And yet this unspeakably blessed operation, is but one part of the spirit's divine office to the last. Within the pardoned sinner, he becomes a teacher and a guide. He enlightens, supports and cheers. He gives peace and consolation. How great the blessing of the spirit's indwelling operations to the Christian soul! What a heaven of light, peace, and sacred joy does he there produce! Under his peculiarly favoring influences, a paradise is experienced in this life, the soul, looking through all the windows of its perception, witnessing and participating a heaven in all it beholds or contemplates, every object in the compass of vision and thought, giving a heavenly delight.

If the Holy Spirit gives such blessedness here, what must be its influence in that renovated world, where ransomed souls dwell in the presence of the eternal king, themselves perfect and immortal, all that is around them perfect and immortal also. By his hand of love will he touch all the springs of deathless life, waking its chords to the vibrations of infinite and eternal happiness. And that divine spirit will be there to enlighten

and lead to all knowledge, to perfect the understanding and the judgment, to give a sense of all holy and divine things, and to "keep the redeemed children of light from falling, preserving them faultless before the presence of glory,' time without end. Let pardoned sinners unite in giving thanks to God the spirit, for present and everlasting kindness-for cleansing us from sin -for making us holy-for dwelling in us forever

more.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE REDEEMER THE CENTRE OF LIFE IN THE

NEW WORLD.

FROM the declarations of the Scriptures, as well as from the influence felt on Christian hearts in this world, and from the instituted relations between the Messiah and his people, it is evident that He will be to all those ransomed intelligences the glorious sun of life, righteousness and bliss, to whom they will be attracted, and about whom their affections will circle forever and ever.

To them, what would be the bright day of that blessed earth, but a night of sombre vacancy without Him? With all its beauties and treasures of created perfections, what would it be but a desert waste to their hearts, if He were to be absent ? Say, Christian believer, if your heart does not testify it would be so! If, opening your eyes

upon that glorious land, you should find that He were not there, would not the disappointment sink your spirit into cheerless despondency?Would not all your joys die within you? Like Mary would you not exclaim, "They have taken away my Lord"—and where may I go that I may find him? Alas, for me, I am undone ! my soul's all-animating and blissful expectation perishes in this disappointment! What avail this heavenly day, these fair fields of immortality, these rivers of life, all this glorious world, with Him absent!

But he will not be absent. He will be found in his appropriate place and station-on the throne of his kingdom, in the midst of his people, to reign over them by his love, to dwell in their midst forever. No, ye followers of Him in the evil generation, ye are not to fail of what your hearts so much desire, and for which you gladly endure the cross through this life's pilgrimage! As you depart from the body, especially as you pass from the judgment seat, it shall be to be ever with your Lord. Says an Apostle, "So shall we be ever with the Lord." Ever with him! transporting, ravishing thought! "O that I might see my dear Savior now!" is the language of the zealous Christian pilgrim's heart. "O that I might behold him-look upon his face-press near to him-embrace his blessed feet-might listen forever to his voice, and forever live in his presence! But now the veil is between me and him; present in the body, I am absent from my Lord. O, for the day when I may enter where he is!" Well, it will come, and never be gone!

Thou shalt be "ever with thy Lord." It is enough. "Fly swiftly round, ye wheels of time, and bring the welcome day."

Yes, ye ransomed sinners, you are soon to come into the full presence of your Savior-King. There are you to be, to receive at his hand your incorruptible heritage. As your Shepherd, he will lead you forever into its blissful participation. "The Lamb that is in the midst of the throne, shall feed you, and guide you unto living fountains." Then will he have destroyed their last enemy, Death; then will he forever preserve them from all harm and sorrow, wiping away all tears from their eyes forever.

CHRISTIANS, are not your expectations ardent, as you are looking for the "promised redemption," in the glorious kingdom of your Lord, where you are to be ever present with him? You feel the relationship between yourselves and him -you feel the strong attachment growing out of that relation-you have a sense of his glory and excellency-you are prepared to appreciate his goodness, having communed with him, found him to be your first friend. In him you have found peace-he has given you pardon and the spirit and earnest of eternal life. Of him have you

received divine consolation.

Are you, reader, a youth, just come into the kingdom of his grace? Do you not feel that it is only since you have found him, that your soul has known true happiness, insomuch that a moment's fellowship with him has been of more worth than all the joys you realized in the days

of your vanity? Under the sense of his redeeming and infinite goodness and excellence, have you not felt that he is indeed precious, and your sufficient portion for this life and for eternity?

Or are you one in mid-life; one who has walked for many years with the Lord? or are you in the evening of life, your sun just going down, after a spiritual acquaintance with the Redeemer for two score or half a century of years, and after all that term of experience of his loving kindness, witness his goodness and power to strengthen to joyful and increasing vigor the inner man, while the outer totters on the brink of the gråve? Say, all that have tasted of his grace, is not that heavenly country, which forms the subject of these pages, glorious in your view, mainly from the consideration that you will find your Redeemer there, and there dwell with him forever?

Here he is proved to be the all-sufficient friend in every extremity, even in that most trying hour, that of death, when flesh is failing and all human help, all worldly comfort utterly fails. What wonders of grace has he not manifested in that scene. When the dart of the King of Terrors is shaken at the defenceless heart-when the fatal blow is falling, and the terrific weapon rankles in the bleeding, writhing, expiring heart-then has that divine friend stood by and changed all those terrors and all that anguish into triumphant rejoicing, making Death the ministering angel to set free the "prisoner of hope" into the full liberty, and life and glory of heaven-of Jesus' near and full presence. This has been the expe