form fresh bonds to draw more closely together hearts which before lacked not loving union, and which knew not that they could be more closely knit into one. The father and mother realize a mutual joy of fellowship which the husband and wife have not known. Thus it is in the fellowship that has place between God and the children of his love. For God the Father has ever possessed an object of ceaseless delight dwelling in his bosom before the ages were born; tracked by his eye, and rejoiced over in his heart, as he trod the path of well-pleasing devoted-. ness, and of suffering obedience to his will on earth; loved by him with intensest satisfaction, because he bowed his willing spirit beneath the weight of human guilt and of divine wrath, that he might give his life for the sheep; welcomed-oh! with what joy welcomed to his bosom, and to his glory, from the depths of that sea of woe, wherein our sins had laid him; and now ever gazed upon, in the marvellous glories of his godhead and manhood natures, with an infinitude of pleasure which no heart but that of God could hold. What child of earth, not yet within those glories, shall tell the ecstacy of delight with which the Father regardeth his best beloved, wherewith he rewardeth him for that hour of dire grief, in which his forsaken and crushed spirit knew the terror and the agonies of Jehovah's wrath? If, then, we would have fellowship of thought and feeling, of mind and heart with the Father, where shall we find it save in him, around whom the Father's arms are ever entwined, and on whom the Father's heart has concentrated its efernal affections? Seeing that every thought and purpose of God concerning his people has been centered in Jesus, how shall we realize the greatness of those thoughts, or learn the deep mysteries of those purposes, save as we learn him? Seeing that the love of the Father to the children has, from eternity, embraced them in his well-beloved Son, how shall our hearts enter into the fulness and sweetness of that love, save in the knowledge of that beloved Son? Would we have sweet intimate fellowship with the Father, then must our minds, as doth the Father's mind, ceaselessly contemplate the Son of his love, in the glories of his person, the mysteries of his obedience and cross, and the grace of his risen manhood; accounting all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus our Lord. Would we have most intimate fellowship with the heart of the Father in the very depths of its affections, then must we be taught to know and appreciate his love for Jesus, his own and only-begotten Son, while we know ourselves as one with him, and as thus ever loved. Knowing the Son, we know all that is in the Father's mind: knowing the Son, we know all that is in the Father's heart: loving the Son, we love with the Father: rejoicing in the Son, we joy with God; our hearts have sweet accord with his heart. Son of God! none knoweth the Father but thyself, and he to whom thou wilt reveal him. Son of God! he that hath seen thee hath seen the Father. O Son of God, evermore show us the Father, and it sufficeth us. V. Children of the Father, know and use, and enjoy your high and holy privilege. In all things think and speak, and walk and act before God; dwelling ever in the light of his countenance, which Child of sorrow, beameth from his mercy-seat. bring thy palpitating heart-whether restless with the tossings of doubt and fear, or stung with the bitterness of disappointment, or wrung with the anguish of bereavement-bring thy disquieted heart, and lay it in the bosom of thy Father God. There dwelleth in that bosom a deep, blessed, and undisturbed peace, which shall communicate its soothing, hallowing, tranquilizing power to thy breast; turning the restlessness of doubt and fear into the repose of confidence and hope; causing the bitterness of disappointment to give place to the joy of his favour who has never been a barren wilderness to his people; and healing the anguish of the bereaved heart with the balm of his sweetest consolation. Child of care, laden with the anxious concerns of life, pressed by family wants, and perplexed by the trials and reverses of business, bear up all into the light of thy Father's presence, tell all into his listening ear, spread out every care and trial beneath the light of his eye. "Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and he shall sustain thee." "Call upon him in the day of trouble, and he will deliver thee." "Commit thy way unto the Lord; trust also in him: be silent unto him; rest in him: yea, wait patiently for the Lord, and he shall bring it to pass." Ye parents, whose hearts weep for your sons and daughters, because they seek not God, and love not the name of Jesus, go, ever go, with your deep parental solicitude unto your Father and God. What plea is like yours? the plea of a parent's love from a parent's heart, a relationship and an affection which your God has created, that he might display his own tender fatherly love and care for his outcasts. Appeal to the heart of your Father until you know that he has answered your fervent prayer. Lay your sorrowing spirit upon his fatherly heart with the cry of the poor daughter of Canaan, in the simple might of its faith, "Lord, help! Lord, help!" until, constrained by that earnest faith, he shall say, "O son, O daughter, great is thy faith; be it unto thee even as thou wilt." Lonely widowed one, whose heart mourns its sad, sad loss, and around whose spirit gathereth the desolate darkness; thy Father's home and heart are open to thee! go, pour thy sorrows into his bosom, and tell thy griefs into his ear! his own words of love shall comfort thee, and his own kind hand shall wipe away thy tears! Ye who taste the orphan's bitter cup, and know not the blessing of a father's care, or the sweetness of a mother's caress; your Father can hear your cry, and can alleviate your deep woes. And then, poor wanderer from thy once loved home, return, oh, return; for thy Father's arms are still open, and his bosom still yearns to embrace thee. For you his fatherly love has special sympathies; to you his fatherly care is specially pledged. Your God is the Father of the fatherless. : Into the light of that holy of holies-the presence of the Father-the spirit of the world doth not penetrate there the foot of the prince of darkness findeth no vantage ground from which to assail the sons of God and there the incipient risings of the flesh are instantly detected, and put to shame and death. Wherefore, O ye children of the Father, abide in that presence, and gather its holy light around your persons, in all your sojournings in "this present evil world." FAITHFUL WORDS. BY JOHN OFFORD, OF PALACE GARDENS CHAPEL, KENSINGTON. FELLOWSHIP WITH THE SON. "Our fellowship is . . . . with his Son Jesus Christ." "GOD is faithful, by whom ye were called into the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord." These words, addressed to the Church at Corinth, do not represent our daily converse with Jesus; but they set forth our position before God with and in him. They declare the everlasting and unchanging standing of the believer in the true grace of God. They speak of his presentation in the holiest of all, in the matchless merit, and in the priceless preciousness, of the well-pleasing Son of the Father: the riches of which merit, and the fulness of which preciousness, our holy God has put upon every believer. They assure us that, being found in Jesus, we have the same standing as Jesus himself, before the face of his God and our God, of his Father and our Father. They show us that the God of all grace has called us unto his eternal glory in Christ Jesus. Already the eternal glory has received Christ our Lord already the believer is presented in Christ there yet a little while, and he will himself be presented, with the whole family of faith, without fault |