before our eyes? Shall we constrain him to do things like these, before we give heed to the small still voice in which he would reveal himself to us? His love will spare no needed discipline to move our hearts. Brethren, we speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen and felt.

My brethren, what doth hinder your hearing his voice, and opening the door? Do you cherish in your hearts any thing with which you know Jesus cannot associate? Take example from one of whom I heard in a late revival. An aged sinner, who had lived a lawless life, was brought to God. The sole means of her livelihood was the sale of illicit spirits. No fear of human law had deterred her from this practice; but the love of Jesus caused her to abhor it. She went home in peace of soul, took her large jar from its secret hiding-place, set it on the table, and thus characteristically addressed it:—“Now jar, you and I have lived together many years, but now Jesus Christ is coming to live with me, and you and he will not agree, so you must go;" and she dashed the jar with its contents, to the earth, and brake it in pieces. Is there any one thing, dear as the right eye, which you have been wont to foster in your heart, with which Jesus cannot dwell? Oh, take it to his cross, and crucify it there, that your heart may be free to welcome him to its embrace. Oh that I could now say, for my brethren and for myself, O Jesus! patient, gracious Jesus, our hearts are moved towards thee, our affections expand to receive thee! come, take and keep thine own place in our hearts henceforth and for evermore!

5. We will glance at the promise: "I will sup

with him." What can we poor erring ones supply for him? Let him tell us, "Seest thou this woman! She has washed my feet with tears, and wiped them with the hairs of her head. Since the time that I came in, she hath not ceased to kiss my feet. She hath anointed them with ointment, for she loveth much." How refreshing to his longing heart was all this; prized far beyond the food of the Pharisee's table. And we can give him these. If this poor forgiven child of sin had cause to weep, to anoint his feet, to love much, surely we have far more. Not only has our much sin been forgiven, but also much cruel, base, repeated neglect. Oh! let him but come in, and take his own place, and we shall soon find ours at his feet, to weep much, to love much, while the spikenard of our grateful hearts shall send forth a pleasant smell. These we can supply, and these will not be ungrateful to him.

"And he with me." Let him come in, and he will bring with him the fulness of heavenly blessing-all rich and spiritual good—all deep and tranquil peace -all holy and ineffable joy! Stores of grace with which to revive, to restore, to refresh, to strengthen the spirit, to cheer and solace the heart. His own hand will minister the hidden manna, and the new wine, to the longing soul;-food that the restored heart alone can taste; meat that the world knoweth not of.

Who shall tell the surpassing sweetness of the sacred communing of that eventide hour, as the penitent soul poureth into the ear of her beloved the tale of her wanderings, the expressions of her restored confidence, and the avowal of her true and

earnest love-"Thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee"-while his hand wipes away the tears from her eyes, and his words of unupbraiding tenderness hush her sighs and soothe her sorrows? Who shall tell with what holy reverence and confiding affection the reassured soul hangs upon the lips of her beloved, while he tells her of the home which he has provided for her in his Father's house, of the throne of glory which awaits her, of the longings of his own heart for the day when he shall present her, in her faultless beauty and glory, to himself, and of the patient grace and kindly care with which he will guide and guard her along the way to that home? And, most of all, who shall tell with what unutterable and ravishing delight the thrice-blessed soul shall gaze upon the countenance of her beloved, while he telleth her that from everlasting he hath loved her, as the Father hath loved him; that she shall be his joy and rejoicing before the Father's face unto eternal ages; and that all he is, and all he has, shall be her portion for ever that he himself is hers!

Fellow sinners, who have not yet received Christ as your life and your all, this is the Saviour we commend to you. The love which leads him thus to deal with his people leads him to receive every returning sinner, to cleanse him by his blood, to quicken him by the Holy Ghost with his own life, that he may prepare him as a home for himself in this world, and to become the companion of his bosom, and the sharer of his joys and his glories, in the world to come. Will you welcome him into your heart? shall he be yours, now and for ever?

FAITHFUL WORDS.

BY

JOHN OFFORD,

OF PALACE GARDENS CHAPEL, KENSINGTON.

THE TRUE INNER LIFE.

"Christ liveth in me."-GAL. ii. 20.

"GOD, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ:"-marvellous truth, beaming with light and love; guiding our thoughts upward to the sole cause of that divine act by which the children of sin and death are born anew of God; unfolding to us the deep and mighty motive of the great work of regeneration; telling us that we need look for the source and efficient cause of the life eternal nowhere save in the free, unmerited, unsought love of God to guilty men. With reverence I would say, that, from the very nature of God's love, it was essential that his loved ones should live. Love desires fellowship with its object, and the living can have no fellowship with the dead. Love desires to be felt and enjoyed; it craves responsive affection and confidence; and these the dead cannot give. Let us stand with that mother at the bier of her firstborn. Her mute anguish, her unuttered and unutterable grief, her agonized countenance, tell how much she loves it. Till now she knew not how closely her heart was bound up in the No. 2.

life of her son. How she longs to press her babe to her bosom once more a living thing; how she yearns again to nourish it there, as a tender nursing mother is wont to cherish her children. But the longing, yearning desire of her nature can never be satisfied ; for her babe cannot live. Death has fixed an impassable barrier between the intense love of her heart, and the pleasure which it seeks in the gratification of its desire. Even so would it be with the Divine Father, if his dead could not be made to live; if he possessed no new-creating power, by which he could quicken their spirits with the life and the love everlasting. Indeed, what frail parent of earth ever looked upon her offspring, silent in death, with a millionth part of the love with which the Father of spirits looks upon his loved ones in their state of spiritual death? From eternity his bowels of compassion have yearned towards them. No sooner did death seize upon them in the fall of their first parent, than his longing desire broke forth in the promise of healing and of life. Over them he wept in the blood-drops that were wrung from the breaking heart of his only begotten Son. Never will his great love with which he hath loved them, even while they were dead in sins, be satisfied, till he shall be able to say of his last far off wanderer, This my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found. In considering the words of our apostle, "Christ liveth in me," we observe that Christ himself is the life. And as this is said of the Son, as it is not said of the Father or of the Holy Ghost, it behoves us to inquire in what sense Jesus is specially declared to be the life.