ON CHRISTIAN HOPE.

CHRISTIANS are apt to overlook the duty of cultivating those graces to which their natural characters are most opposed. One inclined to despondency gives way to the most discouraging views which may present themselves to the mind, without reflecting that God has commanded us not only to pray always, but to "hope in the Lord"-to hope under the most unpromising circumstances, and to hope with the assurance, that those who do so "shall yet praise Him."

This view is very important in the work of Christian education. The fairest promise of opening youth is often blighted; those who seemed to be all that we could desire, sometimes without any obvious cause at all, disappoint us, turn aside from the good way; seem as if every impression was erased from their hearts which we flattered ourselves had been written there indelibly; yea, sometimes they even hate the thing which they once loved. The mother, disappointed of her expectations, thinks that all is lost; that she has "laboured in vain, and spent her strength for nought." Here is the time for leaning on the anchor of Hope; she has cast that anchor within

the veil; God's promise is pledged that he will not fail her; let her lean on it: it will not give way. Hope thou in God."

66

It was hope that stayed up the mind of the "Father of the Faithful" and his believing partner, when “ against hope they believed in hope; because they counted Him faithful that had promised;" and it is against hope that we are called to believe in hope: and such as do so shall find that Abraham's God" will not fail them."

A mere empty expectation, which has nothing to rest upon, may, and often will, end as it began, in vanity; but a hope which has respect to the promise of Him "who cannot lie," shall never go unrewarded. It is true that God has not given an unconditional pledge that the child of every believer shall be born from above; had he done so, this might, and no doubt would, from the evil and corrupt nature of our hearts, have produced carelessness and indifference, both in parents and in their offspring in the use of means. But He has done something infinitely more consonant with his own unsearchable wisdom; he has set forth in the plainest terms, the means which he promises to bless; he has set death and life before Christian parents, and said, Choose which ye will have for your children. "The kingdom of heaven suffereth violence and the violent take it by force." Nor does this view militate in the slightest degree against the sovereignty of divine grace; God hath

been pleased so wonderfully to link together means and ends, so closely to fit one to the other, that "What God hath joined together, let not man put asunder."

Those men were not less "wicked by whom our Lord was "crucified and slain," because he was delivered up to them "by the determinate counsel and fore-knowledge of God;" and the salvation of every converted sinner is no less the result of the divine sovereignty, because God is pleased to employ human agency in working out his designs. "Oh! the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God, how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways, past finding out!"

Our hope is not to have respect to any particular time; and this for the obvious reason that it would then be changed into certainty; but it is to be a hope fixed on the Promiser, a hope in God."

66

Christian parents are too anxious to see quick results, to have the seed not only sown, but immediately springing up; whereas "the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruits of the earth.” Difficult as it is to "sow in hope," without even desiring a very rapid appearance of vegetation, this is assuredly the right way. Religion should "take root downwards," as well as "bear fruit upwards;" and the seed that lies the longest hidden beneath the earth, is more likely to become a

strong and healthy plant, than one which shoots up a green and weak stem, puts forth its leaves rapidly, and is perhaps blighted by the first nipping frost.

Let the seed sown be well watered with tears; not tears shed in despondency, but in joyful hope, and "the sun of righteousness" will graciously shine upon that prepared soil and make it bring forth abundantly. Hope thou in God, for thou shalt yet praise Him.”

66

M.

To mark the sufferings of the babe
That cannot speak its woe;
To see the infant tears gush forth,
Yet know not why they flow;
To meet the meek uplifted eye,
That fain would ask relief,
Yet can but tell of agony-
This is a mother's grief.

Through dreary days and darker nights,
To trace the march of death,
To hear the faint and frequent sigh,

The quick and shortened breath;
To watch the last dread strife draw near,
And pray that struggle brief,

Though all is ended with its close,-
This is a mother's grief.

To see in one short hour decayed
The hope of future years;

To feel how vain a father's prayers,
How vain a mother's tears:

To think the cold grave now must close
O'er what was once the chief

Of all the treasured joys on earth-
This is a mother's grief.

Yet when the first wild throb is past,
Of anguish and despair,

To lift the eye of faith to heav'n,
And think my child is there!
This best can dry the gushing tears,
This yield the heart relief,

Until the Christian's pious hope
O'ercomes a mother's grief.

REV. T. Dale.

DID we duly consider how far the goodness of a single individual may be influential in his neighbourhood; how that influence may be propagated, in ever widening circles, and may ultimately, in no small degree, promote the welfare of his country, it would surely be a great support and strengthening to our weak faltering virtue.

It ten righteous men had been found in the