THE LAW OF LOVE. The trust we want is a lantern that will gleam the brighter as the night of trouble grows the darker a light unto our timid feet-a lamp unto our wild, broken pathway. The trust that honours God is a trust through thick and thin, through noon and midnight, through poverty and reproach, through loss and disaster, through hard words and hard blows, and even under the hidings of the Almighty's countenance. Such was the faith of him who cried out, "My heart is fixed, trusting in the Lord." Such was Paul's all-conquering confidence when he wrote to his spiritual son"The Lord stood with me and strengthened me; and the Lord shall deliver me from every evil work, and will preserve me unto His heavenly kingdom." Good reader, can you trust God though He slay you? If not, then we fear that you have never known what it really is to trust Him at all. For faith in the midnight is the only true faith. It requires no faith to walk in the noonday; we can then "walk by sight." STRAY THOUGHTS FOR THE WE are to remember that the tone of piety in the Church is determined by the pitch which its individual members give it. Forty years was God's Church once in the wilderness, because it would backslide and rebel. "Better is it that thou shouldest not vow, than that thou shouldest vow and not pay?' Had you made ten thousand beautiful gilded vases, and should you take them, one for every vow you had ever made, and thus, one after another, dash them in pieces, this would be a visible, but faint representation of your broken vows. The golden candlesticks were not removed from the seven churches of Asia till they had forgotten their "first love," and become "lukewarm." Thus those who are mourning the hidings of God's countenance, have, by their own sins, caused its withdrawal. "The devils," we are told, "believe and tremble." Some professors of religion, though they may "believe," do not " tremble," as well they might; they seem too insensible, and too much asleep for that. No sooner are the avenues to the heart left unguarded, than a multitude of evil guests come thronging in, ready to take up their abode there. The heart, then, should be kept "with all diligence." Seest thou a man, who bears the name of Christ, loving the society and the friendship of the ungodly and the vile, there is as much hope for them as for him. He who esteems it a trifling thing to bear the Christian name, is usually unworthy of the name he bears. If "the best of Christians are but Christians at best," what shall be said of those who leave 323. their religion behind, on leaving the sanctuary, or put it off with their Sunday garments s? It is said of some Christians, that “they have no piety to speak of," that is, themselves. But, after all, they have a hundredfold more than others who are ever advertising and prating about theirs. The children of God, who are out of the way, are in a strange land; and well may they ask with the children of Israel, when captives in Babylon, "How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land ?” When "Christian" lost his "scroll," he was an unhappy man until he found it again. Without his scroll no Christian can be happy. When it is asked, as it sometimes is, of a professor of religion, “Is he a professor?" the question is a most suggestive and ominous one. When it is asked of professing Christians, as it often at least secretly is, "What do they more than others?" it is then high time for them to vindicate their claims to the Christian name by their fruits. When an individual's love of gain and of godliness are at an even poise, if a feather's weight be thrown into the side of gain, then godliness is outweighed. And "he that is not for me is against me," and "ye cannot serve two masters." To be a successful hypocrite requires the greatest wariness, and a greater effort than it does to be a successful Christian. Mr Complacitus is disposed to thank God that he is "not as other men," and to feel in comparison with his brethren, "I am holier than thou;" when his most appropriate attitude is, bowing low at the foot of the cross, and there crying, "God be merciful to me a sinner." The favourite resort of Apollyon and his emissaries is always in those very regions into which careless pilgrims are most inclined to stray. THE LAW OF LOVE. SEE 2 KINGS IV. 1-6. Thou failest vessels to provide, Which it may largely fill. But then, when such are found no more, But if at any time thou cease Such channels to provide, The very founts of Love for thee Will soon be parch'd and dried. For we must share, if we would keep, That good thing from above; Ceasing to give, we cease to have-Such is the law of Love. -R. C. Trench. Page for the Young. POUTING JEANIE. JEANIE and John were brother and sister. Jeanie had a temper which was apt to fire up like a lucifer-match when things didn't please her. At such times she pouted her lips, until they looked as if they had been stung by a wasp. One day John did something which she did not like. Out flashed the angry fires from her large black eyes, as she pouted her lips until they looked twice their proper size. Her brother, who was full of good-nature, laughed, and said "Look out, Jeanie, or I'll take a seat up there on your lip! This funny remark fell like sunshine on Jeanie's heart, and changed her pouts into a smile at once. With a sly glance at her bro ther she replied "Then I'll laugh, and you will fall off." Thus Johnny's soft answer turned Jeanie's wrath into good humour. Had he pouted and spoken back, both of them would have been made unhappy. I hope the boys will all speak kindly when their sisters pout, and I hope, too, that all the girls will leave off pouting. Pouting spoils their good looks, and makes them ugly in the sight of God and man. DON'T GIVE UP. "I CAN'T do it, father. Indeed I can't." "Never say can't, my son; it isn't a good word." "But I can't, father. And if I can't, I can't. I've tried, and tried, and the answer won't come out right." "Suppose you try again, Edward," said Mr Williams, the father of the discouraged boy. "There's no use in it," replied the lad. "What if you go to school to-morrow with out the correct answer to the sum ?" "I'll be put down in my class," returned Edward. Mr Williams shook his head, and his countenance assumed a grave aspect. There was a silence of a few moments, and then Edward said confidently, "I will try, and I know it will come out right next time." And so it did. One more earnest trial, and his work was done. Far happier was he after this successful effort than he could have been, if, yielding to a feeling of discouragement, he had left his task unaccomplished. WHAT AM I GOING TO DO? ONE afternoon a boy saw a person drop his purse. He picked it up and put it in his pocket, and was walking off with it. "What am I going to do?" came into his mind; and the answer followed :-" I am going away with a purse of money that does not belong to me. This is not honest; I shall be a thief if I do so. God has said, Thou shalt not steal." In another moment he ran after the person, and gave up the purse. 6 "What am I going to do?" asked a boy who took his fishing-tackle instead of his books, and was stealing out of the back-door of his father's house. "I am going to play truant, deceive my parents, neglect my school, and go in the company of bad boys." The case looked a bad one: he turned about, put away his fishing-tackle, found his satchel, and ran off to school. These boys were saved from much evil by stopping to think. Solomon says, "Ponder the path of thy feet." THE "GUEST'S" BIBLE QUESTIONS FOR THE YOUNG. BIRDS. WHO says, "I chattered as a crane or a swallow, and mourned like a dove?" What bird was first sent out of the ark? What did the dove bring back in her mouth? In what place are we told the eagle dwells? Where does the ostrich lay her eggs ? What does she forget regarding them? How does she treat her young? Where are we told that "they who wait upon the Lord shall mount up on wings as eagles?" What birds did God bring up out of the sea to feed the Israelites ? To whom did the ravens bring food morning and evening? Where is the sweet season of spring called "the time of the singing of birds ?" In the shape of what bird did the Spirit descend on Jesus? Of what tree is it said, "The birds of the air lodge in the branches thereof?" and a sparrow? Who compares himself to a pelican, an owl, In what touching lamentation is allusion And so all will find it. Difficulties are per-made to a hen and her chickens? mitted to stand in our way that we may overcome them; and only in overcoming them can we expect success and happiness. The mind, like the body, gains strength and maturity by vigorous exercise. It must feel and brave, like the oak, the rushing storm, as well as bask amid gentle breezes in the warm sunshine. By what bird was Peter reminded of his sin? Where are we taught God's care over us by comparison with sparrows? Where does Jesus shew His extreme poverty while on earth by comparison with the birds of the air? Published by A. STRAHAN AND CO., 42 George Street, Edinburgh; and E. MARLBOROUGH AND Co., 4 Ave Maria Lane, Londen, REVISED BY THE REV. NORMAN M'LEOD, D.D., GLASGOW. WEEKLY NOS. ONE HALFPENNY.] TIMES AND SEASONS. Truth has its seasons, and the kingdom of God has its periods. The kingdom of heaven, says our Saviour, is as a grain of mustard-seed, the least of all seeds; but when it is grown, it is one of the greatest of plants, tree-like, in which the birds of the air may rest themselves and build nests for their young. At the right time the seed of the kingdom is ripened and dropped into the earth, along the banks of the river of the waters of life. And the sown seed knows the spring-time, and snuffs the sunshine and showers: bursting its prison shell, it sends down its roots for moisture and strength, and sends up its stem for light and air; and comes out in spring freshness and beauty. It has also its summer-time when it ripens its fruits, and its autumn for filling the garners. This is true of every child of God-of every Church of Christ upon earth, and of the whole Church militant collectively taken. Revivals may have been a novelty in the days of Enos, when men first began socially to call on the name of the Lord; but from that day to this they have been the law of the kingdom. Times of refreshing from the presence of the Lord may have taken Abel by surprise, at that first altar of God at the east gate of Eden, as they evidently did take Cain by surprise, making him gnash his teeth upon Abel, as the murderers of all martyrs have done. But they were understood to be the order of God's economy in the days of the apostles, and indeed in every age of the world. It is beautiful to mark the times and occasions of truth in its connexion with the orderly march of events, as in single file, with solemn tread, they come forward at the command of the Lord. The translation of Enoch was just at the No. 28. [MONTHLY PARTS, THREEPENCE. time when the heavens had become overcast with dark clouds of unbelief, and a window in heaven was needed that man might see it, and not forget that there is a heaven above. The flood came just when the fear of God had died out, and violence had run riot, filling the earth; just in time to let all after generations know that there is a God of justice and judgment ruling over all, who does not shrink from wrapping a world in its own winding-sheet, regardless of its agonising shrieks of despair, if the cry of its guilt and the call of justice demand it. The overthrow of Babel and the confusion of tongues, was just at that moment when the pride of man and his desire to cast off fear and restrain prayer had concentrated and culminated in the great city and tower, which were to be at once both the glory and the safety, and the bond of union of the whole human race. The plan of the mighty hunter, and hero, and builder, Nimrod, was laid and almost completed. With every successive course of bricks upon the tower, the pride of the people and their feeling of security rose, and the bond of their union was strengthened, and the fear of God weakened. Dependence upon God had ceased. They were now no more afraid to give loose reins to luxury and ease. Vice and crime could live, and fatten, and run riot in fancied security. Just then it was that God overthrew their city and tower, confounded their speech, broke up their confederacy, and scattered them over the earth, hopeless of ever being united again. A timely lesson to the whole world that there is no tower of safety but God alone, and no abiding city save the city of God, and no glorying except in the Lord which will not be put to shame, and no union that can stand except the union of the one faith, by the one baptism, under the one Lord, in the one family of our Father in heaven. tion was waxing old and ready to pass away, and when the Greek was the written language of the world, and the Roman power the governing power of the world, and when the world was all connected in the one empire of Rome, and all open to the apostles and primitive Christians to go with the gospel to every creature, and when idolatry in all the civilised world was in its dotage, the byword and laughing-stock of the learned. When, in short, there was an open field for a fair contest, such as there never had been before. The call of Abraham was just at the moment when idolatry was fairly beginning to rise and make head in the world, and when, therefore, it was needful to make head against it. Destined to take to itself the splendour of king's courts, and the power of the nations, entrenching itself strongly in the passions and vices of the people, and fortifying itself in their perverted religious propensities, it was needful to separate a nation from all the world to receive the oracles of God, and preserve His worship, and become the nursing mother of the gospel for the whole world. Just then it was that Abraham was called and commissioned to become the father of the one nation, and the father of all who should believe in the true God, that to them as to him it might be reckoned for righteous-plished, and the risen Saviour had ascended ness. The exode, four hundred and thirty years after, with its great battle in the court of Pharaoh, between idolatry-now installed in its pomp, and pride, and power-and the faith of the one God, followed by the overthrow in the Red Sea, and the triumph of truth, was again just in time to teach the world that idols, with all the lying wonders the father of lies can work to sustain them, are nothing but vanity and lies. And the laws and institutes given from Sinai with the worship of God-established and perfected in all its prophetic types and imposing power-were just in time to give form and front to the cause of Jehovah before an idolatrous world, as well as to hold the people themselves, and prepare the way for the Messiah who should fulfil the types, and give substance to the shadows, and become the atoning high priest, and the deliverer of His people both from their guilt and from their sins. The advent of the Holy Spirit, when Pentecost had fully come, was just when the time for it had fully come also. Just when the great work of atonement had been finished, the resurrection accom to the right hand of power. Just when a demonstration of His power as the living and almighty Saviour was needed to revive the drooping disciples and convince a gainsaying world. And just when the disciples themselves needed that very baptism of light and love, and peace and power to inspire them with wisdom, and boldness, and strength for their great commission of giving the gospel to the world. The breaking down of the Jewish walls of || prejudice by Peter's vision and Paul's commission, together with the conversion first of Cornelius and his friends, and afterwards of the Gentiles at Antioch, and the proceedings of the apostles and elders in consequence, was just in time to open the way and set the gospel free to fly abroad, run and conquer, and win the day. The Reformation, passing by the events of fourteen hundred years each as timely as any before or after the Reformation came again just when all things were ready. The The change from a commonwealth to a king-corruptions of Rome had gone so far that all dom, with its rapid rise in power, and opulence, and glory under Saul, and David, and Solomon, with the building of the temple, was all just in time again, when the elements of strength had all been accumulated to combine them, and give imposing form and power to the religion of Jehovah in the eyes of the world. And the captivity in Babylon. When Babylon itself was a combination of the whole world into a single empire, was just at that opportune moment when the Jews themselves needed to be humbled in the dust for their overweening pride and shameful idolatry, and when at the same time through them, in their humility, God could teach the world through His servants in the court, and their influence upon the king, the worship of Jehovah as the one only true God, just in time for the second greatest battle and victory of the true God over idols. The coming of Christ is happily marked by the apostle as just then when the fulness of time had come. When the Jewish dispensa good men everywhere longed for reform. And A DAY IN THE LIFE OF JESUS. covered art of printing had prepared the way to give wings to the Word of God, like the angel of the Apocalypse, flying mid-heaven on its mission to the nations of the world, as never could have been done before. The Great Awakening, two hundred years later, now one hundred years ago, was just in time to arrest the lapsing Church in its downward course, and give it a great impulse upward and onward in preparation for what has come since, and what is now coming, and what is yet to come in the future! To the great central doctrine of justification by faith revived before in the Reformation, the fact of the new birth, as an experience for all, was now added to the faith of the Church in the great awakening. And now in the intervening hundred years, oh, how great events have thickened! The old slow march seems to have hastened into double quick time, and the single file to have formed up into the order of platoons. The Missionary Era, commencing fifty years ago, just when simultaneously Bibles began to multiply through the multiplying power of Bible societies, and missionaries began to rise up, to go out into all the world, and the Church began to combine to send them, and the nations began to throw open their doors to receive them, and commerce began to spread its wings anew to take them, and steam-power began to develop the superiority of Christian nations in all the arts of life, and stimulate commerce to carry Christian fabrics into all heathen nations. Just then a new life began in the Church, under the unfolding power of the great commission, which for ages had been allowed to sleep, but now was proclaimed from every pulpit and by every Christian press of Christendom. As years roll on, the natural sciences unfold, and lead even sceptical minds to abandon Atheism and Pantheism, and come upon the platform of revelation. All machinery is improved. Railroads are invented. Ships are enlarged, and steam is harnessed in to be our servant of all work on sea and land. Electricity is drilled also into service, and a network of veins and arteries is created, producing a grand system of thought circulation, fast binding the nations together into one, or at least bringing them face to face within speaking distance of each other. The printing press is increased by a thousandfold in its productive power, and the gold-fields of California, Australia, and the north, open up their treasures, and pour a golden current into the commercial arteries of the world. And just now, in the midst of all this, God comes down in the power of His Spirit, and arouses the young men and the business men, the laymen and the laywomen, as well as office-bearers in the Church, to meet, and pray, and work for the Master. Hope rises up and begins to stretch forward to the great battle and final triumph. And what now is needed? What 327 now would be the timely work? and what now the timely truth? There is now more than ever needed two things. First, the millennial type of Christian character and life; and, second, the spiritual strength and endurance to carry the Church onward and upward unswervingly to and through the conflict and triumph before us. And these two are one, and this one is the experience of full salvation through full trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. A DAY IN THE LIFE OF JESUS. THE work to be done for the bodies of men was accomplished, and there yet remained some hours of the summer's day unconsumed. The power and goodness displayed in the miraculous healing, would naturally predispose the people to listen to the instructions of the Saviour. This was too valuable an opportunity to be lost. Our Lord therefore proceeded to speak to them of the things concerning the kingdom of God. We think we perceive the Saviour seeking an eminence from whence he could the more conveniently address this vast assembly. You hear Him unfold the laws of God's moral government. He unmasks the hypocrisy of the Pharisees; He rebukes the infidelity of the Sadducees; He exposes the folly of the frivolous as well as of the selfish worldling; He speaks peaceably to the humble penitent; He encourages the meek, and comforts those that be cast down. The intellect and the conscience of this vast assembly are swayed at His will. The soul of man bows down in reverence in the presence of its Creator. "He stilleth the noise of the seas, the noise of their waves, and the tumult of the people." As He closes His address, every eye is moistened with compunction for sin. Every soul cherishes the hope of amendment. Every one is conscious that a new moral light has dawned upon his soul, and that a new moral universe has been unveiled to his spiritual vision. As the closing words of the Saviour fell upon their ears, the whole multitude stood for a while unmoved, as though transfixed to the earth by some mighty spell; until, at last, the murmur is heard from thousands of voices, "Never man spake like this man." But the shades of evening are gathering around them. The multitude have nothing to eat. To send them away fasting would be inhuman, for divers of them came from far, and many were women and children, who could not perform their journey homeward without previous refreshment. To purchase food in the surrounding towns and villages would be difficult; but even were this possible, whence could the necessary funds be provided? A famishing multitude was thus unexpectedly cast upon the bounty of our |