people are lost to society from a first was leaving my counting-house, I offence being treated with injudicious | desired him to wait a few minutes, severity, than from the contrary ex and proceeded to ascertain whether treme. Not that I would pass over it was quite correct. Great was my even the slightest deviation from surprise and concern on finding that integrity, either in word or deed : there was a considerable deficiency. that would certainly be mistaken “From whom,' said I, 'did you kindness; but, on the other hand, receive this money ?'. neither would I punish with severity “He replied, "From Mr. ---, an offence committed, perhaps, under naming my confidential clerk. the influence of temptation-temp “It is strange,' said I, but this tation, too, that we ourselves may money is incorrect. He changed have thoughtlessly placed in the countenance, and his eye fell as I way, in such a manner as to render looked at him; but he answered, it irresistible.”

with tolerable composure, that it “There is truth in what you say," was as he had received it. remarked our benevolent host, who “After some further questioning, had hitherto taken no part in the | I became convinced that the young conversation; “and it reminds me man had taken the money. of a circumstance that occurred in “ It is in vain,' I said at length, the earlier part of my life which 'to impose upon me. I am convinced may serve to illustrate the subject that you have taken this money, and you have been discussing.

that it is at this moment in your "In the outset of my business possession. The evidence against career,” said he, “I took into my you is sufficient to justify me in imemployment a young man to fill the mediately dismissing you from my situation of under-clerk; and, ac service. But you are a very young cording to a rule I had laid down, man; your conduct has, I believe, whenever a stranger entered my been hitherto correct; and I am willservice, his duties were of a nature ing to afford you an opportunity of to involve as little responsibility as redeeming the past. All knowledge possible, until sufficient time had of this matter rests between our. been given to form a correct esti- selves. Candidly confess, therefore, mate of his character. This young the error of which you have been man, whom I shall call Smith, was guilty; restore what you have taken; of a respectable family. He had lost endeavour, by your future good conhis father, and had a mother and duct, to deserve my confidence and sisters in some measure dependent respect; and this circumstance shall upon him.

never transpire to injure you.' “ After he had been a short time “The poor fellow was deeply afin my employment, it happened that | fected. In a voice almost inarticumy confidential clerk, whose duty it late with emotion he acknowledged was to receive the money from the his guilt; and said that, having frebank for the payment of wages, being quently seen me receive the money prevented by an unforeseen circum without counting it, on being enstance from attending at the proper trusted with it himself, the idea had time, sent the sum required by Smith. flashed across his mind that he

"My confidence was so great in might easily abstract some without my head-clerk that I was not in the | incurring suspicion, or at all events habit of regularly counting the money without there being sufficient eviWhen brought to me; but as, on this dence to justify it; that, being in occasion, it had passed through other distress, the temptation had proved hands, I thought it right to do so. I stronger than his power of resistTherefore calling Smith back as he | ance, and he had yielded.

N

"I cannot now,' he continued, “For some days he continued in prove how deeply your forbearance the same state; at length a message has touched me; time alone can was brought saying that Mr. Smith show that it has not been mis wished to see me; the messenger placed. He left me to resume his adding, that Mrs. Smith hoped I duties.

would come as soon as possible, for “ Days, weeks, and months passed she feared her husband was dying. away, during which I scrutinized his I immediately obeyed the summons. conduct with the greatest anxiety, “On entering his chamber, I found whilst at the same time I carefully the whole of his family assembled to guarded against any appearance of take farewell of him they so tenderly suspicious watchfulness; and with loved. As soon as he perceived me delight I observed that so far my he motioned for me to approach near experiment had succeeded. The him, and taking my hand in both of greatest regularity and attention, his, he turned towards me, full of the utmost devotion to my interests, gratitude and affection, and said, marked his business habits; and “My dear master, my best earthly this without any display; for his friend, I have sent for you that I may quiet and humble deportment was give you the thanks and blessings of from that time remarkable.

a dying man for all your goodness to “At length, finding his conduct me. To your generosity and mercy invaribly marked by openness and I owe it that I have lived useful and plain dealing, my confidence in him | respected, that I die lamented and was so far restored that, on a vacancy happy. To you I owe it that I leavi occurring in a situation of greater to my children a name unsullied by trust and increased emolument than crime, that in after years the blus! the one he had hitherto filled, I of shame shall never tinge thei placed him in it; and never had I cheeks at the memory of their father the slightest reason to repent of the O God,' he continued, Thou wh part I had acted towards him. hast said, “ Blessed are the merciful,

“For years he served me with bless him. According to the mea fidelity and devotion. His character sure he has meted to others do Thot for rigid, nay, even scrupulous meet unto him.' honesty, was so well known, that “Then turning to his family, h 'as honest as Smith' became a pro said, “ My beloved wife and children verb among his acquaintances. I entrust you without fear to th

“One morning I missed him from care of the heavenly Parent wh his accustomed place, and upon in has said, “ Leave thy fatherless chil quiry learnt that he was detained dren to me, and I will preserve ther at home by indisposition. Several alive, and let thy widows trust i days elapsed, and still he was absent; me.” And you, my dear mastei and upon calling at his house to in will, I know, be to them as you hav quire after him, I found his family been to me-guide, protector, an in great distress on his account. His | friend.' complaint had proved typhus fever . “That,” continued the kind ol of a malignant kind. From almost man, looking round upon us wit the commencement of his attack he glistening eyes, “though mixed wit had, as his wife (for he had been sorrow, was one of the happies some time married) informed me, i moments of my life. As I stood b lain in a state of total unconscious the bedside of the dying man, an ness, from which he had roused only looked upon his children growing u to the ravings of delirium, and that | virtuous, intelligent, and respectin the physician gave little hope of his and honouring as much as the recovery.

loved their father; when I saw hi

wife, though overcome with grief for with almost every variety of temper the loss of a tender and beloved hus and disposition, and with many band, yet sorrowing not as one with degrees of talent; but I have never out hope; when I saw him calmly found reason to swerve from the awaiting the inevitable stroke, trust principle with which I set out in ing in the mercy of God, and at life, to 'temper justice with mercy.'” peace with his fellow-men; and when Such was the story of our friend. I thought of what the reverse of all And I believe not one in that comthis might have been—crime, misery, pany but returned home more disa disgraceful and dishonoured life, posed to judge leniently of the failperhaps a shameful and violent ings of his fellow-creatures, and, as death-had I yielded to the first far as lay in his power, to extend to impulse of indignation, I felt a hap- | all who might fall into temptation piness which no words can express. that mercy which, under similar

"My friends, I am an old man. circumstances, he would wish shown During a long and eventful career to himself, feeling “that it is more in business, I have had intercourse | blessed to save than to destroy."

" THAT WITHIN THE VEIL."

Hebrews vi. 19. BY THE LATE REV. W. 8. M. AITCHISON, NEWPORT, MON.* As the scope of this epistle was to explain to those Jews who in the apostolic age believed on Christ, the nature of that dispensation which they had received, no illustrations could be better adapted for this purpose, than those derived from the furniture of the tabernacle and temple. With both of these, the minds of the Hebrews and of the apostle were perfectly familiar, and they were both in the richest and most striking part of their furniture designed to be “shadows of good things to come."

There is an obvious reference in the text to the “ veil” or“ curtain" which separated the innermost sanctuary from the other parts of the ancient tabernacle. Of this veil we have an account in Exod. xxvi.

In the beautiful allusion to the holy place, which the veil concealed, and in which the hope of Israel rested, the apostle here speaks of the Christian's hope as passing “within the veil” of eternity, and anchoring in heaven itself. The objects of the Christian's interest, solicitude, and expectation lie beyond the limits of this sublunary state, and consist in those celestial realities that await those who love God in a better and brighter world.

The great reason of the untruthfulness, want of spirituality, and earthliness of mind in so many professed followers of Christ, is that They so seldom think of “ that which is within the veil.” If Christians uwelt more intensely on these great unseen realities, to the enjoyment * Mr. Aitchison's last sermon,

CHURCH

of which every hour is bearing them onward, what illustrious specimens of Christianity would they be!

All the ordinances of the sanctuary are intended to raise our thoughts to the sanctuary in the heavens. The hour of prayer—the calm of the Sabbath-the love that beams on the table spread with the memorials of the Redeemer's love the light that shines from the Scriptures-are all designed to raise our foolish, wandering thoughts to the rest remaining for the people of God.” The end of preaching is to bring you to that world, and so to bring you, that you may not only enter but have“ an abundant entrance" into the presence of God.

I. Heaven is a place concealed from the view of the believer in this world

It is impossible to form any accurate notion of what the heavenly state will be, or what the nature of those who shall walk with Chris “ in white." There is a veil hiding these things; we view the great unseen realities “ darkly.” Our glance cannot pierce through the clouds and darkness, and scan the bright scenes which lie beyond. Our eyes are dim and the veil is dense. In that impervious curtain there is no break through which the eye of flesh can gaze on the glittering forms within. No language of ours can shape out distinc pictures to the mind of that better state "within the veil.”

This mystery, however, is not without its use. There is a din grandeur about it which leads us to indulge most enlarged expectation of what that state will be. It gives a more enlarged scope to faith The knowledge we do possess of heavenly things, arises not from ou own experience of what they are, but from the experience of another One who has from eternity dwelt amongst these unseen glories, ha been in our world, and has told us of the prepared place” and th “ many mansions, and this has, in a certain measure, familiarised ou minds with the “ glory to be revealed.” All that we know about tha world we know by believing what He has declared. Faith is the eyesaly to strengthen our feeble sight, and the glass by which the pilgrim discern the heavenly Jerusalem; yet, after all that faith can do—andi is our duty to use it to its utmost power-still “the veil” is there, ou knowledge in the present state is circumscribed to this, “It doth na appear what we shall be."

II. That the believer is separated from his heavenly home only by thin partition.

The veil serves to darken our vision so as to involve the other word in that obscurity which is necessary to render this a state of disciplin and probation : but then it is but å veil. That veil is frail flesh. N wall of adamant-no illimitable space separates us from heaven-ju drop the veil and we shall be at home. “Absent from the bod present with the Lord.” The moment after, death reveals to us ou Father's home: at least, so Paul appears to have thought. “For know that if this earthly house of our tabernacle were dissolved, w have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in th heavens." What a change a moment can make to a Christian-fro the presence of men to the presence of God—from thinking of Chri to see Him—from a sinful world to the company of holy saints and angels—from care and toil to death, to rest and joy and life.

" Though in a foreign land

We are not far from home,
And nearer to our house above

We every moment come."

III. That the heavenly home is pervaded by entire sanctity. In the sanctuary of the tabernacle there reigned perpetual stillness, it was filled with the sacred emblems of holiness. In that ancient sanctuary, during the purer epochs of Jewish history, no worldly business was transacted, no unhallowed foot trod. It was consecrated entirely for the purposes of worship and religion. That mystic veil excluded all that was unholy, and shrouded in sacred silence the holy things that lay within that inviolable enclosure.

How significantly this expresses the holiness of heaven! Everything in heaven is separated from sin. The turmoil of earthly labour and business, and the hot strife and competition of earthly passions, are there unknown. Placid as the “sea of glass before the throne," are those blessed regions where the sanctity of an eternal Sabbath prevails. No unballowed “ lover of pleasure more than God” shall enter within the gates of that holy place. As the foot of the priest alone dare tread the sacred floor of the ancient “ holy of holies," so none but that “ chosen generation,” that “ royal priesthood," who are “priests unto God” and the Lamb, shall walk there “with Christ in White."

As in the old tabernacle, there was a power that would have struck dead every profane intruder, so in the heavenly temple there is a power in its sanctity which will drive off to an eternal distance everything unclean and evil. Over the pearly gates there is the inscription, "There shall in no wise enter into it anything that defileth.”

How necessary then is it for the sinful man to go by faith to the "fountain opened for sin and uncleanness,” and “wash and be clean," before he can indulge the hope of entering that holy place!

IV. That heaven contains objects of supreme and attractive glory.

Of the things which were deposited “within the veil,” we have an account in chap. ix. 3–5. Almost everything here was of gold; and from the magnificence of the various objects, we find many images borrowed in the Revelation to express the glory of heaven. Each object was an emblem of some better thing above (chap. ix. 24).

1. In that holy place stood the ark of the covenant. The lid of this ark, or chest, was called the mercy-seat, or propitiation. On that mercyBeat the high-priest used to sprinkle the blood of the slain victims, to make an atonement for the transgressions of Israel, that the reconciled presence of God might remain with the congregation. There is something like unto this in heaven. The virtue of the atonement of Jesus is seen in heaven. The Lamb is in the midst of the throne, “whom God hath set forth as a propitiation through faith in His