phet, Priest, and King, in full and trusting confidence; so that the soul, refusing all other righteousness, leans. only upon the righteousness of Jesus, clings solely to the merits of his atoning blood, and gives to him its full and unreserved affections. Thus, believing on Jesus and loving Jesus, you are fully prepared to meet death, come when it will; for you have the "faith that works by love and purifies the heart," and in this faith, you can conquer your last enemy and shout victory over the open grave. Nothing will enable you to meet and triumph over death, but this loving, living faith in the Lord Jesus. All other things have been tried in vain; this only can give calmness and peace and hope; this only take away the sting of death; this only make it a desirable and pleasant thing to die; this alone open before us bright visions of eternal joy in heaven. And when this faith is readily offered to you, when this preparation can be so easily attained, and when God himself assures you that it is the only preparation, is it not presumptuous hardihood, daring rebellion to the almighty will, to neglect to secure this offered grace, obtain this victorious faith, and be thus prepared for the approach of those those days in which you must die? Will you put off this preparation on the peradventure of living many years yet? What assurance from earth or heaven justifies such madness? Can you even boast yourself of to-morrow? and do you know what a day may bring forth? If not, how vain to hope for years, and cast off God and peril your soul on such hopes, when you cannot foresee the events of a single day, or even the incidents of the coming hour! Put it off till next year, put it off till a convenient time, put it off one day, even, and you may have put it off for ever! THE GOD, who hast prepared for those who love thee such good things as pass man's understanding; Pour into our hearts such love toward thee, that we, loving thee above all things, may obtain thy promises, which exceed all that we can desire; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. VII. THE CHRISTIAN LEANING ON JESUS' BOSOM. "Now there was leaning on Jesus' bosom one of his disciples, whom Jesus loved." JOHN xiii. 23. HE Evangelists rarely speak of themselves by THE name. When recording events in which they were actors, they used some descriptive epithet or allusion, sufficiently clear to indicate who was meant, without so openly naming themselves as to be charge able with egotism. St. John especially, except when others as well as himself are concerned, never mentions his own name; but the veil which he throws over himself by his periphrastic sentences is so gauzelike, that, while it enhances our ideas of his modesty, |