sure, our views of God are right, and our love to Him true.

But, aiter all, is patience a work; or is it by faith? It is the fruit of faith. Confidence in God, and submission to God will both call forth activity. Love finds itself most at home in action; and patience is twin-born of love; therefore the true course of both love and patience is in works of mercy-deeds of pious daring-and plans of increasing usefulness. Patience is the golden fruit of many a bitter pang and trial here. "We glory in tribulations also; knowing that tribulation worketh patience." A little crippled boy

always had his Bible open before him. A gentleman asked him why he was so fond of reading it. "I like to read the Bible," said he, "because it tells me of Jesus Christ." "Do you think you have believed on Jesus Christ?" "Yes, I do.' "What makes you think so?" "Because He enables me to suffer my affliction patiently." How correct the answer!

XV.

By Teaching.

"COME, ye children, hearken unto me: I will teach you the fear of the LORD."-PSALM xxxiv. 11.

"GOD is not unrighteous to forget your work and labour of love, which ye have showed toward His name, in that ye have ministered to the saints, and do minister."-HEBREWS vi. 10.

WORK while daylight lingers, Christian!

Night apace is stealing;

Tell of Jesus' cross uplifted,

God's own heart revealing

Spread the Gospel's invitation

Publish wide the great Salvation !

FIFTEENTH DAY.

KEE

EEP close to Jesus, Christian, and you will not fail to engage in the same work as that which was the meat and drink of the Great Teacher. Your heavenly Father's love to man-His revealed will-His power and willingness to save His doctrines, precepts, and promises—will, like so much good news, engage your constant thought, and form the staple themes of your conversation. This is the work of Teaching.

You have all heard of that strange woman who met a young man listlessly standing near the corner of a place of worship on the Sabbath morning, and to whom it was the most natural thing in the world for her to say, "Come, go with me to the House of God!" And you have heard, also, how he went, and became converted. Who that woman was none knew he could not tell, neither then nor

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afterwards; but she taught him the path to heaven. Like her many have been made useful in what appears to be ways the most simple, but most effective. They who have thus been instrumental in teaching, have themselves lived the Gospel; in this sense they have imitated the Saviour, whose whole life was one sermon.

It has been frequently a profitless enquiry, "Whence comes the authority to teach ?" As if, when God ever gives that power, any man can dare forbid its use. If any would puzzle their minds with such a question, let them answer it by another. If a man has in himself no given power to set forth the Gospel, where is the evidence that he is authorized? The Apostle Peter says, "If any man minister, let him do it as of the ability which God giveth." When we tell what the love of Jesus is, out of the depth of the fulness of our own hearts, all who listen will understand it better than by a multitude of fine words. The truth, if it be from God, will flew

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forth like lava from a volcano, and no power on earth will be able to stop it. Stop preaching! What! check the utterances of one who is thoughtfully awakened to a knowledge of his own salvation; you might as well try to stay the stars in their courses!

Perhaps never was the love of preaching the Gospel stronger exemplified in the hour of death than in the case of Payson. His love for preaching was as invincible as that of the miser for gold, who dies grasping his treasure. He directed a label to be attached to his breast when dead, with the admonition, "Remember the words which I spake unto you while I was yet present with you," that they might be read by all who came to look at his corpse, and by which he, being dead, still spoke. The same words were, at the request of his people, engraved on the plate of the coffin, and read by thousands on the day of his interment.