field, and the prince that sits on the throne; of the household that lives in the shade of privacy, and the Legislature that makes laws for kingdoms. I am the sole, last Supreme Judge of what is right and wrong."-From "The Approaching End of the Age," by Grattan Guinness.

That any man should dare to utter such impious and revolting words is a proof of the depths of deception into which an intelligent man may sink who has chosen the bondage of a corrupt ecclesiasticism in preference to the liberty of Christ. But more than this, I read these sentences remembering that an organized Jesuitism is actively working throughout England in order to bring us again under the power of the Church of Rome. I am not an alarmist, but I know that within the Established Church hundreds of her ministers are drawing so near to Romish practice, teaching, and ritual that you can scarcely discern which is the Protestant and which the Roman Catholic service. I warn my fellow-countrymen against the encroachments of the greatest ecclesiastical tyranny that ever sullied the fair fame, or misrepresented the glorious assembly of the Church of Christ.

A Startling Incident.-Pastor Chiniquy gave the following incident in connection with his position whilst a priest in the Church of Rome:-" A young man, a Roman Catholic, had lost a daughter whom he loved intensely. After the child's death he went to the priest concerning her condition. Masses were suggested to bring the child's soul out of purgatory. Thirty shillings in English money value was asked by the priest. The father was unable to furnish this amount. He offered the priest some shillings, all, indeed, that he possessed. 'No,' said the priest, I cannot offer masses for such a trifling sum.' After some further words this hireling said: 'I saw a young pig at your house. If you will give it me I will offer high mass for the child.' The bargain was struck, and the creature delivered to the priest. This man," said Pastor Chiniquy, "had invited me with some other priests

to his house to dinner. I knew the circumstances. Judge my astonishment and indignation when the uncovered dishes revealed the roasted pig which had been taken from the poor and suffering father." In indignant anger Pastor Chiniquy took up his plate, threw it across the room, and in strong language denounced the scandalous transaction. The miserable deceiver cowered beneath the withering scorn of Pastor Chiniquy's words. Verily, such merchandise of souls does more to make men infidels than all the writings of Hume and Voltaire.

Easter to the Christian.-As we commemorate the festival of Easter it is well to understand why this season is identified with bright and joyous holiday. Resurrection! What a grand truth is this! Who need affect surprise that the Lord of Life illustrated in His own experience the glory of life from the dead? Death everywhere is terrible! Whether seen in the falling leaf, in the bare and silent branches of a tree, or in the chill features of a man whose whole being has stiffened into the rigid form which possesses every power, truly death is terrible. As the fruit of transgression, as the penalty of sin, as the harvest of iniquity, death is beyond expression fearful. "Death came by sin," "and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned." Such is the solemn testimony of God, such the evidence of human experience everywhere. It is no mere sentimentalism to say that the living God must be eternally opposed to that which is the penalty of sin. Emphatically true are the words of our Lord, who, speaking of the Father of Eternity, said, “He is not a God of the dead, but of the living, for all live unto Him" (Luke xx. 38-39). These words, be it remembered, were spoken by our Lord in proof of the fact that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, though long since dead to the world, still live unto God. Because God speaks of Himself as the God of the living; therefore the patriarchs live. Easter memories beyond all others are blessed. Set in the springtide of the year, every

swelling bulb and branch and bud, each flow of sap, climbing contrary to gravitation's law, the highest point then bursting into fresh life, endorses resurrection. Trees which through winter's piercing cold were held in mute bareness are clothing in spring's trellised drapery, whilst the soft and balmy air aids in unfolding the dress of resurrection. Verily the time of the singing of the birds is come." Winter is over and gone. And why is this? One answer explains all. One answer explains all. The approaching sun. The King of Life and Heat comes near and throws athwart the brilliant day his beneficent and fructifying beams.

66

Easter teaches Our Lord's Rising.-Each recurring spring reminds that the Lord is risen, "the Sun of Righteousness with healing in His wings." The greatest fact in history is the resurrection of our Lord. Need we wonder that in Germany, Holland, and other parts of the north of Europe, men, women, and children embrace one another on Easter morning, exclaiming joyously, "The Lord is risen!" Shall we be surprised that in Russia and other portions of the Continent costly offerings and tokens known familiarly as Easter eggs are given to remind of the coming out from death of the Holy Son of God? or that favoured Israel, unmindful of the greater redemption wrought by Christ Jesus our Lord, nevertheless find the Passover and Miriam's jubilant refrain, "The Lord hath triumphed gloriously," to synchronise with the time of year when the Church of God sings,

"By man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead"-the Divine Man, who hath redeemed us from death, "who was delivered for our offences, and raised again on account of our justification." What truths of living import gather about His rising! "Declared" to be the Son of God,

with power according to the spirit of holiness by the resurrection from the dead" (Rom. i. 4). Surely He is the mighty God. He declared, and was it not fulfilled, "I lay down my life of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again"? Laid down as a price, an infinite and redeeming price, not taken from Him by cruelty and persecution only, nor by exhaustion through physical suffering, but yielded in voluntary surrender as the sacrifice for sin. He gave himself in the strength of His manhood when with a loud voice He said, "It is finished," therein completing His work, "putting away sin, by the sacrifice of Himself" (Heb. ix. 26).

Men and brethren, are you at rest concerning sin? Know ye that He hath put away sin as far as the east is from the west? To every believer justified by His blood, our Lord's resurrection is the proof that he stands in Him without blame before God. Conscience with her keen intuitions recognizes the purging that He brings. Law with righteous power to exact penalty declares that payment hath been made. Justice with holy requirement finds that in Him "law is magnified." Nor this only, for "we joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement” (Rom. v. 11).

What force does the resurrection of our Lord give to His prophetic word! Addressing Martha, He said, "I am the resurrection and the life; he that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live, and whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall never die" (John ii. 25). Life is a new deposition now. No longer of man, or in man, but in the Son of God. "This life is in His Son; He that hath the Son hath life, and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life" (1 John v. 11, 12). He knows the dignity, glory, and destiny of this life. "He is the first-begotten from the dead, the first fruits of them that slept." His rising is the proof that all who are in Him are risen also, not only that they "shall hear His voice and come forth from their graves," but that now their life in Him is secured in glory. Hence this glorious Easter refrain, "when Christ our life shall appear, then shall we also appear with

Him in glory" (Col. iii. 4). His life uncorrupted and incorruptible has become our life, never to be defiled, diminished, or forfeited; His life yet our life, in which God delights, infinite in goodness, peerless in quality, endless in duration, divine in character. Such is the commemoration and prospect which Easter brings.

The Effects of Infidelity and Immorality in France. The statistics of suicide published annually by the French Government have often been examined with a view to account for the growing prevalence in that country of acts of self-destruction. For the most part the year's returns have been taken separately, and enough has been found in the annual report to furnish abundant room for comment, without attempting to contrast the general result with that of former years. The returns show a constant increase in the number of suicides. The first year in which anything like an accurate record was kept was 1827, when the population of the country was about 32,000,000: the suicides reported in that year were 1,542. In 1878 the population had only increased to 37,000,000; but the suicides had reached the awful total of 6,434. Consequently, the increase in the earlier year showed less than 16 per cent., and in the latter more than 400. Making every allowance for the deficiency of reports in the earlier period, it is undeniable that the augmentation in these tragic events has been enormous, and out of all proportion to any causes that can reasonably be supposed to have been in operation. A still more disquieting symptom is the abnormally rapid rate at which the increase has proceeded. Thus in 1870 the number of suicides was 4,157. There was an increase in the next two years of more than 1,000, and then a steady rise from year to year till the total reached the figure already named for 1878an augmentation of nearly 2,300 in eight years, whereas the population in the same period increased only from 36,000,000 to 37,000,000. It is remarked, moreover, that such acts are most common amongst the young, especially women of an age