THE LIFE OF FAITH IN THE SON OF GOD.

"His matchless love hath freed me from the miserable captivity of sin, and hath for ever fastened me to the sweet yokeof His obedience. Let Him alone to dwell and rule within me, and never let Him go forth from my heart, who for my sake refused to come down from the cross."."-LEIGHTON.

VI.

"They took knowledge of them that they had been
with Jesus."

HE feast is ended: "The tents struck at Elim, and the march resumed." We have joined in the song of angels and archangels; we have partaken of higher than angels' food; we have been admitted to receive the sign and pledge of our salvation, the foretaste of our communion with the Father and the Son which shall be eternal. What should be the effect on our lives?

The answer comes naturally to our lips: There should be evidenced in our daily walk the result of this fresh dedication of ourselves, our souls and bodies to be a reasonable, holy, and lively sacrifice unto Him who hath so loved us.

"Yesterday," wrote one eminent in our own time for personal holiness and extensive usefulness, "I communicated in Church. The

Lord was sensibly present; the Lord was at His table. Always when I go to the church seeking

The Rev. W. Hewitson.

Christ Himself there, and as it were to keep tryst with Him-always when I go expressly for the purpose of meeting Christ, and having intercourse with Him-I experience sweetness in the ordinances of His house, and have reason to return with the voice of thanksgiving. It is Christ in the word and in all the ordinances of worship that makes them refreshing and quickening to our souls. Religion is not a form, but a life; and it is not a solitary, friendless life, but a life of intercourse and company-keeping with God in Christ."

If thus we have realized our Lord's presence at His Table, the near approach to the cross of Christ where the things of this world appear in their true light, will have as its consequence the renewal in our hearts of a spirit of unworldliness and heavenly-mindedness. The flame of love, fanned and revived at the Table of the Lord, will shed its serene light around our path, and all will take knowledge of us that we have been with Jesus.

For the Lord's Supper does not translate or change us from one state of life into another. It does not convert the worldling into a Christian, the godless into believers. This no outward ordinance could effect; and even the outward repre sentation of this change belongs not to the Lord's Supper, but to Baptism. The former is a means whereby the already converted are strengthened

and revived, and those who have set out on their journey to the heavenly Canaan are refreshed in their pilgrim way. The Lord of the pilgrims comes forth to meet them with bread and wine, and blesses them with the blessing of the most high God, and gives them the tokens of victory over all their enemies, and pledges of everlasting salvation. From the Table in the wilderness they resume the onward march as those who, having waited on the Lord, have renewed their strength.

But as we leave the stillness and calm of that sacred communion with our Redeemer for the turmoil, and the battle, and the difficulties of the onward path, a warning voice echoes in our ears—a warning voice which, eighteen hundred years ago, sounded in the ears of the communicants of the Church of Corinth: "Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall."

When Israel came out of Egypt, and the house of Judah from a strange language to be the dominion and sanctuary of the God of Jacob, they too had their wilderness privileges. Baptism through the cloud and the sea. And sacramental food, even the manna with its typical significance; and the water from the rock, emblematic of the spiritual drink from the smitten Rock, even Christ. "But with many of them God was not well pleased.” Admission to these privileges did not restrain their murmurings, their covetousness, their impurity.