Not when his steps in freedom touch
The fresh green turf, is man alone."

Such knowledge is too wonderful for us; it is high; we can not attain unto it; but it is all perfect simplicity with him. He has beset us behind and before, and laid his hand upon us. Our paths and couches are compassed by him. He orders our steps and understandeth our thoughts. Even the wicked shall not escape. They may fly to their secret haunts, but omnipresence attends them and marks their impurity and violence there.

"In proud Belshazzar's gilded hall,
'Mid music, lights, and revelry,
That present Spirit looked on all,
From crouching slave to royalty."

In all the universe there is but one secret hiding-place, and that is known only to them that fear God and trust in him before the sons of men. "Thou shalt hide them," says the Psalmist, "in the secret of thy presence from the pride of man; thou shalt keep them secretly in a pavilion from the strife of tongues." The good in every age have felt themselves within this sacred place, concealed, as it were, in the very goodness and glory of the Divine presence. They have known of a truth that God manifests himself unto them as he doth not unto the world. In peril and privation they have felt secure, and in the valley of shadows they have feared no evil. "Thou art with me!" is the comforting exclamation of the pious heart.

"When sinks the pious Christian's soul,

And scenes of horror daunt his eye,

He hears it whispered through the air,
A Power of Mercy still is nigh.

The Power that watches, guides, defends,

Till man becomes a lifeless sod;

Till earth is nought, nought earthly friends,

That Omnipresent Power is God!"

God is the Christian's present help in trouble, and work, and responsibility, and care. "Cast me not away from thy presence," is the prayer ever welling up from his heart, if not constantly dwelling on his lips. "If thy presence go not with me, carry me not hence," is the plea of his consecrated life. The man of the world has no appreciation of such a spirit. The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him; and he will show them his covenant.

To the eye of sense

the down-sittings and the uprisings of a God-fearing man are not different from those of the despiser and wicked that perish; but to the spiritual understanding, to the eye that God hath quickened, there is a difference as wide as the world. To dwell in God, and know that God dwelleth in us, is to dwell in security and peace and heaven. Come health or disease, joy or pain, life or death, persons in this state are comforted with the thought that all is well. "The best of all is, God is with us!" was the sublime testimony of the dying Wesley; and he but voiced the experience of unnumbered millions more. This is our solace in sorrow, our comfort in distress, our strengthener in toil. "My presence shall go with thee." This is the precious thought, and, indeed, the sum of all thoughts, which God whispers down into the ear of his trusting servant. Stimulated by it, that servant goes forth on his mission in this sinful world. As a missionary on foreign shores, as an evangelist in home land, as a common laborer in the Master's vineyard, he is found doing the Lord's will and resting his case in God's hands. Among friends, among foes, in youth or age, he counts not his life dear unto himself that he may rescue others and instruct them in the glorious secret which impels him. Reader, this spiritual knowledge of a present God is the most blessed truth we shall ever know. While we are writing or you are reading these words, how precious the realization that God sees us, owns us, sustains us, and will never forsake us!

"The soul that on Jesus hath leaned for repose,

I will not, I will not desert to his foes;

That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake,

I'll never, no never, no never forsake!

Throughout this vale of tears and in the sunny land of joy, perpetual comfort shall be ours if we abide in this truth. We shall be tried. It is right that we should be. Our fitness for heaven must be proved. But, walking with God like Enoch of old, attended by him as was Moses, living to his praise as have all the good and pure, we shall come at last into his beatific presence and see what now we could not see and live.

OMNISCIENCE AND PRESCIENCE.-We certainly believe that God knows all things, those which to us are future as well as those that are past. "For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward him." (2 Chron. xvi, 9.) "For his eyes are upon the ways of man, and he seeth all his goings." (Job xxxvi, 21.)

"O Lord, thou hast searched me and known me. Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising; thou understandest my thought afar off. Thou compassest my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways. For there is not a word in my tongue, but, lo, O Lord, thou knowest it altogether." (Psa. xxxix, 1-4.) "His understanding is infinite." (Psa. 147, 5.) "Thou knowest all things." (John xxi, 17.) "Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world." (Acts xv, 18.) These passages are sufficient to indicate that no limits are to be set to the divine omniscience. "As creation out of nothing argues a power which is omnipotent, so the knowledge of the possibilities of things which are not, a knowledge which, from the effect, we are sure must exist in God, argues that such a being must be omniscient." This attribute, of course, includes contingent future actions as well as fixed past events. We call it "foreknowledge" to accommodate the idea of a divine perfection to our modes of thinking, not that Jehovah, strictly speaking, regards things as future or past, as we do. With him one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. He knows every thing as it is, not as it will be. The flight of time unfolds nothing new to him. His intelligence has no limit, his thoughts no order of succession. "Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight; but all things are naked and open unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do." (Heb. iv, 13.) God's knowledge influences nothing. No event comes to pass because God knows it, but God knows it because it comes to pass. Knowledge is not causation; even certainty of knowledge necessitates nothing. I may know, as far as a finite being can know any future thing, that somebody will read these lines, but this knowledge does not necessitate the reading. God's knowledge differs from man's only in that it is perfect. It has no more influence upon men's actions than ours does. It understands things as they are, but does not make them as they are, nor prevent them from being otherwise. "Some actions are necessary, such as breathing and sleeping, and others are free, and as such they are known of God. Had any thing been otherwise than it is, his knowledge of it would have been otherwise. Knowledge takes its form from the act, and not the act from the knowledge, as the impression from the seal, and not the seal from the impression. How God knows the future decisions of a free agent is to us a mystery, as are all the perceptions of the Infinite Mind." "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord."

The mistake of all persons who stumble over the doctrine of God's absolute prescience and man's absolute freedom, arises from the conception that such prescience of moral actions renders the actions necessary. They make contingency to mean uncertainty, whereas they should make it mean simply freedom from necessity. A free action is a voluntary one, depending entirely upon the choice of the agent; but a necessary action is involuntary, and could not have been otherwise than as it is. A contingent action, therefore, is one which might have been otherwise; that is, was not necessitated, and the mere knowledge of its certainty does not change its contingency in the least. Hear Richard Watson: "Though an uncertain action can not be foreseen as certain, a free, unnecessitated action may; for there is nothing in the knowledge of the action to affect its nature. Simple knowledge is in no sense a cause of action, nor can it be conceived to be causal, unconnected with exerted power; for mere knowledge, therefore, an action remains free or necessitated, as the case may be. A necessitated action is not made a voluntary one by its being foreknown; a free action is not made a necessary one. Free actions foreknown will not, therefore, cease to be contingent." "The foreknowledge of God has no influence upon either the freedom or the certainty of actions, for this plain reason, that it is knowledge and not influence; and actions may be certainly foreknown without their being rendered necessary by that foreknowledge."

MORAL ATTRIBUTES.

HOLINESS."It is not the glory of God's infinite perfections which is most extolled in his own revelations, but the glory of his spirit-life and personal character. To whom shall ye liken me or shall I be equal? saith the Holy One.' 'Thus saith the high and lofty One whose name is holy; I dwell in the high and holy place.' His throne is a throne of holiness; his habitation is a habitation of holiness. Take thy shoes from thy feet, for the place of his manifestation, though it be in the depths of an Arabian desert, is holy ground. Perfect character is excellence, completeness. It is the highest perfection, and the perfection of loveliness. In the Creator of heaven and of earth that inherent immaculateness shines brighter than the brightness of a myriad suns. Nothing ever has or ever can dim its splendor. No stain nor spot ever crossed its disk or marred its radiance. Never did an impure thought, an unloving purpose, an unholy desire, an unworthy impulse harbor itself within the sanctities of Jehovah's heart. Essential, immutable rectitude belongs to

him forever. 'I, Jehovah, your God, am holy,' is his own brief and comprehensive testimony. Highest seraphim of heavenly spheres veil before him their faces and their feet, and seek with responsive chants to express the intensity of their profoundest convictions and adorations as they sing 'Holy, holy, holy is Jehovah of hosts; all the universe is full of his glory.' In apocalyptic prophecies he sits on a throne spanned by an emerald rainbow. Out of that throne proceed lightnings and thunderings and voices, and before it is the crystal sea, and blaze the seven spirits of God. The countenance of the throned Monarch of eternity no jasper or sardine-stone of dazzling hue can represent. Myriads of glorified ones who rest not day nor night bend and shout before him, 'Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty which was and is and is to come ?'

"In every relation God sustains to men he emphasizes his holiness. Is he our Creator? I am Jehovah, your Holy One, the Creator of Israel.' Is he the Ruler of that which he has made? God sitteth on the throne of his holiness.' Is he our Counselor? 'Thus saith the Holy One of Israel, I am Jehovah, thy God, which teacheth thee to profit, which leadeth thee by the way thou shouldest go.' Or is He the Redeemer? Thus saith Jehovah, the Redeemer of Israel, his Holy One: kings shall see and arise, princes also shall worship, because of the Lord that is faithful and the Holy One of Israel, and he shall choose thee.'

ness.

"Every personal manifestation of God also emphasizes his holiHe is the Holy Father.' He is the 'Most Holy' of Daniel's prophetic song; made flesh in the human personality of Jesus, who is the Holy Child; the Holy One of God-holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners.' And he is the Holy Ghost, the Comforter, the Eternal Spirit abiding among his people and in them to carry on his redeeming and restoring work.

"The essential purity of Jehovah's nature is visible in all his works. He is glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders.' The universe as it sprang from his formative hand was perfect, and was an illustration to sense and spirit of his moral excellency as of his almighty power. Even now, when for man's sake the curse is upon all the earth, there is yet manifold proof of primitive normal excellence and design.

"Not only doth the voiceful day

Thy living kindness, Lord, proclaim;
But night, with its sublime array

Of worlds, doth magnify thy name.