means. One is ready to envy a man who is disposed to do good, and finds himself in the possession of riches, power, authority palace!" Yet while some may be peculiarly useful, none are compelled to be useless. There is some beneficence within the reach of every individual, if he be willing to do it. It is with usefulness as it is with water; it is to be found everywhere, if people will dig enough. Let us seek the praise conferred upon Mary, "She nati done what she could.”

But observe the remark of the sacred writer; "Nevertheless the people did sacrifice still in the high places, yet unto the Lord their God only." It is said indeed that they worshipped Jehovah only in them; but it was disobedience to the Divine appointment, it was will-worship, it was superstitious. And this no doubt he reproved and endeavoured to repress, but much of the evil he could not hinder. And here we perceive that his religion did not operate so extensively and powerfully as his former depravity had done. It is much easier to sed ice than to reclaim, to corrupt than to convert.

And we see this in a very affecting instance. It was the case of his successor and son Amon. "He did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord, as did Manasseh his father: for Amon sacrificed unto all the carved images which Manasseh his father had made, and served them; and humbled not himself before the Lord, as Manasseh his father had humbled himself; but Amon trespassed more and more." To leave his kingdom and the reformation he had begun to a son he had depraved by his example, but could not reform by his piety; and when he saw or heard of his profligacy and impiety, to sigh and exclaim, "Ah! I taught him all this"was enough to "bring down his gray hairs with s rrow to the

grave !"

Be thankful if you were moral before you were pious; and above all, be grateful if you have been blessed with the grace of early godliness. From how many snares, evils, and pangs, have you been preserved! How pestilential have some been! "One sinner destroyeth much good." What injuries a life of twenty, of thirty years of wickedness, can produce! What miseries must some feel, when, though the riches of Divine mercy have pardoned and renewed them, they think of persons whom they drew aside, and encouraged and emboldened by their example and counsels. These above all things they should endeavour to restore. "But some of them are hardened through the deceitfulness of sin, and despise reproof. Others are removed to a distance, and we know not where to find them. Others are dead-what can we do here?" Nothing. But seek to be useful to others. And agonize with God, that as you have been a curse so he would make you a blessing.

NOVEMBER 2.-" When I awake with thy likeness.”—Psalm xvii. 15 DAVID therefore expected to live after death, and he tells us not only that he should awake, but awake with God's likeness.

Does he refer to the state of the soul at death? or of the body at the resurrection? or to both? We love not to press a passage of Scripture beyond its proper bounds; neither would we stop short of them. Man is a complex being; and when the dust returns to the

earth whence it was, the spirit returns to God who gave it. The Apostle tells us that when the body is dead because of sin, the spirit is life because of righteousness; and that the Spirit of Him that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken our mortal bodies. And Watts includes each of these effects in his fine versification.

At death the soul of the believer awakes with his likeness; and the resemblance which commenced in regeneration, and advanced in sanctification, is finished in glory: all the remains of sin being then done away, and nothing left but the image of God himself upon all the powers of the mind. What is the body now but a dormitory for the soul to sleep in, rather than a mansion for it to live in? What is our present state but a kind of night-scene? Much of our life now, in the view of angels, must be judged as vain and unmeaning as dreams, and will appear to ourselves hereafter like the vagaries of sleep. Nothing reviewed from eternity will be deemed solid and valuable but what has been connected with the service and enjoyment of God. To what slender dimensions then will the sum of human life be reduced! How few will appear our exercises of sense and reason. And how short our waking intervals! Natural men are entirely asleep as to the purposes of the Divine life-Thus indeed Christians cannot sleep as do others. Yet they, even they comparatively slumber. They regard not inany things which would strike them if they were wide awake, as they ought to be. They are often drowsy and insensible; can hardly watch and keep their spiritual senses in exercise; and read, and hear, and pray, and meditate, hardly knowing or feeling what they do. It is therefore even to these the Apostle sounds the quickening call, "It is bigh time to awake out of sleep, for now is your salvation nearer han when you believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand." What a difference between their present and future experience! When they close their eyes in death they will awake and shake off every slumber; and all will be reality, perception, attention, energy, life. Now in the morning they wake an find themselves in the wilderness; then they will wake and find themselves in Canaan. Now they wake and find themselves among the wicked, who vex and defile them; then they will wake and find themselves with the spirits of just men made perfect, and the innumerable company of ange.s. Now they wake and find a law, that when they would do good evil is present with them; then they will wake and be presented faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy. Fut man, in his original state, was an embodied creature, and he must be embodied in his final condition. The intermediate and separate state, therefore, is necessarily an imperfect one: for the body, an essential part of human nature, is lying under the incapacities and dishonours of mortality. But this purchase of the Saviour's will be reclaimed: this temple of the Holy Ghost will be re-edified this companion of the soul will share with it in the work and glories of heaven. And the sacred writers therefore, in referring to the future happiness of believers, commonly lead our views to this consunimation. And death is expressed by sleep, peculiarly in reference to the body, and to intimate not only cessation from labour and the enjoyment of repose, but susceptibility of revival. At the resurrection, the body wakes. "Awake, and sing, ye thai

dwell in dust." They that "sleep in the dust of the earth shal arise. —And believers will awake with his likeness. We know, says the apostle John, that when he shall appear we shall be like hiin for we shall see him as he is. And this likeness is corporeal as well as spiritual. As we have in our infirmities, diseases, and dissolution, borne the image of the earthly, so we shall bear the image of the heavenly, when this corruptible shall put on incorruption, and this mortal shall put on immortality. Our conversation is in heaven, says the Apostle, from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, "who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself." A prospect hailed ages before by Job, as the ultimate and complete solace and relief of his sufferings-"For I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: and though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God: whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another; though my reins bé consumed within me."

"This life's a dream, and empty show;
But the bright world to which I go
Hath joys substantial and sincere;
When shall I wake, and find me there?

"O glorious hour! O blest abode !
I shall be near and like my God!
And flesh and sin no more control
The sacred pleasures of the soul.

My flesh shall slumber in the ground,

Till the last trumpet's joyful sound;

Then burst the chains with sweet surprise,

And in my Saviour's image rise."

NOVEMBER 3.-"But withal prepare me also a lodging; for I trust that through your prayers I shall be given unto you."-Philemon 22.

THAT is, he trusted that though he was now a prisoner he should be set at liberty, so as to be able to fulfil his ministry again for their furtherance and joy of faith. Had his confidence been inspired by the Holy Ghost he would have expressed himself without hesitation'; but he had only a hope in his own mind arising from what he deemed probability. Whether this hope was accomplished we are unable to determine; and the learned are divided in their opinion. But he intimated no more than he felt at the time; and his language shovs another instance of the Apostle's address in enforcing his plea on the behalf of his object; for if, as he trusted he should, soon visit Philemon, how could his friend see his face in peace, or at least with pleasure, had he refused his request on behalf of Onesimus? Paul was warm, but there was nothing in him enthusiastical: he feared God, but he was not superstitious: he lived above the world. but he was not a recluse-He never affected to contemn the feelings of humanity. He therefore desired that a lodging inight be prepared for him against his arrival. Yet he was not fond of indulgence and show; and therefore a little would content him. He did not require the enlarged and various accommodations of a home, but only the needful conveniences of an inn; not a mansion, but an

apartment: such as the Shunamite made for Elisha; "Let us make a little chamber, I pray thee, on the wall; and let us set for him there a bed, and a table, and a stool, and a candlestick: and it shall be, when he cometh to us, that he shall turn in thither."

And we may rest assured that Philemon would not only read ly provide for him, but in his own dwelling; knowing that a man so well educated would not be finical and troublesome; and that one so Christian would be sure to be instructive and useful, and draw down the regards of Heaven. So the house of Obed-edom was blessed for the sake of the ark. So now is the Saviour's promise; "He that receiveth you receiveth me, and he that receiveth mẹ receiveth him that sent me. He that receiveth a prophet in the name of a prophet shall receive a prophet's reward; and he that receiveth a righteous man in the name of a righteous man shall receive a righteous man's reward.”

as

Paul viewed his restored freedom as a privilege and a favour: “I shall be given unto you." In another place he speaks of ministers "the gifts of Christ." And this is true of their commission, endowments, success, and all opportunities of exertion. It is he that gives them not only a door of utterance, but a door of entrance. It is easy to see what a hinderance of usefulness the confinement of such a man as Paul was. God is able indeed by his almighty power to overrule evil for good; but we must judge of things by their proper and natural tendency: and thus persecution involves the heaviest guilt. It is said of Herod, after the enumeration of his crimes, that " he added yet this above all, that he shut up John in prison." This was taking the light from the candlestick, and putting it under a bushel. It was rendering him a spring shut up, a fountain sealed. Hence, says Paul to the Thessalonians: "Brethren, pray for us, that the word of the Lord may have free course, and be glorified." What Christian then ought to be indifferent to the progress of civil liberty, which, justly considered, always includes religious, and affords opportunity for exertion and co-operation in extending the cause of knowledge, truth, righteousness, and peace. But see the importance and efficiency of prayer. The prayer of Abraham prevailed for the healing of Abimelech. Joshua by prayer lengthened the day for Israel to complete their victory. By prayer fifteen years were added to the life of Hezekiah. church at Jerusalem prayed for Peter's enlargement, and he was delivered by an angel before the prayer-meeting broke up. And what says Paul to the Philippians? I know that this shall turn to my salvation through your prayer, and the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ." Here also he says; "I trust that through your prayers I shall be given to you." Sometimes prayer suceeds ix obtaining the very blessing itself which is implored at other times the answer brings a substitute for it; as when Paul besought the Lord to remove the thorn in the flesh, and received the assurance of all-sufficient grace while under it. But the prayer of the righteous shall be granted: and the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much, not only when it is offered for himself, but also for others. Here also is a proof that the usefulness of prayer is not confined to the influence of the performance, but includes also success and acquisition. The prayers we offer for ourselves really affect us

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by the very exercise of the duty. But if our prayers or others benefit them, when at the very time they may be ignorant of our offering them, this must be by God's doing something in a way o answer. This is the very ground and encouragement of our offering them. And the Bible is filled with instances of the accomplishment of such prayers, as it is with commands for the performance of them.

NOVEMBER 4.-"FOR 1HEIR SAKES I SANCTIFY MYSELF, that they also might be sanctified.”—John xvi. 19.

HERE are two sanctifications spoken of, very distinguishable from, yet intimately connected with each other-The sanctification of Christ; and the sanctification of Christians. Let this exercise turn on THE SANCTIFICATION OF CHRIST "For their sakes I sanctify myself."

Here the word to sanctify does not mean to renovate or purify; but to consecrate or devote. He could not be sanctified in the former sense, because his nature was not depraved or defiled by sin But under the law, when persons or things were dedicated to God, they were considered as hallowed or holy, ad to use them for any common purpose was to profane them. Thus the Sabbath was sanctified, and the tabernacle, and the temple, with the vessels thereof. Thus Jesus devoted himself to the service of God in the salvation of sinners. "Lo!" said he, "I come to do thy will, O God. I consecrate myself to be an atonement, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. I will suffer, the just for the unjust, and bring them nigh who were once far off, by my blood." Here he displays the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness towards us. For,

Observe the voluntariness of the consecration. He does not say, I am sanctified, but, "I sanctify myself." He was not passive ir the business; neither was he compelled. No man, says he, taketh my life from me; I lay it down of myself. He made himself of no reputation. It was therefore with him a matter of the freest choice. and of the fullest purpose. A man walking by the side of a river, may see a fellow-creature in danger of drowning, and may plunge in to save him, and perish himself in the attempt. He may be considered as falling a sacrifice to his kindness; but the sacrifice with him was only eventual, not designed. Nothing was accidental in 'he sufferings of Christ; nothing was unforeseen; he assumed our nature, and entered our world, for this very end-The Son of man came, not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.

Observe also the relativeness of the consecration; "For their sakes I sanctify myself"-Not his own. He had no sin of his own to expiate. He was therefore cut off, but not for himself. He was stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted: but he was wounded for our transgressions; he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and by his stripes we are healed. And he suffered not only for our sakes, but in our stead. His death was not only for our good, but for our redemption; and we are expressly assured that he redeemed us from the curse of the law being made a curse for us. He was therefore a true and proper