"STRANGERS AND PILGRIMS."

1. Peter, ii. 11.-Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul.

The Apostle here beseeches those to whom he is writing as strangers and pilgrims: which is as good as saying, that their being strangers and pilgrims was a reason, why they should do what he besought them to do.

In what sense were they strangers and pilgrims? it did indeed so happen, that, though they were persons living in their own homes, they were not living in their own country of Judea; for this epistle was written to the Jews who were dispersed through the different countries of the lesser Asia. But it is not in this sense that the Apostle speaks of them as being strangers and pilgrims, but in the sense in which we are all of us strangers and pilgrims. We are strangers and pilgrims all of us: all who dwell upon this earth, are but strangers and pilgrims upon it. It is not the home of any: it is a strange land. We draw our breath upon it for a short time; and unfortunately we enter as busily into all that occupies men's minds upon it, as if this ought to be our first care; as if we ought to confine our thoughts and our activity. to the things here about us. Well; this goes on for a few years; we labour, and get money, and build barns, and gather in our harvests, and try for places of honour or profit, and then die. The earth receives our bodies, but does not even keep them. She immediately sets about destroying even the most solid parts of our earthly frame: our very bones she consumes and crumbles into dust; and what was once a man, becomes quite undistinguishable from the mould with which it is mingled. And is this our home? Is that a home which will at last, (and that in no long time), destroy every portion of our mortal bodies?

But again, consider the case with respect to the time of our dwelling here. That is our home, in which we are to dwell for a long time: that is not our home, in which we sit down for five minutes on our way to a place where we are to live for the rest of our lives. Now this time of five minutes is very much nearer to the whole of even a very long life, than a very long life is to the life after the grave. One could soon tell how many five minutes there would be in a man's life, if

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one did but know when it would end. One could very soon tell how many five minutes there are in a year; how many in ten years; how many in twenty, fifty, a hundred years. One could soon tell how many five minutes there were in the life of Methuselah, though he lived nine hundred and sixty-nine years; being ten or twelve times as long as what we should now call a very long life. But tell me ; can any man find out how many of our lives, or how many of Methuselah's lives ...for it is all one in this question....would make up eternity? No man can tell this; because eternity cannot be made up of any number of the years of this world. Let a glorified saint have lived Methuselah's life over and over again : let him have lived it millions and millions of times ;-no matter how many millions of times-still he will be no nearer to the end,-for this plain reason, that there is to be no end. Go on as long as you please, still we are no nearer to that which is never to be at all—I mean an end. The happiness of the next world ..aye, and the misery of the next world too.. are to have no end and where no end is, there every moment is (as it were) a new beginning: and no length of time can even make up any part of eternity; for nothing is really the part of another thing, if there be not some number of these portions which would together make up that thing. Now no number of any portions of time, however large, would together make up eternity; and therefore no portion of time whatever, however long you may suppose it, is really any part of eternity. And let me ask you then, whether this can be our real home, when the time of our dwelling here is so excessively short, compared with the time of our dwelling in the next world, that that time (though it is wrong to call it time,) cannot even be measured by any number of the years of man's life! If I were to live only a million of years in another world, should I call that my home, where I am at best to spend less than a hundred years, or that where I was to live a million of years?-Surely that where I was to spend a million years. Much more then must that be our real home, where we are to spend millions...countless, infinite millions. . . . of y f years, stretching out, million after million, into that incomprehensible eternity, which no human thought can grasp.

Let us then feel that we are all but strangers and pilgrims here upon earth: let us feel that the things upon earth are not ours for possession, but only for use; that prosperity is

Let us

but as a brook in which we may refresh ourselves by the way ..and a brook that may be dried up at any moment. feel that nothing here is of much importance, except as it tends to make us well or ill off, when we come to our everlasting home-let us strive to make a godly use of all our good and evil things here; let us shrink with abhorrence from every thing that can prevent us from securing a happy lot hereafter: let us not strive to lay up treasures here, but treasures in heaven, where all things are imperishable.

Let

us feel that we should gain absolutely nothing, if we were to gain the whole world, and yet lose our own souls. Let us therefore, according to the Apostle's exhortation...abstain from all fleshly lusts, that war against the soul, because we are here but strangers and pilgrims.

"I'M VERY FOND OF FLOWERS."

I KNELT a night or two ago

By little Anna's bed,

She sighed and moaned, and could not rest,
And but few words she said.

Though young, she knows her Saviour's prayer,
And the Apostles' creed,

And loves in God's own holy Book

The words of hope to read.

That night she felt her trial sore,
And slowly passed the hours;
I spoke of pain, but she replied,
"I'm very fond of flowers."

Who would not run to satisfy,

That wish, though unexprest?

Who would not run to cull for thee,
His sweetest and his best?

And who would chide thee, that from pain,
Poor child, and painful things,

Thy young heart for a moment turns,
And to past pleasure clings,

On Nature dwelling, with her train
Of birds and sunny showers,
On summer skies and leafy woods,
And many-coloured flowers?

How perfect in their bloom those flowers
Upon thy pillow lay!

How beautiful! and thou how pale,

And wasted quite away!

But Faith from that uneasy bed
Can look beyond the grave,
And fix a steady eye on Him,
Who's powerful to save ;

On Him who for a world has paid
The all-sufficient price.—

Oh! what are earth's quick-fading flowers
To flowers of Paradise?

SOME ACCOUNT OF A. C.

1 HAVE met with many whose light and temporal afflictions I could clearly perceive to have wrought for them a hope of increased eternal glory. But the case of one I would particularly mention, who could say with truth, "before I was afflicted I went astray, but now have I kept thy commandments." It was A- -C-. She was, at the time I first became acquainted with her, advanced in life. She had lived many years without God in the world: had neglected his ordinances, despised his Word, profaned his day, and walked entirely in the way of her own heart and in the sight of her own eyes. She was the mother of a large family, who grew up, like herself, ignorant of God, and consequently without love to God and his Son. She had been united in early life to a quarrelsome and drunken husband, whose ungodly propensities had frequently brought him into trouble, and continually robbed her of a portion of those wages, which were required to provide her children with bread. She was naturally of a violent temper; and as she was not influenced by religion, her natural violence carried her occasionally beyond all bounds.

She would manifest her rage by the most abusive language, cursing all who interfered with her, and calling upon God to curse them too. So violent were her bursts of anger, that on one occasion she attempted to put an end to her life by drowning but happily her intention was prevented! There were none that loved her, none that could speak well of her, none probably that indulged a hope of her conversion and salvation. But God thought good to afflict her. And her chastening, though at the time it was not joyous but grievous, afterwards yielded the peaceable fruit of righteousness. Her children had married and left her; her eyesight had nearly failed her; her husband was attacked by an illness, which in three days laid him in his grave; and as he lived, so he died, without shedding a tear at the recollection of his sins, or offering a prayer to God for pardon and forgiveness!! I visited her in that season of affliction, and found her in a most pitiable condition. Her husband had just been carried to his grave: there was nothing cheering or consoling in his death; nothing to inspire a hope in the minds of those who knew him. She was alone, and almost in darkness; there was none to help her; none to console her; none to divert her mind from the melancholy subjects over which it brooded. I listened to her grief,-spoke to her of the consolations of Religion, opened to her the gospel of Christ,-set before her its full and free offers of pardon to all mankind, and endeavoured to awaken a conviction of sin, and a feeling of love to God and to his Christ. By the blessing of God, what I said appeared to make an impression upon her. Again I visited her; and again God seemed to bless my efforts. In a few weeks she was greatly altered. She valued that word which once she had despised. She hungered for instruction, and I trust for righteousness. I was at that time visiting a neighbour, who was confined by her long and last illness to her bed a little child was set by A.-C. to watch my approach, and scarcely was I seated by the side of the sick bed with my Bible in my hand, when led by this child she would come into the room, to hear me read the Scriptures, and to kneel with me in prayer. On one occasion, when she was obliged to leave her home for a few weeks, she called at my door as she passed, and begged me, as the greatest kindness I could do her, to read a few verses in the word of God, and pray for her to the throne of grace. For nearly five years she was to be seen every sabbath day proceeding slowly to the house of God.