"Our backslidings are many."-Jer. xiv. 7. WHAT offence has the backslider not given to Him who did not hesitate to die for sinners! JUST as a mariner loses sight of a headland or harbour by letting his vessel drift away with the currents, so do backsliding professors lose sight of the beaming lantern on Mount Calvary. Sad Sight." It is a miserable thing to be a backslider. Of all unhappy things that can befall a man," says Ryle, "I suppose it is the worst. A stranded ship, a broken-winged eagle, a garden overrun with weeds, a harp without strings, a church in ruins all these are sad sights; but a backslider is a sadder sight still." A Christian's Falls.-The true Christian may gain some advantage by his very falls. As husbandmen make use of the thorns and briers that grow in their field to stop the gaps and strengthen the hedges about them, so should we improve our very sins and failings to force our souls, that we lie not open to like temptations for the future.Hopkins. 66 toms, be alarmed, for your spiritual health is in danger: apply immediately to the great Physician for a cure.' Loss of Heavenly Heat. They say of the loadstone, that wonder in nature, when either by carelessness in keeping it, or by some accident, it loses its virtue, yet by laying it some good space of time in the filings of steel, it will again recover its virtues. When the spirit of a Christian, by not looking well to it, loses of its heavenly heat and liveliness, the way of recovery is by laying it asteep in this so warming and quickening meditation.-Ranew. Slight Deviations.-Dr. Hamilton tells us that at Preston, at Malines, and many such places, the lines go gently asunder. So fine is the angle that at first the paths are almost parallel, and it seems of small moment which you select. But a little farther one turns a corner, or dives into a tunnel; and, now that the speed is full, the angle opens up, and, at the rate of a mile a minute, the divided convoy flies asunder. One passenger is on the way to Italy, another to the swamps of Holland; one will step out in London, the other in the Irish Channel. Spiritual Decline. "The symptoms of spiritual decline," says Dr. Payson, are like those which attend the decay of bodily health. It generally commences with loss of appetite and a disrelish for whole- It is not enough that you look some food, prayer, reading the for the better country; you must Scriptures and devotional books. keep the way: and a small deviaWhenever you perceive these symp-tion may send you entirely wrong. A Question for the Soul. Peter, and yet no recovery was A young man, it is told, was for more signal. While that stands several months in a backsliding upon record, no traitor to his Lord state, which manifested itself in the and Master is justified in saying, usual way, of conformity to a "The door of hope is closed against fashionable and unholy course of my return." The Scriptures conlife, and a neglect of the ordinances tain several instances in which the and institutions of the house of lamentable and disgraceful lapses God. During this time he called of God's people are shown to be on a deacon of the church, who was followed by their recovery and rea watchmaker, and asked him to storation. Frequently such characrepair his watch. "What is the ters, after they have been corrected difficulty with your watch ?" said and chastened of the Lord, have It has lost time lately," said risen to stations of great eminence David in the Old the young man. The deacon looked in His Church. at him with a steady and signifi- Testament, and Peter in the New, cant eye, and said, "Haven't you while both illustrating the shame lost time lately?" These few words and sorrow of a backsliding state, brought the backslider to repent- stand forth as monuments of that ance, to the church, and to duty. sovereign grace which can forgive the penitent wanderer, and once Backsliders of Scripture.. No more infuse into his heart the instance of backsliding can be more peace that passeth all understandaggravated than that of the apostle ing."-Leifchild. he. 66 66 BEGINNINGS. Though thy beginning was small, yet thy latter end should greatly increase.” -Job viii. 7. He who waits to do a great deal tions of amendment, he had only at once, will never do anything.- made a beginning! Dr. Johnson. ALL vice stands on a precipice, and to engage in any sinful course is to run down the hill. There is, therefore, no safety except in the fixed principle and purpose to do right. Tillotson. SIR ISAAC NEWTON states that he did not consider that he had any advantage over other men, except that whatever he thought of sufficient importance to begin he had sufficient resolution to continue, until he had accomplished his object. THE first weed pulled up in the garden, the first seed set in the ground, and the first mile travelled on a journey, are all important things. How many a poor outcast is now creeping and crawling his way through the world, who might have held up his head and prospered if, instead of putting off his resolu say, Beginnings of Grace.-Imagine a tree two hundred years old to look back upon the stages of growth through which it has passed, and to "I remember that when I was twenty years old I was only so big. I then thought I was an oak; but when I compare what I am now with what I was then, I see that I was not an oak at all." What were you then-moss, a vine, a weed? Do you not know that the seedform and the full disclosive form are the same in their nature? Do you not know that one is the legitiThe mate result of the other? beginnings of grace in the human soul may not reveal Christ to the extent that its later stages do, but they are all parts of one work, and they all have the one purpose of giving man a sense of his infinite need-need by weakness, need by infirmity, deepest need by sinful ness, need of body, need of soul, need in his whole being. Life is like a multiplication sum, in which a small error in the amount of the first multiplicand assumes vast dimensions in the total. The beginning enfolds the end, as the acorn enfolds the oak. - Biblical Treasury. Sin's Beginnings: a Parable. The trees of the forest held a solemn parliament, wherein they consulted of the wrongs the axe had done them. Therefore they enacted that no tree should hereafter lend Foundations of a Christian Life. the axe wood for a handle, on pain-After a little, when a man has of being cut down. The axe travels fairly committed himself to a Chrisup and down the forest, begs wood tian life, many of those things which of the cedar, ash, oak, elm, even of have been against him turn round, the poplar. Not one would lend and are like winds in his sails to him a chip. At last he desired so help him. The great thing is to much as would serve him to cut begin-to begin honestly, to begin down the briers and bushes, alleg- with the help of Christ and Goding that these shrubs did suck away to begin. For this is one of those the juice of the ground, hinder the cases in which to begin is half growth, and obscure the glory of the journey. And where a man the fair and goodly trees. Hereon is willing to say to his companion, they were content to give him so or to some friend or Christian much; but, when he had got the brother, "The time past suffices handle, he cut down themselves in which I have lived a worldly too. life, and I am going, by the grace of God, to begin to lay the foundations of a Christian life," in many and many cases the crisis is past. You may not have joy to-day, nor for weeks; but you are on the way toward it. It may not be conversion, but it will stand intimately connected with it. And if any one willing to begin a new course," that reading this shall say, "I am is no small matter. To make a beginning in the right direction is a great thing. These be the subtle reaches of sin. Give it but a little advantage, on the fair promise to remove thy troubles, and it will cut down thy soul also. Therefore resist beginnings. Trust it not in the least. Adams. Four Beginnings Important. men had occasion to go from Leeds, to attend the assizes at York, respecting some trials in which they were nearly interested. Of those four, one overslept himself, lost his train, and did not get into court till after his case was disposed of. The second got into what he supposed (from want of inquiry) was the York train, and was some way on the road to London before he found out his mistake. The third reached York in time, but found he had carelessly left behind him papers which were as essential as his personal presence. The fourth was both diligent and careful, and assisted to win the cause he went to support. The first three began wrong, and all their efforts to retrieve themselves were vain. So, in spiritual things, let us be careful to "seek the Lord early," and "not to sleep as do others." Beginnings of Religion. One ship is as good as another in the harbour. It is outside of the harbour that the comparative merits of different vessels are made to appear. There their qualities, whether superior or inferior, show themselves. It is what ships do on the sea that determines that one is better or worse than another. And as with ships, so with men. Two men start about alike on the morn of life. They go along, at first, about together. But follow them five or ten years, and about the fifth, the sixth, or the seventh year, the one-a man of pleasure, a godless man, a man that does not believe in a divine supervision of the affairs of this world begins to degenerate; while the other—a sober, Christian man, who believes that God controls the world and all that are in it-in the beginning lays his foundation, going down so deep that he seems for a time to burrow like a marmot; but then, little by little, he begins to work upward, and he builds so that every hour men see that he is building strongly and surely.— Beecher. BELIEVERS. "Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God."-1 John v. 1. "A SIMPLE believer and a close walker," says J. H. Evans, "is the definition of a happy Christian." "BELIEVERS resemble the moon," writes Secker, "which emerges from her eclipse by keeping her motions, and ceases not to shine because the dogs bark at her. Shall we cease to be professors because others will not cease to be persecutors ?" "As the setting of the sun," says Salter, "appears of greater magnitude, and his beams of richer gold, than when he is in the meridian, so a dying believer is usually richer in experience, stronger in grace, and brighter in his evidences for heaven, than a living one." "BELIEVE, O man," exhorts St. Clement," in Him who is Man and God; believe, O man, in Him who suffered and is worshipped, the living God; believe, ye that are enslaved, in Him that was dead; all ye men, believe in Him who only of all men is God." Belief and Inspiration.-There are three means of believing-by inspiration, by reason, and by custom. Christianity, which is the only rational institution, does yet admit none for its sons who do not believe by inspiration. Nor does it injure reason or custom, or debar them of their proper force. On the contrary, it directs us to open our mind by the proofs of the former, and to confirm our minds by the authority of the latter. But then it chiefly engages us to offer ourselves, with all humility, to the succours of inspired grace, which alone can produce the true and salutary effect.-Pascal. A Contrast. It is related of Napoleon that when Marshal Duroc, an avowed infidel, was once telling a very improbable story, giving it as his opinion that it was true, the Emperor quietly remarked, "There are some men who are capable of believing everything but the Bible." This remark finds abundant illustrations in every age. There are men all about us, at the present day, who tell us they cannot believe the Bible, but their capacities for believing any and everything which seems to oppose the Bible are enormous. The greediness with which they devour the most far-fetched stories, the flimsiest arguments, if they only appear to militate against the Word of God, is astonishing. The Wise Believer.-Only the wise believer hath provided a sanctuary or city of refuge against time of danger; hath learned wisdom of the conies, who, though a little nation, yet, wise and forecasting, have their refuge in the rocks. Christ is the believer's rock, and his strong tower, his altar, and therefore he fears not what death can do unto him. Christ hath assured him, on His word, that he shall have all tears wiped away, and the Spirit hath secured him that he shall rest from his labours; in which regard he is so far from lingering and hankering after a continuance in this Baca of tears, this wilderness of fears, that he studies rather to enter into rest; cries out with David, "Woe is me, that I dwell in Mesech and Kedar;" or with blessed Simeon, "Now, Lord, let thy servant depart in peace."Samuel Ward. "Make them royal gifts. The cry, Firm Religious Belief.-"I envy Belief Typified." I had been not quality of the mind or intellect absent from home for some days," in others," says Sir Humphrey a Christian writer relates, "and Davy; "not genius, power, wit, or was wondering, as I again drew near fancy; but if I could choose what the homestead, if my little Maggie, would be most delightful, and I just able to sit alone, would remembelieve most useful to me, I should ber me. To test her memory, I prefer a firm religious belief to stationed myself where I could see every other blessing; for it makes her, but could not be seen by hier, life a discipline of goodness, creates and called her name in the old new hopes when all earthly hopes familiar tone, 'Maggie !' She vanish, and throws over the decay, dropped her playthings, glanced the destruction of existence, the around the room, and then looked most gorgeous of all lights; awakens down upon her toys. Again I relife even in death, and from cor- peated her name, Maggie!' when ruption and decay calls up beauty she once more surveyed the room; and divinity; makes an instrument but, not seeing her father's face, she of torture and of shame the ladder looked very sad, and slowly reof ascent to paradise; and far above sumed her employment. Once more all combinations of earthly hopes, I called 'Maggie !' when, dropping calls up the most delightful visions her playthings, and bursting into of plains and amaranths, the gar- tears, she stretched out her arms in dens of the blest, the security of the direction whence the sound everlasting joys, where the sensual-proceeded, knowing that, though ist and the sceptic view only gloom, decay, annihilation, and despair." Kings and Priests unto God. One of the royal captives taken by Alexander was asked by his conqueror how he desired to be treated. He said, "Like a king." Alexander then asked had he nothing else to request of him. "No," replied he, "everything is comprehended in the word king." Pleased with the response, he gave him back more than he had taken from him with the sword. Believers are "kings and priests unto God." But how seldom does their faith in Him who has conquered them by His grace rise to such a height as to lead them to ask for favours which only belong to heirs of His royal kingdom! God loves to hear His children sue for large favours, and in their deepest humility they have a right to enjoy the lof tiest relationship, and to believe that as they bear a royal name their Father will not refuse to grant she could not see him, her father must be there; for she knew his voice." Living and Dying with Christ."All they," says Archbishop Leighton, "who do really come to Jesus Christ, as they come to Him as their Saviour, to be clothed with Him and made righteous by Him, so they come likewise to Him as their Sanctifier, to be made new and holy by Him, to die and live with Him, to follow the Lamb wheresoever He goes,' through the hardest sufferings and death itself. And this spiritual suffering and dying with Him is the universal way of all His followers: they are all martyrs thus in the crucifying of sinful flesh, and so dying for Him and with Him. And they may well go cheerfully through. Though it bear the unpleasant name of death, yet, as the other death is (which makes it so little terrible, yea, so often to appear so very desirable to them), so is this, the |