can get any peace, or joy, or hope; scorching heat; to-day it seems as if

they just need to be emptied entirely of self-confidence, and to lie down at the feet of the Omnipotent God, crying, "Save me." They need to be reminded often of this, and to be taught to lie simply in the arms of their God and Father, just as the weaned child does in its mother's arms; to resign all confidence but in the arm of Jehovah, all wisdom but the wisdom of Emanuel, every source of enjoy ment sometimes but the one pure,

there would not be a winter chill again.
or blighting blast of frost to check.
Wait a little, and more of the blossoms
will be lying on the ground than are left |
on the tree; and so it is in the spiritual
life. There are many summer Chris-
tians; there are few, few winter Chris-
tians, who can stand out reproach for
Jesus' name. Well, what proves man
to be a Christian is, that, in the hour
of trial, he is still the same; others
may flee, others may mock, and others

lasting, uncreated source of joy, even may fall; but the grace of his God is God himself, in whom they may rejoice with him still. Do not fear trials, continually. Oh, that his own might beloved friends, if you have got within become wearied of trusting in the you the grace of Emanuel; for, when creature! Oh, that we were contented grace is put into the fire, it never to drink deep, full draughts of the burns, never is consumed-it stands Divine consolations! This is what we the test. Put gold into the crucible, require trials to teach us. It is only it will take no harm; it may melt, but by trials that we can be enabled to it will come out the purer and more say, "All my well-springs are in Thee." precious. Fear not that trials will Ah, believer, this is what you must ever extinguish grace in your soul; seek after, this is what you must strive all that is of God will remain unafter, even to rejoice in God alone; to touched. Put into the crucible any withdraw yourselves much from every imitation of gold, it will not stand the other, and to get your comfort from fire merely because it resembled gold. him, and your joy from him. Be Ah, no! Therefore, when your pro

fession of Christ is put into the furnace, God's work in you will stand for ever; man's part of it will be immediately consumed, it will just drop into the flame like tinsel, and fall into dross. Fear not that God's furnace will mar the work of his own hands.

much alone with him, that intimate communion, as well as union with him, may be enjoyed, that in all things your wills may be subjected unto his. It is sad to think that the wills of his chosen should so often remain perverse and rebellious. It is what they have no right to be. He doeth as he will among the armies of heaven and amidst the inhabitants of the earth; and, to a sincere and humbled believer, God's will is the best of all reasons, remembering that Jehovah giveth not account of any of his matters, but will perform all his pleasure, whatever his children may wish or desire to have; and they have only to say, in answer, "The Lord gave and the Lord hath God and die, pressed by inward doubts taken away; blessed be the name of and rebellion, and tempted by the

the Lord."

Look at Job. Few of you are likely to be tried as he was, yet he held his confidence firm to the end; if a believer could have fallen, it would have been Job. Afflicted by strange bereavements, by the loss of substance, i forsaken by his religious friends, up-| braided by them as one given up by God, pursued on the one hand by his partner-his wicked partner-to curse |

great enemy to deny the Lord his God, what could he do? Yet the Lord supported him, healed his disease, re. stored his substance, blessed him with children again, and gave him the vic

Remark again the wonderful manner in which God's children are always supported under trial and suffering, whether of body or mind, or from outward causes; here, also, we discover tory over all his enemies; having enawho are, and who are not, his children. bled him throughout and at the worst There is many a summer Christian, to say, "Though he slay me, yet will. many a one who begins well and ends I trust in him." Notice in passing the in perdition; just as at present the peculiar manner in which he was blossom covers the trees, because the afflicted by the wickedness of his partdays are bright and the nights are ner; this is a state of severe trial in mild, and there is neither storm nor which God's children have often been

1

placed, sometimes in the course of He kindles, for my profit purely, providences, or as it oftener happens

Affliction's glowing fiery brand,

by their own frowardness and self- And all his heaviest blows are surely

will, for which they are sooner or later

Inflicted by a Master-hand:

punished. Very probably Job knew So I say, praying, As God will! not the true character of his wife till And hope in him, and suffer still."

affliction came upon him; but trials always bring out these secrets, and now she was to him as a broken reed in his darkest hour, calling on him to curse Jehovah and draw down perdition upon his own soul. And I doubt not that Lot only discovered the true character of his partner when they had begun to flee from Sodom, or at least that he may never have known till then the full extent of her wickedness and hypocrisy.

GOD'S ANVIL.

Tribulation means threshing, and Trench, in his excellent little treatise on the study of words, has carried out the figure, showing that it is only by threshing us that God separates the wheat from the chaff. Here is a precious little morsel which somebody has clipped from an old paper, and sent to us, credited "to the German of Julius Sturm," and which will speak touchingly to many a heart which has been put into the furnace of affliction.Rel. Mag.

"I HOLD STILL."

PAIN'S furnace heat within me quivers,
God's breath upon the flame doth blow,
And all my heart in anguish shivers,
And trembles at the fiery glow:
And yet I whisper, As God will!
And, in his hottest fire, hold still.

He comes and lays my heart, all heated,

On the hard anvil, minded so Into his own fair shape to beat it

With his great hammer, blow by blow: And yet I whisper, As God will!

And, at his heaviest blows, hold still.

He takes my softened heart and beats it;
The sparks fly off at every blow;
He turns it o'er and o'er, and heats it,
And lets it cool, and makes it glow;
And yet I whisper, As God will!
And, in his mighty hand, hold still.

Why should I murmur? for the sorrow
Thus only longer-lived would be;
Its end may come, and will, to-morrow,
When God has done his work in me:
So I say, trusting, As God will!
And, trusting to the end, hold still.

"PRISONERS OF HОРЕ."

"Patient in tribulation."

For the following extracts from a Biblewoman's Journal we are indebted to the "Bookand its Missions." May a perusal of the touching narrative be sanctified to some of those who are tempted to think their afflictions "too heavy to bear ":

Let us cross Bedford Square, and pass by the Broadway, St. Giles's, penetrate down Drury Lane, and opposite the grand theatre fresh risen from its ashes, turn into one court out of Bow Street, and up another, where we shall find many a house once in the possession of wealthy tenants, but now let, in separate rooms, from top to bottom. At one door we notice five bells for the five floors; the stairs are clean, and the flights many. Ascending the highest we enter a room, in which a tent-bed has dark curtains drawn almost all round it.

On that bed lies another great sufferer, Ann J-. A short time since, the | welcome hand of death seemed about to release her from her long life of sorrow. It is thirty-one years this May since, in hurrying to open the door to a doctor, she fell down stairs with a child in her arms; the babe was unhurt, but she suffered concussion of the brain, and has never since that period known a day of health. She had then a kind husband, a smith by trade, and a Christian man, who had everything done that could be done, within his power, to relieve and comfort her. When he died, sixteen years ago, she lost her all, and was left with three daughters, one of them deformed, and very weakly.

Previously to this loss she herself attempted a little needle-work, lying on her back; but a large tumour formed round her neck, and she has now lain, for sixteen years, with her head in a plate, to preserve it from the heat of the pillow, a proof of how much and how long poor human nature may suffer and not die, and a proof that a soul inhabiting such an afflicted body may yet praise the Lord for his goodness and for his won

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derful works among the children of men. We think we never heard a testimony to the goodness of God so fervent as from within those curtains.

It is said of the Most High, in the 33rd Psalm, that "from the place of his habitation he looketh upon all the inhabitants of the earth;" that "his eye is upon them that hope in his mercy," and that their hearts shall rejoice in him, because they have trusted in his holy

name.

Then, surely, the eye of a loving Lord
is on this attic in D- Court. Let us
hear the witness that this text is true
from its humble tenants, conveyed
through a visitor, on whose truth we can
rely. It is the record of the first visit,
paid at the moment when Mrs. J
was supposed to be so near her end :-
"I asked if I might speak to the suf-
ferer, through the closely-drawn curtains.
She seemed to have a constant sense of
suffocation from the tumour, added to the
intense pain in her head. She could not
speak above the lowest whisper, so that
I hardly heard what she said; but the
very soft voice and the expressions used
would have given the impression that she
had been an educated person, before she
fell into her present state of distress.

"I asked her how long this struggle
had lasted, and remarked that it would
soon be over, and that I supposed she
would be quite willing to go home. She
raised her hand in a manner that gave
emphasis to the 'Oh, yes,' which she
could hardly utter.

""And,' I added, 'quite willing to stay as long as it shall please God to detain you on this bed of pain?" I listened for her answer, till she breathed out, 'Hardly so! I am longing to depart. My sufferings have been so intense. The waves and the billows have gone over me! Oh, to be released!'

"I then told her of poor 'Sarah,' who had been confined to her bed for sixteen years, and could not raise her hand to her mouth, yet was so happy in her solitude that she declared that she would not change places with the Queen-a happiness which arose from knowing that her sins were forgiven, and feeling assured that Jesus had loved her. She raised her hand in the same expressive way.

""That poor woman, who has been so long confined to her bed, is,' I said, 'willing to stay or go, just as it shall please the Lord.' She made another expressive motion with her hand.

"She had a blanket given her during the very cold weather; and as she felt it help thinking of Him who had nowhere so warm and comfortable, she could not to lay his head.

"Oh! I also delight to meditate, as
I lay here, on the sufferings of my
Saviour,' she feebly whispered. 'I have
been in this state thirty-one years come
May.' (If I had known this before, I
should hardly have spoken of Sarah's six-
teen years' confinement.)

""Thirty-one years,' I observed, 'is a
long time to look forward to, or even to
look back upon, now; but a thousand
years hence, when you think about it, it
will appear but as a 'light affliction,
enduring for a moment, and then eternity
of the hand.)
will hardly be begun.' (Another elevation

"I quoted the text, 'In my Father's
house there are many mansions. I go to
prepare a place for you.'

""Yes,' said she, with all the energy her feeble frame would allow, that's a reality.'

"I felt as if I had been convicted of repeating the text without believing it, so clear were her convictions, as expressed in those few unexpected words.

A gentleman,

"On a second visit, she was unexpectedly found to be somewhat revived ; but her feeble daughter, on whom their support mainly depends, and who suffers from spinal complaint and asthma, had been too ill to work at her business of dressmaking, and they had begun to feel the pressure of want. also, who for three years had kindly given them occasional help, had just gone away to reside in France. She, therefore, expressed her deep gratitude to God for a new friend, and the daughter's reply to the assistance afforded was, 'This is as if it came straight from the clouds.' The promise of half-a-crown a week was received as if it were, in their sight, unbounded riches.

"I told her the benefit received by those who were allowed to minister to her was probably greater than to herself, for they seeing her confidence in God, in her heavy affliction, would be encouraged afresh to trust in him. This idea filled her pleasant brown eyes with joy. 'I do cast,' she said, 'all my care upon but I feel dark at times. Yet what a mercy it is that during all these years I I often thank God for that.' have never had my bed taken from under "She then told me how she had me.

him;

rejoiced to hear of the prayer-meetings ing. Our home heathenism was growduring the first week in January, this ing. The Church began to see, as year; that she had sent requests that she she had never seen before, the gigantic might be remembered in the supplications, difficulties of the task in which she and also notices of the cases of some for was engaged. She felt her weakness whom she desired the prayers, of the ser- -she cast herself in the dust before vants of God. Christian friends brought God-she began to besiege his throne accounts of the meetings to her, so she with strong cries. Then it was that had been continually present in spirit, the clouds gathered and that the rain and her fervent prayers had ascended from that lone room, in unison with those world-wide supplications.

began to fall.

A few weeks ago we were turning over, for another purpose, a file of "As she is obliged to be continually American newspapers. The papers were screened from the light, she cannot see of the date of 1856 and 1857, a year to read a small Bible for herself, and her or two before the commencement of poor daughter is often too ill to read aloud. the revival on the other side of the Her little granddaughter now reads to her Atlantic. Our eye was caught by the her in a very large print copy of the Psalms numerous paragraphs in the columns with which we have supplied her. The of these papers, under such headings word of God is very precious to her, even as "Prayer-Meetings," "Union Prayeras conveyed through the broken spelling Meeting." These prayer - meetings, and hesitating utterance of the simple we found, were announced specially child. Its mother was the babe in arms for when Ann J-met with her accident. Spirit." We had accidentally lighted "the outpourin of the Holy This little one is a great comfort to her, upon curious and most interesting and she hopes a good work of God is going on in her heart. They would not know what to do without the child, who fetches them everything, and runs up and

downstairs for them.

"The visits of the Bible-woman will here be very welcome, and needful both to soul and body in this distressing case. Her mission among the most lawless and the lowest of the people deserves, now and then, to be varied by entrance on scenes such as are to be found by the bedsides of our three thankful cripples."

POWER OF PRAYER ILLUS-
TRATED IN THE REVIVAL.

pouring

evidence of what had gone before the revival. We could look, as it were, into the towns and villages of Canada and the United States, and we saw men assembled to pray for the Spirit. We heard the inhabitants of one city saying to the inhabitants of another city, "Come, and let us pray before the Lord." We had previously been told, as doubtless our readers also had been told, that a season of prayer, of earnest and united prayer, had preceded the movement; but to read the evidence of the fact, to read the record of these prayers, as published in the journals of the day by men who were all unwitting of the glorious results that were about to follow, deeply impressed us, and enabled us to realise the connection between the revival and prayer more vividly than we had

THERE is one lesson of great significance which has been specially and pre-eminently taught by the revival. ever realised it before. We felt as if That lesson is the efficacy of prayer. we looked into the deep and secret In former cras it has been usual with springs of the movement. We felt God to employ the gifts of his ser- as if the power by which the world vants, the courage of one, the elo- was to be converted was laid bare to quence of another, in reviving his us. We saw what instrumentality it work. It has not been so on this was that brought down this blessed occasion. After a half-century's labour, rain.

the Church came to take a review of The great lesson, then, as it appears what had been accomplished. She to us, which God is teaching by this saw that all that had been done was revival, is the efficacy of prayer. And as nothing compared with the efforts the lesson was needed-much needed. which had been expended. The great The world had grown sceptical of the systems of idolatry were still stand- power of prayer. Proud of the in

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254

sight it had obtained into the laws of ferring individual blessings.
nature, the world laughed to scorn the looked for no such movement as would
idea that prayer could control or affect the world, and be "a time of
modify the course of these laws. It refreshing from the presence of the
knew but of two forces at the service Lord." How signally has her unbelief
of man; mechanical force, by which been rebuked! She has been emphati-
man triumphs over the elements, and caily taught that God hears prayer, an d
moral force, by which he sways the that it is indeed a fact that prayer
minds of his fellows. But of a force moves the arm that moves the universe.
dwelling in the heavens, which comes Let her not forget the lesson. Let her
in answer to prayer, and works a continue to pray, and God will continue
sudden change on the views, the feel- to answer. We shall see greater things
ings, and the characters of vast mul- than these.
titudes, the world knew not. It did

In
The Church has been taught, too,
not believe in such a thing. It placed the efficacy of united prayer.
this belief in the class of exploded prayer, as in other matters, union is
fallacies and superstitions. The pro- strength. If the fervent prayer of one
gress of philosophy and science had righteous man availeth much, how
utterly dispelled all such delusions; much more that of two or of many P
and if prayer now possessed an atom So have we been specially told. "I
of power, or could accomplish the say unto you," says Christ, "that if
slightest good, it was a good confined two of you shall agree on earth as
entirely to the mind of the man offer- touching anything that they shall ask,
ing it-it soothed and tranquilised him, it shall be done for them of my Father
but it had no prevalency with Him to who is in heaven." Will not the
whom it was offered. Prayer could prayers of God's people, each one
not alter his purpose, or bring down praying apart in his own closet, be
from above special help, in the way of answered? Doubtless. But their sup-
actual manifestation and deliverance. plications have greater efficacy when
But these atheistical notions have been they meet and offer them in common.
awfully rebuked. A supernatural in- And the reason is obvious. There is
fluence has fallen upon the world. more of union and communion among
Effects have been produced utterly saints, which God delights to behold.

beyond the power of man to accom-
plish, and that in quarters where the
slightest suspicion of collusion cannot
be entertained. And further, it is
undeniable that the descent of this
mysterious and superhuman influence
has been closely consequent on re-
peated and earnest prayer that such an
influence might be shed down. Philo-
sophy is nonplussed, as was the science
of Egypt of old before the miracles of
Moses. And if the world does not
yet confess itself convinced, it is unable
to conceal that it is confounded and
awed by this dispensation.

The lesson was scarce less needed by
the Church. If not theoretically, yet
practically, the Church disbelieved in
the efficacy of prayer. Cold and
formal were her prayers. They seemed
more the cry of despair than the voice
of hope. She knew that God answered
prayer in former times, and that he
would answer it in the good times to
come; but she scarce believed that he
would answer it now. Or, if he should
answer prayer, it would be upon
small scale, and in the way of con-

a

There is more consent regarding the
And God is,
blessing asked. The one helps to
heighten the fervency and strengthen
the faith of the other.
as it were, pledged before the Church
and the world to answer those requests
which have been unitedly and openly
presented to his throne. As regards
the present revival, God has specially
put honour upon united prayer; for in
answer to such prayers is it that this
revival has been sent. It was felt that
the great want of the age was the out-
pouring of the Holy Spirit, and Chris-
tians began with singular unanimity
and harmony to pray that the Spirit
might be shed down. For this great
blessing have supplications ascended,
as with one voice, from America on the
west, to India on the east. Who can
fail to see in the revival an answer to
the united cry of the Church?

And may we not hope that the
answer will be as universal as the
up their
prayer has been? In all lands, from
furthest west to the distant east, God's
people have met, and have sent
united supplications to the throne of