the tip of his fingers in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame" (Luke xvi. 22-24). Thus our Lord, the Father of eternity, draws aside the veil, that by faith in his word we may see the amazing difference in the state of the righteous and of the wicked, of the poor but righteous Lazarus and of the wicked rich man in eternity. Behold the awful change in the rich man's state: "He died, and was buried; and in hell he lifted up his eyes, being in torments." But, surely, not because he was rich; but because he abused his riches, and lived a sensualist in the indulgence of his fleshly lusts; and because he had no faith, no charity: while he fared sumptuously, Lazarus at his gate was refused a crumb. "Lazarus also died, and was carried by angels into Abraham's bosom ;" that is, a place of honour, refreshment, and rest, in allusion to the eastern custom of taking their meals in a recumbent posture on couches, with the head of one guest in the bosom of another. Yes, Lazarus died, and was carried by angels, as his servants in waiting, sent by his heavenly Father, that he may exchange his meanness for glory, his scanty fare for a plentiful feast, the bare earth on which he lay for a heavenly couch, the company of dogs for the society of the just made perfect, and the rich man's gate for infinitely better than the rich man's mansion, "a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens" (2 Cor. v. 1). Surely, the true servant of the Lord is in that state and is of that character that are the most desirable of all others, though starving at the gate, or burning at the stake of a cruel world. Let us not then "judge according to the outward appearance, but judge righteous judgment;" judge according to truth, according to the scriptures; judge with death, judgment, and eternity before us. But, secondly, ye servants of the Lord, be comforted and encouraged, for you live in a body and in a world which distress and discourage you. But, as it is written, "Who is he that will harm you if ye be followers of that which is good?" (1 Pet. iii. 13); "followers of God as dear children, and walking in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savour" (Eph. v. 1, 2). Surely, it is enough that he is for you who is the Lord of hosts, and who has thus written in your favour by the hand of his servant the apostle Paul: "All things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the first-born among many brethren. Moreover, whom he did predestinate, them he also called; and whom he called, them he also justified; and whom he justified, them he also glorified" (Rom. viii. 28-30.) And under all your trials, especially from your enemies, Satan and sinners, remember the text while you live godly in Christ Jesus: "No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper; and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and their righteousness is of me, saith the Lord." But, thirdly, consider what these words imply, namely, that we cannot be the servants of the Lord without our measure of persecution, if we are so circumstanced as to come under the particular notice of the ungodly, of those who hate the light. These words of our Lord are very remarkable: "If ye were of the world, the world would love his own; but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his Lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you: if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also" (John xv. 19, 20). And St. Paul, after mentioning the persecutions that fell upon him like a storm, positively declares: "Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution" (2 Tim. iii. 12). When, therefore, we meet with the cross of Christ in the way of our attachment and service to him, let us not step over it, or on either side of it, through fear, or shame, or sloth, or love of ease, or love of money; but, by the power of the Holy Ghost, may we have courage and patience to take it up, and bear it after him who is gone before us, and "who endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God" (Heb. xii. 2). Remember the Christian's motto, "Looking unto Jesus." But, finally, and that we might be faithful to the subject and to conscience and to our Lord and to the sinner, we must note the deplorable case of the persecutor. He thinks evil in his heart; or he moves his tongue, or his hand; or he employs his heart, his hand, and his tongue against the servants of the Lord, and therefore against the Lord himself, "the mighty God." But "who hath hardened himself against God, and prospered?" Behold Pharaoh, that proud monarch of Egypt, persecuting the Israelites. But see Israel's God storming him with plagues, and at last overwhelming him in the waters of the Red sea. And the same glorious God thus speaks to all who dare to injure his people: "Touch not mine anointed, and do my prophets no harm" (Psalm cv. 15). But especially behold Saul of Tarsus raging against the servants of the Lord. See him stopped in his persecuting course by the overwhelming glory of Jesus Christ, who thus solemnly spoke to him: "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? It is hard for thee to kick against the goads." And now see that lion-like man prostrate on the earth, amazed and confounded, but not destroyed; not "driven away in his wickedness" "into everlasting punishment." No, but spared; and spared even to be the servant of the Lord. What splendid grace to such a sinner! And now see that lion changed into a lamb, and the furious perse cutor into a zealous preacher-a preacher of the faith he once laboured to destroy. But hear him speak for himself, and commend to great sinners, especially to persecuting sinners, the rich, the free, the splendid, the powerful grace of Jesus Christ. He speaks from experience: "This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief. Howbeit, for this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might show forth all long-suffering for a pattern to them who should hereafter believe on him to life everlasting" (1 Tim. i. 15, 16). And so full was the heart of the apostle with such amazing grace towards himself, and with thus commending it to other great sinners that they might share therein and thus sinners become saints, and persecutors preachers-so full was his heart on such an occasion, that it overflowed in this animated and sublime doxology in the following verse: "Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honour and glory for ever and ever. Amen." SABBATH MEDITATIONS. JULY 14.-SIXTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY. "And the third day, there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there: and both Jesus was called, and his disciples, to the marriage.”—JOHN II. 1, 2. Meditation." What an union for two believers, to have one hope, one desire, one course of life, one worship of God! Like brother and sister, undivided in heart and flesh, both fellow-servants, and, verily, twain in one flesh; teaching, exhorting, bearing with one another; together in the church of God, together at the supper of the Lord; sharing every affliction, every strait, every joy, one with the other: Christ loveth to see and hear such as these. To these he sendeth his peace" (Tertullian). Prayer-0, heavenly Father, of whom the holy estate of marriage was instituted, in the time of man's innocency, that he might be made perfect thee, pour down thy grace upon us; that we in thine image, which is love itself, we beseech twain, being flesh of one flesh, may cleave unto one another in body, soul, and spirit. And do thou, O blessed Jesus, hear the call of thy faithful ones, and set forward and sanctify our union with thine almighty help and heavenly benediction. May it become unto us a buckler against tion on the right hand and on the left. May it sin and uncleanness, and a defence against temptaprove unto each of us a savour of life unto life, and be maintained by us so undefiled in thy love and fear and obedience, that we may be worthy of being accounted members of thy mystical body. Grant us, O Lord, to use this blessed estate as lovest thy church; and so to yield ourselves unto not abusing it; to love one another, even as thou the sanctifying guidance of thy Holy Spirit, that we may ever have our conversation in charity, meekness, forbearance, quietness, and unity. Help us to adorn thy doctrine in all things; and in such wise to dwell together that, when thou shalt call us hence, we may be found clothed with thy righteousness, and meet to praise and bless thy holy name in those blessed mansions where love is made perfect, and where we shall rejoice in thy love for ever and ever. Amen. S. K. C. EVENING. "Therefore the king said into Shimei, Thou shalt not die."2 SAM. XIX. 23. Meditation."What is it but a vain and idle pretence, to talk, as many are accustomed to talk, of forgiving, though they cannot forget, the injuries which they have received? Is this the forgiveness which we desire to obtain for ourselves when we approach the throne of grace?.... Not such is the forgiveness which sinners need, and not such is the forgiveness which God graciously vouchsafes unto them; for, whatever may be the character of many of our reconciliations, as we call them, God's way of forgiving is to forgive and forget: if our's be not so, we have no portion in his" (R. Anderson). Prayer.-Blessed Jesus, in whose name alone I dare seek forgiveness of thy heavenly Father, I beseech thee, let some measure of the fulness of thy divine love he poured down upon me, and so graft thy law of love in my heart that, in all things and above all things, I may be enabled to add to patience godliness, and to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness charity. And if I have any yearning within me, what time my brother sinneth against me, to forgive him, do thou, O bountiful Saviour, increase this godly desire to a stedfast resolve, though he offendeth me not only until seven times, but even until seventy times seven. For know I not how I have, by countless transgressions, sinned much more heinously against thee? and yet, do I despair of thy forgiveness and not count upon the inexhaustible riches of thy tender love and merey? Yea, Lord, while I implore thee to pardon my offences, I implore thee also to endue me with bowels of tenderness and loving-kindness towards my enemies. O, heavenly Father, be gracious unto thy penitent creature; forgive thy child his trespasses, as he forgiveth his brethren when they • For married persons. trespass against him. Forgive me, not because | upon their dispositions and practice proves it to be my pardon of others deserveth thy mercy, or I possessed by them. Such is the fruit and effect of can make thee my debtor, but for thy gracious that spiritual evidence, upon which, however, some promise sake in Christ Jesus. O, hear me, Sa- learned men have laid so little stress, that they magviour; and say unto my soul, "Forgive, and thou nify beyond all just bounds the importance of the shalt be forgiven." The Cabinet. S. K. C. other evidences, as though they were the sole, or at least principal, foundation of faith.-Rev. T. Lloyd, vic. of Weedon, Lois. Poetry. PILATE'S QUESTION*. WHAT is truth? The fickle Roman LEPROSY. It is almost impossible to speak of it INTERNAL EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY.-We in terms sufficiently fearful to describe its true chamaintain, then, upon the authority of scripture, as racter. Proceeding, in the first instance, from a vi interpreted by our own church and by the reformed tiated state of the blood, which engendered imperchurches in the general, that there is an evidence of ceptible animalculæ, that insinuated themselves bethe things of God imparted to every real Christian, tween the flesh and the skin, and preyed upon the over and above any rational evidence which he may nerves and muscles, it spread, at length, over the enpossess; that the author of this internal evidence is tire system, so that the body became wholly corrupt, the Holy Ghost, who himself, by his own divine light, and covered with scaly excrescences. The skin was, does actually impress his truths on the heart, through consequently, thick and wrinkled, like that of an elethe medium of the understanding, whence results a phant. In the progress of the disorder the hair fell conformity to them in the whole man—in his dispo- off; the eyes, nose, ears, and mouth became ulcerated; sitions and affections as well as views; that faith is the joints were swollen, and the extremities became necessary on his part to receive this spiritual light, shrivelled and lifeless; taste forsook the patient, not merely an assent to the word of God, but such an notwithstanding an occasional voraciousness of appeaffecting sense of its heavenly declarations as deter-tite; and, in short, the sufferer was altogether an mines the soul to turn from sin to God, and renounc-object most pitiable and loathsome.-Rev. Wm. J. ing all confidence in itself, to lay hold upon the hope Hall's Sermon on the Character of Miriam. of the gospel as its sole refuge; that this divine evidence is moreover essential to the saving knowledge of the truth, on account of the blindness and perversion which sin has occasioned in the reason of fallen man. The internal evidence vouchsafed by the Holy Spirit is the most satisfactory evidence of Christianity, which of itself, and without the other probable evidence, ascertains to the soul God's truths, both as to their original, and as to their nature and import in the general. Hence the poor, who have Christian faith, are at no loss to discern the proper objects of it, though they may be strangers to the external proofs of revelation. The position may appear to need confirmation. Let us, then, set before us the man who has committed himself in faith to the guidance of the divine word and Spirit. When he has thus come under the practical influence of what is declared in scripture respecting his own character as a sinner, and the character of God as it is revealed in Christ, respecting the claims of the law on the one hand, and the blessings of the gospel on the other, the truths of revelation will then become most powerful testimonies to its authenticity. They will form, as he is acting upon them, a system of internal evidence, which will be growing and increasing in proportion to the progressive experience he has of their reality, and of their consonance to what he both finds in himself, and observes with regard to others around him; and this experimental evidence may amount to as high a certainty as accompanies our clearest natural knowledge, though it be a certainty of a different kind. Whoever, therefore, has been happy enough to obtain it (though he should be without the other), has solid grounds for a most firm and fixed persuasion of the truth of God's word, and of all its leading doctrines. It is a persuasion of which a consistent reasonable account can be given, though cases may and do occur of weak and illiterate Christians who are not able to give such an account of it, whilst yet its influence Till I have the answer found. What is truth? The only token Lent to guide our blinded race Burst our fetters, and be free. Yet unwilling to be saved: Prone from it to wander far; With himself and God at war. * From "Sacred Lyrics, by Richard Huie, M.D." Just published. In our January number we inserted a poem of Dr. Huie's, from another publication, when we inadvertently called him Robert." We need scarcely say that there is but one Christian poet of the name. — ED, Like the lamb the peasant slaughters, Brought the gentle Saviour low: For those sins which pierced him so? For such proof of grace divine? From the path thy children tread; Miscellaneous. the "On mares, and as many captive human beings. They are great horse-racers and chess-players. The subject of the baron's paper just now is the more interesting, as it relates to the people with whom Dr. Wolff will have to deal in his adventurous undertaking in search of colonel Stoddart and captain Conolly.-Literary Gazette. AFFGHANISTAN REPTILES.-During the rainy season we were much annoyed by the number of snakes and rats which infested our bungalows. These vermin absolutely swarmed in every apartment. The snakes were of the most poisonous description, and, of course, exceedingly dangerous. I killed several in my bed-room; and my wife was much alarmed two or three times by the appearance of a large cobra di capello in her bath-room. The venomous reptile used to come in through the drain which was made for carrying off the water; and she therefore desired the ayah to stop the aperture up. This was done; but, a day or two afterwards, on going to take the customary morning bath, she was much frightened by the ap pearance of the snake standing erect, with his hood extended, in a corner of the room. On hearing her scream, I rushed to the place, and soon with a stick despatched the intruder. The opening of the drain, TURKOMANIA.-At the March meeting of it appeared, had been partially stopped up by small Ethnological Society the secretary read a paper pieces of brick; but the reptile had still managed to the Yahmud and Goklan tribes of Turkomania," by the squeeze himself through. When inside, he had caught baron de Bode, the fruits of his personal observations and swallowed a musk-rat, which so considerably inof this interesting but imperfectly known people. The creased his bulk that he could not make his retreat by Goklans inhabit the country to the west of the Alburs, the small hole through which he had entered, and and the Yahmuds to the west of the Goklans, up to thus lost his life through his gluttony. It is seldom the eastern shores of the Caspian sea. Of the former that an European is bitten, although instances of very there were, some years ago, 12,000 families; but they narrow escapes are constantly occurring.... The comare greatly thinned: of the latter there are now be mon rats are nearly as great a plague [as the musktween 40 and 50,000 families. The Goklans ascribe rats]. During the whole night they will scuttle and their origin to two brothers, while the Yahmuds are scramble about the house, disturbing everybody by said to be the descendants of four brothers. They their gambols. Their depredations, also, are most follow the creed of Mohammed; possess corn-fields, daring, and quite in the wholesale line. I remember rice plantations, and vegetable gardens; and visit the once at Ghazeepore, after a review, taking off my coat bazaars of Asterabad, to exchange the fruits of their and accoutrements, and throwing them down on a industry, not only in this respect, but in goods they sofa. From among the things a silk handkerchief and manufacture, such as felt and woven carpets, as well my dress-sash were speedily misssing. As the natives as sheep and horses from the live stock they rear, for are very fond of silk articles, I naturally suspected the silks of Anezane and the cottons of Khorassan. that the servants had stolen them; and, accordingly, "Of the Turkoman character," the baron "regrets they were apprised that, if the missing things were not that he could find but very few redeeming qualities found, their wages would be stopped to replace them. to palliate the evil propensities of their nature." The Some days after this occurrence, I discovered a ratTurkomans observe a difference in their children by hole through the false screen in front of the fire-place, Turkoman mothers and by the Persians whom they and on removing it, found not only the missing handcapture, and the Kasakhs whom they purchase from kerchief and sash, but about half-a-dozen napkins the Uzbecks of Khiva. They of the pure race enjoy and towels, which had been lost from time to time. privileges of which the half-breeds are deprived. For These were all evidently carried thither and made into instance, they are oblige to choose wives from among a bed by the rats. They must have taken the towels themselves, or from the Persians and Kasakhs. The from off a wooden horse in my dressing-room, and Turkomans are Mongolian-featured, by no means ill-dragged them across two other apartments to their looking, and a large proportion of the younger of the hiding-place.-Lieut. Greenwood. female community are considered by the baron " as fair specimens of pretty women." The lads marry at fourteen and fifteen, and the girls at ten and twelve; but they are maintained by their parents for many years afterwards. The greatest respect the Turkomans can pay to the dead is to bury the body immediately. Among the Yahmuds there are individuals who possess upwards of 1,500 sheep, 200 camels, 30 London: Published for the Proprietors by EDWARDS and HUGHES, 12, Ave-Maria Lane, St. Paul's; J. Burns, 17, Portman Street: and to be procured, by order, of all Booksellers in Town and Country. PRINTED BY JOSEPH ROGERSON, 24, NORFOLK-STREET, STRAND, LONDON. |