world, and less in love with the things of God, it is not through the weakness of nature, but through the strength of sin.-Dr. Owen.

THE PROGRESS OF GRACE IN THE SOUL. THE believer's feelings and experience in the different stages of the divine life are essentially and necessarily different. There is a dawning brightness, a vernal glow of freshness about the early days of grace, which must pass away, and can never be recalled again. This is not to be confounded with backsliding or declension in grace. The blade of spring, indeed, gradually loses its freshness, and its verdant loveliness passes away; but it is ripening, not withering; and lovely as the budding verdure of spring is, the mellow glow of autumn is lovelier. So it is with ripening as compared with early grace. Its impressions are less vivid, but they are more deep and abiding. Its feelings are less ardent, but they are calmer and holier. Its peace may not so overflow, but it ploughs a deeper channel. It is not so exulting and sanguine, but it is more solemn, more chastened, more lowly. There is less of the flesh, more of the spirit-less excite

ment, more grace. John, when now laden with years and labors he was carried into the congregation, and could only look round and smile,

and 66 say, Little children, love one another," must have been much changed in feeling from what he was, when in the fire of his first love, he obtained the name of a "son of thunder;" and “son of thunder;" and yet he was

Therefore, Though feelings

far liker Jesus, and far nearer glory. beloved, be not cast down. change, though comforts decline, though there be ups and downs, clouds and storms, as you travel on, still be of good courage, and hold on your way. Rather rejoice, and bless the Lord that he that began the good work is carrying it on, that the long year of grace is gradually running its course; that the spring is already over, that the summer is pressing on, and that amid changing suns and showers, storms and calms, you are

ripening for the eternal harvest.

be holier, daily nearer the

Only seek to

Lord, daily more like
Soon shall time give
shall sin, and sorrow,
Soon shall the day

Jesus, and then all is well. place to eternity. Soon and change, end for ever. break, and the shadows flee away.-Islay Burns,

CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE.

At first, in the early days of fresh experience and warm first love, the believer shoots up like the palm-tree, and in a little time seems almost ripe for glory. His joyful steps, "like hinds' feet," carry him swiftly on, and before he has almost entered on the heavenly pilgrimage, he seems already on the very confines of Canaan. He breathes after heaven. He longs to be with Jesus. Heaven, though still future, seems already begun within him. His peace is as a river, his joy unspeakable and full of glory. The fountain of life eternal gushes up within his heart. It is a very Beulah of holy peace, and love, and gladness, and the breezes of heaven are around him. He is already almost in glory! Then he fondly dreams-but, alas! it is but a dream. He is yet far from home. He is not "meet for the inherit

ance of the saints in light." His experience, joyful and blessed as it is, is yet superficial, in many points deceitful and unreal. His faith, though ardent and sanguine, is as yet little tried. His joy, so exulting and so full, is yet sadly mixed up with presumption and vain fleshly feeling. His love, though warm, is selfish-joying in the

Lord for his gifts, rather than for himself. The old man is yet strong within him. There are unfathomed depths of corruption within, of which he knows nothing. Self, that oldest and foulest idol, still lurks within, and has scarce as yet got one deadly wound. He has thus much to learn, much to suffer, and much to do, before he can overcome and be crowned. Hence he must go back to the wilderness again, and, like the redeemed flock in every age, pass "through great tribulations"—that, being refined by the furnace, and moulded and fashioned under Jehovah's hand as a vessel of mercy, he may be found at last unto praise, and honor, and glory, at the appearing of Jesus Christ.-Islay Burns.

DEATH A BLESSING TO THE AGED SAINT.

THE chief benefit of our age is, our near approach to our journey's end; for the end of all motion is rest: which when we have once attained, there is nothing but fruition.

Now our age brings us, after a weary race, within some breathings of our goal: for if young men may die, old men must; a condition which a mere carnal heart bewails, envying the oaks

which many generations of men must leave standing and growing.

No marvel for the worldling thinks himself here at home, and looks upon death as a banishment: he hath placed his heaven here below, and can see nothing in his remove, but either annihilation or torment.

But for us Christians, who know that while we are present in the body we are absent from the Lord, and account ourselves foreigners, our life a pilgrimage, heaven our home, how can we but rejoice, that after a tedious and painful travel, we now draw near to the threshold of our Father's house, wherein we know there are many mansions, and all glorious? I could blush to hear a heathen say, "If God would offer me the choice of renewing my age, and returning to my first childhood, I should heartily refuse it; for I should be loth, after I have passed so much of my race, to be called back from the goal to the bars of my first setting out ;" and to hear a Christian whining at the thought of his dissolution! Where is our faith of a heaven, if, having been so long sea-beaten, we are loth to think of putting into the safe and blessed harbor of immortality?-Bishop Hall.