THE NEW YORK

PUBLIC LIBRARY 641659

ASTOR; LENOX AND

FOR THE CHRISTIAN ADVOCATE.

A CHRISTIAN'S MEDITATION AT EN

TERING ON A NEW YEAR.

If I Live, or if I Die.

IF I LIVE--it ought to be, and by the grace of God assisting me, it shall be, my aim and endeavour to live this year, more as becomes my Christian character and profession than in any preceding year. Much reason have I to be thankful.te Gord who has led me my life long until now; who has crowned my life with loving kindness and tender mercy; who has borne with.me.amidst all my sins, my ingratitude, min sensibility, my backslidings, my covenant breaking, my compara tively little improvement of all his varied dealings-lifting me up, at one time, and casting me down at another, now chastening me, and now causing me to rejoice in His merciful interposition in my be half-in relief afforded in distress, in support and deliverance in temptations, in restoring my soul from its wanderings, and in the light of his countenance which is better than life. In very deed, when I think what I have been, and how my heavenly Father has dealt with me, I stand and wonder at his forbearance; I wonder at his long suffering, I wonder at his patience, I wonder at the goodness and kindness and mercy and wisdom, which have marked all his dispensations towards me. Truly he is God and not man, else I had been consumed. VOL. VI-Ch. Adv.

1914

The warmest emotions of gratitude. and praise are due to him from me; and the deepest humility and selfabasement become me in his presence. O most merciful God and Father! accept the gratitude of this unworthy heart; a gratitude which I know not how to express, and which still is unspeakably less than befits the immeasurable goodness which calls it forth. Cleanse, O cleanse my soul, from all its pollutions, in the precious atoning blood of my dear and adored Redeemer! clothe me with his righteousness; sanctify me by his Spirit; form me into his likeness; exterminate every unhallowed principle and propensity of my soul; and help me to devote all that I have and am, more unreservedly to thy service and glory than ever heretofore I have done-Teach me now, especially, to form right purposes for the year on which I have entered; if it be thy holy will that I continue in life till another return of the passing season.

IF I LIVE, I purpose, in the strength of God, to endeavour to be more spiritual in the habitual temper of my mind; to have my affections more detached from earthly objects, and more placed on those which are spiritual and heavenly; to live more as in the very presence of God-so that I may la troth he said, in some proper, however humble measure, to "walk with God; to take more lively, frequent, and affecting views, of the glorious plan

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