males among the Jews above a certain age were required to be present.

"Pentecost means the fiftieth.' The day of Pentecost was the fiftieth day; and the fifty days were reckoned from the Passoverfrom one of the days of the Passover Feast.

"Pentecost was called also the Feast of Weeks,' because it came immediately after a succession of seven weeks.

"Pentecost had yet a third name. It was called the Feast of Harvest,' because it was celebrated at the end of the harvest. And an essential feature of the celebration was the offering up of two loaves made from the new fine flour.

"The Passover and Pentecost had an important historical significance, respectively. They were commemorative of two great facts in the history of Israel. The passover was commemorative of Israel's redemption from Egyptian bondage. Pentecost was commemorative of the giving of the law from Mount Sinai. And fifty days intervened between Israel's redemption from Egyptian bondage, and the giving of the law— the inauguration really of Israel's national existence.

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"The Passover and Pentecost had also an important typical significance, respectively. They looked forward as well as back. The Passover foreshadowed the death of Christ. Pentecost foreshadowed the descent of the Holy Ghost. And when the fulness of time came, the shadow and the substance were linked together historically-coincided historically. The purpose of God is one, and there are no breaks or abrupt transitions in its unfolding. In building up the new, God honoured the old '-made the old the starting-point of the new. The new is pillared upon, and is the fulfilment of, the old. At the Passover Feast, Jesus, the true Paschal Lamb, whose blood is the symbol of a redemption infinitely more glorious than Israel's redemption from Egyptian bondage, was slain. And at the Feast of Pentecost the Holy Ghost, who writes the law of God, not upon tables of stone, but upon 'the fleshy tables of the heart,'

was poured out.

"Very remarkable were the fifty days that intervened between the Christian Passover and the Christian Pentecost. They were consecrated by transactions and events unique and wonderful. Some of those transactions and events have special lessons for us to-day.

"The first forty days were intimately associated with the risen Christ-were made memorable and glorious by the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, and by the intercourse which took place between Him and His disciples, and by His ascension to the right hand of power.

"The remaining ten days were days of prayer. The disciples, when they returned from the Mount of Olives, where Jesus ascended in His cloudchariot to the skies, gave themselves to prayer. Their forty days' intercourse with the risen Lord led up to that. The blessing He communicated to them, when leaving them, took that form of development.

"And the prayer of those ten days is the Church's pattern prayer. The greatest want of our time is prayer like the prayer of those ten

days. Renew the prayer of those ten days, and, on a scale larger and grander, the wonders and the triumphs of Pentecost will be repeated in this age.

"Of what sort was the prayer of those ten days? What were its chief characteristics? 1. In the first place, like all genuine prayer, it was the expression of a deep, conscious need; the cry of a great spiritual hunger.

2. In the second place, it was social prayer; the prayer of numbers drawn together by a common sympathy, and a common necessity, and a common hope. Social prayer is an ordinance of God, and has its own specific promises; and yet how unattractive it is to multitudes of Christian people. It is attractive only in the great birth-periods of the Church. The privilege is appreciated in the times of awakening and of revived life, when the clouds of Pentecostal blessing hover near and break in showers on the parched and thirsty lands. There is no better sign, there is no more pregnant prophecy, than a quickened interest and a quickened conscience in the Church in regard to social prayer. All great spiritual movements are preceded and conditioned by much social prayer.

3. In the third place, it was united prayer. The Church, as a church, prayed: These all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication: 'And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place.' There were no absentees from the meetings for prayer. And a common sentiment, a common purpose, animated the praying ones. They had a common errand at the throne of grace. Their prayer was definite and one. The meaning of the word unanimity had its perfect realization in that praying company.

4. In the fourth place, it was believing prayer. Believing prayer, and therefore intensely real, and business-like, and urgent. A promise was given those disciples- Ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence—and they held it in the grasp of a simple and unwavering faith; and it inspired their bosoms with a living and a precious hope which trembled, and yearned, and soared to meet and embrace its object.

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5. In the fifth place, it was prayer in the name of Jesus. It was easy now for the disciples to pray. The realm into which prayer enters was brought near, and made real, by the presence there of their dearest and most familiar Friend. The vagueness, the indefiniteness, and the mystery were gone. The formula, For his sake,' which is prayer's mightiest plea, was being used for the first time. The disciples understood, and were acting upon the words, 'Verily, verily, I say unto you, whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, He will give it you.' • Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name; ask and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full."

"6. In the sixth place, it was persevering prayer. There was no fickleness or fitfulness in it. It was not begun and then given up. It endured the test of delay. It extended over ten long days, and increased in intensity and importunity as the days proceeded. Each day found the praying spirit stronger, and the capacity for the blessing deeper and wider. Oh, the discipline of those ten days! Oh, the spiritual education

of those ten days! What preparation in the waiting! How great the wisdom and the love that postponed the answer! The disciples 'asked,' and their asking became 'seeking,' and their seeking became knocking.' They exhausted the conditions of prayer; and all the while, by a necessary subjective spiritual law, they were enlarging and enriching the blessing. There is nothing arbitrary in the sphere of prayer. The measure and the quality of the blessing are determined by the inward receptivity. The disciples prayed, and they continued in prayer,' and they watched '-'watched more than they that watch for the morning.' And most blessedly did the exercise react upon themselves. The gifts of God are as large and as free as the heavens of his love, yet they are to us what we make them. The ocean of grace encircles and beats up against our shores, but we receive according to the depth and breadth of the creek of faith and spiritual desire. Deep and broad was the creek of the disciples' faith and spiritual desire. The ten days' praying, and waiting, and watching made it deep and broad. There was nothing wanting in the preliminaries to 'the fulness of blessing.' Every 'tithe' was in 'the store-house.' All the things were present that make up the supreme condition significantly designated, 'Proving God.'

"Such was the prayer in its chief characteristics; the Church's pattern prayer; the prayer that needs to be renewed to-day; the prayer that must be renewed if the Church is to be replenished with power, and is to fulfil her mission by conquering the world for her Lord. There must be a waiting upon God, and it must resemble the waiting that heralded and made possible the glories of Pentecost.

"The answer that came corresponded to the prayer. It was not an exceptional or abnormal answer. Let there be the same prayer now, and there will be in all essential spiritual respects the same answer. The answer is according to the recipiency, and the recipiency is according to the prayer.

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Suddenly 'the answer came. All the Lord's comings are sudden-sudden even to those who, with girded loins and burning lamps are waiting and watching. 6 Suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost.'

"The wind and the flame were not the Holy Ghost; only his appropriate symbols, and the temporary but impressive accompaniments of His presence. The Holy Ghost is a spiritual agent, impalpable to the senses; His dwelling-place and the sphere of his operation is the spiritual being of man.

"The essential thing in the answer was that which is expressed by the words. 'They were all filled with the Holy Ghost.' Prayer has no grander answer. Man's supreme glory is that he is capable of being the shrine, the conscious organism of the personal Spirit of God. And that glory is bis in virtue of the fact that he is 'made in God's image, after His likeness'; that his

central essence has kinship with 'the Father of spirits.'

"In a form and manner the very highest, the words, they were all filled with the Holy Ghost,' had their verification in the experience of the praying ones in the upper room at Jerusalem. There was nothing to hinder-nothing. The way of the Lord was prepared, and along the prepared way the Lord came. And all the inner being He filled and flooded with his presence, taking possession of every faculty and energy and affection, overmastering all, making each disciple the facile and joyous instrument of His power, and the consecrated medium of the revelation of His grace.

"The immediate effect and outcome of the answer was speech-inspired speech-the tongue of fire': 'They all began to speak.' And their first words, we may well imagine, would be addressed to God, and would be words of devout and earnest thanksgiving. They had been speaking to Him in prayer, and He had answered their prayer gloriously; He had turned their prayer into praise. What acknowledgment, therefore, would be theirs! What hallelujahs and doxologies would rise from their exulting hearts and purged lips to God's holy throne!

"Then they spoke to their fellow-men. Jerusalem was full of strangers from many lands, come to celebrate the Pentecostal Feast. To them, and also the residents of Jerusalem, the disciples spoke. And their theme was Jesus and the Resurrection-God's completed and allsufficient salvation. The church of the Pentecost was first of all a praying church, then a praising church, then a witnessing church-a preaching church. Mark the order, for it is the Divine order. It is the order that must be followed now. Prayer first, prayer for the baptism of the Holy Ghost, prayer persevered in until God converts it into praise; then preaching. And soul-saving is that preaching,-'mighty to the pulling down of strongholds,' and to building up of the kingdom of God in human souls and in the spheres of human life, is that preaching that comes after prayer and praise; that is evolved, so to speak, out of prayer and praise. Instinct with energy, radiant with holy beauty, aflame with zeal, equipped for victorious conflict, is that church that knows and has traced the steps of the great succession-that has behind it, and conditioning all its enterprises, the upper room, the waiting upon God with the hand of faith on the promise, the answer to the waiting in the descent of the Holy Ghost, and the rapturous praise and thanksgiving.

"The lesson of Pentecost, then, is plain. And it is the supreme lesson for our time. Acted upon, a new era would be inaugurated in the history of the churches of England. Acted upon it must be, if we are not to be distanced in the race, and if we are really to fulfil the holy mission to which God is calling us in this age.

"We are drawing closer together for important denominational purposes; we are entering into union and confederation for the development, and concentration, and more effective employment of our moral and material resources. this deeply interesting juncture the churches of England could propose to themselves nothing so much in harmony with the Divine purpose and

At

will, nothing that would give them such adequacy of power and adaptation, as a season for concert in prayer. The Congregational Union of England and Wales could occupy itself with no business so relevant, or weighty, or pressing. It has been Occupying itself with credenda; there is more need that it should occupy itself with life. Seasons for concert in prayer have often been set apart, and never without blessed results. The special want-and it is admitted on all hands-is the baptism of life and of power. God longs to give the baptism of life and of power. The fault is entirely our own that it is not given. He has not been a wilderness unto us, nor a land of darkness." If we have not,' it is because we have not asked, or have asked amiss. If the Lord is as a man astonied, as a mighty man that cannot save,' it is because we have 'restrained prayer before Him,' and 'our iniquities testify against us.' Let the churches, with one consent, humble themselves in the dust; let a fast be proclaimed,' for we have sinned grievously, our backslidings are many; and let there be renewal of the pleading of Pentecost; and there will be verification again, in senses new and glorious, of the words, 'And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.'

"And with the verification of these words there will be a solution, natural and easy because in the line of life, of the problems that are confronting the Church and burdening the hearts of the greatest and most philanthropic of her sons. Filled with God, there will be nothing wanting to the Church for the work she has to perform, for the regenerations she has to effect, for the conflicts she has to wage, for the Evangel she has to preach, in this progressive and remarkable age. Once again, as at the first, splendid opportunity will be matched with sufficiency of power and perfection of means. The awakened and Spirit-baptized Churches, gathered in martial hosts around the banner of Jesus, will make victorious assaults on the huge evils, and errors, and corruptions of the time, and rescue the masses of the people from the life of sin to the life of holiness and God. "W. CROSBIE.

"Derby."

Religion in the Higher Walks of Life.

A COUNTESS, who recently died in Denmark, left her estate, valued at £400,000, to be devoted to the formation of a Home and Refuge for Poor Girls. The sister of the King of Sweden has built a fine home for poor children close by her own mansion by the sea, having, with her royal brother's leave, parted with her jewels to attain her end.

A friend of ours, while in Paris recently, had a long interview, first with two Russian Princesses, and then with a Russian Prince, who bears the name of one of the most illustrious personages in the past history of that Empire. The exclusive object of each interview was the Higher Life, and especially the Baptism of the Holy Ghost, subjects in which each manifested the deepest interest. These individuals, in their different spheres, devote their lives and vast estates to the promotion of the spiritual interests of their countrymen.

MRS. MUMFORD.

TO THE EDITORS OF "DIVINE LIFE." DEAR SIRS, -Through the kindness of someone I receive your excellent paper regularly. I wish it came oftener.

When I read Miss Frow's letter, I said, Well! the Lord hears prayer, for a lady is now on her way to join me (I suppose) and I shall look for some others to join us in the Lord's most precious work in Roumelia.

I, too, read with great interest everything about Miss Anstey, Miss Reade, Miss Frow, and Miss Wheeler.

They have gone out like Abraham from home and kindred, and like myself are enjoying the sweet rewards of obedience.

I wrote to Miss Frow about the money sent by the dear children and am sorry she has not received the letter. My two little girls listen to what I tell them of those children who have so lovingly remembered them; and the oldest, who is now nearly eleven, hopes soon to write them a little letter of thanks in English. The other is nearly eight years of age. Their names are Mary and Ellen, interesting children, and learn quickly. Their father was killed at the massacre at Ortlukui. They were sitting around their little table on the floor, eating their noonday meal-father, mother, and four children-when in rushed the Turks; one put his gun to the father's head and scattered his brains among his children seated around. The mother has struggled very hard to keep the children together, but bread could not be found, so she gave me these two. I hope they will be true cross-bearers for Christ in Roumelia.-Yours in Jesus,

women.

A. O. MUMFORD.

Mrs. Mumford, as she informs us in a letter which accompanied the above, employs two BibleGana, whose natural talents, education, and mature Christian character and experience eminently qualify her for such a sphere of activity, spends her whole time among the destitute in and about Eski Zara, reading and expounding the Scriptures, giving counsel to enquirers, visiting from house to house, and administering medicine to the sick. For her work among the sick, Mrs. Mumford has just sent her £2 worth of medicines. Gana's ministrations to the sick give her great influence with the people. Of her benign influence in the prosecution of her mission, Mrs. Mumford is in constant reception of ample testimony. The other Bible-woman is a widow with a son seven years of age. She lives at Ortlukui, and spins and weaves cloth for a living. Mrs. Mumford gives her some money to enable her "to go out among her friends and neighbours to preach Christ." She was Matron at the Samakor school when Mrs. Mumford was there, and has eminent qualifications for her work. "I have just had," says Mrs. Mumford, "au application for another pupil. I can have, at least, eight or ten more at once if I only say the word; but I think I had better see whether the bread will be forthcoming before I take more."

PRAYER is desired by a Christian worker in the

Lord's vineyard, who has the care of more than one thousand souls, for a deep baptism of the Holy Ghost. Also for the work under her care, that all may be done for the glory of God.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT.-Received for Mrs. Mumford's Mission,-T. A. Denny, Esq., £10; Admiral Fishbourne, £2; Mrs. Haige Miller, £2; through Morgan and Scott, £1; Mrs. Mahan, £2. Total, £17.

IMPORTANT CORRESPONDENCE.

IN the Christian of August 20th, there appeared a criticism of not a little severity on Dr. Dougan Clark's volume on "The Offices of the Holy Spirit." In its next issue appeared the article which follows. The introductory remarks of the Editor, as well as the reply of Mr. Swan to the criticism referred to, are worthy of the special attention of our readers.

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

A Correspondent replies to the review in our last of Dr. Dougan Clark's book, "The Offices of the Holy Spirit," and we hope his letter may lead to a clear understanding as to what is taught. We warmly acknowledge the indebtedness of the Church to those who have in these days called attention to the subject of Holiness; and we ask them, as we desire for ourselves, calmly and candidly to ask, What saith the Scripture? and to accept what the Scripture saith.

Sir, Your review of Dr. Dougan Clark's book on the "Holy Spirit," in this week's Christian, asks the question "if any saints known to him have enjoyed the entire sanctification and perfect love he describes, without intermission for twenty weeks?"

There is something in this question very like the spirit manifested by the unbelieving Jews of old, when questioning the Lord Jesus as to who He was. He said, in reply to the question "Art Thou the Christ ?"—"If I tell you ye will not believe." They had heard enough and seen enough to have convinced them, if they had been open to conviction; but their hearts they had hardened, and they would not hear. How different our Lord's treatment of the woman of Samaria-"I that speak unto thee am He,❞—and of the blind man in John viii. 37!

Whenever such questions were asked from a true desire to know and obey, the Lord always gave a direct answer; but where they were asked for the purpose of finding occasion against Him, or for cavilling, He did not answer directly, for He knew the spirit that prompted them. Would your reviewer believe if Dr. Clark answered the question in the affirmative, which I am very sure he can easily do?

This, however, is not the way to test the truth of it, for the experience of any man is never the measure of the grace of God. That alone is fully and clearly revealed in the law and testimony, where there is abundant evidence of the purpose and provision of the Lord to save His people from all sin and sinfulness in this life, sanctifying them wholly and preserving them blameless throughout. And let God be true, though every man should be a liar; for if some do not believe, their unfaithfulness shall not make

the faith of God of none effect. If the revealed will of God in His Word will not convince, neither would a cloud of living witnesses-no, nor even though one rose from the dead.

There are many things in Scripture above the natural comprehension of man, but God's "thoughts are not our thoughts, nor His ways our ways," and although the entire removal of sin may "utterly puzzle us," it is not beyond the power of God nor outside of His provision for us in Christ Jesus, which is that "we being delivered out of the hand of our enemies, might serve Him without fear in holiness and righteousness before Him all the days of our life."

It is impossible to read the Bible without seeing that its requirements are holiness, and we do not fully understand the grace of God in Christ Jesus unless we see that the fulfilment of these requirements is provided for us in this life; that is, for those who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit (Rom. xiii. 4).

The passage 1 John i. 8 must not be taken apart from the context any more than James iii. 9. The meaning is, that God is light-that is, holiness or purity-and that to have fellowship or participation with Him we must also be walking in light or holiness, which is attainable through the blood of Christ, which cleanseth from all sin, and so leaves none. But if we say we have no sin to be cleansed from, and can have fellowship with God without the cleansing of the blood of Christ (as some in those days affirmed), we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. The common interpretation, that despite the cleansing of the blood of Jesus Christ, we would deceive ourselves if we say we are cleansed, makes the passage contradict itself.

Complete salvation through the grace of God in Christ is freely offered to faith just as well as forgiveness, so that none need despair of the former any more than of the latter; and this full salvation is the only preventive to spiritual pride, for much grace never exalts, but humbles. Sin made man proud and rebellious; complete salvation makes him humble and dependent, and nothing else can do it.

Would to God that all the Lord's people would believe unto their complete salvation from all sin and to perfect union with the Lord Jesus Christ by the baptism of the Holy Ghost, in accordance with John xvii. 23. FRED. G. SWAN. Glasgow, Aug. 23.

MR. JAMES E. TRACY writes to the American Board this encouraging news from the Madura Mission, India: "In several villages new congregations are offering themselves for instruction. They come faster, indeed, than I can get men to teach them. A catechist told me a few days ago that in a village four miles from Essaly nearly twenty families were eager for instruction. So it is. The work is growing and the great need is of faithful, pious men, to go in and occupy the field.

THE Baptists, U. S., receive an average of seventeen converts for each year of home missionary labour and forty-three converts for each year of foreign missionary service.

DIVIDE LIKE

JANUARY 1st.

USES OF TEMPTATION.

BUT

UT while we may not be able to comprehend and explain the occult reasons of temptation, we may hint certain motives tending to reconcile us to the severe visitation.

1. God loves to see the counterpart of His own absolute goodness and grandeur in men, and these too, up to the point of highest finite possibility. He cannot duplicate or multiply Himself. That would destroy the unity of God-undeify Deity. But He can create beautiful resemblances of Himself; and He can cause those resemblances to make grand and far on approaches towards Himself. In order to do this He must make man as nearly independent and self-sufficient as possible. Accordingly he has constituted man free, that he may be responsible; He has gifted him with the power of choice that his good or evil may be the product of his own act; He has exposed him to temptation, that his integrity may not turn out to be accidental, for the want of tests, much less necessitated by compulsory circumstances.

2. Temptation is disciplinary. It is the Lord's gymnasium by which he hardens bone and muscle, and puts activity and suppleness into the spiritual organism. Moral qualities, like the physical members, are invigorated by exercise, but weakened and finally destroyed by disuse. And as our Father loves and has need of a sturdy and well-developed family of children, he has been pleased to put them into the training school of temptation. He takes them through this preparatory drill, that they may grow and become invincible to solicitation. The Lord delights in, and requires, manifest merit and trustworthiness. It is thus that He brings out the

nobility of our nature, and utilizes its forces in conjunction with the helps of Divine grace.

3. Temptation has the effect to burnish up experience. It is like the grit of dust used to brighten the surface of gold and silver plate. It makes the heart a mirror so polished that Jesus can look into it and see Himself. Everyone knows the preeminent sweetness of rest and victory after a fiery trial. It is the great calm after the winds and the waves subside. The same may be predicated of our talents. They are furbished by temptation. It gives versatility to invention, pungency to thought, fervency to prayer, and omnipotence to faith. As gold and silver coin are kept free from dulness and discoloration by the abrasion of constant circulation and handling, so our spiritual gifts and graces are made to shine most perfectly by the continual resistance of evil enticements, and provocations to wrong. In view of this, Peter congratulates the tempted, saying, "Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations: that the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ" (1 Pet. 6, 7).

4. Temptation developes sympathy for others who are tempted. This seems to have been the chief object of our Lord's temptation-to put himself into thorough sympathy with the frailties and trials of men. To this end it is written: "For in that he himself hath suffered, being tempted, he is able to succour them that are tempted" (Heb. 2. 18). The inference seems legitimate from this proposition, that sufferings and temptations were necessary to empower Christ with ability in a qualified sense, to succour those who are subject to temptation.

Again it is written: "For we have not an High Priest which cannot be touched