towards our helpless fellow-creatures in the flesh. They could indeed look forward through the vista of centuries yet to come, to a prolonged absence from the terrible resurrection-body in which they dreaded to be clothed, but there was not a ray of hope for them ; the vision of fierce, unquenchable flames, leaping up for ever, alone bounded their prospect of the future. Oh that "certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries." How truly will they know, before their resurrection from the dead, and after it, that “ our God is a consuming fire," they who in their day of grace would not have Him to reign over them!

"I saw," says St. John, in his account of the dreadful vision before us, "a great white throne, and Him that sat on it, from Whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them." Doubtless the apostle himself must have been thrilled with an inexpressible awe, as he surveyed these true foreshadowings of the future, and he was one whose soul had been washed white in the blood of the Lamb. How terrible then for those to contemplate, who are without hope and without God in the world! Let St. Peter show us, in his address to Cornelius, who is He that sat on the throne. "He," the Lord Jesus Christ, "commanded us to preach unto the people, and to testify that it is He which was ordained of God to be the Judge of the

quick and the dead." Our blessed Lord Himself told the Jews: "The Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment to the Son." And contemplate His evident Godhead, as revealed in

this verse.

Creation shudders and trembles more at His presence as the Judge, than when on Sinai in the midst of thunders, and lightnings, and voices, and a thick cloud that covered the mount, He gave His people Israel His first covenant; more than when He cried aloud on the cross, "It is finished." It is asserted by philosophers, that the very hardest granite rocks were originally made out of compressed gases. This fact will the better help our minds to understand, how the earth and the heaven should flee away from the face of their Creator, and how no place should be found for them. It will help us also to see, in stronger light, the utterly helpless position of the wicked, of whom it is said, that in their day of anguish they will cry to the mountains and rocks, "Fall on us, and hide us from the face of Him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb for the great day of His wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?"

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And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God. Not in vision, but in reality, will the apostle behold this spectacle at the appointed time: and you and I shall behold it with him. The Lord, the Righteous Judge, have mercy upon our souls in that

day. It may be that through the grace of God working in us repentance unto life, we shall have been glorified before this solemn scene takes place, and in that case we should be in the number of the Judge's ransomed ones, privileged to be near Him during those dread assizes, and not obliged to stand at His tribunal. But we may learn from this vision that God is no respecter of persons. Small and great, rich and poor, young and old, will each one be called to answer for the deeds done in the body. Human memory often becomes weak as our years increase in this life, and hence many and many a sin has been lost sight of and forgotten. But God does not forget. In the dread books of His remembrance, which shall be opened on the Judgment-day, every sin that has ever been committed on the earth will be found to have been duly chronicled. In other words, God is perfect in all His attainments: He is Omnipresent and Omniscient, and hence nothing can escape His observation.

It seems likely that there will be some on that dreadful day,-possibly those who will have died upon the earth during the millennium, whose sins, though many, will have been already blotted out by the Blood of Christ. Have you a well-grounded hope that this is the case with you? Have you had faith given to you from above, which has led you to wash away your sins in "the fountain opened in

Zion for sin and all uncleanness ?" If this be so, my brother, you have not the slightest reason to tremble and grow pale at the thought of the judgment. For then every accusation levelled against you by the adversary will be repulsed by the Judge Himself. Then, though God's remembrance will be able to call up against you myriads of millions of sins, they could be mentioned only to show the infinite grace and long-suffering of God, and the infinite efficacy of our dear Redeemer's blood, and not to procure your condemnation.

Would you fain escape this second death? Would you fain turn your present illness to a blissful account? When the pale corpses of the shipwrecked dead have risen from the depths of the sea; when death and the grave have delivered up the dead which have been in them; when, to the consternation of the wicked, all their sins are brought to light; when death and hell and whosoever are not found written in The Book of Life shall be cast into the lake of fire; would you be able to see the awful spectacle, safe and undismayed-even as the traveller looks down from some lofty mountain on the deadly storm that is raging below him-himself unharmed? I know well what answer you would give. Let then the Judge be your Saviour without a moment's delay. He stands knocking at the door of your heart now. opens His arms to receive you to himself now.

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The Father pleads with you by His gracious Spirit. "Come now, and let us reason together... though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool." Defer no longer your repentance to a more convenient season. Volumes of flame threaten to wrap you round in their deadly coils for ever and ever, but Christ waits to snatch you as a brand from the burning. Oh lose no time: every pulse-beat is precious to you: wrestle with God in earnest prayer for repentance, for His pardon, for saving faith in Christ. "Flee from the wrath to come!"

Prayer.

HOLY Lord Jesus, the friend of publicans and sinners, and the Saviour of the lost, we believe that Thou shalt come to be our Judge. We therefore pray Thee help Thy servants, whom Thou hast redeemed with Thy precious Blood. Make them to be numbered with Thy saints in glory everlasting. Oh work mightily, we pray Thee, upon the heart of this our sick brother. Let him not die until he has known Thee to his soul's salvation. If it be indeed Thy holy Will to come for Thy waiting church during our life-time, oh glorify Thyself by the translation