I trust you feel real desire after complete holiness. This is the truest mark of being born again. It is a mark that he has made us meet for the inheritance of the saints in light. If a nobleman were to adopt a beggar boy, he would not only feed and clothe him, but educate him, and fit him to move in the sphere into which he was afterwards to be brought; and if you saw this boy filled with a noble spirit, you would say he is meet to be put among the children. So may you be made meet for glory. The farmer does not cut down his corn till it is ripe. So does the Lord Jesus: He first ripens the soul, then gathers it into his barn. It is far better to be with Christ than to be in Christ. For you to live is Christ, and to die is gain. Nevertheless, I trust God will keep you a little longer for our sake, that you may pray for us, and encourage us to work on in the service of Jesus till our change come. I began this letter about two weeks ago, and now send it away to you. I was called very suddenly to Edinburgh, and then sent to the north, and am just returned again, so that I did not get it sent away. I will try and see you this week, if it be the will of God. However, you must not be disappointed if I am prevented. I pray for you, that, according as your day is, so your strength may be. Keep your eye upon Jesus and the unsearchable riches that are in him; and may the gentle Comforter fill your soul, and give you a sweet foretaste of the glory that is to follow. May he leave his deep eternal impress upon your soul, not healing you and going away, but abiding within you, keeping the image of Christ in your heart, ever fresh and full-Christ in you the hope of glory. The Comforter is able to fill you with calmness in the stormiest hour. May he fill your whole soul and transform you into a child of light. Goodbye till we meet, if it be the Lord's will. If not in this world, at least before the throne, casting our crown at his feet. Ever yours in the gospel, &c.

TO THE REV. W. C. BURNS.
Awakenings-Personal holiness in ministers.

DUNDEE, Sept. 1840.

MY DEAR BROTHER-I have had a severe illness, or would have answered your kind note long before this. I fear you may have left Breadalbane before this can reach it; still I write in hope. You may be sure I ever follow you with

my

prayers and earnest longings of heart that God may humble, purify, and make use of you to carry glad tidings of great joy to the inmost hearts of poor, guilty, perishing sinners, wherever you go. I have been much interested by all that I have heard of the good that has attended you in the north. I long to hear still more. The very name of Moulin stirs up the inmost depths of the heart, when I remember what great things the Lord Jesus did there of old. Do write to me when you have a moment, and stir me up. You know a word to a minister is worth a word to three or four thousand souls sometimes. Nothing stirs me up so much to be instant and faithful as hearing of the triumphs of the Lord Jesus in other places. I am glad and thankful to say that we are not left quite desolate. There have been evident tokens of the presence of the Spirit of God among my dear people many nights—more I think upon the Thursday nights than on the Sabbaths. Some I have met with seemingly awakened with

out any very direct means. A good number of young millgirls are still weeping after the Lord Jesus. I have been out of my pulpit only one Sabbath, and I hope to be back to it next Sabbath, if the Lord will.

What Mr T. mentioned to you was true, of some having followed after an enthusiastic kind of man, who in my absence came among them. Doubtless Satan wanted to carry off some of the sheep, and succeeded so far. Still, I trust, it will end in good. Some have been a good deal humbled in the dust on account of it, and I have been roused up to cry for more knowledge how to guide them in the right way. I think, if strength were restored to me, I will try, in name of the Lord Jesus, to catechise through my parish. I ask your advice and prayers on this. If it could be conducted humbly, and with patience, and aptness to teach, I am persuaded it would tend to ground them more deeply in Divine things. Hypocrites also might be denounced and warned, and the unconverted pointedly dealt with. I feel the immense difficulty of it in a town, and such a neglected, ignorant one as this. Still, if God were with me, who can be against me?

Everything I meet with, and every day I study my Bible, makes me pray more that God would begin and carry on a deep, pure, wide-spread, and permanent work of God in Scotland. If it be not deep and pure, it will only end in confusion, and grieving away the Holy Spirit of God by irregularities and inconsistencies. Christ will not get glory, and the country generally will be hardened and have their mouths filled

with reproaches. If it be not wide-spread, our God will not get a large crown out of this generation. If it be not per

manent, that will prove its impurity, and will turn all our hopes into shame. I am much more afraid of Satan than I used to be. I learned a good deal by being with Cumming in Strathbogie.

I am also deepened in my conviction, that if we are to be instruments in such a work, we must be purified from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit. Oh, cry for personal holiness, constant nearness to God, by the blood of the Lamb. Bask in his beams-lie back in the arms of love-be filled with His spirit—or all success in the ministry will only be to your own everlasting confusion.

You know how I have always insisted on this with you. It is because I feel the need thereof myself. Take heed, dear friend; do not think any sin trivial; remember it will have everlasting consequences. O to have Brainerd's heart for perfect holiness-to be holy as God is holy-pure as Christ is pure-perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect. Oh what a cursed body of sin we bear, that we should be obliged by it to break these sweet gospel rules! How much more useful might we be, if we were only more free from pride, self-conceit, personal vanity, or some secret sin that our heart knows. Oh! hateful sins, that destroy our peace.

and ruin souls!

But I must be done. I have not attained the full use of the pen. Go on, dear brother; but an inch of time remains, and then eternal ages roll on for ever—but an inch on which we can stand and preach the way of salvation to a perishing world. May he count us faithful, keeping us in the ministry. Ever yours, &c.

TO THE REV. PATRICK L. MILLER,

Then labouring in Strathbogie; on his being elected minister of Wallacetown. DUNDEE, September 18. 1840.

how sincerely I You are unaniI have already

MY DEAR FRIEND-I cannot tell you thank God for the event of this evening. mously chosen minister of Wallacetown. been on my knees to praise God for it, and to pray that you may be filled with the Holy Spirit for this glorious work. I hope you will see your way clear in leaving your attached people at Botriphnie. Make good use of your last days among them. Warn every man. Take each aside, and tell

him you will be a witness against him at the Last Day if he do not turn and obey the Gospel. The Lord give you a spiritual family in that place; and may you come to us in the fulness of the blessing of the Gospel of Christ. I am persuaded the Spirit of God is still remarkably present in this town. You could not become a minister in a more blessed season, or in a more promising field. O pray to be fitted for the arduous work. I was just praying this morning over Matt. ix. 36-38, and little thinking that God was about to answer so graciously.

I have had a severe illness of late, and been taught to look more toward the Church above. But I am better, and my heart warms again towards the Lord's work below. Now, farewell! The Lord humble, empty, satisfy, and fill you— make you a Boanerges and a Barnabas, all in one. May the Lord arise and his enemies be scattered; and may poor parched Angus become like the garden of the Lord. Ever yours, &c.

TO MR GEORGE SHAW, BELFAST.

Prophecies concerning Israel-Revival-Conduct of studies.

DUNDEE, September 16. 1840.

MY DEAR FRIEND-It gives me great joy to be able to answer your kind letter, although I fear you have almost despaired of me. In writing your esteemed pastor, I mentioned to him my intention of writing you very soon; but I have since then been laid down upon a sick bed by a severe feverish illness, from which I am now only recovering. Like you, my dear friend, God has seen it meet to train me often by the rod, and I have always found that he doeth all things well. Indeed, who would have his own health in his own guidance ? Ah! how much better to be in his all-wise, all-powerful hand, who has redeemed us, and is making us vessels to hold his praise, now and in eternal ages. I have been only twice in the open air, and cannot yet manage the pen with facility; but I cannot delay writing to you any longer. You cannot tell how much real joy your letter gave me when you tell me of the dear brethren who meet along with you on Monday mornings, to read and pray concerning Israel. This is, indeed, a delightful fruit of my short visit among you, for which I give humble and hearty thanks to Him who has stirred up your hearts in what I have felt, by experience, to be his own

blessed cause. I feel deeply persuaded, from prophecy, that it will always be difficult to stir up and maintain a warm and holy interest in outcast Israel. The lovers and pleaders of Zion's cause will, I believe, be always few. Do you not think this is hinted at in Jer. xxx. 13 ? "There is none to plead thy cause that thou mayst be bound up." And again, v. 14, "All thy lovers have forgotten thee; they seek thee not." And is not this one of the very reasons why God will at last take up their cause? See v. 17, "I will restore health unto thee, because they called thee an Outcast, saying, This is Zion whom no man seeketh after." It is a sweet encouragement also to learn, that though the friends of Zion will probably be few, so that it may almost be said no one seeketh after her, yet there always will be some, who will keep watch over the dust of Jerusalem, and plead the cause of Israel with God and with man. See Isa. lxii. 6, 7. If any of your company know the Hebrew, you will see at once the true rendering, "I have set watchmen over thy walls, O Jerusalem, which shall never hold their peace day nor night. Ye that are the Lord's remembrancers keep not silence, and give him no rest till he establish and till he make Jerusalem a praise in the earth." Oh! my dear brethren, into whose hearts I trust God is pouring a scriptural love for Israel, what an honour is it for us, worms of the dust, to be made watchmen by God over the ruined walls of Jerusalem, and to be made the Lord's remembrancers, to call his own promises to his mind, that he would fulfil them, and make Jerusalem a blessing to the whole world? Verse 1st is supposed to be the language of our Lord himself, our glorious advocate with the Father O what an example does he set us of unwearied intercession! Verse 2d sheweth the great effect which the conversion of Israel will have on the Gentile world. Verse 3d shews how converted Israel will be a glorious diadem in God's hand, held out to shew forth his praise. Verse 4th shews that it is literal Israel that is spoken of, for there is a sweet promise to their land.

I think you must take these two verses, 6, 7, as the motto of your praying society, not in boasting, but in all humility of mind, and with much self-upbraiding for the neglect of the past. Indeed, you will find it a difficult matter to keep your heart in tune really to desire the salvation of Israel, and the widely extended glory of the Lord Jesus. You must keep in close union to Jesus, and much in the love of God, and be much filled with the infinite, all-mighty spirit of God. He