heavy, crosses light, crosses of all shapes and sizes. But now came the transfer. Permission was granted to exchange their crosses, but no man might leave the ground without one. A cross of some kind they must have; but since they were discontented with the choice made for them, they might improve upon it if they could. A scene of confusion followed. Each man tried his neighbour's cross only to discard it as more galling than his own. Shift and try and vary as he might, not a man in all that company but found he had gone from bad to worse. Their own burdens, after all, were the best suited to their backs; and it was with a sigh of relief that our discontented friend awoke to find his wished-for deliverance had ended in a dream. It is not by fretting against our trials that we shall find deliverance from them. Nay, God has a purpose in every trial which cannot be fulfilled without it. Could we but believe it, the cross which galls us most is precisely that we most are needing. It is bitter medicine perhaps, but the Good Physician sees that nothing less would so avail as to effect a cure. Let us be still, and presently we shall find, it may be, not deliverance from our troubles but deliverance in them. WHETHER is greater, deliverance from trial or deliverance in it? the quenching of the furnace fires or the calm walking to and fro in their very midst uninjured and unscathed? Trials we must have in one form or other here. He who expects to go through this world without them will soon find himself rudely undeceived. It is true that from some forms of suffering Christians may be exempt; for all sorrow, sooner or later, is traceable to sin, and the Christian, so far as he is saved from sin, will be saved from the sorrows that sin brings with it. But the sins of each contribute to the sad total of human trouble, and in a world like this, where for the most part selfishness reigns supreme, and the whole moral framework is disorganised by the workings of evil, it is idle to think we shall not be called upon to suffer both for our own sins and for the sins of others. That all men are tried it needs no argument to prove. The question before us is what is the highest form of deliverance from trial? One thing is certain, a grumbling discontented spirit will not help us. Some of us may remember the story of a complaining soul who thought all men happy but himself. The cross he carried crushed him while other people's burdens were but light. Falling asleep one day he dreamed To embrace the cross instead of shrinking his wish to change his lot for others at last from it, to welcome the thorn instead of fretting was granted. He found himself in the midst over it, to accept the yoke instead of rebelling of a concourse of people each carrying a against it, and then through death to enter into Gathered together on a vast plain they life, from that very thorn to gather roses, in seemed to wait a signal from some unknown carrying our burden to be strong, is not this hand. Suddenly the command was given, and a greater thing than to pass through life, if in a moment each man threw off his burden. such a thing were possible, exempt from thorns The ground was strewn with crosses-crosses and cares, and crosses altogether? Certainly cross. it is, but how, you ask, is such deliverance secured? what power is that which meets and brings to nought the pressure of surrounding ill? that does not destroy the foe, but catches every fiery dart he hurls? There is but one answer to the question; let Scripture give it. "What ailed thee, oh thou sea, that thou fleddest, and thou Jordan that thou was driven back? Tremble thou earth at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the God of Jacob" (Ps. cxiv. 5,7). It is the presence of Christ that saves. "His presence is salvation." (See Ps. xlii. 5, margin.) "They say there is a hollow, safe and still, A point of coolness and repose, Within the centre of a flame, where life might dwell Unharmed and unconsumed, as in a luminous shell, Which the bright walls of fire enclose, In breachless splendour, barrier that no foes They say that in the whirl of the cyclone there is an inner circle where no sound or breath disturb the calm. And even so there is amid the storms of circumstances, or in the leaping of the fiery tongues of trial, a charmed sphere of perfect peace for him who hides in Jesus. "Peace, Perfect Peace, with sorrow surging round? On Jesu's bosom nought but calm is found." If this be so shall we cry of every grieving thorn, "Let this thing depart from me"? Shall we not rather count it joy to be able by it to test anew the reality of our hiding-place? Some of us will remember a sweet story told some years ago, which simply illustrates this secret of safety in Christ as a strong tower from every foe. The lady who told it said that she was awakened one morning by a strange noise of pecking or tapping at the window, and, looking up, she saw that a butterfly had found its way into the room, and was fluttering in fright against the window pane, while outside a sparrow, seeing the butterfly but not the glass that protected it, was pecking violently at the window pane in its vain attempt to catch it. The butterfly did not see the glass, and expected every minute to be caught; and the sparrow did not see the glass, and expected every minute to catch the butterfly, yet all the while that butterfly was as safe as if it had been miles away, because of the glass between it and the sparrow. When shall we learn that there is just such a security against the assaults of sin and Satan for him who abides in Christ? -Christ will really surround us by His invisible but mighty presence, if we will but let Him. What do we know of it? Are we Christ-enclosed? Does He hide us in the secret of His Presence? (Ps. xxxi. 20.) If so, assails us, we shall be able to sing-then, whatever the trial or temptation that "In God I have found a retreat, Where I may securely abide, As my soul sweetly sings, E. W. M. AN ANSWER TO "A CRY IN THE DARK." THERE need be no darkness, why is it night? Bitterly weeping, I went to my Lord, GRACE FOR GRACE; OR, THE DIVINE DOUBLES. BY REV. C. A. FOX. I WILL speak briefly to-day on the history of the child of God from his conversion to his completion. And I would open with this passage from the Epistle to the Romans, fourth chapter, at the eighteenth verse, where God is speaking of Abraham, and says, “Who against hope believed in hope." That is the opening of the Christian life-believing against hope. And surely you cannot say of that life that it is a weak thing! It is not. If it is truly lived out, it is the bravest of all lives conceivable; the strongest and grandest of lives if it is lived out, and it begins with this grand bravery, that "against hope it believes in hope." What does it believe of God? In what particular does it believe in Him? "God, who quickeneth the dead." That is what we want, to believe in God "who quickeneth the dead." This was the faith of Abraham. I do not find so many Christians who do this, though Christ has been come for 1,800 years. We do not believe in a God who quickeneth the dead. This is why Abraham is called the "father of the faithful," of us all, because it is what God requires of each one of us. What a difference it would make in our lives if we really believed in a God who quickeneth the dead! What a difference it made when we started, when we were converted, when we believed that God could quicken us even when we were dead in trespasses and sins. Thus believing against hope in Him who quickened Christ we entered on the blessed Christian course. Then further, Abraham believed in God "who calleth things that are not as though they were." Do we believe that we are weak, feeble, and conscious of our utter powerlessness as we go forth in His holy service? Then do we believe in Him who is able to call things that are not as though they are? Let us have this faith, brethren beloved, hoping against hope, believing out of the very despair of our souls, which casts itself against hope upon Him who shall be hope to us. Before passing on, let us see how this passage puts before us in four expressions what this faith of Abraham was. First, he hoped against hope, then he "considered not his own body now dead." He considered not impossibilities. Faith laughs at impossibilities, and if it is God's word, it says it shall be done. Do you call that a weak thing? It is bound to bring victory to every soul if it be on God's holy word. Then again, "he staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief." Oh, how often Christians stagger under the burden of an unopened promise. Perhaps there are some here who are doing it now. Go on, beloved brother, cling to it, soon it shall be God's time that you should lay down your blessed burden, and the seed shall break out into bright blossom and fruit before your eyes. Then, fourthly, "he was fully persuaded that what He had promised He was able also to perform." Have we these four distinguishing characteristics of Abraham's faith? Do we against hope, believe in hope"? Do we 66 consider not impossibilities? Do we stagger not" at God's promise? Are we "fully persuaded" in His being able to perform His promises? 66 66 Now we pass on to the promise in the Gospel. Turn to John i. and we read at verse sixteen," Of His fulness have all we received, and grace for grace." First, the beginning of the Christian life. is "hoping against hope." How is it attained? It is by believing. Now we come to “ grace for grace." How is this attained? By receiving. It is "of His fulness." You have not got it all yet, dear friends. Not any of you have got it all yet; it is out of His boundless stream of grace that we have received. Grace is given to us in detachments. Then again, notice, "Have all we received." It is not given to one person only; not to a few favourites of Heaven merely. Grace is not only given in detachments, but in combination. We must be in harmony one with another. It is not a matter of little importance; it is of the greatest importance that if we would receive there must be union no jealousy, no suspicion. There must be cohesion, and adhesion one to another; there must be entire self-abandonment, and union before God, if we are to receive of His fulness. Then it is "grace for grace"-grace in succession to grace. If we have a little, we are sure to have more. Where He has worked one miracle He is sure to do another, as we read in the holy Gospels "Jesus came again to Cana of Galilee, where He made the water into wine." Has He worked any miracle in you? He is sure to return and to work more. Yes, it is grace for grace, grace after grace, grace upon grace, or grace in exchange for grace, |