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not to think anything about their feelings, nor to give themselves any concern about them one way or the other, then advice is given which divine wisdom admonishes us not to heed. Moses prayed not unwisely, nor undirected by the Spirit of God, when he sent up the following petition:"Oh, satisfy us early with Thy mercy, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days. Make us glad according to the days wherein Thou has afflicted us, and the years wherein we have seen evil." Nor was David undirected by the Spirit when he thus prayed, "Make me to hear joy and gladness, that the bones which Thou hast broken may re. joice. Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with Thy free Spirit. Then will I teach transgressors Thy ways, and sinners shall be converted unto Thee." If Christ has been anointed to "bind up the broken-hearted," and to set at liberty thern that are bruised," broken hearts and bruised spirits should be taken to Him for healing. When He says to us, "Ask and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full," He specifically directs us to make religious joy a special object of thought and prayer. When the presence and love of Christ, and the power of His Spirit, fail to move and to melt our sensibilities, kindle emotion, and to stir up the great deep of the soul, then is a time for special heart-searching and prayer. "Who is among you that feareth the Lord, that obeyeth the voice of His servant, that walketh in darkness, and hath no light? Let him trust in the name of the Lord, and stay himself upon his God." When I was once sitting in a circle of Christian friends, prayer was proposed, in which all were to lead in succession, one after the other. The prayer of a lady in that circle I shall never forget. It was to this effect, and nearly in these words: "Lord, when Thou didst take from me my only child, and all hope

of its place being supplied by another, I said to Thee that Thou hadst made a great vacancy in my soul, a void which nothing but Thyself could fill, and that I trusted Thee so to fill that void with Thine own fulness, that I should never more feel the absence of that child. I told Thee that I must now have far more of Thyself than I had ever had before. I bless Thee that that prayer was heard, and that Thou didst so occupy my whole being with Thy manifested presence and love, that the absence of that dear one occasions no sense of loneliness at all. I joy to think of it now as in Thine everlasting arms, where I expect myself soon to be." The special form of the prayer was occasioned, I doubt not, by the peculiar tone of the conversation immediately preceding, the burden of which was the power of Christ to take away our sorrows as well as our sins, to perfect our joys as well as our virtues and graces, and to meet fully every want of our being as it arises. The lesson which we learn from such examples, as well as from the express teachings of the Word of God, is the great truth that our emotions, as well as our moral states, should be the objects of reflection, faith, and prayer. The divine direction is this "Be careful for nothing; but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds by Christ Jesus." The promises pertaining to our peace are as really the objects of faith and prayer as those pertaining to our justification or sanctification. We should not, of course, expect that our emotive states shall be always of an ecstatic character, heaven having its seasons of silence as well as of singing and shouting. We should expect, however, to be "kept in perfect peace," and should trust God to render our 66 peace as a river,” as well

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as our "righteousness as the waves of the sea." When "the peace of God, which passeth all understanding," does not "keep our hearts and minds by Christ Jesus," and "our joy is not full," we should conclude that our faith, prayer, or obedience "has been hindered."

Paul considered religious joy as an immutable condition of his "making full proof of his ministry." Let us carefully weigh his words :— "Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort, who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God. For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also aboundeth by Christ." When God shall become "the everlasting light" of His people, and "the days of their mourning shall be ended," then, as inspiration informs us, "will the Gentiles come to their light, and kings to the brightness of their rising." That which peculiarises the gospel, and distinguishes it from all other religions and forms of belief, is its sovereign power to "take away sin," and to bring in its stead "everlasting righteousness," on the one hand, and, on the other, to "take away" sorrow in all its forms, and to induce in its place "everlasting consolations and good hope through grace." You must know this gospel, reader, not only in theory, but in full experience, as possessed of these two forms of sovereign power, or you fail essentially in fundamental qualifications to serve Christ effectively in any department of your divine and holy calling as a believer in Jesus.

CHAPTER XIX.

MISCELLANEOUS TOPICS AND SUGGESTIONS.

THERE are certain general questions of a miscellaneous character-questions which require special consideration before I close this treatise. I place them together, not because they are naturally connected, but because neither would demand a separate chapter.

Section I.-Giving Testimony in respect to Facts of Personal

Experience.

In many minds there is a strong prejudice against public testimony to facts of personal Christian experience. Such testimony, it is said, reveals pride of heart in the first instance, and tends to increase the evil in the next. Perhaps those who entertain such sentiments need a word of caution and admonition here. We should be very careful about impugning motives, "judging a brother, and setting at naught a brother." Let us for a moment contemplate the impeachment under consideration. I have been sick, apparently unto death, we will suppose, and have found a sovereign remedy in the use of a certain medicine, and have found by observation that the same medicine has had the same efficacy in all similar cases to which it has been applied. To commend the use of the medicine on the part of all who need it as I did, I state the fact of its efficacy in my own case and that of others. Is there good ground to

impeach motives, and affirm a tendency to promote pride, on account of such testimony? I become conscious of a spiritual necessity, a disease of the mind-a want for which no remedy exists in myself, or in any finite objects in the universe around. I look to Christ as the great Physician of the soul, and that all-overshadowing want is perfectly met. As a means of commending this "precious faith" to all others, I tell them of "the great things which God hath done for me," how, when I sought unto Him, "He had mercy on me." I tell them, also, how it is that "the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, keeps the hearts and minds, by Christ Jesus," of all who, "by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, make known their requests unto God." Why is the motive to be impeached in such case any more than in that first presented? Why is a tendency to induce pride affirmed in one case any more than in the other?

Those who object to such testimony do, in fact, condemn the example of Christ, of the prophets, apostles, and all the sacred writers. Why did Christ testify to the fact of the saving power that resided in Him, and that the Father always heard when the Son prayed to Him? That men might "believe that Jesus is the Christ, and, believing, might have life through His name." Why did He direct the demoniac of Gadara to "go home to his kindred and friends and tell them how great things the Lord had done for him, and how He had mercy on him?" That, hearing, "they might believe, and that, believing, they might have life through His name." Let us see if we cannot find an example of inspired wisdom-an example bearing directly upon the subject before us. "I waited patiently for the Lord; and He inclined unto me, and heard my cry. He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set