in Christ and repent of my sin. . . so I came, by the powerful and effectual working of the same grace, to pass through the ministration of condemnation and to witness, gradually, the ministration of life and peace. I say gradually, for so it was with me. The work was not instantaneous, but by degrees; not but that the Almighty could have done it in a moment. . . . And as this purging work went forward, so I became in love with it, and earnestly cried unto the Lord that He would take away all iniquity, and make me perfectly clean and fit for communion with Himself. I am fully persuaded that then the work of the Lord goes rightly on, when we are in love with His righteous judgments."

In the latter part of 1713 Richard Claridge gave up his school and removed to London, spending much time in visiting the meetings in and around the city. Three years afterwards a heavy trial befell him, in the death of his daughter and only child. Amongst his MS. there was found some serious counsel written for her use. One sentence is as follows: "Walk in the light of the Lamb continually; so thou shalt be a witness of His work, which is to take away the sin of the world.” About this time he wrote to a relative who had recently lost a son, whose conduct had been marked by disobedience and dissipation. After expressing sympathy, he says:

“I would not have thee sorrow as one without hope, for the mercies of God are boundless and His judgments are unsearchable. It behoveth us to be still and to exercise hope and charity: the mercy extended to the penitent thief ought to caution us against judging of the everlasting state of any, for who knows what faith and repentance the Lord in His abundant compassion might be pleased to give thy poor son before his exit out of the body! Comfort thyself, therefore, in the Lord alone, to whom secret things belong, and whose mercy rejoiceth against judgment.”

When a cousin of Richard Claridge sent him a genealogical table of their family, recently obtained

from the Heralds' Office, he copied a part of it, but when returning it with thanks, writes of "the Christian pedigree, which is noble indeed, and worthy of our most diligent search."

A few weeks before his death, Richard Claridge received a letter from the wife of an intimate friend, who was in a state of deep despondency. Brief extracts from his long and kind reply must suffice :

"DEARLY BELOVED FRIEND,- Oh, be not faithless; but believe that Jesus Christ will, in His own appointed time, deliver thee, as thou abidest in faith and patience, bearing the indignation of the Lord because thou hast sinned against Him. . The times and seasons of the Lord's delivering of His people are in His own hands, and when the set time is fully come He will appear, and bring salvation with Him. Satan labours to possess thee with fears, doubts, and questionings concerning the loving-kindness of God to thy soul. But, my dear Friend, I have waited on the Lord on thy behalf, and am persuaded that this is one of Satan's wiles. . I also find an openness in my heart, not only to sympathise with thee, but also to put up my fervent supplications to the Lord for thee; and I believe He will answer my cries for the sake of His beloved Son Jesus Christ, in whom alone is my trust. . . The reason thou givest for desiring a few lines from me, and not a personal visit, is somewhat strange; for thou sayest, 'I do not desire to see the face of any honest Friend;' and thy allegation for that is still more strange-I am an afflicted, disconsolate, poor woman, not worthy that any honest Friend should come under my roof.' For the greater thy affliction, the more need, in my judgment, thou hast of an honest Friend to visit, advise, and comfort thee. Heavenly conversation is often blest to the disconsolate person, and by being too much alone the recluse party often becomes very dull, heavy, and melancholic, and lies open to various assaults and impressions of Satan... Solitude, in a proper time and season, is an excellent thing; but, in a time of such deep exercises as thine are, it will be convenient for thee to admit the conversation of some friend, or friends, who have passed through the fires and the waters, and felt Satan's buffetings, and known the Lord's preservations. It is a Christian duty to entertain very low and humble thoughts of thyself; but I tenderly caution thee, in the wisdom of God, to take heed of

a Satanical wile here, for Christ is an all-sufficient and allbenevolent Saviour.

Thy truly sympathising friend and brother,
"RICHARD CLARIDGE."

The health of Richard Claridge had been declining for some years. The last MS. which occupied him. was a memorial sketch of his venerated friend George Whitehead, who had lately died, after spending between sixty and seventy years of his long life in the service of his Lord. But, before he could complete this, he had to lay down the pen, of which he had long made such a conscientious use. After a few days of increased illness, during which he spoke to those who visited him of the peace which was his happy portion, he expired on the 28th of the Second Month, 1723, in the seventy-fourth year of his age.

His loss was a great one-to the Church, where it had been his wont to urge all to single-hearted holiness; to the friends to whom his sweetness endeared him, whilst adding a charm to his conversation; to the poor, who would miss his visits no less than his open-handed charity; and to his own household, on whose behalf his fervent prayers had often ascended to heaven, and to whom he had been a standing witness of the blessed result of a life lived "by the faith of the Son of God." For he had not only applied to Christ for healing, but had also placed himself passively in His hands, to effect the restoration in His own way and time; and had found as Richard Baxter writes that "He is not such a physician as to perform but a supposed or reputative cure. He came not to persuade His Father to judge us to be well becauRO, He Himself is welll or to leave ne uncured... This is the work of our Blessed Redeemer to make man fit for Gode approbation, and doight. He regenerateth us, that He may sanctify us and make na fit for our Master's use."

"OUT OF DARKNESS INTO LIGHT.”*

SUCH is the title of one of the most soul-stirring religious works of the present day; soul-stirring because the author "speaks that which he knows, and testifies that he hath seen," revealing the secrets of his walk with God, and making manifest the hidden life that he has received through the faith of the Son of God. While we listen to his wondrous revelations of Divine light and spiritual life, our hunger and thirst after righteousness are quickened; and, forgetting those things which are behind, we reach out after those glorious privileges of communion and fellowship with Christ, in which the author has been walking" without a cloud" for the last forty years.

Dr. Mahan tells us that he was about seventeen years old when he was first led, during the progress of a revival of religion, to be anxious about his future and eternal welfare. Having been educated in “the straitest sect" of the Calvinistic faith, he was taught to believe that regeneration is a change in which the creature is entirely passive, being the exclusive result of the sovereign act of God; and that his conversion depended not at all on what he could do, but on a decree immutably fixed in the Divine mind from eternity.

His whole being was therefore centred on the inquiry, not "What shall I do to be saved?" but" Have I been elected to salvation?" and in the deepest anxiety he sought from the conversation of experienced Christians to learn the probability as to whether God were willing to save him. Thus searching, inquiring, and waiting in

* Out of Darkness into Light. By Rev. Asa Mahan, D.D.

all the agony of suspense, his anxiety deepened into the rayless midnight of despair.

"Each hour between the setting and the rising of the sun. seemed an eternity; and I would say to myself, I would give the universe did I possess it, if I could see the sun once more.' As soon as I saw his face I would exclaim, 'I would give the universe if I could see him set in darkness again.' The fountain of life was dried up within me, and I often said to myself, 'Were all the world mine, I would freely part with it for the privilege of shedding a single tear.""

But brighter days were at hand; the Lord revealed Himself to this seeking soul, and showed him He had ever loved him with more than parental love, and was ready to receive him as His child directly he turned towards Him. The same Divine light revealed to him the alienation and estrangement of his former life, so that he "abhorred himself, and repented as in dust and ashes." In this state of mind he bowed the knee before the Lord, confessing his utter unworthiness of His favour, and imploring His grace "to appreciate His love, excellence, and glory; to love and venerate Him, and have a sacred respect for His will."

"If He would grant me this, I would accept of anything in time and eternity that He might appoint me.' I had no sooner pronounced these words than I was consciously encircled with 'the everlasting arms. I was so overshadowed with a sense of the manifested love of a forgiving God and Saviour, that my whole mental being seemed to be dissolved; and, pervaded with an ineffable quiet and assurance, I arose from my knees without a doubt that I was an adopted member of the family of God. With the peace of God which passeth all understanding' pervading every department of my mental nature, I could look upward, and, without a cloud between my soul and the face of God, could and did say, 'My Father and my God'

"Such was my entrance into the inner life"

For some months after this memorable era in his experience, Dr. Mahan tells us his spiritual state was