speak invidiously to you. Neither do I wish to write in a bitter or complaining spirit. I only desire to stir up your pure mind-to wake up the energies of your new nature— to exhort and encourage you to a more earnest zeal and whole-hearted devotedness, in the service of Christ.

The present is a deeply-solemn moment. The day of God's long-suffering is rapidly drawing to a close. The day of wrath is at hand. The wheels of divine government are moving onward with a rapidity truly soul-subduing. Human affairs are working to a point. There is an awful crisis approaching. Immortal souls are rushing forward along the surface of the stream of time into the boundless ocean of eternity. In a word, the end of all things is at hand. "The days are at hand, and the effect of every vision."

Now, my reader, seeing these things are so, let us ask each other, how are we affected thereby? What are we doing in the midst of the scene which surrounds us? How are we discharging our fourfold responsibility, namely, our responsibility to God, our responsibility to the Church, our responsibility to perishing sinners, our responsibility to our own souls? This is a weighty question. Let us take it into the presence of God, and there survey it in all its magnitude. Are we really doing all we might do for the advancement of the cause of Christ, the prosperity of His Church, the progress of His Gospel? I candidly confess to you, my friend, that I very much fear we are not making a right use of all the grace, the light, and the knowledge which our God has graciously imparted to us. I fear we are not faithfully and diligently trading with our talents, or occupying till the Master return. It often occurs to me that people with far less knowledge, far less profession, are far more practical, more fruitful in good works, more honoured in the conversion of precious souls, more generally used of God. How is this? Are you and I sufficiently selfemptied, sufficiently prayerful, sufficiently single-eyed?

You may, perhaps, reply, "It is a poor thing to be occupied with ourselves, our ways, or our works." Yes; but if our ways and our works are not what they ought to be, we must be occupied with them-we must judge them. The Lord, by his prophet Haggai, called upon the Jews of old, to "consider their ways;" and the Lord Jesus said to each of the seven churches, “I know thy works." There is a great danger of resting satisfied with our knowledge, our principles, our position, while at the same time, we are walking in a carnal, worldly, self-indulgent, careless spirit. The end of this will, assuredly, be terrible. Let us consider these things. May the apostolic admonition fall, with divine power, on our hearts, "Look to yourselves, that we lose not those things which we have wrought, but that we receive a full reward." (2 John 8.)

WORLDLINESS-WHAT IS IT?

SOME time ago, I addressed the following questions to a Christian friend. A part of his answer I shall subjoin, as I think it may prove both agreeable and instructive to some of my readers. My questions were as follows: "To prevent giving needless offence I avoid, on christian principle, vulgarity of manner and inelegance of speech, bad grammar, &c. But to avoid inelegance, either in word or deed, is almost the same thing as seeking elegance; am I not then on the borders of that which St. Paul, or rather the Spirit in him, condemns in 1 Cor. ii. 1, when he disclaims 'excellency of speech ?'" I had also asked some questions in reference to Leviticus x. and 1 John ii. 15, 16. In connexion with the last passage I had asked, "Where would you say worldliness begins?" His answer was as follows: "As to elegance of speech, if sought, I judge it is an

evil. The apostle did not so enter in among those he. sought or taught. I speak according to the habit formed by my education, and God may choose one cultivated in mind to give him access among those who are persons of cultivated understandings. If I found that a particular manner of speech were a stumbling-block, I should avoid it as a matter of charity, but I don't think a Christian would seek elegance of language. Faith would so far stand in the power of man. In Leviticus x. I don't see the world, but that the stimulus of natural joy is not suited to one going into the presence of God in the way of worship—what dissipates and distracts the heart in relation to a saint's service. As regards 1 John ii. 16, it is plain. All that is in the world has been raised up to please the eye or fleshly feeling, and the love of grandeur where Satan reigns, and where Christ was crucified, not to please the Father; the ornaments that please Him are spiritual. A person may have life, but he has not the sense of the comeliness of the Father's house, if he takes pleasure in such things. Carnal, worldly ornament is moral degradation. It shows that the foolish and distempered heart finds its pleasure in things, in which one accustomed to the communion of the Father, and to see with His eye, and to know with His heart, would not find pleasure.

"Besides, it is a world which has its power led up against His Son Jesus. Can I desire to be great in appearance there, if His love is in my heart? It is at once judged by the heart that walks in intercourse with that better world where the Father's delight sheds itself around, and where Jesus' every true glory is. Worldliness begins wherever Christ is not the motive and rule of what I do, in the necessary details of life; because Christ accompanies there as grace and light, as well as lighting us from above. It is a different thing, the manna and the old corn of the land, but Christ is both. I must be clothed and have a house, but if I deck my person, it is the flesh and folly, not Christ;

if I do it at all, the degree may be more or less, the principle judges it. If I furnish my house, I must have tables and chairs, as a necessity of the ordinary path of life. Christ will be still my rule.

"He bends graciously to my necessities. He does not cultivate folly, I shall seek what meets my necessity with thankfulness. If I seek to please the world and meet its eye, worldliness begins. The measure of judgment in this may, of course, be different according to the degree of spiritual progress. The principle is simple. If I love vanity myself, clearly it is not Christ; if I dress, or furnish to meet the world's eye, it is worldliness. Had I a sick wife, I should get the easiest chair possible. God delights in tenderness, but that is not the world. When the world and its fine looks are out of the heart, it is not very difficult to act.

"As regards the poetry of hymns, if it is the moral idea which makes the poetry, I delight in it. If it is imagery, it is out of place, and spoils it as a hymn.

"Sweet was the hour, O Lord, to thee,"

is genuine poetry. So also

"By Sychar's lonely well,"

because it is the moral idea of the relationship of God's heart with the poor woman, brought out vividly, and even the word "lonely" presents Christ as He really was. It is only presenting vividly the truth of the Spirit. If I seek to clothe it, so that it is not the simple truth, it is out of place, it is wine brought into the sanctuary. And there are hymns, which express even individual sentiments, which, though true, are not suited for the worship of an assembly; because it is not properly Christ set forth, but clothed with my sentiments, which are quite in place sometimes, but do not rise to the height of divine worship. Christ, after all, is all that lasts eternally, for beauty or aught else."

Read Genesis iii. 7-21.

THERE is a very wide difference between man's conscience and God's revelation-a difference well worthy of my reader's careful consideration. The scripture given above unfolds this difference in the fullest manner. Man got his conscience in, and by, the fall. This one fact is sufficient to show the real nature of conscience. By the one act of disobedience, man became possessed of that thing called conscience, which is, simply, "the knowledge of good and evil." Previous to that act, man knew only good. He moved in the midst of a scene in which God had said, all was 66 very good." Evil had no place in that fair creation. The traces of "eternal power and godhead" were visible on all hands. Every leaf, every flower, every tree, every shrub, every blade of grass, stood in its place, and gave evidence of the goodness of God. Every bird warbled its Maker's praise. There was not so much as a single element of evil throughout the entire sphere over which man was appointed to rule, and, therefore, man knew nothing of the difference between "good and evil," until he hearkened to the tempter's voice. In a word, he got his conscience in and by the fall.

And what was the first effect of conscience? It told man that he was “naked." He had not known aught of this before. Conscience told him this. It could do nothing more. It could not point him to a covering. It told the one dismal tale of nakedness. It had nought else to tell to Adam, and it never has had aught else to tell to one of Adam's guilty race. "And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked." This was all that was gained by hearkening to the voice of the serpent. They had never thought of nakedness before. Conscience was at work. Innocence had fled, never to return, and conscience had come in, with all its startling powers, to make them sensible of their condition, and fill them with guilty fear.