Then (3.) a heavenly and distinctly spiritual being: "Absent from the body, present with the Lord." The type of this was seen in Moses and Aaron; they were called up into the Mount; they went up; they saw the God of Israel, and did eat and drink. So Ezekiel was favoured: he says he saw visions of God; then the Spirit lifted him up, and carried him hither and thither. How sweet it must be for the ransomed spirit to be full of nothing else but spiritual light and love-to be quite free from all carnal, and worldly, and Satanic difficulties and temptations, and to be winging and flying away through the unlimited space of the higher and holy heavens! Paul had a taste of this; so did Peter, James, and John on Tabor's Mount; and John in Patmos had large discoveries of the glory of God-"being in the Spirit on the Lord's day." But (4.) God decrees to give unto the whole election of grace a glorified being: "As we have borne the image of the earthly, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly; this mortal shall put on immortality, &c. then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, O death, where is thy sting!" I will try and give the second and third next month.

NEARING THE STREAM,

STAY Jesus: stay with me,
Day wanes-the night is near;
And while I yearn for thee
Earth's last rays disappear;
Warm panting to depart,
I see the hour draw nigh,
Which cheers my drooping heart
And bears me to the sky.
The path of pilgrimage,
Trod by my weary feet,
Is where all tempests rage,
1s where all terrors meet:
But thou wert Shield and Sun,
Even when I knew it not :
Teaching me what to shun,
Guarding my lowly lot.

Thou wilt not, Jesus, now,
My Saviour, me forsake,
Thy brow is pity's brow,
'Tis scarred for hearts that break:
Joyous I hear the sound
Of mercy from thy lips,
Thy comforts me surround,
Sublime in Death's eclipse.

Thou with me-where is dread?
Thou with me-where the foe?

Thou with me-where the dead,
And where all things below?
They vanish; thus the way
Of pain is grandly blest,
It brings eternal day,
Brings everlasting rest.

(From the German of Neumeister.)

"TRIUMPHANT."

OHN JAMES HARRIS, Esq., who resides at No. 400, in the Mile End Road, has lately lost his beloved wife. Mr. Harris is now 83 years of age; a noble-looking patriarchal saint. He has been a friend to the cause of divine truth for many years. With Stoddart and Cartwright, with Denham and Silver, with little Banks, and many at Zoar, he has worshipped and prayed on earth; and soon expects to meet them around the glory throne above. God has both honoured him, and tried him here below; I feel assured, the Lord will come and comfort him in Heaven. Writing of his departed wife, he says, "I send you a card of my dear wife's death, after being two years deprived of her reason. A few hours before her death the Lord restored her reason, she sweetly exclaimed, 'Triumphant,' and her last words were: She was going to her Heavenly Father, and instantly expired. And at intervals of reason she exclaimed, "How sweet the visits of Jesus are; but so soon gone.' I have often wondered to hear when a servant read a few lines of a hymn she would sweetly go on with it to the end. This was very often."

The card says:

In memory of the death, saved by sovereign grace, of Mrs. Elizabeth Harris, wife of John James Harris, who died the first of February, 1865, aged 80 years, at Mile End road.

Now let me give a few of the triumphant sayings of happy saints when departing for heaven. Take a few now. I may give more. Samuel Ward was a beautiful defender of the faith. Once in defiance of infidelity, he said,

Faith here proclaims her challenge, and bids nature or art out of all their soldiers and scholars produce any one who, having option to live or die, and that upon equal terms, have embraced death. Whereas infinite of hers have been offered life with promotions, and yet would not be delivered, expecting a better resurrection.

Andrew the apostle said: Welcome, O Christ! longed and looked for. I am the scholar of him that did hang on thee, long I have coveted to embrace thee, in whom I am that I am.'

Polycarpus to the pro-consul, urging him to deny Christ: 'I

have served him eighty-six years, and he hath not once hurt me; and shall I now deny him?"

When he should have been tied to the stake, he required to stand untied, saying: Let me alone, I pray you; for he that gave me strength to come to this fire, will also give me patience to abide in the same without your tying.'

Theodosius: 'I thank God more for that I have been a member of Christ, than an emperor of the world.'

Hilarion: Soul, get thee out; thou hast seventy years served Christ, and art thou now loath to die, or afraid of death?'

Babilas, dying in prison, willed his chains should be buried with him.

Now,' saith he, will God wipe away all tears, and now I shall walk with God in the land of the living.'

Marcus of Arethuse, hung up in a basket, anointed with honey, and so exposed to the stinging of wasps and bees, to his persecutors that stood and beheld him: How am I advanced, despising you that are below on earth!'

Pusices to Ananias, an old man trembling at martyrdom: 'Shut thine eyes but a while, and thou shalt see God's light.' Edward VI., king of England, Bring me into thy kingdom; free this kingdom from Antichrist, and keep thine elect in it.'

Cranmer, Archbishop, thrusting his hand into the fire: Thou unworthy hand,' saith he, 'shalt first burn; I will be revenged of thee for subscribing for fear of death to that damned scroll.'

Latimer, Bishop, to one that tempted him to recant, and would not tell him his name: 'Well,' saith he, Christ hath named thee in that saying 'Get thee behind me, Satan.' And being urged to abjure, I will,' saith he, 'good people: I once said in a sermon, in King Edward's time, confidently, that Antichrist was for ever expelled England, but God hath shewed me it was but carnal confidence.'

To Bishop Ridley, going before him to the stake: 'Have after as fast as I can follow. We shall light such a candle by God's grace in England this day, as I trust shall never be put out again.

To whom Bishop Ridley, 'Be of good heart brother, for God will either assuage the fury of the flame, or else strengthen us to abide it.'

S

DISTINGUISHING GRACE!

NOME people tell me pastor C. H. Spurgeon grows deeper, and is become more truthful and faithful than ever he was. We all hope it is so. He has, in his ministry, compassed the four points; at which of them he would take his permanent standing, or, whether he would always continue a sort of travelling preacher, few could tell; but, the following from his "Pulpit" No. 616, is as plainly and as positively for sovereign grace, as any can possibly preach. He is addressing the truly called sinner; and he says:

How gracious that calling must have been since it came to you from God; came to you irresistibly, and came to you with such personal demonstration! What grace was here! What was there in you to suggest a motive why God should call you? Oh, beloved, we can hardly ask you that question without the tear rising in our own eye.

What was there in us that could merit esteem,

Or give the Creator delight?

"Twas Even so, Father!' we ever must sing,
'Because it seemed good in thy sight.'"

Many

Some of you were drunkards, were profane, were injurious. of you cared neither for God nor man. How often have you mocked at God's word! How frequently have you despised God's ministers! How constantly has the holy name of the Most High been used in a flippant, if not in a profane manner by you! and yet for all that, he fixed his eye on you and would not withdraw it; and when you spurned the grace that would have saved you, still he followed you, determined to save, till at last, in the appointed time, he got the grasp of you and would not let you go until he had made you his friend, turned your heart to love him, and made your spirit obedient to his grace. I think, throughout eternity, if we had this problem to solve, why did he call me, we should go on making wrong guesses, but we never could arrive at a right conclusion, unless we should say, once for all, I do not know. He did as he willed. He will have mercy on whom he will have mercy. He will have compassion on whom he will have compassion. And here let me say, if these things be so, oh,

should not this calling of ours to-night evoke our most intense gratitude, our most earnest love? Oh, if he had not called thee, where hadst thou been to-night? Thou shalt sit to-night at the Lord's table: where wouldst thou have been but for grace? To repeat the old saying of John Bradford, when he saw a cartful of men going off to Tyburn to be hanged, "There goes John Bradford but for the grace of God." When you see the swearer in the street, or the drunkard rolling home at night, there are you, there am I, but for the grace of God. Who am I-what should I have been if the Lord, in mercy, had not stopped me in my mad career?

I know there are some of us who can remember the old story of Rowland Hill, when a good Scotchman called to see him, and without saying a word, sat still for some five minutes, looking into the good old gentleman's face. At last, Rowland Hill asked him what engaged his attention. Said he, "I was looking at the lines of your face." "Well, what do you make out of 'em?" Why," said he, "that if the grace of God hadn't been in you, you would have been the biggest rascal living;" and some of us do feel just that, that if it had not been for the grace of God we should have been out-and-out ringleaders in every kind of infamy and sin. I know for myself I can never do things by halves. If I had served Baal I would have built him an altar, and made victims smoke upon it day and night; and if we serve God zealously and earnestly, we have the more reason to be humble and to lie low in the dust; for that very zeal of spirit would have been turned to the very worst account unless grace had been pleased to transform us. Why, there are some people in the world that seem too insipid to do any good or hurt, and they have reason to be thankful if they are converted, but still not that reason that others have, who, if they did mischief, would do it with both hands, and if they do anything for God, must do it with all their might. This was a kind and gracious call, when we consider what we might have been.

Stand up now, believer, and look at this, and remember the grace of this call when thou considerest what thou art. Why man, to-night, what art thou? A pardoned sinner-not a sin