like the fool's eye, hither and thither. Then after this attempt to wait upon God, Satan will suggest the utter improbability of such prayers as ours meeting any regard from God. While on another ground he will exert his serpentine craft to puff us up with pride, telling us how favoured we were, what sweet liberty we have experienced, that these are the kind of prayers which God is pleased with, and that therefore we may anticipate a speedy and gracious answer. I have suffered in no small degree from this. Sometimes upon awaking early on a Sabbath morning I have found my heart looking a little toward the Lord, with some portion or portions of the word coming upon my mind, and I have been enabled to meditate a little thereon, concluding that I was furnished with a subject for the people before whom I was shortly to appear, professedly as God's mouth, when alas! as the time came when I must stand up, all has vanished, if not quite from my memory, yet from my feelings, and in its place some other part of the scripture has come into my mind without any time to think about the meaning, or to know how to set it before the people. This is a position which none but poor dependant servants of Christ can understand; nor would they willingly come there, could they help themselves. Now it comes to this: If the Lord does not help, I must give up. Does he forsake his poor feeble, helpless ones when in such a plight? No, bless his name, I can testify that in some such times I have felt such a measure of his Spirit come down upon me that I have not been able to give utterance in words half so fast as they have flowed into my mind; and it has not been mere words, but feeling of the most blessed nature possessing the soul. This makes preaching delightful employment; nor do I think all the contents of this heavenly shower is confined to the speaker, but there is a good sprinkling amongst the people. Still, I am quite aware the Lord may shut up a man when preaching, so that he shall have no more impression of what he is uttering than a stone. Yes, and Satan will so confuse and bewilder his mind, and represent his discourse as destitute of all order, life, or power, and make him fear he might have been left to say something by which he might be thought unsound in the faith. In some of these seasons I have concluded, as with the preacher, so with the hearers: Like people, like priest.' But many times my calculations have been wrong; persons whose veracity I could not doubt, asserting how much their souls were blessed, and they thought the speaker in similar freedom. Years ago I was weak enough, if

contracted in my spirit while speaking, to tell the hearers so, which sometimes proved a thief to them. My late dear friend Mr. Jesse Crake, of blessed memory, used to say, 'Don't tell the hearers when you are bound in your spirit. It does not always appear to them; and if they get a blessing, it has a tendency to cause in them a doubt about the reality of what they may have received.' It is therefore well when both the speaker's and the hearers' eyes are upon the Lord. The eyes of all wait upon thee, and thou givest them their meat in due season.'

But I must draw this long scribble to a close; while writing I felt it would be read by one whom I love in the truth, and for the truth's sake. In your narrative to me the other day, I never saw, in any person beginning in divine things, such a resemblance to my own. You and I know what Hart means,

Some their pardon receive at first,

And then compelled to fight;
They feel their latter stages worst,

And travel much by night.'

The late dear servant of God, whose name was Cowper, and who was succeeded in his pastoral duties by Mr. Vine, used to speak in this wise in reference to the two characters mentioned in the hymn just quoted. The worshippers under the Levitical dispensation, some entered in by the south gate, and went out by the north; yet others entered by the north, and went out by the south. His remarks were, 'Those who entered in at the south gate could not walk well with the north-gate people, for each can feel most union with those who in their experience resemble each other.' Do we not see it to be so now? In looking back to my last visit to R., I must say I was favoured with my Master's presence, both in public and in the house. My visit was pleasant and profitable in two senses. Please accept for yourself, your dear wife, and all those dear friends I met at R., my sincere love and thanks for their great kindness to a sinful creature like me. Greet them for me by name. I am sorry I cannot give you a much better account of my dear wife; she is still suffering much from her leg. Tell your dearly beloved brother S. to consider, and endeavour to act upon the words, 'Be not weary in well doing, for in due season he shall reap, if he faint not.' Again, 'Cast thy bread upon the waters, and it shall be found after many days.' And again, 'In the morning sow thy seed, and in the evening withhold not thy hand; for thou knowest not whether shall

prosper, either this or that, or whether they both shall be alike good.'

Mrs. Knill unites in love to you all, and believe me, my dear Brother, yours in the Lord Jesus Christ,

45, Wandle Road, Croydon, Dec. 8, 1875.

ROBERT KNILL.

CHRIST THE FRIEND AND SURETY OF HIS POOR. THE CONCLUDING PORTION OF A SERMON PREACHED ON WEDNESDAY EVENING, JULY 8, 1840, BY MR. J. C. PHILPOT, AT ARTILLERY STREET CHAPEL, BISHOPSGATE STREET, LONDON.

On behalf of the Aged Pilgrims' Friend Society. For he shall stand at the right hand of the poor, to save him from those that condemn his soul.'—Psalm cix. 31.

Now there are poor naturally, as well as poor spiritually. There are pilgrims of God, who are poor in an earthly as well as a spiritual sense. And these often have those that condemn their soul.' Perhaps some of these are obliged, merely for the sake of keeping body and soul together, to run into debt for the common necessaries of life; and these debts 'condemn their soul.' Perhaps they are obliged to depend upon the bounty of others, from whom instead of getting smiles they only receive frowns, and instead of encouragements only meet with repulses; and this 'condemns their soul.' O to be a beggar!—to be a child of God, and yet to be brought down so low in poverty as to have to go to a Christian brother and ask him for an alms, and perhaps get a repulse, or (if not) an excuse, or to have a trifle given with a cold heartless frown!-it 'condemns the soul' of many of God's poor pilgrims. But God will stand at the right hand of the poor, to save him from those that condemn his soul;' from unfeeling wretches, who never were in the same state themselves, who perhaps cast in his teeth the debts he has been entangled in by necessity, and make them an excuse for shutting up their bowels of compassion against him. To save him from such as these that condemn his soul.' And how? By appearing providentiallyperhaps in marvellous ways—perhaps by stirring up some of your hearts, who have worldly substance, to impart to their poverty.

I have to plead for some of these poor this evening. They may have many of these things to condemn their souls;' and what a mercy, if the Lord should make use of you and me as his instruments to save them from those condemnations! It is a high honour to be thus employed; it is a great privilege if the Lord should use

my hand and yours to feed his poor and needy ones; if he has promised not to pass by unheeded a cup of cold water,' that hand which he thus uses to minister to the wants of his poor and needy children he will one day abundantly acknowledge.

I will read to you a paper put into my hands by the Secretary of the Society:

"The following is a brief account of the Aged Pilgrims' Friend Society, in reference to the number of persons now on that Society, and also the amount of its income and expenditure. There are 48 pensioners, who receive ten guineas per annum, or 178. 6d. per month; 83 ditto, who receive five guineas per annum, or 88. 9d. per month; 207 approved candidates, who receive 48. per month; making a total of 338 poor aged members of the mystical body of Christ, of various denominations, from sixty years of age and upwards, among whom are distributed monthly £120. The Committee regret to say, that the permanent income arising from annual subscriptions does not exceed £1000, whilst the amount of expenditure is upwards of £1700, leaving a deficiency of more than £700 to be made up by donations and collection sermons wherever they can be obtained. Every department is filled gratuitously.'

Now this is the only religious Society that I belong to; the only Society that I can conscientiously support; the only Society I ever feel inclined to preach for. I look upon this Society as having greater good and fewer evils than any other. In bestowing upon it that which the Lord shall enable us, we are fulfilling a clear command of God, to 'do good unto all men, specially unto them that are of the household of faith.' We have no express precept to form Societies, and raise money to send abroad missionaries and Bibles; but we have a positive precept to do good to the household of faith, and therefore we go upon sure ground, and stand upon a scriptural foundation, when we plead for them, or give our bounty to them. And who can need it so much? They have three claims to recommend them. There is, first, their age; there is, secondly, their poverty, the income from other sources being very limited of all who receive anything from the Society; and there is (so far as their experience is known), thirdly, the grace of God in their heartstheir belonging to the family of God.

But I am well convinced that the Lord must open a man's heart; and where he opens a man's heart to feel for the poor and needy of his flock, he will more or less open that man's pocket. Our carnal

nature, our lustful covetous heart can easily find money for our own gratifications; but when the cause of God and the claims of the people of God come before us, then our heart begins to shrink. If anything that pleases the flesh comes before our carnal mind, our hand very readily finds its way to our pocket; but when it is some destitute pilgrim, some poor cause of God, some needy minister of Jesus, something that does not gratify nor benefit ourselves, old nature begins immediately to contract itself, to put in a veto, to draw a chain round the purse, and whisper in our ears not to spend too much, or we may be poor ourselves one day, that we do not know that these are the people of God, or that to-morrow we may want the money ourselves. So all that a man really gives aright is drawn out of his hand and out of his heart by the grace of God in him. But though I have spent in my time a good deal of money, and have deeply regretted all that I ever wasted on the vanities of the world, the lusts of the flesh, and the pride of life, I never yet repented of having my heart opened to communicate to the necessities of God's family; I never went to bed with a heavy heart or rose.up with a burdened conscience, because in a moment of sympathy I had given more than I meant to give. Of all experience I never had that yet; and therefore I must leave other ministers to preach that experience my experience is, that I have been thankful to God that I have done anything, and ashamed of myself that I have not done more. And I must now leave the matter with him. If he opens your hearts, he will have the glory; if he opens your hands, it will be for the consolation of his poor aged pilgrims. The money is not to be wasted upon platforms; it is not to be thrown away upon secretaries making expensive journeys; it is not to be spent in providing nicely furnished seats for a parcel of people to clap at speeches; it is not to be wasted upon show and glitter. All the officers of the Society acting gratuitously, whatever is contributed goes directly into the pockets of God's people. You are not sending abroad unconverted missionaries to convert unconverted heathen; you are not thrusting out raw youths that know neither God nor themselves, to change natural heathenism into Christian hypocrisy ; you are not sending out Socinian translations of the scriptures, or mangled religious works; you are not scattering abroad tracts, half full of the grace of God and half of the blind will of man; what you give, you give simply and solely for those who (we may hope) are God's people. Here is a large sum to be raised -£700; and