them this time. My wife and myself send our kind love to your dear wife, and accept the same for yourself. Yours in an ever-loving Jesus,

14, Silver Street, Trowbridge, July 31, 1884.

S. CHAPMAN.

PEACE OF CONSCIENCE.

And his disciples came and besought him, saying, Send her away; for she crieth after us.'-MATTHEW XV. 23.

In the disciples we see little tenderness; no more, but 'send her away, she troubleth us with crying;' forsooth, they were sore slain, that their dainty ears were pained with the crying of a poor woman. Why? They say not, Dear Master, her little daughter is tormented with the devil, and thou, her Saviour, answerest her not one word; she cannot but break her heart: we pray thee, Master, heal her daughter.'

Natural men, or Christ's disciples, in so far as there is flesh in them, understand not the mystery of sorrow, and fervour of affection in the saints, crying to God in desertion, and not heard.

1. Natural men jeer at Christ deserted: 'He trusted in the Lord, let him deliver him' (Psalm xxii. 8). Heavy was the spirit of the weeping church, a captive woman at the rivers of Babylon; yet see they mock them: Sing us one of the songs of Sion.'

2. Even the saints, in so far as they are unrenewed, strangers to inward conflicts of souls praying, and not answered of God, the fainting and swooning church (Cant. v. 6, 7) is pained: 'O, dear watchmen, saw you my husband?' Heavy was her spirit, but what then? The watchmen that went about the city found me, they smote me, they wounded me; the keepers of the walls took away my veil from me' (Cant. v. 7). Instead of binding up her wounds, they returned her buffets, and pulled her hair down about her ears. And the daughters of Jerusalem say to the sick, sighing churches pained for the want of her Lord, 'What is thy beloved more than another beloved?' (Cant. v. 9.) Whereof is thy Christ made? Of gold? Or is thy beloved more precious that all beloveds in the world? Troubled Hannah grieved in spirit, to Eli, is a drunken woman. The angels find Mary Magdalene weeping, they leave her weeping, they give her a doctrinal comfort: Woman, why weepest thou? He is not here; he is risen again.' 1. If a string in the conscience be broken, the apostles that were with Magdalene cannot tie a knot

on it again. If there be a rent in the heart, so as the two sides of the soul of the woman rend asunder, she, poor woman, still weepeth. O why speak you, O angels, to comfort me! They have taken away my Lord. Angels, what are you to me? And, indeed, they cannot sew up the woman's rented heart. This is the Lord's prerogative: 'I create the fruit of the lips, peace' (Isa. lvii. 19). I know no Creator but one, and I know no Peace-creator but one. Peace of conscience is grace; grace is made of pure nothing, and not made of nature. Pastors may speak of peace, but God speaketh peace to his people (Psalm lxxxv. 8). 2. There be some acts of nature in which men have no hand; to bring bread out of the earth, and vines, men have a hand; but in raising winds, in giving rain, neither kings, armies of men, nor acts of parliament have any influence. The tempering of the wheels and motions of a distempered conscience is so high, and supernatural a work, that Christ behoved to have the Spirit of the Lord on him above his fellows, and must be sent with a special commission to apply the sweet hands, the soft, merciful fingers of the Mediator, with the art of heaven: That I,' saith he, (Lachabosch,) 'should, as a chirurgeon, bind up with splints and bands the broken in heart, and comfort the mourners in Sion' (Isa. lxi. 1). There must, 3. Be some immediate action of Omnipotency, especially when he sets a host of terrors in battle array against the soul, as is evident in Saul, in Job xvi. 13: 'His archers compass me round about.' That is, no less than the soul is like a man, beset by enemies round about, so as there is no help in the creature, but he must die in the midst of them: The terrors of God do set themselves in array against me' (Job vi. 4); only, the Lord of hosts, by an immediate action, raiseth these soldiers, the terrors of God-he only can calm them.

What wonder, then, that ministers, the word, comforts, promises, angels, prophets, apostles cannot bind up a broken heart. Friends cannot, while a good word comes from God. It is easy for us on the shore to cry to those tossed on the sea between death and life, 'Sail thus and thus.' It is nothing to speak good words to the sick, yet angels have not skill of experience in this. The afflicted in mind are like infants that cannot tell their disease; they apprehend hell, and it is real hell to them. Many ministers are but horse physicians in this disease; wine and music are but vain remedies, there is need of a Creator of peace. She is frantic, say they, and it is but a fit of a natural melancholy and distraction.

The disciples are physicians of no value to a soul crying, and not heard of Christ. Oh! Moses is a meek man, David a sweet singer, Job and his experience profitable, the apostles God's instruments, the Virgin Mary is full of grace, the glorified desire the church to be delivered, but they are all nothing to Jesus Christ. There is more in a piece of a corner of Christ's heart (to speak so) than in millions of worlds of angels and created comforts, when the conscience hath gotten a back-throw with the hand of the Almighty.— S. RUTHERFORD.

THE BELIEVER'S LAST PRAYER.

GREAT God! when my weak, trembling steps
Shall tread the deathful vale,

Let not a dark, distressing doubt
My heavenly hopes assail.

Shew me in Christ that thou art mine,

For there's my total rest,

Then calmly I'll my breath resign,
And smile to be undress'd.

Resplendent o'er my heaven-born mind

O let thy image shine!
While with an unbeclouded view
I trace the stamp divine.

Place me beneath thy guardian wings,
Do thou my passage guide,
And if a shaft from hell be thrown,
O turn that shaft aside!

Bright through the solitary shades

Transmit thy blissful ray,

And turn the gloomy walks of death

Into the path of day.

A. M. TOPLADY.

WHEN I go into a post chaise, I give myself up with the most absolute confidence to the driver; I think he knows the way, and how to manage better than I do, and therefore I seldom trouble him either with questions or directions, but draw up the glasses and sit at my ease. I wish I could trust the Lord so.-NEWTON.

RECOLLECTIONS OF A BELOVED FATHER.

My late dear father, D. Hale, was born at Balls Hill, Hertford, May 30th, 1808, in the same house that he lived and died in.

I have heard him speak of his father many times with much feeling, and I may say reverence. He was a man who feared God, and a lover of Zion. He was well known to Mr. Huntington; and such was his regard for the cause of truth at Welwyn, that by his special request he was interred in the chapel yard. His end was a blessed one.

He was accustomed to have his family around him in the evening, and while faithfully talking to them, one expression sank deep into my father's heart when very young; it was this, 'If a barn were full of thrashed corn, and a bird came once in a thousand years and took a grain of corn each time, it would come to an end; but eternity would never end.'

My dear father was the youngest of ten children, and he had a sweet hope that each of his brothers and sisters was saved by grace, and some of them left a good testimony behind.

My father never committed anything to paper, so that I can only write what I can well remember he has told us at various times; and I do hope the blessed Spirit may bring to my remembrance those things that were his delight, and of which he loved to converse about.

When sixteen years of age he was very anxious to get under the sound of the gospel, and would often walk and run, when not able to ride with his father, to Welwyn, a distance of eight miles; and when hearing Mr. Oxenham, the minister, describing the first work upon a sinner's soul he has felt much encouraged, and fully repaid for his walk. Being naturally of a retiring disposition, he kept his exercises of mind much to himself; and just as he began to feel he must speak more to his father, the Lord took his father to himself. He felt his loss very much indeed, and once especially when feeling anxious to know if the good work was really begun in his heart, and having no father now to speak to, he thought if he could procure a book called 'The Touchstone of Sincerity,' by Mr. Flavel, he should be more satisfied; but the Spirit of God had caused that concern, and none but he himself could satisfy it. I have heard the dear departed say at that time he had faith to believe in the justice of God, that he could by no means clear the guilty; but the point with him was, 'Will the Lord have mercy upon me, and

shew me his salvation?' Thus he went on seeking, and was now and then helped with grace to hold on; the thoughts of going back, he said, were dreadful to him. He used to walk close behind some of the Lord's aged people then meeting at Welwyn, and listen to their conversation, and has many times felt his heart softened.

Once, when very much tried, the following words came with unction and power into his heart: The barrel of meal shall not waste, neither shall the cruise of oil fail, until the day that the Lord sendeth rain upon the earth;' and I seem to hear him say faith was given him really to believe the words would be fulfilled. That promise was often a great support to him in after days. I have often heard him say how he used to beg of the Lord before he was married that it might be to one who truly feared God; his desires were granted, for he found our dear mother, now in glory, a truly sincere and gracious helpmeet, one that united with him in seeking the welfare of Zion.

He joined the church at Welwyn about 1844. I have heard him say that he stayed away fearing he was not a saved character, until he felt guilt upon his conscience for so doing, and was really forced to the Lord's table:

"Twas the same love that spread the feast,

That sweetly forced me in,' &c.

He felt the sweetest union to the few meeting there, and the same feeling abode to the end; and he was privileged with many favoured seasons in hearing his dearly esteemed friend Mr. Smart, who was then pastor of the cause at Welwyn. He felt love towards many others, but a sacred bond united those few together, for they entered into each other's trials. One week evening he was specially favoured in hearing Mr. Warburton, sen., from these words: Heaviness in the heart of man maketh it stoop, but a good word maketh it glad ;' he came home much refreshed, and felt such a sweet hope that God would answer his petitions. Another special blessing he had at Walkern, in hearing Mr. Hazlerigg preach from 'He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?' The sweetness of parts of that sermon abode with my dear father a long time, and he has often referred to it when the dear servants of God have been staying at our house. Another special time was in November 1864, when the dear Lord so blessed him, that he thought the time was near for him to depart, and even gave advice