life; and you are quite sure that you believe all that God says of his Son."

"Yes, yes! but I do not feel as if I were safe."

"My brother! how can you feel it before you BELIEVE it? He that would feel safe for eternity, must first believe that he is safe; and a believer in Christ is warranted to do so."

"Ay, there it is! I never saw it before. Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have SEEN thy salvation."

No. VIII.

DEVELOPMENTS BY STUDY.

IT is a fact, equally remarkable and pleasing, that whenever the principles of Grace seat themselves in our minds, we not only "cease to do evil" as formerly; we also resolve and set ourselves to "do well," almost instinctively. I mean, that even before we have time to study the Scriptural system of well doing, and before our own plan of improvement can be arranged, we begin to do better; not indeed without design, but almost without any other rule than the new tendencies of the heart itself. From the very moment it is melted or warmed by the glories of Salvation, it is willing to do better than formerly, and desirous to do well in future. This fact has always appeared to me a decisive proof of the reality of the work of the Holy Spirit upon

the heart, as well as of the power of Divine Truth itself: for, let the persons thus awakened to the worth of their souls, belong to whatever class of society, and differ however much in knowledge or talent, each of them is equally intent, at first, upon well doing. Even a person who has hardly ever given a thought to the theory or the practice of holiness, until the very moment of his being arrested by some great truth of the Gospel, is, from that moment, as willing to do well, as the person who saw, before his conversion, something of the beauty of holiness. Yes; and both persons are equally afraid, at the time, lest any thing should prevent them from doing so well as they wish.

"Is not this the finger of God?" I readily allow that there is much general knowledge afloat, on the subject of what is right and proper. Even those who have gone farthest astray in the paths of sin and folly, carried with them, and kept whilst there, some sense or convictions of their duty to both God and man. No man has every thing to learn on the subject of well

doing, when he is converted, however ignorant or vicious he may have been before. No; the Spirit of God found some sense of good, as well as of evil, in the sinner's conscience: and, of course, all that sense, together with all his general knowledge of right and wrong, rallies and converges in one focus, which forms something like a law of duty, when concern for the eternal salvation of the soul comes home with power to the heart. But still, not all this, nor all that the best instructed or the best inclined in morals know, before their conversion, will account for the concern, the solicitude, the simple-hearted willingness to do well, which is felt and manifested when the grace of God touches the heart. Whoever has studied that willingness like David, will explain it like David: "Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power." You, no doubt, recollect with pleasure, how instantaneously you ceased to do evil, and how instinctively, as it were, you began to do well, when the Spirit of God began the good work of conversion in your soul. You did not delay either

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ALLEGORY.

ENTERING ETERNITY

IN THE DARK,

PREVENTED.

ADMATH was brought up in "the hill country of Judea," and thus escaped, while he abode under the paternal roof, the actual dominion of the passions. But, like the ripe clusters on the vines of Sibmah or Eshcol, the purple bloom of which will bear no handling, his simplicity was the simplicity of ignorance, not of principle. It was too pure to "devise mischief," but too weak to resist temptation. His father thought not of this, when a situation was found for Admath in Jerusalem. The old man suspected no evil from the influence of the Judean metropolis. Christianity was, indeed, in it; but was it not still "the holy city?" the seat and shrine of the lively oracles and the everlasting covenant? Would not Admath witness the daily sacrifice and the annual great atonement? Would not his Sabbaths be spent in singing the song