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It is to you who have heard and hearkened to the call," Come unto Me," that this new invitation comes, "Abide in Me." The message comes from the same loving Saviour. You doubtless have never repented having come at His call. You experienced that His word was truth: all His promises He fulfilled. made you partakers of the blessings and the joy of His love. Was not His welcome most hearty, His pardon full and free, His love most sweet and precious? You more than once, at your first coming to Him, had reason to say-" The half was not told me."

And yet you have had to complain of disappointment; as time went on your expectations were not realized. The blessings you once enjoyed were lost; the love and joy of your first meeting with your Saviour, instead of deepening, have become faint and feeble. And often you have wondered what the reason could be, that with such a Saviour, so mighty and so loving, your experience of salvation should not have been a fuller one.

*From "Abide in Christ."-See Book Notices.

The answer is very simple. You wandered from Him. The blessings He bestows are all connected with His "Come unto Me," and are only to be enjoyed in close fellowship with Himself. You either did not fully understand, or did not rightly remember, that the call meant-" Come unto Me, to abide in Me." And yet this was in very deed His object and purpose when first He called you to Himself. It was not to refresh you for a few short hours after your conversion with the joy of His love and deliverance, and then to send you forth to wander in sadness and sin. He had destined you to something better than a short-lived blessedness, to be enjoyed only in times of special earnestness and prayer, and then to pass away, as you had to return to those duties in which far the greater part of life has to be spent. No, indeed; He had prepared for you an abiding dwelling with Himself, where your whole life, and every moment of it might be spent, where the work of your daily life might be done, and where all the while you might be enjoying unbroken communion with Himself. It was even this He meant, when to that first word-" Come unto Me," He added this-" Abide in Me."

As earnest and faithful, as loving and tender, as the compassion that breathed in that blessed "Come," was the grace that added this no less blessed" Abide." As mighty as the attraction with which that first word drew you, were the bonds with which this second, had you but listened to it, would have kept you. And as great as were the blessings with which that coming was rewarded, so large, yea, and much greater, were the treasures to which that abiding would have given you access.

NEGATIVES TO BE FOUND IN THE PSALMS.

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And observe, especially, it was not that He said"Come to Me and abide with Me," but, "Abide in Me." The intercourse was not only to be unbroken, but most intimate and complete. He opened His arms and pressed you to His bosom. He opened His heart, to welcome you there; He opened up all His Divine fulness of life and love, and offered to take you up into its fellowship, to make you wholly one with Himself. There was a depth of meaning you cannot yet realize in His words: "Abide in Me."

Some of the "Negatives" to be found in the Psalms.

By E. Jane Whately.

In the first Psalm of all we find a series of these "Negatives." It is very instructive to observe how many of the precepts in both Old and New Testaments, which treat of holiness, begin with these. The answer to the question, "What will the servant of God, led by Divine grace working in the heart, do?" is very generally given first, by telling us what he will NOT do.

We shall find it here, in this, the first of that wonderful series of sacred songs which sound every note by turns of hope, trust, sorrow, penitence, holy resolution, and patient faith, till at last the whole winds up with a grand burst of joyful praise.

And in this, the opening Psalm, the things which God's servant will avoid, are enumerated in a gradation; the wrong-doing takes three stages, "walking," "standing," and sitting;" three successive steps on the downward path. "Walking" is the first. Many will "walk" a little out of the right path, who would be afraid to stand or sit there.

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Jehoshaphat did so when he joined Ahaziah in his expedition to Ophir. He had been already warned against

helping the ungodly" (2 Chron. xix. 2), and seems to have taken the warning in a right spirit from the description which follows of his zealous missionary work in the kingdom of Israel as well as Judah. But the temptation recurred; the joint expedition to Ophir with Ahaziah to seek gold, may have appeared different from an alliance for war, offensive and defensive. We know not what means were used to induce him thus to "walk in the ways of the ungodly;" but we know that shameful failure was the result, and from the refusal we read of in 1 Kings xxii. 49, to let Ahaziah's servants join with his, it would seem that the lesson had been learned and remembered.

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But there is another downward step-the "standing in the way of sinners." stand" would seem to mean persisting in a wrong course.

Asa's conduct when he made

a league with the king of Syria (2 Chron. xvi. 3-11) is a case in point. He did not, like his son, receive obediently the rebuke of the prophet, but punished him for his plain speaking, and possibly his "oppressing some of the people" may have been for their sympathy with the man of God. This was standing as well as walking on the wrong side.

The declension once begun, it is easy to fall lower and lower. Descent is easier than ascent; and the next downward step may be quickly reached-the sitting "in the seat of the scornful."

The position of sitting implies rest, abiding, taking up as it were a permanent position. And those who allow themselves to be in any sense "unequally yoked," very easily fall into this state. We may walk uneasily; we may stand doubtingly; but when we take our seat, it implies we have made up our minds to abide continually in the position we have chosen. And let not Christians hastily exlaim, "This cannot

happen with us." "Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall." We may be kept by our position and surroundings from temptation to glaring open sins, such as the world itself condemns; but a deviation from the right paths which may be hardly noted by man's eye, may be to us "walking in the counsel of the ungodly," or even "standing in the way of sinners."

Many who are diligent in attendance on means of grace and zealous in Christian work, forget the exceeding need for guarding against slips on the side of strict truth and uprightness—against want of fairness in dealing with others -against that subtle spirit of worldliness which may invade those even who lead what would be called very unworldly lives against acquiescence in wrong-doing-against making ourselves in some sort a party to what we know to be unjust in practice, or untrue in teaching, because we are afraid to speak out-against a hundred temptations, in short, from the wiles as well the fiery darts of the evil one, who is glad when he can lead one who professes religion to take lower ground in any way as to conduct.

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Who is sufficient for these things? What can be our safeguard against walking, standing, or sitting in a way pleasing to God, and presenting a stumbling-block to the "little ones" who are just beginning to tread the heavenly path, and are kept back-how often! and hindered in their course, by the inconsistencies of those who profess to be Christ's faithful servants?

The next words of the Psalm show us that the safeguard is, "His delight is in the law of the Lord, and in His law doth he meditate day and night."

We are apt to take "meditation as here described to mean a certain time spent in contemplation of heavenly things; and this is often a difficulty to young Christians. But whatever may be the benefit of such exercises this is