eye and heart to heaven, and hope that the seed has fallen in ground prepared by God's Holy Spirit to receive it, and bring forth fruit to the glory of God and your own eternal welfare?

II. So much for the sowing. Let me change the picture. St. Matthew in the same chapter has the Parable of the Tares.

In this, the time for sowing has gone by, and the corn has appeared above the ground. Here we have a picture of the outward and visible church-not of the inward church, gathered by God's grace out of every variety of Christian creed, and worshipping God. in spirit and in truth in divers places, and according to their different forms of worship; but rather of the outward church-of all persons, that is, who profess and call themselves Christians. In this outward church, the Saviour himself assures us there are both tares and wheat. The tares in the parable are supposed to mean, not what in this country we call tares, but a plant which, in its earlier stages, so closely resembled wheat, that it was hard to tell the difference.

By this parable would the Saviour teach us, that in the outward church there is true religion and counterfeit-a religion of the heart, and a religion merely of It is truth, the lip. O what a solemn truth is here! because he who spake as never man spake has told us 80. In every Christian congregation there are those whom the eye of God detects as Christians in name only. The eyes of man may fail to detect them. But they do not escape the scrutiny of him "which seeth in secret." They have the same demeanour in God's house, the same appearance of devotion as those who are true worshippers, and yet they have no pretension whatever to the name. God does not class them among the number of those who "worship him in spirit and in truth."

you

Do observe how the importance of this subject grows on us, step by step. Solemn and more solemn are the topics which successively engage our attention. Chaff and wheat; final separation : what thoughts are these!

"He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire." Are you among the chaff? "He will gather the wheat into the garner." you among the wheat?

Are

It is a delightful thought, that while the tares are being bound in bundles for the burning, the garner of God will be opened for the storing away of the grain for ever. Not one grain of true wheat will be lost. Wherever in the whole world a faithful No, not one. servant of a loving Master has been found-wherever, in the midst of sorrow and temptation, the Christian warfare has gone on-wherever, despite the chills, and blasts, and damps, and frosts which sin and Satan have interposed to hinder it, the true wheat has gone forward to perfection-there will the garner of eternal love be opened, and an abiding mansion secured in the kingdom of Christ for ever.

Yes, there is a time for winnowing, and on the results of that winnowing the most momentous consequences will depend. So sure as the reaper "puts in the sickle," so sure is it that a separation will be made between those who love God, and those who despise him-between those who serve the Lord, and those who serve him not.

V. Only once again I turn the picture. In 1 Cor. xv. 42, we read, "So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption: it is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory : it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power: it is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body."

It is a wondrous thought. A few short months ago, if you had "lifted up your eyes, and looked upon the fields," you would have seen the sower scattering a few small grains upon the surface. If you had searched for those grains shortly afterwards, they would apparently have been gone to corruption. But out of those few small grains has come a richer crop. Some of them have produced thirtyfold, some sixty, some an

606

hundred. Each is the same body as the seed that was scattered over the field. One kind of grain has not sprung from another. You do not get oats from wheat, nor wheat from barley. Like will come from like. The only difference is, that it is a noble produce from a feeble sowing. Much has come from little. "So, also," says the apostle, "is the resurrection of the dead-sown in corruption, raised in incorruption— sown in weakness, raised in power."

Why do I lead you finally to notice these things? Because this is what may happen to us and to those who are dear to us, after the reaping and winnowing, if we and they are found, on the morning of the resurrection of the dead, among the true wheat. As a new and abundant crop has, by God's power, been fashioned out of what was sown but lately, so will the bodies of those who have died in the Lord be fashioned like unto his glorious body. We, and those who have been our companions in life-those who have dwelt with us beneath the same roof-tree, together with those whose honoured remains we have followed with sorrow to the grave, may meet again in the heavenly garner, and be for ever with our Lord,

Who, then, are they who will be thus favoured? Let the same apostle, whose words I have just quoted, supply us with an answer. They that are Christ's at his coming."

now.

66

To be "Christ's at his coming," we must be his No change takes place in wheat either in the wheat of this world, or in spiritual wheat-when once the sickle has levelled it. It may grow till then, but it can grow no longer. To be Christ's at his coming, we must embrace him as our Saviour while life and health are spared to us. We must follow him as our example, and obey him as our King, if we would be partakers of his glory in the world to come.

With what vast importance does this thought invest the life which we now live in the flesh. It is short. It is uncertain. It is encompassed with temptation. It is clogged with earthly duties. But on it depends our eternal destiny. "He that is filthy will be filthy still. He that is holy, will be holy still." We shall leave this house of God to live-or perhaps to die. Which we know not. It is in God's wisdom concealed from us. Only may he grant, for Jesus Christ's sake, that "whether we live, we may live unto the Lord; or whether we die, we may die unto the Lord; so that whether we live or die, we may be the Lord's."

ERNEST RENAN AND THE RIVER ADONIS.

MOST of our readers have heard of the infidel work lately published by M. Rénan, entitled "Life of Jesus." Whatever attention he may have gained in France, a writer who represents the blessed Saviour as deceived and a deceiver can only be spoken of with pain and pity where the Bible is known. But in order to show how incompetent M: Rénan is to deal seriously with the historical evidence of Christianity, we quote the following notice of the dedication of Rénan's book, which is inscribed to the memory of a sister who died while travelling with him in the Holy Land, "A l'âme pure de ma sœur Henriette, morte à Byblos," he writes, adding, "Tu dors maintenant dans la terre d'Adonis, près de la sainte Byblos et des eaux sacrées où les femmes des mystères antiques venaient mêler leurs larmes." Thou sleepest now in the land of Adonis, near holy Byblos and the sacred waters, where the women of the ancient mysteries came to mingle their tears." A recent traveller in Syria* thus writes

"What I saw in Syria, Palestine, and Greece." By the Rev. S. Smith. Vicar of Lois Weedon. 1864. Longmans.

"Before reaching Byblos, we had, from an eminence, looked down with wonder on a discoloured stream rushing madly to the sea--a striking view of the still wounded Adonis. For the ocean to our left was calm; and, widening from the mouth of the stream, we beheld far out at sea a circle of the waters sharply defined at the edge, and tinged with the colour of blood. The rains of the past night had swollen the river, which, bringing down with it the red soil of its banks, betrayed to us the origin of the tale told by the heathen

"So personating

Their gods ridiculous, and themselves past shame."

"The tale of the river Adonis, briefly, is this: Adonis, beloved of the goddess of beauty, was hunting in the mountainforest in Lebanon by the banks of the river; and the wild boar turned and wounded and slew him; and the blood touched and consecrated the stream. And Venus wept in her temple hard by; and the fair heathens around lamented Adonis, and adored him as Thammuz. And thus has our own great poet sung of him, with peculiar sweetness, in his catalogue of the idol-gods of the

heathen:

Thammuz came next behind,

Whose annual wound in Lebanon allured The Syrian damsels to lament his fate In amorous ditties all a summer's day; While smooth Adonis from his native rock Ran purple to the sea, supposed with blood Of Thammuz yearly wounded. (P. L. i. 446). "So far there is little beyond a heathen tale, poetical and picturesque; but, in practice, the worship on that mountain and by that river was heathenish in the worst sense of the term. I dare not quote here, even in Greek, the passage of history, in proof; and I must refer the inured classical reader, who may have any curiosity upon the subject, to the pages of Eusebius in his Life of Constantine' (iii. 5.). He will there see the abominations of the temple and grove by the fountain of Adonis; that they were so frightful as to force Constantine, when he came under the influence of the pure teaching of the Gospel of Christ, to sweep them from the face of the earth.

'It was with a little shock of surprise therefore, that in this fifteenth century after the abashed Constantine, we read the misplaced sentiment,' to which we here refer.

Not long since, the writer of the entirely new 'Life of Jesus' was dwelling, with his sister, among these very mountains; and there gave undoubting expression to his utter want of faith in the mission of Christ Jesus as the Son of God. And yet, with a most simple-minded perverseness of credulity, he shows no misgivings whatever as to the sanctity of Byblus where Adonis was born, and the sacredness of the stream where those damsels laved."

Sabbath Thoughts.

THOU ART MINE.

"But I trusted in thee, O Lord; I said, Thou art my God."-Psa. xxxi. 14.

"But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus."-Phil. iv. 19.

66

Mark how both psalmist and apostle find strength in appropriating God as their portion, and in saying "my God." Theirs was not a faith that rested in generalities; they did not worship a God afar off; they rested their souls upon him as their own God, knowing that his power as a King and his love as a Father were all exercised in their behalf; "I trusted in thee,"-it was no vain trust, it was no slight grasp. My God shall supply all your need, in this instance the trust was exercised for others, but the nature of it was the same, a personal tie to a living personal God. Let us earnestly seek to attain and to maintain such a position of confidence and trust in God through Jesus Christ. Let us say with David, "Thou art my God!" A crowd of strengthening thoughts surround us when we utter this from the heart; thoughts of his greatness and glory, love and mercy, his riches in glory by Jesus Christ, his present help, and his promises for the future,-all treasured up for the good of those

who can say,

66

Thou art my God!"

Let the sweet hope that Thou art mine

My life and death attend,

Thy presence through my journey shine, And crown my journey s end."

Pages for the Young.

LITTLE TOMMY.

"Jesus said. Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not; for of such is the kingdom of God."-Luke xviii. 16.

N the Scotch side of the Cheviot hills, and a few miles west from the summit of the highest in the range, there stands, in a lonely glen, a thatched cottage, occupied by a shepherd and his family. Before the door, and at a little distance from the house, flows past a wimpling burn," which, after receiving several additions in its course among the hills, and wearing different names as it descends, falls into the Teviot a few miles before joining the Tweed,

Between one and two miles down the windings of this rivulet stands another shepherd's house, whose inmates are their nearest neighbours. In other directions their neighbours (shepherds also) are several miles distant from them, and there are only about forty families in the whole parish.

In this lonely cot little Tommy was born on the 25th August, 1839. His sister, the eldest child, was not then two years' old. When she was about five, and Tommy little more than three, she began to teach him what she herself had learned, the twenty-third and other psalms, lines and verses of hymns, also a rhyming alphabet, which she could repeat, and which had been explained to her by her parents :"

A is for Angel, who sings the Lord s praise.

B stands for Bible, which shows us his ways.

C is the Christian who makes it his guide.

D is for Death, which humbles our pride.

L is for Lamb, on Mount Calvary slain.

M means his Merits, but man's are all vain, &c. This is a specimen of the rhymes taught and explained to little Tommy. His parents were often amazed as well as amused with the questions he put to them regarding God and man, sin and salvation, heaven and hell. He was very anxious to understand what none can fully comprehend,—how Jesus Christ could be God and yet a little child. He listened attentively and thought seriously on the answers his parents gave to his questions. The simple instructions of his sister seemed to be brought home to his heart by the special influence of Him who answers the prayer of parents in behalf of their children, and who can make babes and sucklings speak forth his praise. The "Pilgrim's Progress," and the " Holy War," were two favourite books. It is probable' that some of the observations and explanations of these children were more simple and expressive, more poetical and original, than Taylor's (of Ongar) "Bunyan explained to a Child." Not satisfied with what his sister could tell him, Tommy would often run to his mother and say, "Come tell us about Christ and about gude."

Thus the minds of these children were formed and began to expand under the prayerful and prudent instructions of Christian parents, far removed from the companionship of vicious children. The mountain tops which appeared to meet the sky a few hundred yards from their father's house, seemed to them to contain all the world; what was beyond they little knew.

When between four and five, little Tommy was taken to the village to spend a few days with his grandmother. But hearing a man one day in a passion swear, he became alarmed, wept, and cried to be taken away from such a wicked place.

He felt much gratified when he was first permitted to remain out of bed till after family worship in the evening, and, when a little older, to be allowed to join in the singing; for he wished his parents' consent and approbation to all he did. On one occasion when his father was from home a few days, Tommy proposed that family worship should not be omitted in his absence, that his mother would sing, his sister would read the chapter, and he himself would pray. A friend asked him one day how often he prayed, he answered, "In the morning and at night." The friend said,-Tommy, a minister once asked a boy the same question, and received a similar answer, for he said twice a day; and the minister then replied, "Did you ever hear of any body getting to heaven who prayed no oftener than twice a-day?" "I pray oftener than that, I whiles pray in the byre," said Tommy. He also remarked to his mother," We can easily pray though we are doing anything; for prayer is not words, it is thinking, and we can think prayer, and God hears us, when we walk, or stand, or sit, or do anything."

607

His parents gave their children lessons in reading, as they could find time for this duty. Tommy, however, did not make rapid progress in his letters. When he knew the alphabet, and had begun to spell little words, he said to his mother, one day, Is the Bible true, mother?" Yes, Tommy, it is all true. It is the word of God. All he says is true." He replied, There is something in my heart says it is not true, but I think it is just the devil, and I will not believe him."

His sister often read to him, and told him things about the Saviour, when basking on the hill side, and when sheltering themselves among the ferns. But the father having lost his health, gave up his situation, and removed, in May 1846, to a house in the village, for the sake of the education of his children. Tommy was thus removed from this lonely glen, and was never permitted to visit it again. It was a sweet spot in his remembrance. It was the place of his first and second birth, "Where first he learned to sing and pray,

Of Jesus, grace, and glory."

Tommy was now sent to the village school. There he was attentive to his lessons, and was loved by his teacher. But the habits, language, and conduct of the other boys were so different from his views and feelings that he seldom joined them in their sports, except as an on-looker, and he never made any of them his bosom companion. What seemed to grieve him most was, the restlessness and improper conduct which some of them manifested during prayer; for then, said he, the master does not see them, for his eyes are shut. They sometimes mocked and derided him, because he would not join with them in their sports and their games. But he preferred home, and to accompany his infirm father in his walks, to the noisy mirth of his school-fellows.

About the time the family removed from their sweet home among the mountains, the father's health seemed to rally a little, but after midsummer he gradually became weaker. He could, however, look forward to death without fear, and up to heaven with hope; relying on the work, sufferings, and intercession of the Saviour for the safety of his own soul, he could trust to the promise and power of his covenant God. that his wife and children would not be forsaken nor left destitute. He died on 28th December, 1846, in the nope of a blessed resurrection,

During last summer, the mother would sometimes express herself despondingly regarding the dark prospect before her and her five helpless children. On these occasions, Tommy would try to say something to comfort her. Referring one day to the case of an orphan family whose parents had been recently removed by death, he remarked, "God will provide for them. For David said, though both his father and his mother left him, God would take care of him.' And God will take care of us if our father is taken away, and he will be a husband to you too, mother, for he has said it." His mother speaking of prayer, Tommy said, "I pray for you and my father every day. But I do not wish my father to ken what it is, for it will may be make him wae. "Tell me." It is, that if it is God's will he may make him better, but if not, if he is to die, he may take him to heaven."

46

66

About a month previous to his father's death, Tommy was scized with influenza, which turned into consumption. From the first of his illness, before any danger was apprehended, Tommy expressed himself willing to live or die, be ill or get better, as God pleased. He would say, Thy will be done; I would wish to get better, and God can make me better if he likes. When I die, I will go to heaven, for Christ died for me." One day it was observed that he was weeping, and he was asked, why do you weep, Tommy? "O," said he, "my mother will be so wae for us."

The morning after his father's death, he asked as usual, "How is my father?" When told he was gone, he said, “Well, mother, if he is in heaven he is far happier than we are and he will not miss us this morning.",

Some Christian friends brought and sent jellies, grapes and other cordials to him. He felt grateful for them, and said God had sent them, for he had put it into their hearts to send these things. "Mother, take some of them to the little laddie that is unwell in the next house, they will be ill off, and kind people give me so many good things.'

He several times requested to be allowed to sleep in the garret along with his sister, that she might have opportunity to tell him things about Jesus and about gude," as she used to do when they sat together on the hillside among the ferns. His mother said, "You will be taken up stairs when it is warmer weather." Tommy answered, "I will never see warmer weather, but I am not feared (afraid) to die, I ken where I am going." "Where are you going?" "I am going to heaven; be sure you and the others come too. I am going from you to my father; you are not to be ill about us; folk have all to die, and I am to be taken away first; folk will have all to follow." Do all the