Deficient as my education was, how many have had less! If I am tempted to complain, then, I will look around me, and see how many have more reason. Rather, I will look around, and see how few, how very few, have such reason to be thankful. I am what my merciful Creator made me. I have what a gracious God has conferred upon me I am placed on the very spot which my wise and loving Father selected for me. Whom should I envy? With whom would I exchange lots? What place would suit me better, or in what circumstances could I be happier! O, my soul, praise the Lord; and all that is in me, bless His holy name!

But I may look down to hell, and when I see its terrible torments, I may say, that is my desert. When I gaze upon its agonised inhabitants, I may say, if God had not show ed me mercy, I should now be with you. Yes, my conduct deserved everlasting pun ishment. My doom, naturally, was the lake of fire to dwell with everlasting burnings. There are, doubtless, many in hell now, who were no worse than me; they did not sin more than me; yet they are punished and I am spared. What wondrous, what distinguishing grace! I must love and admire divine sovereignty, for to nothing else can I ascribe it, that I am not in hell.

I was a rebel, a traitor, a daring transgressor; and if God had dealt with me after my sins, or rewarded me according to my transgres

sions, I must now have been shut up in hell, suffering all the agonies of black despair. If I deserved hell, and am not in it, and if I can only trace the cause to the free and Sovereign grace of God, ought I not to be grateful, and daily praise the Lord with joyful lips. O my God, I will praise Thee, and bless Thy holy name for evermore!

If I look up to heaven, and think of the glorified company there, of their pure joys, varied pleasures, perfect holiness, and endless bliss, I am privileged to say, I believe I shall be one of them soon. What, a sinner like me go to heaven! What, a poor creature like me, share in all the honours, pleasures, and enjoyments of heaven! Yes. How can it be? By grace I am saved, through faith. Of grace, God planned my salvation, provided for my preservation, regeneration, justification, sanctification, and glorification. Of grace, he wrought faith in my heart, applied the truth to my soul, sprinkled the atoning blood on my conscience, gave me a foretaste of heaven, and a title to that glorious inheritance. Heaven is my Father's gift, conferred on a poor sinner, without anything in me to induce him to do so, but simply and alone of His own grace. Yes, it is our Father's good pleasure to give us the kingdom. Did He look for nothing in us, as a reason why He should confer such a favour on us? Nothing. Was He not moved by our misery? No, for others were

as miserable, who are now in hell. Was He not moved by our prayers, tears, and cries P No, for we never prayed to Him, or wept before Him, or cried for mercy, until He put His Holy Spirit within us. If then I have a good hope through grace, of entering into endless rest, of enjoying the pleasures that are at God's right hand, and of being for ever with the Lord, ought I not to bless, praise, and adore His holy name? Should not my life be marked by deep and abiding gratitude? O, my good and gracious God, add to all Thy other favours, a truly grateful heart, that I may begin on earth the employment of the heavenly world.

But precious as my temporal comforts are, wondrous as my deliverance from hell may be, and exciting as the prospect of eternal glory is, there is something more surprising still. I take my Bible, and by its aid I go to Calvary, the little hill without the gates of Jerusalem; it is the place of public execution, strewed with bones and ghastly skulls. There, nailed to a cross, I see a sufferer. His bones are out of joint. His face is marred with blood, dust, and the

traces of intense suffering. As He hangs before me naked, I see that He is worn almost to a skeleton; you could tell all his bones. He is writhing with agony, oppressed with a load of sorrow, His sufferings are intense. I ask, Who is that? I am told, that it is God, the Creator of the ends of the

earth-God, by whom all things were made, God, by whom all things are sustained— God, who has become Incarnate, who has taken upon him our nature, and has thus become one of us. I ask, Why is He there? The reply is, to make an atonement for thy sins. To satisfy the law which thou hast broken, and meet the requirements of that justice, which would else punish thee. Again, I ask, What is He suffering? I am informed, the due desert of thy sin. He personates thee. He is punished for thee. He suffers instead of thee. He dies that you may never die. Once more, I ask, Who nailed Him there? The answer is, thy representatives. Men influenced by the passions that rule thy nature; inspired by the enmity that revels in thy heart; carrying out the rooted purposes of thy soul. What! and is it possible that my God became man for me? that He was punished with a shameful and painful death for me? that He thus made an atonement for my sins? that He was nailed to the cross and left to languish in agony and distress, until he died by me? and all this, that I might be saved from hell, entitled to heaven, and have innumerable blessings showered down upon me, now? Yes, it is even so. My soul, canst thou realise this? Canst thou grasp this wondrous thought? God, thy insulted Creator, became a man of sorrows for thee! God in thy nature, treated as the vilest

malefactor! God on earth, fulfiling the requirements of His own law, and paying the tremendous penalty of thy sins for thee! God, personating thee, and bearing thy sins in His own body on the tree; dying the just for the unjust, that He might bring thee to heaven. God, the ruler of the universe, having all power in heaven and in earth, allowing thee to reek thy rage upon Him; strip him, and, as if he were the vilest malefactor, nail him to the cursed tree! Canst thou believe this? Believe this, and not love Him, praise Him, bless Him; and after this, not expect any thing, every thing from Him? What is any thing He can do now, compared with what He has done? What is even the gift of heaven with all its glories, compared with the gift of Himself, to be thy substitute and sacrifice? For such love, such undying love-such unparalleled love-I would praise my Saviour, and with every thought of my heart, every word of my mouth, and every action of my life, glorify His most blessed name!

How is it I am not grateful? Always grateful? How is it that I do not praise the Lord, praise Him every day, and all the day long? How is it? The reason is, I do not believe, or at least, I do not realise the weight of obligation that lays upon me. To the grace of God, to the obedience and death of my Saviour, I am indebted for every temporal blessing, for every spiritual privi