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your wisdom and your glory, as eventually it would prove your joy. But beware how you trifle with Him who hath all power and might; "who shutteth and no man openeth;" who saith, "my Spirit shall not always strive with man." Beware how you yield to counteracting influences-how you erect barriers with your own hands. Pray, though it be with a backward heart and a stammering tongue pray, in the words, but in a sense different from that of Moses, "I beseech thee shew me thy glory: obscure by the manifestation of thy greatness and thy allsufficiency, the earthly delights and splendid vanities which now allure my eyes and draw my affections from thee. I beseech thee shew me thy glory."

Amongst the myriads of glorified spirits who now walk in white, and behold the face of God in heaven, there are those whose hearts once rebelled against his ways far more than yours, and those who were made willing to sacrifice more than ever you will possess; those who were enabled "to choose affliction with the people of God," to "count

all things they once termed gain, but as loss for Christ;"" to take joyfully the spoiling of their goods." Read the eleventh of Hebrews, and ask God to make you ashamed of your disinclination to forsake all and follow him, when all you have to forsake, is, in comparison, less than an atom to the universe; when you have to receive back an "all in all," precious, eternal, unfading, glorious!

May God the Saviour bless you, my dear girl, and sooner or later fetch you home to his flock, and give you to see that he is worthy to be praised; make you feel it your joy and privilege to wear his yoke, and follow his footsteps, and call him Master.

Ever your faithful friend.

LETTER XX.

MY DEAR

I was thinking this morning how comparatively easy is the Christian life, as you and your companions are situated; with your privileges so happily combined with your pleasures. The manna of religious instruction falls sweetly round you in the dew of affection and solicitude; and you are all sheltered, like lambs in a fold, from the "blast of the terrible one," from the rough places of the wilderness, and the snares of the world. You hear of these things, but your eyes see them not. And yet I thought again, they must, one and all, pass through these ordeals;

one and all must, after a while, stand unaided and alone. The scaffolding must be taken down, and oh! if the building should not be found established on the rock! If, when no longer sheltered from temptation, and watched over every moment, some promising plant should droop; and prove that it had not been of the "Lord's planting," that it had no 'depth of earth!" I carried the picture much further in my own mind, and thinking of you in particular, my heart breathed a prayer that you might not so fall away, but might receive grace to stand.

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. But, dear make it matter of serious enquiry, whether your interest in religion arises from, and is dependent upon, external excitements, or whether it springs from the inward operations of divine grace; whether, when withdrawn from the spiritual atmosphere which now envelopes your life, you carry the "kingdom of God within you." I would hope it is so, or, if you cannot now feel that it is, that you will not rest, until doubt becomes certainty; till you can, with humble confidence, avouch the Lord to be

your God. It is one of the wonders of the Scriptures, that they contain precepts and illustrations, suited to all characters and all ages; and it is also one of the wonders of grace, that it influences every heart according to its natural temperament, and thus renders man a "worker together with God." The influence of grace is a tempering and regulating influence; it comes to supply the deficiencies and cut down the redundancies of character; it is to some a two-edged sword, and to others it is the "soft rain" and fertilizing dew. Whenever, then, you are depressed by a sense of your peculiar infirmities, whatever they may be, go straight to your treasure house, the Bible, and see whether there is not some promise or precept especially adapted for the occasion. It may require time and study to become a skilful seeker and a ready finder; but with God's blessing, you will find time and study well bestowed. We do sadly restrict the sense and use of scripture; we shall find comparatively few passages which meditative prayer may not convert to personal

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