East I expect our Lord saw very much, and yet He made no remark.

I read, from the pouring-out of the ointment by the woman and the objection of the disciples to the waste (Matthew xxvi.), that often things may be done by ourselves and others which look like neglect of the poor, but that our judgment is not right in these matters. This your interesting fable 1 illustrates. It is very much to my liking.

We too often look on things in the abstract, and do not understand that far higher issues are at stake.

1 The fable referred to is as follows:-" Our worthy forefathers have left us the following fable in verse: Hans Priem was admitted into Paradise on the express condition that he was not to indulge a habit he had acquired of censuring and criticising whatever came under his notice. Accordingly, on seeing two angels carrying a beam crossways along the road and knocking against every object they met, he said nothing. In like manner, observing other two drawing water from a fountain and pouring it into a cask with holes in the bottom, he was surprised, but held his peace. Many more things of the same kind occurred, but he was silent, though surprised. At last, however, he saw a cart stuck fast in the mire, with one pair of horses yoked before and another pair behind, and the carter giving the whip to both simultaneously. This being his own vocation, it was more than Hans could do to refrain from criticising it; and the consequence was he was turned out of Paradise by two angels. Before the door closed behind him, however, he looked back, and perceived the horses were winged and had succeeded in drawing the cart out of the mire into the air. Nor can there be any doubt that in the cases of the beam and cask there were equally good reasons for what was done" (SCRIVER: Gotthold's Emblems).

The key to the knowledge of God is the sensible perception of His indwelling. Before He gives the feeling, He lives in us; but He only makes Himself known when we feel it, and thenceforth we see His deep things. The more we leave the world the more we know of Him. We, our true selves, are

Daniel says, " My soul

veiled in a sheath or body. is troubled in my sheath" (chapter vii. 15, margin); and, like our clothes, that sheath is a perishable thing, which day by day He shows us is only a temporary garment, to be put off, as we put off our clothes to go to sleep (the type of death). Every night we, in a manner, die to the world; and who can say but that the best time of their lives is spent in sleep? And so it will be, when we put off these poor garments and rise to everlasting day; not waiting, as some think, till the resurrection of these garments, but passing from death to life at once. God was Abraham's God. Abraham, thousands of years after he had thrown off his earthly sheath, was living to Him, and we really enter life when we close our eyes to this poor world.

Endeavour to realise the completeness of salvation to all men; know that God rules all things, even evil. Weigh the characters of the worst of men and women. What do we know of the influences to which they may have been subjected, influences which it was not in their own power to avoid, such as their birth, their bringing up, &c., &c. ? Think for yourself, if you had your will, would you not be free from malice and all the evil

that affects you as a mortal? Then think of others as having the same desire. God sees it is better for us to have these trials, that we may know that we are not in our home, that we may groan for the happier world that looms beyond the tomb. We may rest assured that God loves us, loves us all, infinitely. Would He wish any to perish? How could He wish it? And, if He wishes it not, who is to stand in His way? We know not these things now, for we see through a veil, but that veil will be rent, and then we shall know Him and His love as He knows us. Join no sect, though there may be truth in all. Be of the true army of Christ, wear His uniform, Love: "By this, and by no other sign, shall men know that ye are My disciples."

THE PRISONERS OF THE LORD.1

He that believeth that a man, by name Jesus, a carpenter, who was put to death as a malefactor and blasphemer by his countrymen eighteen hundred years ago, and who, when in the world, was almost universally despised, is the Christ and Saviour and the Son of God, is born from above, is born of God, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man (John i. 13) (the flesh believes in what

1 The following papers were written in Gravesend and sent to me as letters, though without dates. I have thought it best to place them together, as they were all written about the same time.

it sees; it can catch hold of a rope when drowning, but its belief is only so far as its actual vision extends). He then that believes in Jesus is directly born of God, emanates from Him, is begotten of Him, and necessarily has everlasting life. It is his birth that gives him that belief in Jesus, and he who is thus born "doth not commit sin," for "His seed remaineth in him and he cannot sin (1 John iii. 9) because of his birth. If then any one believes in Jesus, that belief emanates from a spiritual being in him, a spiritual man or existence, which is as directly a son of God, as the body that he inhabits is the son of the father who begets him. "That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit" (John iii. 6). There is a spiritual body, and there is a natural or earthly body; the one born of God, and the other born of man; the one delighting in the law of God, and the other in the law of sin; the one blessed and an heir of God, with a kingdom prepared for him; the other cursed, corruptible, and which cannot inherit the kingdom. Begotten with the word of truth, by God's own will, "to an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away (1 Peter i. 4, 5).

Children of God, ye are kept by the power of God, "ready to be revealed" with the Lord Jesus Christ, when He appears in His glory. Ye are His words, pure as silver tried in the furnace of earth, purified seven times. The flesh you inhabit is "as grass, its glory as the flower of grass; the

"that

grass withereth and the flower thereof fadeth, but the word of the Lord endureth for ever" (1 Peter i. 24, 25). All that the flesh admires is doomed, therefore heed not the admiration of men; which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God" (Luke xvi. 15). It is only the flesh that loves the world. By the “flesh" I understand the carnal mind, the natural man, which as a substance is as useless as the dust it is and to which it must return. "All that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life" (1 John ii. 16), will pass away. The difference between you and your flesh is manifest: ye are the "offspring of God" (Acts xvii. 29). The flesh is the offspring of the devil; ye cannot sin, it cannot help sinning, for it is of the devil; it does the deeds of its father the devil, and his lusts it will do (John viii. 44). It cannot bear God's words or understand them; "they are foolishness unto him" (1 Corinthians ii. 14), because it is not of God. "He that is of God heareth God's words: ye therefore hear them not, because ye are not of God" (John viii. 47). It is not of God, though it may claim Him as its Father. Children of the light, as heirs of God, ye were under bondage, and "observe days and months and times and years" (Galatians iv. 10). But now, because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into you; ye know, or rather are known of God, and are free from your tutelage; for the creature itself, though now corruptible and made subject to vanity, is yet