Feeling her great need of Christ, the Helper of the helpless, she said, "All that I can say now is, Lord, help me." Thus her faith was clinging to Christ in passing through the valley of death, to that land where the inhabitants no more say, I am sick; for the people that dwell therein are forgiven their iniquity.

Bolton, March 16th, 1880.

GEO. NEWMAN.

SAMUEL WEEKS.-On Jan. 25th, 1879, aged 61, Samuel Weeks, of Withyham, Sussex.

I cannot minutely relate the means the Lord used in opening the eyes of the departed to see his state, but have heard him relate the condition he lived in, in childhood and as a young man. He was no common sinner. He lived in great acts of outward immorality. We have heard him with tears say that he then drank in sin as the thirsty ox drinketh in the water, and rolled it as a sweet morsel under his tongue. His mother was a good woman; but he was beyond all control. Before he was obliged really to separate from his ungodly companions, and give up his unholy practices, he began to be in a very uneasy state, till at length the law of God was brought home in such power that he was obliged to come out of the world, This caused no small amount of ridicule from his companions, thinking it strange that he could not run to the same excess of riot. Our friend became so distressed on account of his sins, and had such an apprehension of his ruined and undone condition, that he really thought the devil would come and fetch him, body and soul. In this distress, if I remember rightly, he went on for some time, till one day when in the barn thrashing, being in such trouble, he crept over to the head of the barn in some straw, and there lay and wept over his state. While there the Lord appeared for him, and sealed home his pardoning love and mercy, putting away his sins which had so distressed him. Then he wept to the praise of the mercy he had found.

I am not quite certain, but I think, up to this time, our friend had not heard a gospel sermon. For a number of years his mother had tried, but without avail, to get him to chapel. When she saw him the first time he came to chapel, she broke out into a flood of tears, blessing the Lord for having heard her cries, and turned his heart towards himself. At this time he was led to hear (as he used to say) that dear man of God, Mr. Weller, who so traced out his path, that he had a most blessed time, and became a constant hearer of his.

He married; his first wife died, leaving him a young family. She was buried at Hawkhurst. He had a good hope of her, and this made the separation the heavier. Having no one to attend to the family, we have heard him say how harassed he was, fearing they would come to harm, as he had to leave them to earn a maintenance for them; but they were wonderfully preserved. After some time he became acquainted with, and married his present wife, who is now left to mourn his loss. In the providence of God he removed to Crowborough, and sat under the ministry of the late Mr. Russell, of Providence chapel, Rotherfield, which I believe was much blessed to him; especially on one occasion, to which he referred on his dying bed. He was labouring under a heavy temptation concerning the Roman Catholics, how he should stand, and whether he should be found faithful.

After Mr. Russell's death, the deceased began to attend our chapel, and sat for the most part under my ministry until his death.

Word being sent me by his son of his illness, I visited him several times during the fortnight he was laid aside. On my first visit, as I entered the room in which he was lying, he said, "I am glad to see you." I replied, "Well, Weeks, may the Lord bless you," His answer

I shall never forget, it being spoken with such feeling. He said, “He has blessed me years ago, and now." Here I must refer to the state of his mind before the commencement of his affliction. While he was about his work, the Lord, in a most signal manner, blessed his soul. His wife told me that she never remembered anything equal to it in her experience before. He would for days weep while sitting at the fireside, get up, walk about the room wringing his hands, blessing and praising the Lord for saving such a wretch as he was and had been. He would sit crying over the Bible, and sometimes the "Gospel Standard" and hymn book. In a word, the blessed state of mind he was in, his wife said she could not fully describe to me. After this, he was obliged to take to his bed with illness, from which he never recovered.

He had a difficulty in speaking. I could see he was drawing near his end. I said, "Let me talk;" and asked him if he felt satisfied in his mind. He nodded his head four times in succession, in a marked and decisive manner. I said, "Is the Rock underneath? and do you feel your feet there?" He again nodded in the same unmistakable manner several times. Trying to speak, he said, “The Lord is good.” “He is good," I remarked. " David, Nahum, and many others were brought to see and say that before you." He then finished the passage, "A strong. hold in the day of trouble; and he knoweth them that trust in him.' What a sinner I am! But Christ is very precious. I cannot speak well enough of his Name." He then said, "Mr. Littleton, I have for years felt a love to you. I have not gone down to that chapel for nothing." His wife, who was at his bedside with his daughter and son-in-law from Croydon, turned and wept. He seemed exhausted, and nearly choked from what appeared to me to be blood proceeding from his mouth and throat. He was suffering likewise from bronchitis, and his sufferings were great. But the Lord so broke in upon his soul at times that he seemed to be almost suffering proof. It was painful, yet pleasant, to be with him. The use of one side was nearly gone. He tried to raise his right hand. I said, "Never mind; give me the other; that will do." But he persisted in giving me his right hand, saying, "We will have it right." I shook hands with him. He said, "I die in peace with you. Pray for me when it is well with you." I told him that one of our deacons in his prayer last night at the meeting was led much to pray for him. He looked up, and said, "Was he? Tell him to pray again;" and he began to weep, and wished me to give his love to him, saying, "O how I love that man!" He named others of our members, desiring his love to them, and said, “May the Lord bless them and you, for Ì have come up the hill from that place when no one was near, and swung my arm round, and shouted out, blessing and praising the Lord for what I have heard there."

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I called again to see him, the day after. I asked him how he felt in his mind. He replied, "Sometimes my evidences are gone, and the enemy comes in suggesting this, that, and the other; but we are subject to these things while in the body, and all God's people know more or less of this path. But, then, I am not in despair, not without some hope; and the Lord breaks in again, so that I am overcome with his goodness, and matters are all straightened up again."

To his daughter-in-law from Burnt Oak, he said, "I have no word from my Master yet about death. My mind is calm; but that will perhaps come just at the last; it does sometimes." When suffering much, he said to her, "What a mercy I am not tormented in soul as I might be!" She gave him a little arrowroot. He held it up, and with much feeling said,

"Not more than others I deserve;
But God has given me more.'

I have this while many are starving. May God grant that it may refresh the poor body. He is a good God. Many times he has appeared to me and on my behalf. He has never been too late, bless his holy Name. O his faithfulness to a poor polluted sinner! I must speak it to his praise. He promised me years ago, 'I will never leave thee nor forsake thee;' and he has been as good as his word. My child, when I have been overwhelmed with trouble, he has appeared, made all straight, and I have gone on again like a giant refreshed with new wine. The Lord is a strong tower; the righteous run into it and are safe. Some people talk of doing great things; but you cannot in your own strength; for there is a threefold enemy to encounter, and our foes are too strong for us. The Lord must be all in all, the Alpha and Omega. We need his blood to wash, his righteousness to cover, his Spirit to quicken."

On visiting him two days before he died, he said, "I deserve all I suffer; and what are my sufferings compared to his ?" To his daughter he said,

"Think on what thy Saviour bore,
In the gloomy garden,'

and on the cross. I should not mind if his chariot would come." She said, "Would you not?" He said, "No, if he comes and smiles me away, I would fly into his blessed arms; but I do want his smile. I have nothing here to stay for. My poor harassed tempted soul would be glad to be on Canaan's happy shore, there to praise him.

"Where I shall sing the song of grace,

And see my glorious Hiding-place.'

He dwelt much on the word shall. "I shall. I shall. I have the witness within my breast; for he has appeared many times; and where he begins he perfects."

When he could not speak, he would lie praying. We could catch such words as these: "O sweet Lamb of God! O blessed Saviour! Come into my heart. O blessed Spirit, come. Lord, do take me." Sometimes he was praying with that earnestness we shall never forget. His children from different parts arriving, he would sit up, and stretching out his arms as well as he could, would pray for them; and then give them advice separately. When any of them returned to their families, he would say, "The Lord go with you, and be with you wherever you are, and bless you, dear children."

I

The Monday before he died he said, "I have lost the presence of my Jesus. O where shall I hide if he leaves me? O where shall I flee for refuge ? O what shall I do?" It was distressing to see his anguish. His daughter said, "He will come again, father." He continued to lament, saying, "The Lord is holy, pure, and just; and can by no means clear the guilty. O his holiness, his purity! If he does not appear, must be driven away.' He took my hand, and said, "Do pray for poor old Jonah here." He put his hand on his breast, and cried out, "O thou whom my soul loves, until the day break, and shadows flee away, turn, my Beloved, and be thou like a roe or a young hart upon the mountains of Bether."

At another time, he said, "I have loved God's people more than all on earth; but that's no merit. Away with all merit.

"Vain is all our best devotion,

If on false foundations built;
True religion's more than notion;

Something must be known and felt.'"

Every cloud was again cleared away, and he exclaimed,

"His love in times past forbids me to think
He'll leave me at last in trouble to sink;
Each sweet Ebenezer I have in review

Confirms his good pleasure to help me quite through.' "Yes," he said, "it does, it does; " and drew the bed clothes over his head, and wept. He then looked up, and began to talk of God's lovingkindness to such a rebel. "Bless his holy Name," he said; "he snatched me as a brand from the burning, when I never thought of him, a Sabbath-breaker, a swearer, and living in all manner of vanity and foolishness. He took me, and shook me all to pieces, as it were; and then, when he saw fit, he showed me he had loved me with an everlasting love. O that men would praise the Lord for his goodness!

Two things were unusually clear in his experience ;-self-abasement, and exaltation of Christ. The day before he died, he talked more than ever of the Lord's goodness and his dealings with him. His wife and friends advising him not to exert himself so much, he said, "I must speak while I have breath; I can't help it." He called his wife, and told her he should go now. He had received a token. That night, the last on earth, was a fearful one of suffering. On his daughter-in-law saying she hoped he would get better, he said, "Do you?" On her saying, "Yes," he replied, with a sigh, "O dear! May the Lord's will be done, not mine. Into his hands I commit my spirit." On her leav ing him, he said, “Come again before I go; for I have got my orders." Speaking of the love of God shed abroad in the heart, he said, “The Lord is a sovereign. He gives when he sees fit, and withholds when he pleases; and we must submit to his righteous will; for he is a God." He frequently wept, and mourned over his worldliness, and barrenness of soul, and grieved over the little he had lived to the glory of God. Not long after, telling his wife he knew he should go now, for he had received a token from the Lord, his consciousness appeared to leave him, and he went into a sleep. And on Saturday, the day he died, when I called again to see him, he was in this state; and died in the evening without awaking. A few days before his death, he asked for Gadsby's hymn-book. After reading over one or two hymns, he said, "That will do. This is the one." (468 :)

"Death is no more a frightful foe,
Since I with Christ shall reign;
With joy I leave this world of woe;
For me to die is gain.""

Chapel House, Withyham.

E. LITTLETON.

As every divine truth has a peculiar majesty and reverence belonging to it, which debars from the spiritual knowledge of it (as it is in Christ) the ignorant and unstable, that is, those who are not taught of God, or become subject to the truth; so those points which dwell in more intimate recesses, and approach nearer its immense fountain, the "Father of lights," darting brighter rays by their excess of light, present a confounding darkness to the minds of the greatest men, and are as darkness to the eyes breaking forth amidst so great light. For what we call darkness in divine subjects, is nothing else than their celestial glory and splendour striking on the weak ball of our eyes, the rays of which we are not able, in this life, which is, "but a vapour," and which shineth but for a little, to bear. Hence God himself, who is "light, and in whom there is no darkness at all, who dwelleth in light inaccessible;" and "who clotheth Himself with light as with a gar ment," in respect of us, is said to have made darkness his pavilion,Dr. Owen,

THE

GOSPEL STANDARD.

DECEMBER, 1880.

MATT. v. 6; 2 TIM. I. 9; ROM. XI. 7; ACTS VIII. 37, 38; MATT. XXVIII. 19.

THE GREATNESS OF GOD'S POWER.

A SERMON BY MR. BRADFORD, OF EASTBOURNE.

'Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen."-EPH. III. 20, 21.

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THERE was a time when the Ephesians did not need, in a feeling way and manner, what they did when the apostle Paul wrote to them. There was a time when they could unite with others in worshipping Diana; when they were going on, Gallio-like, caring for none of these things;" when they were seeking death in the error of their way, living "without hope, and without God in the world;" when they were very well pleased with themselves and their religion. But God was pleased to send his light and truth to Ephesus by his servants, and to bless their testimony to the quickening of some into divine life. So the apostle could say, "You hath he quickened."

It may be said to several here this morning, There was a time when you cared not for the things of God; when you were very well satisfied with your natural condition. So it may be said, "And such were some of you; but ye are washed." This cannot be said of all in the chapel, neither can it be said of all in a profession. We are obliged to come home;-this cannot be said truthfully of all who style themselves Strict Baptists. I am sure there would be a separation, if the Lord were to come down, and single those who are really his from those who are thought to be so; there would be some left behind of the Particular Baptists. And if we go into other denominations, surely there would be many more; for I believe the Lord has many of his dear people among the Particular Baptists. The Ephesian church was a church of Strict Baptists; for the apostle said, writing to them, "One Lord, one faith, one baptism." You may have this confirmed, if you look at the 19th of Acts. There you will find this church was a baptized church.

In our text Paul ascribes all the glory of his and their salvation to the Lord God of heaven and earth. So he says, in the 20th verse, "Unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly." What a mercy, then, for the Lord's children, that they No. 540.

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