experimental truth. He was a man of God. His faith was wonderful, and his views clear as the light. Bramwell if less clear was even more absorbed and ardent. Mrs. Rogers was truly seraphic. Mrs. Fletcher's memoirs are very fascinating, as indeed are all these and many more of this class. They have opened the eyes of thousands to the higher walks of Christian life, and impelled tens of thousands to press for the mark. But so far as we can see, there is no essential difference between the experience they describe, and those of Luther and D'Aubigne, Baxter and Edwards. All alike begin with a sense of their guilt, and peril, and come sooner or later to a sense of sins forgiven, blotted out in the blood of Jesus, and then again sooner or later, in every case, hungering and thirsting for true holiness is induced, and after varied strugglings the issue in all alike, is that of finding in Christ the end of the law for sanctification.

This unity will be apparent if we place any two of them side by side. Here for instance are the expressions of Mrs. Rogers, and of D'Aubigne from their own pens in their own words, descriptive of their own views and feelings at the moment their struggles were crowned with the victory that overcometh, viz., full trust in Jesus.

D'AUBIGNE.

THE PARALLEL.

[Pardon the repetition, it seems

to be necessary.]

After describing his conversion clearly, and the subsequent struggles and turn given to the current of his desires and efforts, by the counsels of the good old champion of the faith Kluker at Kiel, and the scene at Inn, with his two fellow travelers, Monod and Rieu; their reading in the word of God, the III of Ephesians, and the power with which the two last verses were set home. to his heart, says, "When I arose, in that inn-room at Kiel, I felt as if my 'wings were renewed as the wings of eagles.' From that time forward, I comprehended that my own efforts were of no avail; that Christ was to do all by his 'power that worketh in us,' and the habitual attitude of my soul was to lie at the foot of the cross, crying to Him, 'Here am I, bound hand and foot, unable to move, unable to do the least thing to get away from the enemy that oppresses me. Do all thyself. I know that thou wilt; thou wilt even do exceeding abundantly above all that I ask.'

MRS. ROGERS.

43

After all the record of her earlier contest, and earlier experience of sins forgiven, and after describing her heartsearchings, doubts, fears, desires, and efforts for true holiness, comes at last to the moment when she sees Christ to be all in all, and receives him. Then she says, "Lord, my soul is delivered of her burden. I am emptied of all. I am at thy feet, a helpless, worthless worm; but take hold of thee as my fulness! Everything that I want, thou art. Thou art wisdom,strength, love, hoiiness: yes, and thou art mine! I am conquered and subdued by love. Thy love sinks me into nothing; it overflows my soul. O, my Jesus, thou art all in all! In thee I behold and feel all the fulness of the Godhead mine. I am now one with God; the intercourse is open; sin, inbred sin, no longer hinders the close communion, and God is all my own. O, the depths of that solid peace my soul now felt!"

And this, like D'Aubigne she describes, not merely as the rapture of a favored hour, but as the habitual attitude of

I was not disappointed, all my doubts were soon dispelled, and not only was I delivered from that inward anguish which in the end would have destroyed me, had not God been faithful; but the Lord ' extended peace to me like a river.' Then I could comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height, and know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge,'" (filled with all the fulness of God.)

the soul, at the foot of the

cross.

"Yea, Christ all in all to me
And all my heart is love."
"With every coming hour
I prove

His nature and his name is
Jove."

Like David in his expressions of love to Jonathan when these dear friends parted in the field, Mrs. Rogers "excelled" in ardency of feelings and words, but in all that is essential there is not a single line of difference. Both are self-emptied, both prostrate in the dust at the foot of the cross; both accept Jesus as all in all, and find themselves conquerors, and more than conquerors through faith in his

name.

IN these sketches and references the first and great fact is that of full salvation through full trust in Jesus. This fact needs no proof. It is at once the provision and the demand of the gospel, and is of course the privilege and duty of all. The Apostle Paul lived in it himself, and commended it, and commanded it, to others. The apostles and primitive Christians generally enjoyed it from the day of Pentecost onward. There were exceptions certainly. The Galatians seem to have been turned aside from the fulness and simplicity of the faith. Having begun in the spirit, they thought to be made perfect by works, and the apostle wrote them with all plainness and urgency of speech, to induce them to look to Christ and Christ alone for holiness, telling them that he travailed in birth for them again, until Christ should be formed in them the hope of glory. And there were other churches beside those of Galatia

where, through the blindness of unbelief, they failed of the fulness of God. But, as a general thing, we hear only of the same life of faith in its fulness, and fulness of joy in all, until after the death of all the apostles, save John, and he exiled from the churches and shut up in the lone Isle of Patmos. Then, when the apostles were gone, and the days of miracles were ended, and inspired teaching ceased in the churches, and Satan began to be loosed,— then, in the epistles of him who walks in glory amidst the golden candlesticks, we have the first intimation that the light of the candles was beginning to grow dim.

And surely Luther and Baxter, Wesley and D'Aubigne, full and rich as their experience of grace and salvation was, had not outstripped Peter and John, Paul and Apollos! Neither have the Lutherans, as we have named them, or the Wesleyans, or Oberlinians, got beyond primitive Christians! Nay, if we shall carry the comparison back to the bright cloud of witnesses, who passed off before Christ's coming upon earth, as they are called up in array before us in the beautiful citation by the apostle in the eleventh of Hebrews, we shall hardly find the brightest of moderns outstripping these worthies of old, either in fulness of faith, or fulness of salvation. Going about, therefore, to prove that there is such an experience would be but a fool's work! If any one doubts, with the Bible in his hand, surely