that purpose ; “but,” said he “my heart was gone out of me, I could not utter a word. I left the meeting in that state, and went up among the rocks, where I cried for mercy, until God answered my prayer,” I afterwards learned that he had begun to observe family prayer; and when I asked him if he commenced that night after he returned home, he told me that he had remained among the rocks until four in the morning.

Another man, a cousin of the foregoing, said that after the movement commenced he was somewhat uneasy, but careless, nerertheless, He went to chapel, more disposed to scoff than to pray. When he opened the door, he found to his surprise that an acquaintance of his was praying; and the thought came to him with resistless power, “If that worldly-minded man has begun to pray it is time for me to consider my ways." The Holy Spirit had sent home this arrow of conviction. A new train of thought was awakened. His past sins came vividly before his mind. The remembrance of them was more than he could bear. He knew for a time the meaning of the Psalmist's words, “The sorrows of death compassed me about, and the pains of hell got hold upon me." He prayed and struggled until, after two days, relief came, and he is now one of the most decided of the converts.

A man, distinguished for his great bodily strength, has three brothers. Two of them have been Christians for many years; the third was converted a few months ago. Two of his sons were converted also. The eldest requested his father to commence family prayer; and if he would not conduct it himself, to permit him to do so. He refused, angrily, as men are apt to do when they are reminded of some duty which they are unwilling to perform, and yet feel they ought not to neglect. His conscience troubled him, however. He felt rebuked by the conduct of his son. The three brothers and the two sons met in a house on the other side of the street to pray for his conversion. They could not feel content to go to heaven, and leave him to perish. They prayed for him in turn, both brothers and sons, the eldest son with so much feeling that one of the brothers, to use his own words, “fairly broke down, and could not contain himself.” And while this was going on in one house, wbat was taking place in the other? The strong man, who knew not that they had met to pray for him, was paralyzed. He trembled till the house shook under him, and the perspiration was streaming from every pore. When he wanted a Bible, he could not stretch out his hand to take it. And in this state he continued until, as a little child, he was brought to receive the kingdom of God. As one of the brothers said, when describing how the son had been rendered instrumental in the father's conversion, “a stone from the sling of the stripling had slain the mighty Goliath."

Most remarkable of all the conversions, however, are those of two deaf and dumb women. Through the signs by which they hold their limited communication with others, they have been made acquainted with the movement going on around them. And now they give all the evidence which can be looked for in their case, that the truths of which they have been told have gladdened their own hearts. One of them, now over 80 years of age, presses her hand on her heart, and looks up to heaven with streaming eyes, thus telling in her own way how much she loves the Saviour; and all her deportment testifies that her profession is sincere.

We have left ourselves little space in which to speak of the moral results. Sulice it to say, that the Bible is now carefully read by those to whom it was a sealed book; that family altars have been erected in many households ; that old animosities have been extinguished ; that profane swearing has, for a time at least, nearly ceased ; that drunkenness has been greatly diminished; that during a week of the revival, an exciseman, who gauged the

spiritsellers' stocks, declared that scarcely a bottle of whisky had been sold among a people who are said to have spent £5,000 in one year in the purchase of strong drinks. Such results may safely be left to bear their own testimony as to the true character of the work.

We have only to add, that this, like other revivals, bears testimony to the power of prayer. For nine years a few Christians connected with different churches have met together, weekly, to pray for an outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Sometimes, owing to the engagements of the men, the meeting was left entirely to the female members. They conducted it nevertheless, and with so much profit, that they ventured some years ago to form an additional meeting of their own. These two meetings have been continued weekly; and as a minister who overheard the women told us, it was not ordinary prayer that they offered, it was agonizing prayer for the conversion of sinners. Thus they prayed, and, as the present movement shows, they have not prayed in vain. God, though he has borne long, has at length heard their cry, and done for them exceeding abundantly, above all that they either asked or thought. God grant that the reader, and many more, may be induced, by their cxample, to "go and do likewise."

JESUS CHRIST.

BY THE REV. C. LAROM. This is the name which is above every name. It is so because it belongs to one who, in nature, in character, and in position, is supreme. In a recent paper, entitled “ Christians,"* we considered his disciples; we now contemplate him. This changing of our subject is like passing from drops to the ocean ; from glowworms to the sun. But as, while we cavnot grasp the ocean, we love to look upon it from the beach, and watch its heaving, and listen to its roar; and as the sun, while it surpasses in many things our conceptions, makes us happy to see its light, and brings rich blessing in its beams; so it is pleasing and beneficial to contemplate Christ. It might seem unnecessary, therefore, that we should be urged to this ; but the inspired writers did not think so. One of them in particular, aware of the obtrusive power upon our minds of far inferior objects, and concerned to fix our complacent and inquiring thoughts upon the Saviour, said, “ Consider the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, Christ Jesus ; who was faithful to Him that appointed him.” In so short a paper as this we must narrow our great theme. We might confine ourselves to the consideration of Christ as the Apostle and High Priest of our profession; the character first mentioned being that with which he came into the world ; the other, that with which he left the world. Still our meditations would have too wide a range. We draw, therefore, a narrower limit, and restrain ourselves to the consideration of Christ's faithfulness in those characters. It was declared in prophecy concerning Jesus, that faithfulness should be the girdle of his reins; and it is affirmed that, as “the Apostle and High Priest of our profession,” he was faithful to Him that appointed him, the history concerning him being in agreement with the prediction.

* See The Chyrco, for March last.

! Christ was faithful to the character with which he came into the world. He came as “the Apostle." This name means one who is sent. He himself declared that the Father had sanctified him and sent him into the world ; and in prayer to his father on behalf of those who afterward were his apostles, he said, “ As thou bast sent me into the world, so have I also sent them into the world.” In submitting to be thus sent, he who was the Son of God, and “ who thought it not robbery to be equal with God,” willingly became for a time his Father's servant: and he was faithful in the work to which he was appointed. He was despatched to this world on a very great and gracious errand. The Almighty Father sent him to bless us, in turning us away from our iniquities : and as the Father's messenger, he performed all that was required of him. The faithfulness of his apostleship is particularly apparent in the view of what was needful thereto. It was requisite that he should leave heaven; not its footstool, but its throne, for it was its throne he occupied. It was necessary that he should come into the world, and assume our nature ; not that in that nature he might here repose, but that he might labour, suffer, and even die, bearing the curse for us. With reference to all this, Christ, in eternal covenant before the' world began, engaged to be his Father's servant, the messenger he should send ; and when the fulness of the time had come he was found faithful; the lapse of many ages had made no change in him; he had already left his diadem on the throne of supreme and unapproachable light, and was on his way to this world, to appear, for our salvation, in the likeness of man, saying, as he drew nigh, “Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, a body hast thou prepared me; lo, I come to do thy will O God.”

And though, as he foresaw, he found this a hard and an ungrateful world, yet he never drew back from the fulfilment of his engagement, but laboured in it till the work of his apostleship was done : and he did so, not supinely, but with a zeal that ate him up. The world's hatred did not damp his ardour; men's indifference to sacred and eternal things did not render him indifferent; he glowed notwithstanding their coldness; he was active in the midst of their torpor; burning with a perpetual and practical desire to bless and save; and he said to men, as they looked with astonishment at his diligence, “My meat is to do the will of Him that sent me, and to finish his work." The adored Saviour did indeed at last repose ; his sacred head rested in the quietude of Joseph's tomb; but that was not until the work of his apostleship was done. He said, “It is finished ;” and it was not till then that “he bowed his head and gave up the ghost.” Oh! brethren, consider Christ in the faithfulness of his apostleship, and be impelled thereby to the performance of whatever is justly required of you. In your voluntary baptism you made a solemn surrender of yourselves to Christ. With sacred joy you said, “'Tis done---the great transaction's done; I am my Lord's, and he is mine."

Be faithful to your engagement, in imitation of Christ, who was faithful to his. Be faithful from gratitude to Christ, who entered into those engagements in which he was faithful for your

sakes. For you he left heaven and came into the world, and, in human nature, laboured unto death in the work of his apostleship for you. Be ye true to him, in the affection of your hearts, in the tenor of your conduct, in the use of your time, your influence, your property, in your family and in the houses of your friends, in the workshop and in the counting-house, in the church and in the world, before his friends and before his foes ; from abounding gratitude be faithful to your Lord. Be true to him, that you at length may share with him the eternal recompense of fidelity. In consequence of his faithfulness in the work of his apostleship God has highly exalted him ; and Christ declares to all his followers that they also shall be raised high ; that he will presently say to them, as the gracious reward of fidelity in his service, “ Well done, enter into my joy.”

Christ was faithful to the character with which he left the world, when, having arisen from the dead, he ascended to heaven. He went thither as “the High Priest of our profession.” To the duties of that character he has been, and still is, faithful. The great importance of this to us is seen when we consider how much we are concerned in the due discharge of the duties of his priesthood. It devolves on Christ, as the High Priest of our profession, to officiate towards God in relation chiefly to our spiritual and eternal, and, therefore, of course, our highest interests; so that a failure on his part from the requirements of his priesthood would be attended with the most fearful consequences to us; and there can be no other high priest in the Christian church. When in the Jewish church a high priest was unfaithful, his death at least would presently relieve the people, who might hope to meet with fidelity in his successor. But Christ has no successor; he is “a priest for ever.” A want of faithfulness in him would leave us, therefore, without hope. But “he was faithful to Him that appointed him.”'

He did not, therefore, leave the world until he had offered the sacrifice. The most painful part of their work, who were priests under the law, seems to have been that of offering sacrifice. It must have grieved them to inflict death on sinless victims ; to see the simple dove, or tender lamb, or noble ox, for no fault whatever of their own, yet, under a sort of ceremonial curse, expire for the sins of the people, in bleeding agonies at their feet. Had the Jewish priests, in unfaithfulness, avoided any part of their work, we think it had been this. Much more might we think thus as to Christ. He, the High Priest of our profession, had to offer sacrifice ; a sacrifice that was to sustain not only the ceremonial curse, but also the real curse due to sin ; and that sacrifice was of himself. He was to be both priest and sacrifice ; was, not like the Jewish priests, to be pained by sympathy merely with the suffering victim, but to be himself the victim, the sufferer ; was to bear our sins, to be “ made a curse for us.”

How terrible this part of his priestly work was to him is apparent in his conduct in the garden of Gethsemane. It was night-the night on which he was betrayed. He had withdrawn into that garden with his disciples. He perceived that the time at which

his sacrifice would be demanded now drew nigh; and he began to be sore amazed, and to be very heavy, and his soul to be exceeding sorrowful unto death. The anguish of his spirit caused his perspiration to be profuse and strange, like gushing blood falling to the ground ; and in the silence of the night this prayer struggled from his heart and ascended from his lips : “Oh! my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt.” Thrice the agonizing suppliant presented his appeal. Oh! how much seemed pending during that prayer of his : "If it be possible, let this cup pass from me.” In the one scale there was Christ's escape from the cross ; in the other our escape from hell. On the one hand there was the Father's dearest love to Christ ; on the other, his compassion for perishing myriads of our hapless race. What an hour of awful suspense it seemed to be when Christ, in Gethsemane, said to his father, “If it be possible, let this cup pass from me." Happy angels might stand in eager silence to see what the result would be ; and the scale preponderated in our favour! We tell it in proof of Heaven's firmness to covenant engagements. We tell it to the honour of Heaven's superabundant mercy. We tell it for the encouragement of this world's transgressors, who are penitent. The scale in that solemn hour preponderated in our favour ; and when it was the will of Him who had appointed him that he should suffer, the Saviour, without a murmur, offered up himself. He went from Gethsemane, and, “ through the Eternal Spirit, offered himself, without spot, to God.” If he could have been unfaithful in any part of his priesthood it had surely been in this. But he did not leave the world until he had offered the sacrifice. He was faithful to Him that appointed him.

He did not decline from the work of his priesthood when he left the world, but went to fulfil it. In this he gives still further proof of his fidelity. His prayer in the garden that the cup might pass from him, proceeded not from any want of regard to his people, but from the overwhelming anguish of that hour; and after he had been made a sacrifice for their sins, he did not withhold himself from further efforts for them, as thinking he had done enough, but he was faithful to them and to his father, who, by appointing him to be a priest, had placed the work of their salvation in his hands. God raised up Jesus, and, in reward of his obedience unto death, set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places. It was a stupendous elevation, an infinite recompense, to which Christ was introduced ; filled with surpassing blessedness that might, had he been less benevolent, have absorbed his entire attention ; yet he ascended up, and entered into heaven, not merely to take possession of the glory, but, as the high priest under the law went with the blood of the sacrifice into the most holy place of the tabernacle on behalf of the people, so Christ, our High Priest, has entered with his own blood into heaven itself for us. This suggests the efficacy of his sacrifice, and shows his determination to go through with the great design for which it was offered. He will not permit anything to prevent; not even his own glorification. He will, on the contrary, make it subserve the complete redemption of his chosen. He will “ be faithful to Him that appointed him."