ASPIRATIONS-Hoiy.

Aspirations after the Holy-the only aspiration in which the human soul can be assured that it will never meet with disappointment. M. McIntosh.

As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after Thee, O God!

My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God when shall I come and appear before God?

ASSOCIATION-Law of.

Psalms.

trine of the Spirit's witness, freely and
fully; and their preaching was attended by
spiritual signs and wonders, unexampled in
modern times. Increasing thousands in
successive generations, down to the present
period, have professed this Divine assurance,
death. And whenever any great revival of
and have rejoiced in it, both in life and in
the work of God occurs, the fact of the
Spirit's testimony being received by con-
verts, is always made prominent. Thus
this doctrine of the Holy Spirit's witness
to the heart of the believer, is not new, as
some have set forth. It is as old as the
work of God in the souls of men; and has
been known and held in the Church from,
the beginning.
Dr. Jobson.

So subtle and so persuasive is this law of
association, that it is influential, even when
we are hardly conscious of its existence.
The chance word from the lips of a friend,
falling upon some nascent desire like a
spark upon tinder; the vision of some
grave or wise one, held up to the glance of
fancy so often, that it has become the ideal
model of the heart's aspiring; the music of
some old word greeting the ear with a ASSURANCE-Comfort of.
strange melody, have fixed the tone of a
spirit and have fashioned the direction of a
life. The world is just one unbroken chain

ASSURANCE-Benefit of.

It makes the firmest, the most active, the most useful, the holiest, the happiest, the most even and regular Christians

of these actions and reactions. We are

John Bate.

"Knowing in yourselves," saith the Apostle, "that ye have in heaven a better and a more enduring substance;" so our it is, "Know that in yourselves you have a translation renders it; but, in the original

bound by them; we are compassed by them; and we can no more escape from them than we can fling ourselves beyond the in-better and a more enduring substance in fluence of the law of gravitation, or refuse to be trammelled by the all-embracing air. W. M. Punshon.

ASSURANCE-taught in all Ages. The Church of England leads her people publicly to declare, “I believe in the forgiveness of sins." Her Homilies teach that "a true faith is a sure trust and confidence which a man hath in God, that, by the merits of Christ, his sins are forgiven, and he reconciled to the favour of God;" and, further, that "godly men feel inwardly God's Holy Spirit inflaming their hearts with love." Hence, Bishops, and eminent expounders in that Church, have set it forth plainly and positively. Bishops Reynolds, Pearson, and Andrews, Richard Hooker, Dr. Isaac Barrow, and many others, have done so. The Presbyterians and Puritans, from Calvin downwards, have taught it. John Bunyan, the Church's Allegorist, speaks of three shining ones coming to Pilgrim at the cross, and saluting him with "Peace." The first shining one he describes as saying to him, "Thy sins be forgiven thee;" the second, as stripping him of his rags, and clothing him with a change of raiment; and the third, as setting a mark upon his forehead, and giving him a roll with a seal upon it; which roll, or inward assurance, Christian lost in "pleasant harbour," where in unwatchfulness he slept at noonday. Wesley and Whitfield preached this doc

heaven" those that are assured of the truth of their own graces, have a heaven in themselves, a better and a more enduring substance in themselves; such discoveries of God, such sweet peace and tranquillity of soul, such overflowing joys of the Holy Ghost, that heaven itself is never able to bestow other kind of happiness than this is, though there they shall have it in further Bp. Hopkins. degrees and measure.

How sweet it is. This is the manna in the golden pot; the white stone, the wine of paradise which cheers the heart. How comfortable is God's smile! the sun is more refreshing when it shines out than when it is hid in a cloud; it is a prelibation and a foretaste of glory, it puts a man in heaven before his time; none can know how deli. cious and ravishing it is, but such as have felt it; as none can know how sweet honey is, but those who have tasted it.

ASSURANCE-in Death.

T. Watson.

It was at this momentous crisis that his (St. Paul's) faith approved itself,—not the leaf driven by the tempest, not the reed shaken with the wind,-but an oak, more deeply rooted, by the raging blasts of a thousand storms, and unmoved, wheu the last mighty whirlwinds were sweeping through its branches. He stands before us, in the attitude of calm Christian assurance,

ASSURANCE-Self-deception in.

The man who comes to assurance, and maintains it, while his conscience testifies of him that he is habitually declining in religious affections, living in the habitual neglect of known duty, or in the indulgence of actual sin, is one of the most fearful instances of self-deception in our world. J. A. James.

ATHEISM-Absurdity of.

The celebrated astronomer, Kircher, having an acquaintance who denied the existence of God, took the following method to convince him of his error; he procured a very handsome globe, or representation of the starry heavens, which he placed in a corner of the room, to attract his friend's observation, who, when he came, asked from whence it came, and to whom it belonged. "Not to me," said Kircher, "nor was it ever made by any person, but came here by mere chance." "That," replied his sceptical friend, "is absolutely impossible; you surely jest." Kircher, however, seriously persisting in his assertion, took occasion to reason with his friend on his own atheistical principles. "You will not believe," said he, "that this small body originated in mere chance, and yet you would contend that those heavenly bodies, of which it is but a faint resemblance, came into existence without order or design." Pursuing this train of reasoning, his friend was at first confounded, next convinced, and cordially confessed the absurdity of denying the existence of a God. W. Nicholson.

and rapid flight, to avoid the light which illuminates its eyes; so-

"Forth from his dark and murky hiding place

(Portentous sight) the owlet Atheism,

Sailing on obscene wings athwart the

noon,

Drops his blue-fringed lids, and holds them
close,

And hooting at the glorious sun in heaven,
Cries out-WHERE IS IT ?" S. T. Coleridge.
ATHEISM-Modern.

The atheism of this age is chiefly founded
upon the absurd fallacy that the idea of law
in nature excludes the idea of God in nature.
As well might they say the code of Napoleon
in France, excludes the idea of Napoleon
from France. To me, no intuition is clearer
than this, that intelligent control every-
where manifests the presence of a ruling
mind. To me, physical law, in its perma-
nence, expresses the immutable persistence
of His will; in its wise adjustments, the
infinite science of His intellect; in its
kindly adaptations, the benevolence of His
heart.
S. Coley.

ATHEISM-An Objection of.

"If God has spoken, why is not the universe convinced ?" asked Shelley, in the necessarily brief days of a poet's atheism, This query has been repeated by every atheist down to George Jacob Holyoake, who has repeated it in his "Trial of Theism." Why is not the universe convinced? The universe is convinced. So convinced are men of God, that they treat those who doubt or deny His existence as madmen to be pitied or confined, idiots to be laughed at, or wretches to be regarded with horror. Why is not the universe convinced? In the lofty language of the Psalmist: "There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard. Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world." It is useless to urge that there is a sentence in Strabo which refers to some barbarous tribe that had no conception of God; or that a missionary has somewhere met with a handful of half-human beings in the same pitiable condition. Is it from absolute brutality that the atheist has learned his creed? The very poverty of the list is an answer to the argument that would be founded upon it. Are these all? Then the paltriness of the exceptions proves the rule. In the height of his culture the olden Greek erected an altar, and when Paul stood on Mars Hill he could appeal to that presentiment of the Unknown God, which lives in the consciousness of mankind. The owl in its course in the calm and The sable Numidian, however he may symbeautiful moonlit evening, takes an athwart | bolise Him, however gross his conception

It would be as wise for a man to say that all the railways in Great Britain were constructed and kept in working order by a company of ants; or that the city of London was built and occupied by a race of beavers; as to say that this universe was made and kept in being by the laws of chance, or anything else, apart from Him to whom, both alike are justly attributed. John Bate.

ATHEISM-Blindness of.

of Him, worships God. The Persian saw God in the sun, the fire. The colonists of Columbus's newly discovered western world found the savage aborigines worshipping God; and Europe, with this her nineteenth century civilisation, with one accord bows before the throne of the Invisible God. Down from the far, far ages, from the infancy of the world and of the human race, comes a voice from the heart of humanity. Its utterances in the past are recorded by the iron pen of history; it thunders in our very ears in the present; it speaks of God. And we are asked to believe that the great heart of humanity lies-has always lied! It does not lie, it has not lied. God exists, and before Him have I knelt, and with all the fervour of which my nature is capable, have I poured out my soul in gratitude to Him, for that He has rescued me from the horrible pit, the blinding creed of atheism. W. Bebbington.

ATHEISM-Theft of.

Atheism is the highest theft against God, because it would steal from Him not sua, sed se, His goods, but Himself; proceeding further than "Deus hæc non curat," to" Deus non est," than to say, "God will not regard it;" but, "there is no God to regard it." These offer not only a wicked hand to their own conscience, to scrape out the deep-engraven and indelible characters of the Divinity there, but a sacrilegious hand to heaven, as if they would empty it of Deity, and pull Jehovah out of His throne and make Him a non ens.

ATHEIST-Belief of the.

T. Adams.

He must believe in a thousand anomalies which he cannot reconcile with reason; in contradictions and impossibilities without number; in effects which are greater than their causes, and in the greatest of effects being produced without a cause; and all this that he may escape from the sound and natural conclusions of reason; that he may close his eyes to the light which beams everywhere upon him, from satellite and planet, and sun and system, reflected in the voiceless but soul-speaking eyes of millions of intelligent creatures; that he

may shut his ears to the voices that are

ever and anon rising up with the sound of nature's harmonies-in the hum of insects, the songs of birds, the murmur of restless waters, the wild roaring of thunders and tempests, and the thousand thousand articulations of intelligent creatures"THERE IS A GOD WHO CREATED ALL THINGS."

ATHEIST-Description of the.

T. Ragg.

An atheist, if you take his word for it is a very despicable mortal. Let us de

scribe him by his tenet, and copy him a
little from his own original. He is, then,
no better than a heap of organised dust, a
stalking machine, a speaking head without
a soul in it. His thoughts are bound by
the laws of motion, his actions are all pre-
scribed. He has no more liberty than the
current of a stream, or the blast of a tem-
pest; and where there is no choice there
can be no merit.
J. Collier.

ATHEIST-a Difficulty of the.

To make this out, that there is no God, he would need to travel abroad over the surrounding universe, till he had exhausted it, and to search backward through all the hidden recesses of eternity; to traverse in every direction the plains of infinitude, and itself interminable; and then bring back sweep the outskirts of that space which is to this little world of ours the report of a universal blank, wherein he had not met with one movement of a presiding God. to sink beneath the level of our common For man not to know of a God, he has only nature. But to deny Him, he must be ubiquity and omniscience of the Godhead. a god himself. He must arrogate the

ATHEIST-Doom of the.

Dr. Chalmers.

There is one quality that I have remarked in every atheist-at least every

contented atheist-that I have met with.

This is a predominance of intellect, a penury of feeling. When I say predominance I do not mean an absolute predominance; there is a disproportion in the relative development of intellect and feeling. They are cold and passionless-no warmth, no phantasy-nothing can move, nothing can excite them. They are impassive as marble. Show me a contented atheist, and I will show you a man who never wept over a tragedy, who never felt an enthusiastic burst of joy. I could always feel enraptured with those Hebrew Psalms-now a

dirge of sorrow, now a glorious burst of triumph. I have read over and over again that wondrous drama contained in the book of Job, which towers away among the loftiest poesy in the world, and almost