SONGS IN THE PRISON HOUSE.

livered Israel. But alas! he was dead

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he was

gone, and Israel was not delivered. A Saviour passed away, mighty in word and deed, but gone not with them.

A

O, how different from Pentecost onward. Saviour ever with them. Mighty in word and deed, and always present. Always directing them where to go; always, in every moment of trial, putting words into their hearts which all their adversaries could not gainsay nor resist; always, in every temptation, making a way of escape; always hearing their cries unto Him; always giving power to their words, spoken in weakness; always gladdening their hearts, even in dungeons and in the stocks, and in the fires and under the scourge.

Paul and Silas, with their bodies lacerated, bloody, sore and stiff in their gore from the terrible scourge laid upon them each forty strokes, save one,- thrust into the inner prison, and their feet made fast in the stocks; were yet happier there in their prayers and praises to a present Saviour, than the eleven were in their liberty and in their safety, with all the assurance that Jesus was risen from the dead which their own eyes, from seeing him, and their own hands, from feeling the print of the nails and the print of the spear, could give them, while yet their faith was not sufficient to see and feel and know that he was present with them in invisible reality and power.

To know that Jesus is with us, and that He will

keep us by His own power, and wash us in His own blood, and lead us by His own hand, and uphold us from falling, or lift us when fallen, and watch over us day and night — our Shield, our Friend, our Shepherd and King, our God and Saviour! O, this is the crowning happiness of the Christian's heart and the Christian's life in this the house of his pilgrimage! Give me rather to stand with the three in the furnace seven times heated, and the Son of Man with me there; or with Daniel in the den of lions, and Jesus with me there; yea, a thousand times rather, than to recline or walk, or feast, in the palace of a king, if the King of kings be not with mc there!

From this contrast of the two states and stages of experience, as they affect the Christian in his own heart and life,—giving to his course the cast of sadness and sighing under bondage in the one case, and 1 of exultant joys in the glorious liberty of conscious deliverance in the other, we must now pass to these things as they affect the Christian in the power of his usefulness as a soldier of the cross, and as a worker together with God in the spread of His gospel. But this must form the subject of another chapter

CHAPTER VI.

THE HARMONY.

DANGER, DUTY AND DELIGHT:

OR, THE CUMULATIVE PROGRESS, AND CUMULATIVE POWER OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE.

"THE FEAR OF THE LORD IS THE BEGINNING OF WISDOM.

"THY STATUTES HAVE BEEN MY SONGS IN THE HOUSE OF MY PILGRIMAGE.”

"YE SHALL RECEIVE POWER AFTER THAT THE HOLY GHOST IS COME UPON YOU; AND YE SHALL BE WITNESSES UNTO ME IN JERUSALEM AND IN ALL JUDEA AND IN SAMARIA, AND UNTO THE UTTERMOST PART OF

THE EARTH.

THE contrast drawn in the seventh and eighth of Romans, between the Law and the Gospel is strong. And just, too.

The law, to those who cling to it and reject the grace of God, hoping to be saved by their own merits and works, does work bondage and death.

While the gospel, to those who receive it does work liberty and life.

Nevertheless there is no antagonism between the two, but harmony rather, and union, and power in the union.

In the husbandry of the farm, the drill and not the plow, gives the crop. If the land were left as the plow leaves it, there would be no crop, but of thistles and weeds. The plow destroys every living thing, tearing all up root and branch, and burying all under the ground. While the drill plants the seed, and under the blessing of God, ensures a golden harvest and a full garner. The farmer might plow his ground ten times, or a hundred times over, and yet never have a harvest if that were all he should do. Nevertheless there is no antagonism between the plow and the drill. It takes both to make the land yield to the diligent hand its reward.

In the husbandry of the kingdom, the law is the plow, and the gospel is the drill. And the deeper the plow is put in the better the crop, provided only that the drill follows in due time, casting in seed in abundance.

It is in the nature of Christian experience to accumulate power as it progresses from stage to stage.

There are three stages of experience in the life of every one redeemed to God. Conviction, submission, sanctification. And there are three motives corresponding, by which the Holy Spirit germinates, advances and perfects the divine life of the soul, — danger, duty and delight.

LEIGH RICHMOND.

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A sense of danger first startles the careless one from his senseless slumbers and arouses him to flee from the wrath to come.

A sense of duty next rises into supremacy and constrains him to submit his own works and ways to God's.

And at last a sense of delight in the Lord and his ways becomes the absorbing and dominant motive in the heart and life, perfecting obedience in love.

In each there is power, and all the power there is in each and in all is accumulated by him who gains all.

The second absorbs the first, and the third the second. The sense of danger seems to become lost when the sense of duty becomes strong, and the sense of duty seems in its turn to be lost when it is transmuted by the grace of God into delight. Nevertheless not a particle of either is lost.

Leigh Richmond began his course as a clergyman of the church while yet he was in his sins, and knew no better. After a time he was awakened to a sense of his peril and guilt. Then he began preaching in the power of his convictions, and his people were preached by him into conviction, and under condemnation like himself. There they stopped. He could lead them no farther. He had not found the way out himself. How should he lead others out?

A year or two afterwards, however, the way was