ever, and my holy name shall the house of Israel no more defile, neither they, nor their kings, by their whoredom, nor by the carcases of their kings in their high places" (Ezek. xliii. 7). "And I will overthrow the throne of kingdoms, and I will destroy the strength of the kingdoms of the heathen; and I will overthrow the chariots and those that ride in them; and the horses and their riders shall come down, every one by the sword of his brother" (Hag. ii. 22). “And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed; and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever” (Dan. ii. 44). “And wisdom and knowledge shall be the stability of Thy times, and strength of salvation" (Isa. xxxiii. 6). "My heart is inditing a good matter: I speak of the things which I have made touching the King; my tongue is the pen of a ready writer. Thou art fairer than the children of men; grace is poured into Thy lips; therefore God hath blessed Thee for ever. . . . Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever; the sceptre of Thy kingdom is a right sceptre" (Psa. xlv. 1, 2, 6). "Behold, a King shall reign in righteousness, and princes shall rule in judgment" (Isa. xxxii 1). "Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and a King shall reign and prosper, and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth. In His days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely; and this is the name whereby He shall be called, THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS. Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that they shall no more say, The Lord liveth, which brought up the children of Israel ont of the land of Egypt; but, The Lord liveth, which brought up and which led the seed of the house of Israel out of the north country, and from all countries whither I had driven them; and they shall dwell in their own land" (Jer. xxiii. 5-8). "Behold, your house is left unto you desolate," said the rejected Redeemer when He was about to leave the people that rejected Him and depart to a far country. "For I say unto you, ye shall not see Me henceforth, till ye shall say, Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord" (Matt. xxiii. 38, 39). This was actually a promise to return. And in the day of Israel's approaching extremity it will be performed, and they shall say: "Lo, this is our God; we have waited for Him, and He will save us; this is the Lord; we have waited for Him, we will be glad and rejoice in His salvation" (Isa. xxv. 9). Nathanael, the Israelite indeed, only anticipated his restored nation when he exclaimed, "Rabbi, thou art the Son of God; thou art the King of Israel" (John i. 49).

Accepting the plain and obvious meaning of all these passages, they cannot but remind us of David's joyful words: "Glorious things are spoken of thee, O city of God!" (Psa. lxxxvii. 3). And they cannot but suggest to us that glorious events are before us. The purpose for which the world was created must be realised.

When the King of Israel ascends His throne all despotisms must fall, for the throne of iniquity, that frameth mischief by law, can have no fellowship with Him. A perfect whirlwind of revolutions will shortly shake all nations; "And the loftiness of man shall be bowed down, and the haughtiness of men shall be made low; and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day. And the idols He shall utterly abolish. And they shall go into the holes of the rocks, and into the caves of the earth, for fear of the Lord, and for the glory of His majesty, when He ariseth to shake terribly the earth" (Isa. ii. 17-19). For "the Lord shall cause His glorious voice to be heard, and shall show the lighting down of His arm, with the indignation of His anger, and with the flame of a devouring fire, with scattering, and tempest, and hailstones" (Isa. xxx. 30).

The treasury of prophecy is full of wonders, and when they shall begin to show themselves, the alarmed world, and that great hypocrisy that walks arm in arm with it-the nominal Churchwill discover, when it is too late to get the full benefit of the lesson, that it had been better to have listened to the Word of God. What an amazing sifting there will be of the ways of men when the King of Israel, the Lord of all, sits upon His throne judging righteously! What a marvellous destruction of the world's politics and diplomacies! What an exposure of its hollowness, falsehoods, selfishness, folly, and pride! What a revelation of the many-sided impostures with which it cheats itself and all who foolishly trust it! What a clearing up of the perplexing mysteries of humanity and society! What a reversal of our verdicts and a setting aside of our boasted wisdom! What a putting down of the mighty and a setting up of the lowly! and everywhere what justice, righteousness, and truth! The day of the Lord's power will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and establish truth and equity in the earth. The terrible confusion that prevails everywhere must flee before the face of the Great King; and the REFINER's fire will consume the enormous piles of wood, hay, and stubble, that the long ages of ecclesiastical apostasy have gathered in His name. But oh, how glorious when all this is over, and a world, rescued from the Destroyer, and basking in the light of purity, peace, righteousness, and joy, is beheld by the KING ON HIS THRONE.

EDITOR.

0

LINES WRITTEN MARCH 4TH, 1882.

GREAT UNSEEN! accept adoring thanks!
No cloud by day nor fire by night has gone
Before Thy lowly worshipper, to point
The way of safety. But Thy hand has led,

As surely as shekinah pillar could,

Through cares and toils and dangers manifold,
And I this day am threescore years and ten!
What, seventy? I, whose little shroud was sewn
By trembling fingers, when the mother's eyes,
Dim with the tears her dying babe evoked,
Scarce saw the needle that performed the work?
I, the soft breathing atom, only fit,

When the last breath is sighed upon the air,
To fill a tiny space in churchyard dust?

But what is power or weakness to the Lord ?
"The angels that excel in strength" are weak
When measured with Omnipotence; the child
That cannot move upon its little bed

Has more than angel's might when God sustains.
His will through frailty whispers vital force,
Or weakens manhood's noon-day energy.
The orient shepherd on his shoulders bears
The feeble lamb, and puts it in the fold.
Thus tenderly the Shepherd of the flock,
Sought out and purchased by redeeming love,
Deals with the helpless and afflicted ones.
O Thou who seest all, Thyself unseen,
How patient is Thy heart! To bear with me.
Through all these years, and bear me safely through
Dangers of every kind, demands my praise.
Madness alone can say that Thou art not!

I bless Thee that Thy Being is my joy,

For Thou art Love and Light, and God in Christ,
My Saviour, Shepherd, Leader, Lord and Life!
Alas! I mourn unfeignedly to-day,

That such a Master I have served so ill.
I should have felt it noblest privilege
To speak and write of Him the "Wonderful"
The great Unique, Immanuel, God with us.

And so I have at times, when holy love

Warm from the Spirit's breath, baptized my heart,
And set my tongue at blessed liberty.

Such times have been to me the certitude-
Better than all scholastic arguments-

That Christ's grand Gospel is no myth or dream,

But the deep sea of wisdom infinite;

The shoreless, boundless ocean of that love,
Which from eternity has yearned to make
The sons of men divinely beautiful,
In the true likeness of the Son of God,
To make all regions of creation pure,
To make the world a glorious paradise.

Such themes as these, seen in the light they pour
Upon the loyal intellect, are fit

To kindle into thrilling eloquence

An angel's tongue. But how much more should man,
The special object of this wealth of love,

Feel it his glory to receive the truth,

And thus receiving, glow to make it known!

The Church, the Kingdom, God, and Christ, and man!
Dull, lifeless, pointless, talk on these great themes?
The drowsy speech that lulls the pew to sleep,
When the Redeemer's work and character
Are in the Book beneath the speaker's eye?
O shame! O sin! O scandal marvellous!
Official talk without the glowing fire

That burns true words into the hearts of men-
As did the MASTER'S on that holy eve
Of which the history tells-official talk,
That has no higher aim, no nobler spring,
Than Sunday duty and the quarter's pay,
Is sad indeed, a double sacrilege

That robs both God and men! O Master, loved,
Would I had served Thee better! Yet Thou hast
Oft made me glad by proofs of hearts made glad.
By words and thoughts through me -the glory Thine!
With me the eve has come: Lord, make it "light
At evening time," if such Thy gracious will.
But whether ligbt or dark, one thing I crave:
THY GLORY IN THY KINGDOM LET ME SEE!

EDITOR.

MY

THE PRESENCE OF GOD.

· Whither shall I go from Thy Spirit, or whither shall I flee from Thy

presence?"-Psa. cxxxix. 7.

Y object in this paper is simply to echo the desire of the Apostle Peter in stirring up the minds of Christian brethren, by putting them in remembrance of holy truths, which, though known, are not always retained.

God has at sundry times and in divers manners made known His presence to man. An inestimable act of Divine munificence. I may say, in fact, that the entire revelation of God in His Book presents us with His design to make Himself manifest; and though it be true that "He dwells in light that no man can approach unto," yet faith is demanded in His being, and that "He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him." It has, moreover, been written four thousand years after the creation, that "No man hath seen GOD at any time." Yet it is added, that "the only begotten Son from the bosom of the Father,

He hath declared Him." Of this declaration I have more to say anon ; it will, however, be plain that God, though He did not of old reveal Himself personally, did by sundry material and visible symbols-Israel invariably walked by sight-and angelic representations make His presence to be comprehended. In point of fact, if this main purpose of the Godhead be overlooked in the perusal of the Bible, its pages will prove dark indeed.

II. Of all the delights and blessings that the first Adam and his Eve must have been possessed of in their innocence in Eden, none could in any way have equalled the supreme joy of the presence of, and happy communion with, the Divine Author of their being, and Creator of all the fascinating wonders by which they were surrounded. Who is sufficient for an attempt to depict such scenes, or the condition of the then happy pair who were sensitively appreciative of such marvels! But the brightness, and the glory, and the consciousness of innocence all vanished as a vision when, having imbibed sin, and hearing the, now too familiar, "voice of the Lord God," they "hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden!"

Cain seems, even in his fallen state, to have had some perception of the magnitude of the bitter void thus entailed by being "driven from the face of the earth" and the face of the Lord God; for he had surely learnt of Eden's joys from his parents; and as he "went out from the presence of the Lord," there must have been the sense of the loss of a guardian power that had hitherto surrounded the family, though now in its symbolised form of cherubim and fire it barred the return to the tree of life!

III. Abram enjoyed the peculiar and exalted privilege of the presence of God when the nations of the earth were steeped in the idolatry of false gods. The manifestation of Himself as "the God of glory" (Acts vii. 2) was evidently a determinate purpose of the Most High for the display of that moral pre-eminence, personal and national honour combined with territorial aggrandisement, which He would confer on Abram, in sublime contrast with, as well as for the extinction of his predisposition for the prevailing idolatry, from which neither commendable principles nor substantial blessings could be obtained. This Divine purpose we shall see about to be realised on a more extended scale when the subject of the presence of God in the kingdom in the person of His glorified Son comes before us; although this latter will be but the antitypical reality of the glory fore-presented to the patriarch in Mesopotamia.

The promise to Abram, invested, as it must have been, with a halo intensified by the presence of "the God of glory," at once decided him to separate himself from everything connected with idolatry, to "get out of his country, and from his kindred, and go into the land to which God would lead him." In consequence of obedience, Abraham afterwards enjoyed very much of the presence of God and personal communion with Him. To give but one instance-what could exceed the moral splendour of that Divine communication, which resulted first of all from Abram's interview, as stated in Gen. xiii. 14-18, giving him power afterwards to resist the evil suggestions of the King of Sodom? (chap. xiv. 21-23). Mark the crowning words, "Fear not, Abram, I am thy shield and exceeding great reward!" (chap. xv. 1) but on all the