atmosphere, which God has wrapped round this world, there is much more health than sickness, much more food than famine, much more life than death, so in the Bible there is much more love than terror. The terror is not only subordinate to love, but subservient to it. God, indeed, tells us of hell, but it is to persuade us to go to heaven; and, as a skillful painter fills the background of his picture with his darker colors, God puts in the smoke of torment and the black clouds of Sinai, to give brighter prominence to Jesus, the cross of Calvary, and his love to the chief of sinners. His voice of terror is like the scream of the mother bird when the hawk is in the sky. She alarms her brood that they may run and hide beneath her feathers; and as I believe that God had left that mother dumb unless he had given her wings to cover her little ones, I am sure that He, who is very "pitiful," and has no pleasure in any creature's pain, had never turned our eyes to the horrible gulf unless for the voice that cries, "Deliver from going down to the pit, for I have found a ransom." We had never heard of sin had there been no Saviour; nor of hell had there been no heaven. "Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof;" and never had Bible light been flashed before the eyes of the sleeping felon to wake him from his happy dream, but that he might see the smiling form of Mercy, and hear her, as she says with pointing finger, "Behold, I have set before thee an open door." God's Motive in Salvation. I do this for mine holy name's sake.-EZEKIEL Xxxvi. 22. THERE is a land lying beneath a burning sky, where the fields are seldom screened by a cloud, and almost never refreshed by a shower; and yet Egypt-for it is of it I speak-is as remarkable for the fertile character of its soil as for the hoar antiquity of its history. At least, it was so in days of old, when hungry nations were fed by its harvests, and its fields were the granaries of ancient Rome. Powers so prolific Egypt owed to the Nile-that river whose associations carry us upward to the beginning of all human history--upon whose banks, in the sepulchers of forgotten kings, stand the proudest monuments of human vanity-a river, the very name of which recalls some of the grandest scenes that have been acted on the stage of time. The Nile is Egypt; in the course of long ages it has deposited her soil, and by an annual overflow it maintains her fertility. The limits of that flood are the limits of life and verdure; and without her Nile -that great artery of vegetable life-she would be another Sahara--a vast expanse of burning and barren sands. Humbled as she now is, let this gift of heaven be improved, as of old, by the skill and industry of her inhabitants, and, vivified by a free and Christian government, Egypt would rise from the sepulchers of her kings, and take a place once more in the van of nations. The Truth shall prove her re surrection. The Gospel shall restore her to life and prosperity; and the day is coming when that landrich now only in memories of the past, famous now only for her temples and gods, her pyramids and dusty tombs, for her throne of the Pharaohs, for her sacred stream, for the wonders God wrought of old in the field of Zoan, and, most dear above all to Christian hearts, for the asylum she opened to an infant Saviour-shall fulfill a noble destiny. Her day ap proaches. These prophecies regarding her wait their accomplishment-"The Lord shall be known in Egypt;" and, "Blessed be Egypt, my people." From the earliest ages the source of this famous river was regarded with intensest interest. Whence it sprung, and how its annual flood was swelled, were the subjects of eager but ungratified curiosity. One traveler after another had attempted to reach its cradle, and had failed or fallen in the attempt; and when-forcing his way upwards through many difficulties, and traveling along its banks, from where, by many mouths, it disgorged its waters into the sea, till its ample volume had shrunk into the narrowness of a mountain stream-our hardy countryman at length stood beside the long sought for fountain, he won for himself, by the achievement, an immortal reputation. I can fancy the pride with which, first of travelers, he looked on that mysterious fountain. How sweet its waters tasted! How he enjoyed his triumph, as he sat down by the cradle of a river, which had fed the millions of successive generations, and in days long gone by had saved in famine the race which gave a Redeemer to the world! Now, what this river, which turns barren sänds into the richest soil, is to Egypt, the Gospel of Jesus Christ is to the world. It flows through the earth, the "river of the waters of life." Whether they now bloom in heaven, or are still in the nurseries of earth, every plant of grace owes to the Gospel its existence and renown. Observe, however, that although the parent of those harvests which angels shall reap and the heavens receive-no more in the case of the Gospel than of the Nile does the bounty of heaven suspend or supersede human exertions. No; but on earth's improvement of heaven's bounty the blessings of both are commonly suspended. "The hand of the diligent maketh rich :" and as it is according to the industry or indolence of the inhabitants, that the Nile flows through barren sands, or waters smiling fields, so is it with the Gospel. It is a blessing only where it is sedulously and prayerfully improved, and when, like the overflowings of the Nile, which are conducted along their channels to irrigate its shores, those living waters, through the use of means, are turned on our hearts and habits. "Not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified." Now, if it is interesting to trace a Nile or Amazon to its source, how much more interesting to a Christian. to explore the stream of eternal life, and trace it upward till we have reached the fountain. Bruce discovered-or thought he had discovered-the springs of Egypt's river: he found them away among cloudcapped mountains, at an elevation of many thousand feet above the plains they watered. Great men have been born in humble circumstances; but all great rivers boast of their lofty descent. It is when the traveler has left smiling valleys far beneath him, and toiling along rugged glens, and, pressing through deep mountain gorges, he at length reaches the chill shores of an icy sea, that he stands at the source of the Alpine river, which, cold as the snows that feed it, and a full grown stream at its birth, rushes out from the caverns of the hollowed glacier. But with that lofty birthplace it is only a humble image of salvation. How high its source! "He showed me a pure river of wa ter of life, clear as crystal, proceding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb." The stream of mercy flows from the throne of the Eternal; and here we seem to stand by its mysterious fountain: in contemplating the words of the text, we look upon its spring-"I do this for mine holy name's sake." In now entering on the question, What moved God to save man? let user A I. Attend to the expression, "my name's sake." This is a most comprehensive term. It indicates much more than what, in common language, is involved in a name. No doubt a name may sometimes convey much meaning. "Adam," for instance, means 'clay;" made of earth, he receives a name that reminds him of his origin. "Isaac," again, means "laughter;" and in her son's name God rebuked Sarah for the merriment with which, when listening with a woman's curiosity behind the door, she heard of her coming child, and of fruit growing on such an old and withered stock as she was. "Moses," again, means "drawn from the water;" and his name reminded him, who was to deliver others, how he himself had been delivered from death. And in the name "Jesus," our Lord received a name that revealed his office and anticipated his work-the angel said, "Thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall save his |