But again, Is there anything in your daily path or allowed in yourself, that is not "acceptable unto the Lord"? If so (suffer one to exhort you and himself too) judge it, have done with it, refuse it, and do all this at once; and why? You are risking the loss of the Lord's present favour and company with you. To lose the sense of these is to lose all that is worth living for in this world. To have to tread this world alone! What a cheerless blank the Christian life would be. And I do tread it alone if Christ is not practically with me, and this when I may be looked upon by others as a pious person.

Is it an established truth for our hearts that the Lord has not only dealt with and settled the question of our sins, but that now the desire of His heart is to be with us--daily--continually near; the One I can consult in every difficulty, and on whose love I can rest all the day long? What is my Christianity worth, if it does not minister these to my soul? To have Christ (as He was at Bethany) at home

with me on earth, is only surpassed by one thing, namely, the blessed future, when I shall be at home with Him in heaven. (John xiv. 3.)

H. C. A.

HOW DOES ONE GET

HEART-REST?

I HAVE been interested in your question, as to how one gets soul and heartrest. First there must be rest to the conscience-"I will give you rest." There is not full rest until liberty is known; that is, that I am free from the law of sin and death. "For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath set me free from the law of sin and of death." (Rom. viii. 2.)

Then there is an assured sense of welcome to the Father's house. There is making merry in the heart because of His reception. But this is all outside this scene, and only enjoyed as one is in heart there. The Father is the conworld, and His love

trast to the

preserves from the world.

The world and His love are not compatible.

But even though this be known, I do not believe it gives rest of heart. I believe that there is only rest of heart as one enjoys the company of the Lord in details down here. I have a companion who knows me perfectly, loves me perfectly, and whose power is unlimited. It is the knowledge of Christ which satisfies the heart of the pilgrim. "For whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung that Christ may be my gain." When we have learnt the value of His company in our own circumstances we enjoy a continuance of it in the holiest, which is our new sphere. As we know Him in our own sphere, and find His love better than wine, we could not be in His own sphere apart from Him, and we know our union with Him there.

The stages of the soul are: first, justification, when the love of God is shed abroad in my heart by the Holy

Ghost which He hath given me. I know the Father's reception; my state then is liberty-justification of life. It is literally finding true of myself that which is true for me. In liberty I am in the full work of the Saviour. another great field of blessing is opened out to my soul. It is that my Saviour is my Priest. The Saviour had to do with sins and sin. The priest has to do with my infirmity.

Now

It is Christ in His sympathy who satisfies my heart in this untoward place; as Mary found in John xi. ; as indeed the disciples found so fully that they could say they lacked nothing.

It is simply wonderful the solace the heart finds in Christ when He is known in His sympathy. "His left hand under my head, his right hand doth embrace me." It is the nursing that attaches the child to the mother, even more than the relationship, though, of course, the relationship is greater. It is the tenderness of the Lord's nursing that attaches our hearts to Him, though His saving us is more; and it

is really the nearness which we enjoy in His tender care of us that deepens in our hearts His greatest work in dying for us.

It is when we are thus attached to Him that the gospel of glory is really appreciated by us; for the great thing in entering into it is, that we are conformed into the same image.

There is nothing so gratifying to a devoted heart as to be like its object; then to be united to Him; to know it is the crown of everything. The heart is perfectly restful, and in concert with Him does His pleasure.

THOUGHTS FOR THIS DAY.

THE EFFECTS WHICH SPRING FROM UNION WITH CHRIST.

us."

"WE love him because he first loved His love to us is the origin and spring of all our love to Him. Hence the better and more fully we know His love and can enter into it, the better we love Him,