(Lives of Robert and James Haldane; Third Edition. London: Hamilton, 1853; page 78.)

No doubt very many who have at last truly come to Christ have been hindered for a while, like James Haldane in their coming to Him, by thus seeking some inward feeling instead of simply believing the Word of God which tells us of Him.

A poor woman in deep depression, because of severe bodily illness combined with much trouble in her soul, was visited by a kind Christian friend, all whose efforts, however, to bring her into joy and peace in believing were for the time in vain. But as she was leaving her she took from her pocket and gave to her a copy of the Gospel of St. John

one of the little penny portions of Scripture of the Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge-in which she had marked many verses while using it herself. The poor woman after her friend had left her read through the first chapter, but found nothing in it to suit her case, and through the second with no better result, and still read on till she came to the sixteenth verse of the third chapter, which was one of the verses her friend had underlined :

"God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him might not perish but have everlasting life.”

The underlining made her notice this particularly, and the blessed Spirit sent it home to her heart, and she accepted God's gift of his Son, and had eternal life in Him, and knew it (1 John v. 11-13), and rejoiced at once with a measure of the joy unspeakable and full of glory, which they have who do believe in Him (1 Peter i. 8).

Her friend coming to her again a day or two afterwards saw in her face the blessedness she had now in her heart, as a new creature in Christ; old

things passed away, and behold, all things become new. But the poor woman wanted to tell her of it also in words. So she began: "I've found! I've found" but what it was she had found she could not find words to tell; and no wonder, if an inspired. Apostle had to say of it, "Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift" (2 Cor. ix. 15). So she took up the little penny Gospel, and holding it up, with her finger on the verse that had been blessed to the setting her soul at liberty, she said as the best way she could take to make her friend know what she had found-"I believe that! I believe that." And in so saying, no doubt, she was expressing more scripturally the blessedness of what God had done for her than if she had expatiated ever so fully on the spiritual happiness in which she was now so greatly rejoicing as the first fruits of this her truebecause consisting of heart-belief (Rom. x. 10) of the simple word of God-conversion.

May the dear Lord give to every one of us who have to do with this book, whether as writer or reader, to have the same heart-belief in that one sweet sentence of the teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ, and nothing else is needed for our true conversion. For it is not possible to receive such love of God to us into our heart without loving Him with the heart in return (1 John iv. 19), and not possible so to love Him in the heart without serving Him with the life; and what more than this heart-belief and life-service can we have in any conversion? In all in whom these are found the scriptural definition of conversion is fulfilled:"Ye turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come "(1 Thess. i. 9, 10).

:

GLADNESS OF HEART.

SECOND SERIES.

CHAPTER I.

NEW BIRTH IN INFANCY.

He shall be filled with the Holy Ghost even from his mother's womb.-Luke i. 15.

IN the former volume, illustrating by a series of narratives the attainment to "Gladness of Heart," many cases were given of those who, in youth or in later years, attained to the eternal life of knowing God as their Father and the Lord Jesus Christ as their Saviour (John xvii. 3), and who spoke in general of the time of their doing so as that of their "Conversion."

But it was there admitted that with the Church of Christ in a right state, "Conversion" would never need to be named in it, as all belonging to it would be brought to Christ in infancy, and so would never be able to remember a time in which they did not trust and love and serve Him.

I shall begin this second volume with an instance of this early coming to Christ; and I hope that any of brothers and sisters in Him who may see these volumes who dread the idea of infant regeneration will carefully consider this as a specimen of,

my

thank God, a multitude of such cases continually occurring all the way down from the time of John the Baptist, who was filled with the Holy Ghost even from his mother's womb (Luke i. 15), so that his spiritual birth took place at least as early as his natural, and, indeed, earlier, for before his natural birth he leaped for joy at the sound of the voice of the mother of our Lord (Luke i. 44).

But I would, with at least equal earnestness, hope that those other dear ones who in their zeal for connecting regeneration with baptism insist on calling every person baptised in infancy regenerate, however entirely those professing in the service to pray for his regeneration may have been devoid of that faith which alone it contemplates as the means of bringing down the blessing, will also carefully consider the case I am going to bring forward, of one shown by his life to have been really regenerated in infancy; that they may see how awful the difference between such true "members of Christ, children of God, and inheritors of the kingdom of heaven," and those who, "while walking according to the course of this world," "fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind " (Eph. ii. 2, 3), are yet relying on infant baptism, though proved by their lives to have been, in their case, only an empty form.

"A deceived heart hath turned him aside, that he cannot deliver his soul, nor say, Is there not a lie in my right hand?" (Isa. xliv. 20).

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They that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts" (Gal. v. 24).

"If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his " (Rom. viii. 9).

"The children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth" (Matt. viii. 12).

CHAPTER II.

COUNT ZINZENDORF.-BIRTH AND CHILDHOOD. The generation of the upright shall be blessed.-Ps. cxii. 2. I call to remembrance the unfeigned faith which is in thee, which dwelt first in thy grandmother Lois and thy mother Eunice. -2 Tim. i. 5.

From a child thou hast known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.-2 Tim. iii. 15.

THE contents of this and the next few following chapters are taken from a book with a title-page beginning as follows:

"An authentic narrative of the first twentyseven years of the life of Nicholas Louis Count Zinzendorf; translated from the German by A. G. Spangenberg. Bath: printed and sold by S. Hazard.” No date on title-page, but the translator's preface is dated “ Bath, May 26th, 1773."

His father, George Lewis, Count and Lord of Zinzendorf and Pottendorf, and with so many other titles that they would fill many lines if I were to bring them all in here, bore during his short life the weightiest offices of state in the Electorate of Saxony with much honour, but his heart was devoted to Jesus Christ his Lord and Saviour, and therefore he loved his servants and protected and encouraged them at that dark time when his professed people in Germany were sunk into the merest formalism,