your suffering and wretchedness; all that makes the sadness of life and the bitterness of pain-a bad heart. Yes! Every honest-minded man will say, the test of it all is there. If I had but a better heart I should have a better life, a better hope, a better end. It is just that which Christ can give, and Christ alone. That is what He means when He calls Himself a Saviour. One who can cure the disease of sin, renew the heart, reform the nature, kindle within the spirit the love of God, of truth, of purity, and inspire the hope of heavenly glory. This is to save a man. And for this the Lord came, wrestled, suffered, died; that He might have the right and the power to preach regeneration to man. This man, because He continueth ever, hath an unchangeable priesthood; wherefore He is able to save, even to the uttermost, all that come unto God by Him, seeing He ever liveth to make intercession for them.” He has now the right and the power to say to the worst sinner upon earth, "Son, thy sins be forgiven thee: go in peace." He is waiting to say it to you. There are thousands around you to whom He has said it, who, believing "that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins," can look up with loving confidence in the face of God. He has lifted their burdens, He has dissipated their dread. He has filled them with the hope which maketh not ashamed, "the peace which passeth all understanding, and the joy which is unspeakable and full of glory." And they, rejoicing in this salvation, say to you, echoing His word-Come. Come with us to the living Saviour; come and listen to His message of mercy; come, stand before the cross on Calvary, look onHim, whom you, too, have pierced and mourn, and hear for yourself the blessed words, "Thy faith hath saved thee, go in peace."

4. Come with us to the Father's home on high.

The life struggle will soon be ended. It will soon seem but a

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COME THOU WITH US, AND WE WILL DO THEE GOOD. slight matter to you how you struggled through. It is said of Paul's companions, " Some on boards, some on broken pieces of the ship. . . they all escaped safe to land." It is a picture of the life-course of how many noble and faithful ones. Life seems to them but one long battle with the fierce waves, breasting them, struggling with them; often choked, often whelmed, but borne on by a mighty sustaining hand to the eternal shores. Oh! the rapture of the moments when the feet shall press it, and first feel the touch of that blissful shore. The peril, the darkness, the battle, the anguish, behind us for ever; before us the gleaming gate of Paradise, the innumerable company of angels, the general assembly and church of the first-born, the dear ones who have gone on before us, and who are already walking in white before the throne of God and of the Lamb. Come with us to Him who is "The Way." No man cometh unto the Father, or to His love, but by Him. Come with us to the Cross-no Cross, no Crown. Come with us to the battle-no battle, no victory. Come with us to the school of discipline-no suffering, no glory. "Come with us and we will do you good"—good, the measure of which will only be known in that day when you shall hear the sentence from the most sacred lips, "Come ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from before the foundation of the world."

AIDS TO THE DEVELOPMENT

OF THE

DIVINE LIFE.

BY THE

REV. J. BALDWIN BROWN, B.A.

No. V.

THE JOYS OF SALVATION.

"The joy of thy Salvation."-PSALM li, 12.

THERE is an old-fashioned ring about the word Salvation which brings it into high disfavour with that school of theology which rejoices in the denomination of "New." They find a full and rich meaning in the word, when used in a state of society such as that in which the apostles preached the Gospel -a society rotting in vice and misery, degraded by the foulest lusts and disfigured by the grossest wrongs that human imagination can conceive or human life display; a society whose very atmosphere was contamination-to live in which was to live in a lazar house of moral plague; from which, therefore, all who had even the faintest desire to live purely must fly, like Lot from Sodom, gathering up their garments round them, lest they should carry with them some elements of the contagion to the purer homes in which they sought to dwell. Yes, they needed salvation in the apostolic ages, as much as a plague-stricken man needs to be borne out into an untainted atmosphere, or a drowning man, in his last choking struggle with the waves, needs to be grasped by a strong hand and

lifted out of the jaws of death. But, then, this new school tells us, things have quite changed now. This is a Christian country, and men, it is said, " do not need to be made Christians, they are born Christians. What they need is the teaching of the truth, and the aid of the Spirit to help them to realise the gift which is freely bestowed on them by the grace of Christ. They need a Father's care and love, the wise discipline of His providence, the vigilant ministrations of His Church-the Father's counsels, the pastor's care; but not salvation-except in a very limited sense-: -for salvation is already theirs." I am far from feeling that there is no truth in this that men born in a Christian land, and heirs, of necessity, of the moral enlightenment and development of the nation which has been for ages leavened with the truth of Christianity, stand related to God no otherwise than the heathen, who know not even His name, and are heirs of principles and practices on which the broad seal of the devil is plain. I believe that men born in a Christian land sustain, by virtue of the measure of Christian light which they cannot but receive, a very high and solemn relation to God, and are amenable to a more awful tribunal than the heathen who know Him not; but I believe that salvation, the salvation which is in Christ Jesus, is for them too "the one thing needful;" that no man can be born into it, that every man must seek and find it by repentance and faith, that with every one of us the question has to be practically settled-shall our privilege, our light, our power to live," be a savour of life unto life, or of death unto death ?—and that the settlement of that question affirmatively in every individual soul is "Salvation." There is many a man dying spiritually of the careless belief that he is saved, and need concern himself about the matter no more. "What more would you have me do ?" said a woman to a city missionary. "I was baptized and confirmed, I have

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had my children baptized and confirmed. What more ?" What more? Simply "seek salvation;" for the apostle, who preached salvation to the heathen, would say of such a one, did he look upon her, "I perceive that thou also art in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity." HERE, AS ELSEWHERE IN THE

WORLD, MAN BY NATURE IS ON HIS WAY TO THE LOWEST AND NOT TO THE HIGHEST. The awakening to the consciousness of this, it may be slowly and from an early age, as with Timothy; it may be suddenly, with a sharp convulsion, as with the Philippian jailer-the crying out for deliverance from this, the acceptance of the way of escape from this, opened by the Gospel, is the seeking and finding the salvation of God. I dwell on the last word. It is God's salvation. It is no dreamy following of the upward instincts and aspirations of the nature; no trying to be just, pure, and good, and then, if we fail, and become selfish, sensual, and devilish, forgetting the failure and trying again, always trying, always hoping, with a vague belief that though sin always gets the better of us, there is some good thing in us which, after all, cannot be lost.

Neither, again, is it a vague reliance on God's goodness and mercy, a feeling that He is a Father, and cannot, therefore, doom His children to despair and death. These dreams and hopes are the salvations which men provide for themselves— but they are not, nor are they like, God's salvation.

God's salvation rests upon the knowledge of God Himself, as He has revealed Himself-His name-His word-His promises-His work; whereby, not by our own dreams or hopes, but by His declaration, "We have strong consolation who have fled for refuge to the hope set before us in the Gospel." Remember, it is one thing to feel that He is a father, and must be full of love to His children; it is another thing to hear Him say, "I am a Father; I love as no human father can love,