lar eloquence, are wanted for that purpose: you have only to imbibe deeply the mind of Christ, to let His doctrine enlighten, His love inspire your heart, and your situation, in comparison of other speakers, will resemble that of the angel of the Apocalypse, who was seen standing in the sun. Draw your instructions immediately from the Bible. Let them be taken fresh from the spring. Do not satisfy yourself with the study of Christianity in narrow, jejune abridgments and systems, but contemplate it in its utmost extent, as it subsists in the sacred oracles; and, in investigating these, you will permit your reason and conscience an operation, as free and unfettered as if none had examined them before. The neglect of this produces, too often, an artifical scarcity, where some of the choicest provisions of the household are exploded or overlooked." CHAPTER VII. "Hail to the spiritual fabric of her church, The poet, fostering for his native land Such hope, entreats that servants may abound And by ambition's longings undisturbed; Wordsworth's Excursion. FELIX was alone in his study: he was on his knees, and the Holy Bible lay before him open. His eyes were fixed upon the sacred volume, and his heart was drinking in the living waters from that wellspring of life and holiness. He was filled with humble but admiring astonishment, in considering the change which had been wonderfully wrought in the once bigoted and persecuting Saul, of whom so affecting a description is given in the twentieth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles. He turned back to the account which is given of the death of the blessed Stephen, and read, that the witnesses laid down their clothes at the feet of a young man, whose name was Saul; he read the account of Saul making havoc of the church, and entering into every house, in the heat of his savage zeal, haling men and women, and committing them to prison; and when he compared this cruel and superstitious man with the humble, heavenly-minded St. Paul, counting all things but loss for the knowledge of Christ Jesus, he felt that there is indeed a reality in that change which is wrought by the unseen Spirit of God; and he blessed God that he had been at length brought to see the necessity of that change, and to pray with all his heart for the fellowship of that Spirit, by whom alone the dead in trespasses and sins can see life. "Can this be the same man," he said to himself, as he read of Paul, serving the Lord with all humility of mind, and with many tears, going bound in the spirit unto Jerusalem, not knowing the things that should befall him there, save that the Holy Ghost witnessed in every city, that bonds and afflictions waited for him, telling his beloved friends that he knew that they should see his face no more; and then, in a strain of wonderful and majestic solemnity, exclaiming, "Wherefore I take you to record this day, that I am pure from the blood of all men for I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God. Take heed, therefore, unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which He hath purchased with his own blood." It might have been said of Nigel, also, “What hath God wrought!" He had never been a savage, persecuting zealot; but he had been a Gallio, caring for none of those things which are, to the true disciple of Christ Jesus, dearer than life itself. A change had begun to take place in him, and an abiding one. He had received the kingdom of God, not merely in word, but in power; and it was hidden in his heart, even like leaven, silently, but gradually working till the whole is leavened. As Nigel knelt in that study, he thought of the aged pastor, to whose charge he had succeeded, and whose flock he had long so fearfully neglected. He thought, that perhaps, on the very spot where he was then kneeling, the good old man had often knelt and prayed, with tears upon his venerable face, for the flock he was about to leave, and for the shepherd to whose care his beloved sheep should be committed. Nigel thought of what had been indeed the case. In that quiet study Mr. Evelyn had often, very often, poured forth his whole soul in prayer, not only for his flock, but for their future pastor-very often had his daughter found him bathed in tears, and been told, in reply to her anxious inquiries, that he was well himself, quite well in bodily health,—that he was not suffering from any bad news which had been brought to him, but that he was thinking of his youthful successor - of him who should be called to feed his long-loved flock; and he had added "Join your prayers to mine, dear child, that he may come unto this fold by the only door, by Christ, who is not only the great shepherd of the sheep, but the door of the fold; by Him, if any man enter in he shall be saved, and shall go in and out and find pasture. Pray with me, that he may love His sheep, even with the love of our Master, who gave his life for the sheep; pray with me, that he may be no hireling, leaving the sheep, caring not for the sheep-pray that he may be one whose voice the sheep may hear and know, and follow, leading them forth to the still clear waters and the green pastures, where only He can feed the sheep of God. The prayers of the good old pastor had been granted; for, assuredly, the change which had taken place in Nigel was partly in answer to the prayers of Mr. Evelyn, as well as to those of his own dying mother, who had, with such confiding faith, committed her little son to her Saviour and her God. As Nigel became better acquainted with the gentle Miss Evelyn, whose friendship and whose society he now earnestly sought, he heard from her of her |