to worse until he commit every sin. I will make him a murderer, and will plunge his soul forever beneath the boiling billows of the great fiery furnace.' With this, I see him descending in all the veliemence of his character-but when close by the lad, the dragon hears him sing,

'When on the cross the Saviour hung,

The mid-day sunk in midnight gloom;
When guilty sinners were redeemed,
The midnight burst in mid-day bloom.'

Upon which the dragon cries out, 'This place is too dry for me,' and away he flies.

"I see him again, a second time, hovering in the air, and seeking for a resting-place. In a flowery meadow, by a river of clear water, he sees a maiden, eighteen years of age, among the kine, picking up some beautiful flowers, here and there. 'Behold her,' says Apollyon, full of hellish joy; 'I will poison her mind, and lead her astray from the paths of the Almighty enemy; I will make her a harlot, and will ultimately cast her over the precipice, until she sink forever in the furnace of divine wrath.' He hastens down; and, approaching the maiden, finds her singing the following stanzas, in a heavenly, transporting frame of mind, and with a voice that might almost melt the rocks:

'Unto the righteous will arrive,

A day of rest serene,

When to their joy they see the Lord,

Without a veil between.

"Then from the grave I shall arise,

And take my joyful stand,

Among the saints who dwell on high,

Received at God's right hand.'

"This place is too dry for me,' says the dragon, and off he flies. "From the meadow he ascends like a great balloon, with renewed rage, blowing smoke and fire from his mouth, and threatening damnation to all creation. 'I will have a place to rest and dwell in,' says Apollyon, 'in spite of the purposes, covenant, and grace of God!' With this he espies an aged woman, sitting at the door of her cot, and spinning on her little wheel. 'Ah, she is ripe for destruction,' says the dragon; I will give her a taste of the burning gall of damnation, and will cast her into the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone.' With this he descends on the eaves of the cot, and hears the old woman, with a trembling voice,

1

but with heavenly feelings, repeat the following beautiful passage: 'For the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed, but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the Lord that hath mercy on thee!' "This place is too dry for me,' says the dragon, and is off again.

"It might be thought that all these disappointments would discourage him from prosecuting his infernal designs farther; but not so he is determined, if possible, to find a dwelling-place. For this purpose he rises again, to mark some spot where he may alight and find a welcome. He sees in a small village a neat and decent house of refreshment. There,' says he, 'will I dwell, and lead to bondage every one that shall cross the threshold, and make him fast in eternal fetters.' He flies down like lightning, enters the house, and walks into the parlor; but there he finds a company of ministers of the New Testament, returning from an Association, who are talking about the victory of Calvary, and exchanging appointments with each other. The wicked spirit cannot stay within the sound of their voice, but retreats with hasty steps, muttering and growling as he goes,-"This place is too dry for me; I will return to my house from whence I came out.'"

EXTRAORDINARY SELF-ABASEMENT.

REV. DR. SIMPSON.

He frequently lamented that his bodily suffering engaged so much of his attention as to draw his thoughts from the most important subjects; and expressed a fear lest his faith and patience should fail, and he should dishonor God. But he was enabled to endure to the end, and gloriously triumphed at the last. Some of the expressions which dropped from his lips have been preserved; but those only will fully enter into them, who, from personal acquaintance, can connect them with his striking and energetic

manner.

He entertained the most humbling views of himself, and exalted

and adoring thoughts of the riches and sovereignty of Divine grace.

"I shall go to the gates of heaven," said he, "as the poor, wretched, ruined Robert Simpson, saved by sovereign grace! When I begin to tell my tale, all the harps of heaven will be silent; all the angels will be as still as statutes. I am sure they will.

"O what a vile miscreant have I been! I was black and deformed, and the grace which saved me was sufficient to have rescued fallen angels, had it been the will of Jehovah; but here I am, expecting soon to be before the throne, whilst millions, who were not so vile as I, are in the gulph of hell. Oh! if in the glance of his eye Jehovah had passed me by, where should I now have been?

"Let them blaspheme the sovereignty of Christ as much as they please, I will glory in it. The Father gave me to his Son, and said, Redeem this vile sinner; it is my pleasure that he shall be raised from the ruins of the fall, and shine for ever in all the beauties of holiness."

To a friend, who referred him to his former usefulness, he said, "OI have been a mere loiterer. I might have done much more. If I could but preach once again, I would, if possible, make the cliffs of Dover ring with the sound of salvation, through the blood of the Lamb." With these exalted conceptions of the freeness and sovereignty of Divine grace, he was jealously attentive to the interests of holiness. He ardently longed for perfect conformity to Christ, and for the enjoyment of his immediate presence. One evening, as his son-in-law was standing at his bedside, he said, "I am going home, Mr. Hooper, but (in a raised tone of voice) I now protest, by the help of God, that I will not go till I am completely conformed to the image of the Son of God. Now, go to prayer, Mr. H., and be sure you tell God I want to be completely holy. I know he will not be angry with me for that.

"Then, sir," said his relative, "it seems the doctrines, which you have so strenuously maintained, do not lead to a neglect of holiness." "O no!-a God without holiness is a terrible object."

Speaking of the importance of an experimental acquaintance with Divine truth, he said-" Men may quibble as much as they please, and try to settle all the nice points in divinity; it is all a farce, unless there be an experimental acquaintance with them. The glorious truths of the gospel must be seen and felt; they must be received and incorporated with all the powers of the soul; the very quintessence of them must be sucked in by faith."

BY REV. E. WENTWORTH, A. M.,

PRESIDENT OF M'KENDREE COLLEGE, LEBANON, ILLINO18.

FELLOWSHIP WITH GOD.

And truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ. 1 John i. 3.

FELLOWSHIP with God is a prominent doctrine of the Bible. From the hour of creation the moral relations of man have bound him to the strictest intimacy with his Creator. Reason fails to grasp the fact, and to appreciate the modes of God's stupendous condescension. Both are clearly apprehended by faith. To believers in Divine Revelation, God is not a mere abstract existence. To his intelligent creatures, the offspring of his goodness and power, he sustains the interesting relations necessarily flowing from the exercise of such exalted attributes. Creation, preservation, redemption, with its prime benefit, adoption, discloses, each, its bonds of fellowship;-strangers are made nigh, aliens become sons; "the Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God;" man, the sinning and repentant finite, holds loving communion with the forgiving INFINITE. This glorious doctrine, promulgated in the first promises, and distinctly visible in all parts of the first dispensation, is fully developed in the "New Testament." Of the religion of Jesus it is the soul and essence; and is alike valuable as a theme for contemplation and holy comfort to its possessors. With the first disciples of Christ, this was not a merely

spiritual fellowship. Privileged with personal and familiar intercourse with the INCARNATE, his form and features, acts and words, all addressed themselves to the senses, became the media of constant interchange of sympathies, and formed the basis of a tangible and lasting union. John was particularly favored; John wrote himself "that disciple whom Jesus loved;" John was present at his private miracles; witnesscd his transfiguration; leaned familiarly on his bosom at the last supper; watched with him in tragical Gethsemane; stood by the cross in the hour of mortal agony; and received the dying commission of this divine model of filial affection. So noticeable was the Saviour's partiality for John, that the saying which went abroad "that that disciple should not die," found easy currency among his fellows. It is worthy of remark, that John alone survived to extreme old age, and, with tradition, was the only one of the apostles who did not die a violent death. In all his writings, in his inspired gospel, in his touching epistles, and in the record of those awful and mysterious visions with which the volume of inspiration closes, John has given peculiar prominence to the doctrine of union with God through the Mediator. In the text and context, fellowship with Christians, and communion with the Father of Lights, are alike based upon the incarnation of the Son of God. Jealous of the honor of his master and chief friend, and moved by the Holy Ghost to make an infallible record of his true character, John has guarded and perpetuated the "MYSTERY OF GODLINESS," in language, the force of which opponents and cavillers have labored in vain to evade or disannul. His gospel commences with the enunciation of the powerful truth, "In the beginning was the WORD, and the WORD was with God, and the WORD was God. The pre-existence of Christ, his personality and divinity, are here individually and distinctly asserted. His character, his attributes, and his two-fold nature, are severally exhibited: he is omnipotent; "all things were made by him and without him was not any thing made that was made;-he is self existent and the fountain of existence; in him was life, and the life was the light of men; he is human, and yet the embodiment of the divine presence; "and the WORD was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." The epistle before us opens with the same sentiments clothed with a simple grandeur of expression that has few parallels even in the Sacred Volume.