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UNSOUGHT, GOD SENT AN ANGEL TO COMFORT THEM.

The stone having

been rolled away from the sepulchre, the women still expected to find the body. While looking about for the dead person, contrary to their expectations, they saw an angel from heaven. It would seem to them, one difficulty removed, another and greater was before them. They saw no ghastly skeleton, no decaying flesh, no vestiges of death, but an angel in the tomb. We go to the cemetery where those dear are laid. Our thoughts are centred upon them, and there angels meet us instead of the dead. They are sent to watch over the graves, and inform us of Divine help by the way. "The angels of the Lord encampeth round them that fear Him." The women saw the angel through their tears, so through our tears of sorrow we see the angel of hope, sent to comfort the breaking hearts. All who love Jesus need not be afraid of the grave, since it is lit up with heavenly light. If we faithfully seek the Lord, we are never left without some token of heaven. Angels are sent to direct to higher and nobler truths pertaining to the Kingdom of God.

IV. HOLY WOMEN THOUGHT TO GAZE ON THE FACE OF DEATH, AND, UNSOUGHT, GOD PRIVILEGED THEM TO SEE THE RISEN JESUS. With mournful thoughts and weeping eyes they stooped down and looked into the sepulchre. They had forgotten His instruction, because "I live ye shall live also." Searching for a dead Jesus, God enabled them to enjoy a risen Lord. A similar reward will be ours if we prove constant to Him. To the world Jesus is dead; to the mere theologian He is dead. If we would find a risen Lord, love must take possession of our hearts and influence our lives. Whatever obstacles beset our path, no longer a dead but a living Saviour will greet us in the journey of life. As the women were returning from the grave Jesus met them, and they fell at His feet with feelings of adoration and joy. By degrees He satisfied all His disciples that He was the risen Lord. We are taught the dead still live, the real man is not buried; it is only the corpse that is in the tomb. We have a living and everlasting friend in Jesus. Our all in life and in death is in His hands. May we press forward and cling tenaciously to the principles of Christianity. Amid the dread and alarm about the future, if we courageously do the work that is before us, God will surely come in every hour of need and help us, though we are unconscious of His presence; but the day will come when we shall have to thank God for unseen deliverances from a thousand troubles. which we expected to meet in the path of duty.

ALFRED BUCKLEY.

Market Drayton.

THE DEATH-CRY OF CHRIST.

"It is finished."-John xix, 30.

THE master-motive of Christ was the performance of His Father's work. "I must be about My Father's business" was the key note He resolutely sounded when starting His life's great mission, and "it is finished" was His joyful reflection in death. Dying words are solemn, and we all love to treasure up and regard as sacred the last expressions of our dear ones. So to the Christian heart these last words of Jesus are very precious, for they tell us of the eager yearning He had for to rescue and redeem. And this expression is the announcement of His gladness at the completion of His covenant engagements. We learn from this sentence

1. That His life of loving and personal service to mankind was finished. It was a beautiful prediction that "He should bind up the broken in heart;" but He fulfilled it, and, having "saved others," died Himself literally of a broken heart. He verified it by His miracles of mercy, by the majestic displays of His divinity, in the employment of His Almightiness in aid of the suffering and the sorrowful. It is worthy of remark that almost the last act of Christ was, with quivering lips, to speak pardon and consolation to the heart of the contrite thief.

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2. His human life was "finished." The career of the "wonderful" Christ was brought to a tragic close. All through it had been a cheerless, chequered life, darkened and saddened by deeds of human guilt. But now it is finished." Never was a sentence uttered that produced such powerful results as this of the dying Saviour. The whole universe seemed to shudder at the meaning of these marvellous agents; and with the utterance of this plaintive expression expired our human Substitute.

3. Human salvation was then a "finished" work. God's work is always perfect. His every act bears the impress of a wonderful perfection. Nature's thousand-voices spell perfection in every part. The world is baptised with a beautiful finish. This is equally true of the work of redemption. It is (a) perfect in its simplicity; (b) in its adaptation to our moral needs; and (c) in the universality of its operations.

J. W. BRAY.

READING THE SCRIPTURES.

"Understandest thou what thou readest?"-Acts viii, 30.

I. MANY DO NOT UNDERSTAND WHAT THEY READ.-(1) Through ignorance. (2) They lack teachers. (3) They lack the spiritual insight. (4) Prejudice. (5) This is a great moral loss.

II. How we MAY UNDERSTAND WHAT WE READ.-(1) Attention. (2) Meditation. (3) Prayer. (4) Aid of the Holy Spirit. (5) The aid of friends and clergymen.

III. WHY WE SHOULD UNDERSTAND WHAT WE READ.—(1) It is the Word of God. (2) It is the way of salvation. (3) It is the joy of the sanctified heart. Is the Bible an open book to us?

CHRIST'S RELATION TO HUMAN SUFFERING.

"And being moved with compassion," &c.—Mark i, 41, 42.

CHRIST's life was full of beneficent acts.

Wherever He went He

scattered blessings on the needy. These acts of kindness assumed a variety of forms. He possessed a keen eye and a sensitive heart for the sorrows and sufferings of the race. The blind, the deaf, and the dumb could not escape the loving eye of the Son of God. But He did not limit His sympathies to these, but wherever He saw suffering He was ever ready to relieve it. We have an illustration of this in the case before us, for Christ reveals His sympathy and manifests His power. Here we have Christ presented to us in three aspects :

I. AS A WORKER." He stretched forth His hand and touched him." This act was

1. Natural. The means employed were in harmony with His nature as a human being. Christ felt His oneness with the race. He was conscious of being linked to us by human ties.

2. Profound. A common thing apparently, yet who can tell what power was in that "touch." Doubtless there was the communication of a power invisible to human eyes.

3. Beneficent. Here we have the cure of an incurable. This disease had foiled all human skill, which, therefore, enhances the benevolence of the Saviour's act.

4. Prompt. The earnest appeal obtained an immediate response. This was characteristic of Christ.

This shows

II. AS A SPEAKER.-" And saith," &c. 1. His divine authority. "I will." Such a fiat could have come only from the lips of a Divine person. "Never man spake," &c., "With authority He commandeth," &c. (verse 28).

2. His consciousness of power. Christ fully knew what power He possessed. Not so with man; consequently how much latent energy

lies dormant in the Church of Christ.

3. His possession of power. "Be thou made clean." faltering tones of Christ's voice all diseases fled.

At the un

III. AS A HEALER. "And straightway the leprosy departed," &c.

Christ's ability to heal is unparalleled (John ix, 32). This healing.

was

I. Instantaneous. "And straightway," &c.

2. Perfect. No relapse. This was peculiar to all Christ's cures. APPLICATION.-Learn-1, That healing power is bestowed with the employment of human means; 2, That Christ's servants should confer the blessings of the Gospel on all—even the most needy.

A. G. CHURCHILL.

THE POWER OF THE GOSPEL.

"For I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth."-Rom. i, 16.

"THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST."-The Gospel brought by Christ into the world, and of which He is "all and in all." This Gospel, Paul said he was not ashamed of. It required some moral courage to say so in those days, especially when "Christ crucified" was "to the Jews a stumbling-block, and to the Greeks foolishness." Let us consider some of the reasons why Pau! was not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ as they are stated in this passage.

I. BECAUSE IT IS A POWER.-He says, "It is the power of God." (1) A moral power; (2) a spiritual power.

II. BECAUSE IT IS A DIVINE POWER. (1) Appointed by God; (2) used by God.

"It is the power of God."

"It is the power of God

III. BECAUSE IT IS A SAVING POWER.unto salvation. (1) It saves from sin; (2) it saves from the consequences of sin; (3) it brings to heaven.

IV. BECAUSE IT IS A UNIVERSAL SAVING POWER..-" To every one that believeth." "Whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life."

APPLICATION.-There is nothing to be ashamed of in the Gospel of Christ, but everything to glory in. Believe it, live it, preach it.

B. HACKETT.

THE LIVING WATERS.

"Living water."-Zech. xiv, 8.

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A PROPHETIC Vision of the "day of the Lord" (v. 1)—" that day (v. 8). Description as usual couched in allegorical language. "Living waters"-a pleasant and useful object in a "dry and thirsty land; " stagnant waters breed pestilence and death-dwell on the varied uses of "living water,"

SOURCE." Jerusalem "-the Church-Christianity. Christ's body; "A fountain opened!"

Springs in

COURSE.-Moved by the energy of the Spirit-influence spreads. east and west. Such is the spread of Christianity in individuals, and

in history.

END.-Sea on either hand, not only on one side. Ocean of Truth, God, reached by ways that may seem to men contrary.

UNCHANGING " Summer and winter "-not intermittent, like somestreams"-" in season and out of season "-"with you always."

Sea does not overflow earth to fertilize it-rains fall, rivers flow; all come from and go to the sea. God, a terrible presence, from whom Adam hid, and before whom Israel trembled, nevertheless appears as a small "stream of life" in the form and under the limitations of manhood, and bathes earth with "shower of refreshing" by His Spirit. Launch your bark on "living waters "-current bears you on-breath of Heaven helps you (Matt. iv, 4)-if intermittent, "grovelling in the dust "—but ever flowing, onward ye are wafted to boundless sea. Ocean in its fulness-symbol of God and Eternity! H. ROSE RAE.

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GOD'S AFFECTIONATE REQUEST.

My son, give me thine heart, and let thine eyes observe my ways.”— Prov. xxiii, 26.

PROVERBS are very ancient-probably older than any other kind of literature; we know that the old Bards retained and handed down the histories of their times in a proverb or poetic form, but there is a difference between the proverbs of men and the proverbs of this book; the word proverb, meaning a "first word," i.e., a word of the first importance. The Hebrew word meaning rather "a comparison" or "a similitude;" this agrees with the text. The similitude existing between God and an earthly father-that God like a father wants our hearts, &c.

I. A TERM OF ENDEARMENT.-There are several aspects in which God has revealed Himself to man, viz., as his Creator (Gen. i, 1), King (Jer. x, 10), Lord of Hosts (Psa. xxiv, 10), Judge (Gen. xviii, 25). These aspects rather repel than help us; but we have one other aspect that attracts and comforts, viz., "the Father." There are several degrees in sonship-(a) Creation and preservation; (b) adoption (Rom. viii, 15; 2 Cor. vi, 17, 18); (c) victory over sin and death (Rev. xxi, 7; 1 John iii, 1-4); the connecting links in these grades (Rom. viii, 29). There are other terms in which God might address us-viz. : 1. As rebels (Isa. i, 2). 2. As subjects.

II. A GRACIOUS REQUEST.-Several minor things implied, viz. : Man's sonship-free agency-God's personality-and great need.

The

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