"Since from His bounty I receive

Such proofs of love divine,

Had I a thousand hearts to give,

Lord, they should all be Thine."

____________________

"Must Jesus hear the cross alone,

And all the world go free?

No! there's a cross for every one,

And there's a cross for me.

"The consecrated cross I'll bear,

Till death shall set me free,

And then go home my crown to wear;

For there's a crown for me."

______________

"Salvation! O the joyful sound!

'Tis pleasure to our ears,

A sovereign balm for every wound,

A cordial for our fears."

"Well," I said to myself, "this will do. 'The set time to favour Zion has come.' Let 'the light go forth as brightness, and the salvation as a lamp that shineth.' Blessed be God! He has 'loosened our bonds,' and as 'His sons and daughters, we are free.'"

I will give an example or two of the testimonies to the power of Christ as a Saviour from "the bondage of corruption," examples among the many of similar interest that I might give. The subject of the first was a young man from Scotland, who was studying as a candidate for the ministry, and in all his conduct was very circumspect and conscientious. Yet he was one of the most unhappy believers I ever knew. His inner life, as we found it, was literally a continued succession of groanings. A Christian lady once said in my presence, that up to a recent period "she had just religion enough to make her as miserable as she could be." This was strictly true of this young man. He almost wearied Professor Finney and myself in his perpetual details of his inward wretchedness, and in his inquiries after deliverance. At length the light, the marvellous light of God, dawned upon "the midnight of his soul." In giving an account in the prayer-meeting of his great deliverance, he remarked that he could not better illustrate his own case than by first stating a fact of his early life. When in Scotland, he and a number of his young associates went down to the ocean to fish. "The waters were so disturbed that we could do nothing there, and we determined to go to a lake that was located at a long distance up amid the hills above us. The way was long and wearisome under the burning sun that blazed down upon us. At length we came to a moor and searched there for water. What we found was so brackish that we could not drink it, and we were all in great anguish. At length I looked down, and saw a little stream issuing from a fountain that was bubbling up right at my feet. I stooped down and tasted of those waters, and found them perfectly pure, sweet, cool, and refreshing. I drank until my thirst was quenched. So did all my associates, and we went on our way rejoicing. You know, some of you," he continued, "the bondage, and gloom, and groanings of my religious life for years," -- he having been with several of those young men in an institution in the State of New York, then at Lane Seminary, and now at Oberlin. "When in this place I was told that there was liberty in Christ for all who would believe in Him, I grasped at the truth with the earnestness of almost blank despair. As I inquired and inquired, however, without finding 'the living waters,' I began to think that they existed for others and not for me. I did not, however, 'restrain prayer' or cease inquiry. All at once I saw, with unutterable wonder that I had not seen it before -- all at once, I say, I saw 'the fountain of the waters of life' rise up just at my feet. As I stooped down and drank, my agonising thirst was for ever quenched. As I continued to drink, however, the volume of those waters increased more and more, until they swelled out into a vast river, upon the surface of which my spirit was born onward and onward, until I was carried out into an ocean of light and love, an ocean the shores of which I have never been able to discern, and the depths of which I have never been able to sound. Here I have been 'comprehending the length, and breadth, and depth, and height,' 'knowing the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge,' and being 'filled with all the fulness of God.' When standing upon the topmost wave of that ocean, I made a vow to God that I would spend my life in making known to saints and sinners this 'great salvation."' That vow he fully redeemed. To the end of his very useful life his light never grew dim, but brightened more and more, until he took his departure to shine as a fixed star in the firmament of heaven. His graduating address was one of memorable interest on "the baptism of the Holy Ghost."

Another of the theological students, after be had come into the light, came to Professor Finney and remarked to him, that he thought that the time had come when there ought to be something preached to the people on the subject of faith. Professor Finney was at a loss to understand what his pupil meant, that very subject having been the leading theme of all our teachings. In a prayer-meeting not long after this, the whole matter was explained by the young man himself. When he came into the light, his views of truth and his whole internal experience were so entirely new, and so unlike anything which he had experienced before, that he most sincerely supposed that no one among us had had any such experience as his, and that nothing had been preached upon the subject to the people. "Faith, when I came to exercise it," he remarked, "was so unlike my former apprehensions of it, that I really supposed that it had not been preached to us at all. For this reason I went to Professor Finney, and, with perfect sincerity, told him that I thought that the people should be told what faith is. I had no idea but that, as soon my new experience came to be known, Professor Finney, President Mahan, and all of you, would come to me to be taught the secret of this new and divine life. To my surprise and humiliation I found at length, as I compared my own experience with yours, that I had simply emerged into the light in which you had been walking for months," "The sealing and earnest of the Spirit" is to every believer, when the baptism comes upon him, "a new white stone, which no man knoweth but him that receiveth it."

General Influence upon the Churches, and in the Experience of Individuals.

A few facts will distinctly reveal the attitude of all evangelical denominations in the United States -- the Methodist excepted -- in regard to this subject, when the views of Brother Finney and myself were made known. In a council of Congregational ministers and churches, held in the city of Boston, about thirty years since, to ordain and install a young minister over one of the churches in the city, this question was put to the candidate, namely, "If you should be installed as pastor over this church, would you allow either President Mahan or Professor Finney to preach in your pulpit?" The candidate replied in the affirmative. The council spent about half a day in discussing the question whether, in view of this one fact, no other objections to the candidate existing, the services should proceed any further.

Three years ago last summer, during the sessions of the General Conference for all the Congregational churches in the United States, the Conference meeting at Oberlin, Ohio, my old associate, Brother Finney, was requested by a unanimous vote of the Conference to deliver a special discourse before them on the baptism of the Holy Ghost. At a similar Conference held in New Haven, Connecticut, the past summer, the theme of a special discourse was "the baptism of the Holy Ghost," as received at the Pentecost, as the hope of the Church.

About thirty years since, the authorities of the American Board of Commissioners of Foreign Missions, it being then the organ of the Presbyterian and Congregational Churches of the United States, dismissed from its service two able missionaries in Siam for no other reason than the fact that they had embraced these views. Now, individuals holding these views are as readily employed as any others by this same Board. Near the same period, the Presbytery of Poughkeepsie, by a special order from the Synod of New York, deposed from the ministry two of its members, Messrs Hill and Belden, for no other cause than the one fact that they had embraced the Oberlin error. While the subject was before the Synod, the Moderator of the Presbytery referred to testified that the two brethren on trial were universally regarded as the most useful and godly ministers in their body, and that if Christ should appear in any of their meetings and put the question, "Which of you shall betray me?" the last individual that any one would think of would be either of these brethren. Brother Belden, his associate having died in the faith years ago, has lived to see his name and influence "as ointment poured forth" in this Synod. Dr. Boardman recently stated to me, that when he published his work on "The Higher Life," he did so with the distinct apprehension that he should be deposed from the ministry for what he had done, he being a minister of the Presbyterian Church. An open door, however, is everywhere before him and his works and doctrines, even in that denomination.

An indication of the state of Christian sentiment on this subject is quite manifest by means of the conferences like that at Oxford, which are being held in various parts of the United States, for the specific purpose of promoting personal holiness, conferences attended by ministers and members of all evangelical denominations in common. The following account of one of these conferences -- an account given in a recent number of the Pathway of Power -- will indicate the character and power of such meetings:--

"Among many instances of the special display of the power of God, was one at a recent meeting in Maine, near the borders of Canada, where a great company of Christians assembled for ten days, for purposes very similar to those of the late Oxford meeting. The railway companies reported forty thousand special tickets sold to perhaps twenty or thirty thousand individuals.

"At one of the meetings, the Rev. Dr Steele, whose papers in this periodical have excited so much interest, preached the afternoon sermon about two o'clock. The text was, 'For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, . . . that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man; that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God.' He dwelt especially on the believer's privilege of being 'filled with all the fulness of God,' and with solemn joy told us of his own experience of the baptism of the Spirit, and of the marvellous possibilities of faith which had opened to his soul since he had realised in power that the Comforter had come: an experience beyond simple consecration and faith's victory over sin; the incoming of the Holy Spirit filling the entire capacities of his being.

At the close of this remarkable discourse, the President of the Conference rose and said, 'Our brother, Dr Steele, has something which I have not received. I know that I am all the Lord's, but I want to be "filled with the Spirit." We have heard that God is "able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us;" I shall, therefore, now kneel here, and stay upon my knees till what God has done for my brother He also does for me. Let all who desire it do the same.' Above four hundred kneeled, while the thousands in the congregation bowed reverently before the Lord. Then commenced a season of entirely silent prayer; which continued for three hours. As the time passed on, the place became, to the spiritual consciousness, awfully glorious. No words can describe the solemn overpowering sense of the presence of God. Any expression in prayer or singing seemed an intrusion, and persons who commenced instinctively stopped. God was Himself speaking to them in their inmost hearts. None dared break the solemn silence of soul before Him. They were now learning what the worship of the whole being to its Creator and God is. As they saw the holiness of God, they gained new views of their own sinfulness in themselves; and with this they saw with equal distinctness the full provision in Christ for all their need.

"At length the tea-bell sounded, and the immense spell bound surrounding crowd slowly and silently left the scene. Many of those who kneeled continued on in silent prayer. Throughout the vicinity, and at the tea-tables, no one seemed able to speak but in subdued tones. The time came for another meeting to be commenced, at another place, but it was found impossible to sing aloud. Nothing could be done but to dismiss the meeting, and join once more the circle of silent prayer. They approached the place softly, as to holy ground, and found a dense mass of people surrounding the spot where these ministers and others still kneeled in silent awful communion with God. Never can the sweet and solemn restfulness of that hour and spot be forgotten.

"When the time for the evening service approached, the President lifted up his hands and said solemnly to the crowd, 'Bow down before the Lord your Maker!' Saints and sinners knelt together. Not another word was said, or hymn sung, but when we gathered in the evening meeting in the immense tent, then we knew what God had done for His people in their waiting before Him. The President said that God had given to him all that he had asked for, and many testified that the words of the prayer for the Ephesians had been answered in their own souls. That evening the conversion of over a hundred persons took place as the result of this wonderful silent meeting before the Lord.

"'Oh, that salvation were come out of Zion!' is the cry of many a discouraged, down-hearted saint. Remember, dear child of God, that 'salvation' in Scripture is not limited to pardon. It means also deliverance from sin. When, in this more full sense, salvation is in Zion, 'when the Lord bringeth back the captivity of His people,' delivering them from their bondage to the world, and to partial unbelief, 'Jacob shall rejoice, and Israel shall be glad.'"

I would by no means be understood as intimating that all the changes of religious sentiment above indicated resulted directly from the great baptism at Oberlin. God had for years been preparing the way in all the churches for the reception of the views under consideration, and some outside the Methodist denomination had "entered into rest," before we did. None will question the fact that the movement at Oberlin was one of the main causes of this change.

Facts of Individual Experience.

Before dismissing the topic now under consideration, I will refer to a few facts of individual experience. Dr B., a physician of a very wide practice in one of our large cities, has for quite thirty years been walking in this light. When two Christian gentlemen who had for a long period known him very intimately were once together, one of them put to the other this question, "What do you think of Dr B.?" "When that man dies," was the reply, "he will find the gate of heaven wide open before him. He will go directly in through that gate into the city, and will be at home there." All believers should thus "shine as lights in the world." How is it with you, reader?

A sister in Christ, whom I knew very intimately for upwards of fifteen years prior to her death, was, when I first saw her, so far from Christ that she had merely, as she herself often said, "a name to live." She immediately sought and obtained "the sealing and earnest of the Spirit." From that time until she was called home, "her sun did not go down, neither did her moon withdraw itself." Her own family, and all who new her most intimately, testified that they never witnessed in her a single un-Christ-like act or utterance. In every circle in which she appeared her single aim was to lead sinners to Christ, or believers "out of darkness into the marvellous light of God," and she had "power with God and with man." At home she was, as a farmer's wife, a model housekeeper, and at home and in the community her influence was "as ointment poured forth." All who knew her will testify to the strictest accuracy of the above statements. At one time her husband employed as a help in his labours a very bigoted but profane Irish Catholic, who had been taught from infancy that out of the Catholic Church salvation is impossible. His attention was soon arrested, however, by the wondrous serenity and sweetness of that woman's spirit and conversation. At the table he would listen with the intensest interest to her conversation upon the love of Christ and the beauty of holiness. He would frequently tarry after meals to speak to the woman on the subject. As he had been listening for some time to her conversation one day, he exclaimed with deep earnestness, "Madame, you will get to heaven before you die." When the membership of the Church shall become such "shining lights" as that, then indeed "will the Gentiles come to her light, and kings to the brightness of her rising." And why, reader, should not you thus shine?

As our writings spread abroad in all directions over the country, we often received letters from persons of whom we had never before heard -- letters giving an account of "the rest of faith" into which the writers had entered. In one of these letters a lady from one of the most Eastern States, after detailing the darkness in which she had walked for many years previous, and of the semi-faith which she had had in Christ, and of her prayers and searchings after "the light of life," thus spoke of the love and glory of Christ, which were at length manifested unto her : -- "It was all light," she said, "and its essence love." From that hour, as she went on to say, her vision of that light and of that love had never grown dim, and her "joy had been full." Years passed on, when I received a letter from the husband of that woman -- a letter giving an account of her subsequent life and death. From the time in which she entered into that light, her light had shined on with a mild, all-attractive, and ever-increasing lustre. In the family, in the church, and community around, all wondered at the deep and undisturbed serenity of her spirit, at the spotless purity of her conversation and example, and at her undying love to Christ and to all who bore His image, and for whom He died. Like her divine Master, she "went about doing good." All who witnessed her last sickness and death felt themselves as near heaven as it is possible for creatures in this world to be.

Another lady from another State gave an account, not only of her former Christian experience and of her entrance into "the everlasting light," but of her inner life for the five years which had transpired since the period last referred to. During these years "the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, had kept her heart and mind by Christ Jesus," and that without interruption. "In no single instance," she remarked, "had she during these years closed her eyes to sleep at night without the absolute assurance that no cloud intervened between her spirit and the face of God." Years after this I received a letter from the husband of this woman also, giving an account of her subsequent life and final departure, an account of which that above given is a perfect transcript.

When Brother Finney came to Oberlin, he brought with him, as their housekeeper, an individual who had been a member of his church in the city of New York. After she had been in his family about a year, he remarked to me that they should be compelled to dismiss the woman, though she was the best help they had ever had. The reason was, that her terrible temper was a constant disturbance to the peace of the family, and was exerting a ruinous influence upon their children. The least temptation would kindle her temper into a blaze, and then it was as violent, and ungovernable, and implacable as a conflagration. During the great revival she became distinctly conscious of her moral and spiritual state, and, "with all her heart and soul," sought deliverance. After she received "the anointing," she continued for several years in the place she then occupied, until she was sent as a missionary teacher among the coloured fugitives in Canada. Such was her influence in her new sphere, that the superintendent of those schools spoke of her in a letter in these words : -- "She is a host." Wishing to learn the effect of faith in Christ in such an extreme case as that, I made inquiries of Brother Finney in respect to her spirit and deportment after her "enduement of power from on high." He assured me that, from the time of the change referred to until she left, there had not been the remotest manifestation of that old temper. Her entire spirit, on the other hand, had been ineffably sweet, and neither he, his wife, or any member of their family had noticed a word or act in her which was not in the strictest conformity to Christian character. I give the testimony of Brother Finney in his own words, as nearly as I can recall them, and in no respect exaggerate that testimony. Is not "Christ able to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him"?

More than thirty years since, I spent a short period in protracted labours in the city of Lowell, Massachusetts, a great revival resulting from those meetings. The leading member of the Congregational church where I preached was a man of wealth, much intelligence, and of the most unblemished moral and religious reputation; so his pastor assured me. Yet, the religious experience of this individual had taken on a pensive, and often despairing hue. Before I left, he had a long conversation with me, detailing his inward desolation, and expressing the apprehension that he had committed "the unpardonable sin." On inquiry, I found that he was conscious of no form of sin which could be the rational ground of any such apprehension. I assured him that his desire and will to seek and find Jesus was an absolute proof that salvation from doubt and darkness into "the marvellous light of God" was with absolute certainty for him. He had but one thing to do, and that was to look away from all else to Christ, to seek Christ, until he should find himself standing in "the light of God." This my friend promised to do. After I had been in Boston two or three weeks, preaching Christ there, this friend called upon me, and told me that he had come from Lowell for no other purpose but to "tell me what the Lord had done for his soul." All gloom and doubt had departed, and his "cup was running over." I found that once despondent believer in the most perfect enjoyment of "the full assurance of faith," "the full assurance of hope," and "the full assurance of understanding." What, among other considerations, gives me the most absolute assurance that the gospel, as I hold and teach it, is Christ's rock of truth, is the fact that, under its influence, those who are in the deepest darkness emerge into the most enduring and marvellous light, that those who are in the most desponding bondage attain to the most perfect liberty, and that those who are under the heaviest burdens and sorrows find the most enduring rest.

The spiritual writings of the late Professor Upham, of Bodoin College, in the State of Maine, U. S., are "known and read of all men." The manner in which he became such a fruitful writer on such a theme was on this wise. When the peculiar views advocated at Oberlin were spread before the public, he took it for granted that they were wrong, and gave them no examination. Mrs Upham, however, was induced by a lady friend, then residing in the family of the former, to give our writings a careful examination -- her husband, in the kindest manner possible, often expressing his utter incredulity in respect to the subject. Mrs. Upham at length became fully convinced, and sought and obtained "the sealing and earnest of the Spirit." The new life to which she had attained, and that in connection with the manifest divineness of the change wrought in her, soon arrested the attention of the husband, and induced him also to inquire, until he was brought fully to accept the views which the wife had embraced. It was the example of the wife, as an epistle of Christ, that rendered the husband "the man of God" and the spiritual writer which he afterwards became. When believers generally shall become such epistles, then will the prayer of our Saviour, in the following words, be fully answered : -- "I in them, and Thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that Thou has sent me, and hast loved them as Thou hast loved me."

The divineness of these views is very strikingly manifest in their perfect adaptation to the conscious moral and spiritual necessities of all classes of believers in common, the most learned and the most ignorant. When I was at Oberlin, for example, there came to the place an elderly coloured woman from a state of servitude in the Southern States. Of course, she could neither read nor write; yet was at once at home with the gospel as we were teaching it; and such was the purity of her life, and the fulness of her knowledge of Christ, as her "wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption," that not a few even learned persons went to her for instruction in regard to the secret of the divine life which she was leading.

A company of coloured people were once together for conversation and prayer about the higher life. The meeting became quite noisy. One young woman especially leaped, and shouted, and prayed at the top of her voice, and threw her body into almost convulsive contortions. At length an aged coloured saint came up, and laying her hand gently upon her young friend, said, "Honey, dis is not de way. Shoutin' is not de way to obtain de blessin' Why, honey, if you should ebber get de Lamb in your arms and de Dove in your heart, you would feel as if you were in de stable in Bedlehem, and de bressed Mudder had given you de sleepin' Baby to hold." How divine must have been that inner life, and how deeply must a soul have been taught of the Spirit, that could give utterance to such wisdom as that!

At the close of the late war in America, the Confederate States were, for a time, divided out into military districts., over each of which one of our Generals was located, that of Alabama being assigned to General Saxon. As himself and family one day were seated in the verandah of their residence, they saw an aged and infirm coloured woman walking slowly up the path before them. After ascending the steps she bowed to them, with the salutation, "How de ye?" On receiving their expressions in reply, she thus addressed them: "It 'pears dat I shan't live but a little while, and I want to go to de meetins, it does me so much good. Yet it 'pears I habn't any close suitable to go dare, dis ere dress being all the close I has," The dress referred to was a coarse cotton garment, which extended about half way down from her knees to her feet -- a garment furnished her when a slave. "Come in and take a seat," said Mrs Saxon, "and my daughters will prepare some dresses for you." "Oh, no," she replied, "it won't do for me to go into dose fine rooms in dare."

While the dresses were being prepared, she said to them, with a sweet smile, "I knows you are Christians." "I sometimes hope I am," replied Mrs S., "but I have so many dark hours that I often doubt whether I am a Christian at all." "Oh, honey!" exclaimed the coloured visitant, "you habn't gibben up de world. Dat is de difficulty. It cost me a great struggle to gib up de world." "What had she to give up?" thought Mrs S. in her own mind. Every individual, reader, has his or her world, and no one gives up that world without a struggle. "But, honey," continued the speaker, "don't you mind dem dark hours. You look right to Jesus, and keep fast hold ob Him, and He will take all dose dark hours from you, and dey will nebber come to you any more. Oh, how lobing Jesus is!" she went on to say. "De bressed Fader said to him: Jesus, my Son, you go down into dat dark and wicked world down dare, and if you find any poor sinners dat want to be sabed, you take from dem dar sins, and den bring dem up here and lay dem in my bosom." Here she began to reel to and fro, her apprehensions of the love of Christ lying with such weight upon her mind as almost to make her stagger.

At length she exclaimed, "Won't you sing some of de sweet songs about Jesus?" "Just go into the parlour," replied Mrs S., "and one of our daughters will play upon the piano and sing for you." "Oh, no!" she exclaimed, "it won't do for me to go in dare. But I can hear de music and singing out here." As the music and the songs proceeded, however, she kept drawing nearer and nearer, until she at last looked into the room, and finally entered and kneeled near the instrument. The glow upon her countenance and her frequent ejaculations clearly indicated that her "joy was full." When the garments were ready and were delivered to her, "Tank you, tank you! Jesus bress you!" she exclaimed. When Mrs Saxon told her that, if ever she should again be in want, to call upon them, and they would do what they could for her, "Oh, no!" she replied, "dat will nebber do. I hab got so many tings now, dat I must nebber come again for anyting more. But, honey," she said, addressing Mrs S., "don't you mind dem dark hours. You look right to Jesus, and keep fast hold upon Him, and you will nebber more see dem dark hours." Thus she took her leave. After she had been gone a while, she was seen again coming slowly up the path and the steps of the verandah. Approaching Mrs Saxon, she said, with an ineffable sweetness of voice and manner, "Honey! don't you mind dem dark hours. You look right to Jesus, and keep fast hold ob Him, and you will nebber, nebber again see any of dem dark hours." So she finally passed from sight.

General Saxon, in his long account of the transaction -- an account published years ago in the independent of New York -- says that himself and family felt as if they had been visited by a messenger from heaven -- a messenger sent to impart to them higher wisdom in respect to the supreme concern of the divine life than they had ever received before.

I will allude to one other case, taken from the same class as the above. Quite thirty years since, I became acquainted in the city of New York with a coloured woman, whom I never heard designated by any other name than Aunt Dinah. She was then upwards of threescore and ten years of age. Up to her fortieth year she had lived a slave, and had received no religious instruction whatever. On attaining to her freedom she came to the city designated, and was, not long afterwards, converted. As soon as she heard of the views taught at Oberlin, she sought, with all her heart and with all her soul, for "the liberty of the children of God," and entered most fully into all the light and blessedness of the higher life. As her faith, or rather unbelief, did not limit the power, love, and grace of Christ through the Spirit, her whole character and life seemed to be moulded into the divine likeness. All wondered at the beautiful simplicity, symmetry, and completeness of her whole character and life, and at the wondrous wisdom of her conversation. She had very special power in leading believers into the rest of faith, and sinners to Christ. Whenever an impenitent person came under her influence her conversation and prayers were centred in one fixed purpose -- his conversion -- and very seldom did she fail of her object. Few persons in that city were the means of the conversion of so many individuals as she. Prior to her last sickness, one young man had been with her an object of special effort and prayer, and she earnestly besought the Lord not to call her home until she could be assured of the salvation of that friend. When it was announced to her that he had been converted, she exclaimed, "I am ready now. Let the Master come when He will." What was peculiar about this woman was the fact, that her person was by no means comely, that her dress was always very plain, though neat, while her face was as black as midnight. What gave her free access to. all classes, the rich and the poor alike, was the wondrous sanctity of her character and wisdom of her discourse. Nobody repelled her.

While, for example, she was once on board a steamboat between New York and Albany, she found that the celebrated statesman, the Hon. De Wit Clinton was among the passengers. Approaching the man and addressing him, while many gathered round, she spoke to him in reverential earnestness in regard to his immortal interests, warning him of the dangers which encircled him in the midst of the pursuits of ambition, the maze of politics, and the floods of worldly cares, and closed with a solemn admonition that he should make the salvation of his soul the first and supreme object of his regard. Mr Clinton listened to her discourse with deepest attention and respect, thanked her for her concern for his eternal welfare, and for her wise admonitions. Such was the respect which her discourse commanded from all. After listening to my preaching, she uniformly met me near the pulpit-stairs, and taking me by the hand, she would say, "My son, 'be thou faithful unto death, and He shall give thee a crown of life.' I solemnly charge you never to cease, while you live, proclaiming this full redemption." There were few persons whose blessing and admonition I more deeply valued than hers.

A minister of the gospel, who had been a member of the same church with her while a student of theology in the city, told me that, on returning to the city after years of absence, on meeting his old friend, he thus addressed her: "Well, Aunt Dinah, how are you getting along?" "' The lines,"' she replied, "'have fallen unto me in pleasant places, and I have a goodly heritage.' I do not know what want is. When I feel that I need anything, I look right up to my Father in heaven, who always bends His ear quite down to where I am, and says,' Daughter, what is now thy petition? Tell me.' I always speak directly into His ear, and tell Him just what I need, and I always get what I ask." After her death, as her pastor was passing down Broadway to make arrangements for her funeral, he was met by one of the very wealthy merchants of the city. "I understand," remarked the merchant, "that Aunt Dinah is dead. Have you made arrangements for her funeral?" "I was on that business now," replied the pastor. "I will bear the entire expense of that funeral," replied the merchant. "A grave will be prepared for her in my own family burying-place in Greenwood Cemetery. She will be buried there by the side of a very dear brother of mine. That brother had been an officer in the English army. In this city he providentially became acquainted with Aunt Dinah, and, through her influence and prayers, became a Christian, and died in the Lord. I desire that she shall stand by his side and in the midst of my family in the morning of the resurrection." She thus "made her grave with the rich in her death." It was but seldom that so large a funeral was gathered to pay public respect to departed worth as was gathered at the burial of that woman. Reader, your Christian life ought to be as hallowed as was the one above described.

CHAPTER IX.

TRIALS OF FAITH AND VICTORIES "BY THE BLOOD OF THE LAMB AND THE WORD OF HIS TESTIMONY."

IN the Word of Truth we read, "Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is staid on Thee; because he trusteth in Thee." In the same Word we have the following admonition and promise : -- "Be careful for nothing; but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and mind through Christ Jesus." "These things," said our Saviour, "have I spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world." In the midst of all earth's tribulations -- and none have more of them than believers -- "the redeemed of the Lord" are privileged to "return and come to Zion, with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads." Everywhere, and under all circumstances, they are expected to "obtain joy and gladness," while "sorrow and sighing flee away," and "the days of their mourning are ended." In the experience of Paul, all the above declarations and promises were fully verified. Let us listen to his testimony: -- "Not that I speak in respect of want; for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content. I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound: everywhere and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me." "And He said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee; for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ's sake for when I am weak, then am I strong." "As the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also aboundeth by Christ. It is the revealed privilege of the saints of God to "glory in tribulation." Paul not only had such an experience, but has also clearly revealed to us the secret by which we may attain to the same experience. "We also believe, and therefore speak." "I live, and yet not I, but Christ liveth in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me." Let us give our special attention to this subject for a few moments.

It is a fixed law of our nature that, when the mind is strongly exercised with some one engrossing subject, other and different objects have no power to reach and disturb the sensibilities and activities of our being. For several years prior to his death, for example, the celebrated President Dwight of Yale College suffered beyond measure from rheumatic and gout affections. As he sat, in excessive agony, before a fire one day, a live-coal fell upon his hand and burned into his flesh without his noticing the fact at all. The reason is obvious. All the sensibilities of his nature were so completely occupied by the causes of pain referred to, that the burning of his flesh even could not reach the sensitive department of his nature. This same principle holds true universally. Now, when "Christ dwells in the heart by faith," and is "formed within, the hope of glory," and "God dwells in us, and walks in us" as His conscious "sons and daughters," all our affections and activities come so completely under the divine control, and all our susceptibilities are so perfectly filled with "the peace of God, which passeth all understanding," that "things seen and temporal" have no power so to reach those susceptibilities as to disturb the fixed content of the mind, which has found its resting-place in the centre of the sweet will of God.

Tertullian and other of the early Christian fathers affirm that the minds of the martyrs, when subjected to the most terrible tortures which their tormentors could inflict, were so completely occupied with the manifested love and glory of Christ, that they did not seem to be affected at all by bodily suffering. When we are out of Christ, all our susceptibilities lie open and exposed to the assaults of worldly tribulations, cares, and perplexities, and we are, of necessity, "like the troubled sea when it cannot rest," and are "weary, tossed with tempests, and not comforted." When we "are in Christ," and "Christ in us," however, "the world, the flesh, and the devil" have no more power over us than they had over Him. His peace is our peace; His rest is our rest; His content is our content; and our "quietness and assurance" are as undisturbed as His was. He overcame the world, that is, destroyed its power to draw the mind into sin or to disturb its rest and peace, through the indwelling presence of the Father in His heart and mind. So we can "overcome the world" by having Christ dwell in us as the Father dwelt in Him. "As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father, so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me."

In the varied conditions and states of our earthly life, we cannot be content with the divine allotments, by resolving upon an acquiescence in the same, nor can we obey the command, "Be careful for nothing," by determining to "take no thought for the morrow;" nor have we any power of will to banish from our hearts the cares which may now pain and agitate us, or to prevent others coming in and disturbing our peace. If, on the other hand, we will, "by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, make known our requests unto God," if we will open our hearts, and let Christ and the Father come to us, and "make their abode with us," and if we will wait for "the promise of the Spirit," that "we may know the things which are freely given us of God," then we shall be so "filled with all the fulness of God" that it will be impossible for us to be "careful and troubled" about anything. "The love of Christ," "open visions of His glory," "everlasting consolations and good hope through grace," "the peace of God, which passeth all understanding," "joy in the Holy Ghost," and the repose of our wills in the sweet will of God, will then so completely control all our activities, and occupy all the susceptibilities of our nature, that worldly tribulations and cares will have no power over any department of our mental being, so as to interrupt our joys or disturb the rest into which our immortal spirits have entered. As darkness cannot abide the face of the sun, so "sorrow and sighing," discontent, and fear of what may happen, take their quick departure when "the Sun of Righteousness rises in our hearts with healing in His wings." "If Christ be in you, the body is dead, because of (or in respect to) sin;" that is, all our evil propensities and tendencies, and all internal causes which disturb our peace, lie dead in His presence, and void of power to draw us from our allegiance to Him, or to disquiet our spirits, or shut the peace of God out of our hearts; while "the Spirit is life, because of (or in respect to) righteousness;" that is, all our moral and spiritual activities are quickened into active obedience to the will of God and the law of righteousness.

So, also, when Christ is in you, reader, external tribulations will have no more power to approach your sensibilities and disturb the deep rest of your spirits in Him, than the hosts of the Syrians had to break through the fiery circle which surrounded the prophet of God. But if Christ be not in us, the world without, with its tribulations and "fiery trials," and the world within, with its warring lusts, carking cares, and bewildering perplexities, will make our sensitive nature their perpetual prey, and "sin will reign in our mortal bodies."

Permit me here to allude to some experiences of a personal nature, experiences illustrative of the power of Christ to gird the mind with enduring strength, and to "keep the heart and mind in perfect peace" in the midst of the greatest external embarrassments and perplexities. After I had been between two and three years President of Oberlin College, I found myself at the head of an institution endowed with a fund amounting to quite eighty thousand dollars, a larger endowment than any other college in the Western States was then possessed of. I had co-operating with me a very able Faculty of instruction, while our pupils amounted to from five to eight hundred individuals. We had also what was then regarded as a very unusual subscription for the general purposes of the College, a subscription which was rapidly approaching one hundred thousand dollars. No other college west of New England, and very few there, had before it a more quiet or brighter future. I was in the very condition in which, above all others, I would have desired to be. Then each of us felt that he had good reason to say, "I shall die in my nest, and I shall multiply my days as the sand. My root shall spread out by the waters, and the dew shall lie all night upon my branch. My glory shall be fresh in me, and my bow shall be renewed in my hand."

Just at this time a fearful conflagration occurred in the business centre of the city of New York, a conflagration which, in a single night and day, destroyed property amounting to about fifteen millions of dollars. Within that circle of fire lay the business places of the wealthy merchants who held almost every dollar of our endowment funds, and those funds sank with the fortunes of those men. This calamity was immediately followed by a national one, the sudden failure of almost all our banks west of the State of New York, and not a few east of that line; and this was attended with the bankruptcy of a large majority, it is believed, of the men of business throughout the nation, and the utter disarrangement of all our business relations. When we took an account of the pecuniary condition of the College, after the effects of these calamities had become manifest, we found our endowment wholly gone, and of the subscription for general purposes, that not twenty thousand dollars of it would ever be of use to us, while the College was encumbered with a debt amounting to upwards of fifty thousand dollars. No calamity could hardly have fallen more suddenly, and, to all human appearance, no ruin could have been more complete and remediless. "As a snare," the general bankruptcy had fallen upon the nation, and "in one hour" the ruin of the College was apparently consummated, and the life-hopes of no individual appeared to be so hopelessly wrecked as my own.

I shall now speak with perfect freedom of the mental, moral, and spiritual state in which I was preserved, by the "power of Christ resting upon me," in the midst of the circumstances referred to. This I do, leaving it to "Him whom I serve, and whose I am," to judge of motives. To the honour of His dear name, and as illustrative of the power of His sustaining grace, I would say, that the events under consideration never, unless my consciousness utterly misled me, had the power for a single moment to disquiet my spirit, to induce the least motion of internal discontent, to interrupt the onward flow of my peace and joy in God, to induce a moment's despair of the future of the College, or the "batement of one jot of hope" in respect to its ultimate success.

The calamity, as we and the public well knew, had come upon us by no mismanagement on our part. This fact rendered it plain that, in the judgment of God, it was not best that the funds referred to should go for the benefit of the Institution, and my whole being joyfully acquiesced in the divine will upon the subject. In my own mind, I distinctly and specifically reasoned thus -- If it is the will of God that the Institution shall die, I have no wish or desire that it shall live. If; on the other hand, God wills that it shall live, and I felt sure that He did thus will, then He will furnish the means to repair these ruins, and perpetuate the life of the College; and this He will do, "not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord," God's Spirit moving upon the hearts of those who have the means, and inducing them to give what is requisite to accomplish the divine purpose. With these sentiments in my mind, I commended the great interests before me to the divine care and keeping, and did so with the utmost peace, quietness, and assurance of hope. I cannot now understand how my peace could have been more undisturbed, my joy more full, or my hope more assured, than they were during all that dark period of my own life and of the life of the Institution. During all that period, I can truly say that there was in my inner life a full realisation of all that the following words of the prophet can mean : -- "The sun shall be no more thy light by day; neither for brightness shall the moon give light unto thee: but the Lord shall be unto thee an everlasting light, and thy God thy glory. Thy sun shall no more go down; neither shall thy moon withdraw itself: for the Lord shall be thine everlasting light, and the days of thy mourning shall be ended."

The reader may be interested to know what were the dispensations of Providence towards us under the circumstances. As none of my associates were accustomed to agencies, action in this direction at first fell mainly upon me. Knowing that Professor Finney's health and circumstances would not permit him to continue with us unless his salary was promptly paid, and knowing that the large fortune of a mutual friend of his and my own had not suffered in the national calamities, I visited him, and, after full consultation, he agreed to pay regularly the salary under consideration. As far as myself was concerned, I concluded that, by labours in protracted meetings during our vacations among churches who would call for my services, I could secure a large portion of my own salary; and I determined to devote the income thus obtained to that end, and thus relieve the college from the burden of another salary. Thus two of the main pillars of the Institution were securely fixed. Just at this time the late Hon. Gerrit Smith sent us a draft of two thousand dollars on a sound Eastern bank, and, what was more, a deed of some twenty thousand acres of land in Western Virginia. This great gift, prompted by no agency on our part, though the land was not immediately saleable, reassured home and public confidence in the future of the Institution.

At this juncture, also, a wealthy merchant, whose fortune had not suffered at all --William Dawes, Esq. -- a merchant living some fifty miles distant from us, visited us; and, after acquainting himself with the facts presented, determined, upon a self-moved agency, to raise some ready means to meet existing exigencies. He soon returned with a reliable subscription of quite two thousand dollars, himself having subscribed five hundred or a thousand dollars of the same. While with us on this second visit, "the Spirit of the Lord God came upon him," and he determined to return home, close up a very lucrative business, move his family to Oberlin, and devote all his energies to the interests of the College. This he did, labouring for us without a salary, and taking nothing but his necessary personal expenses while in our service. Through an agency to England, in company with the Rev. John Keep, he sent over to us from philanthropists here, in addition to all the expenses of the mission, upwards of thirty thousand dollars to help to pay off the debt referred to. Thus all our wants were met, and in a few years all that debt was paid, to the full satisfaction of all parties concerned; and the College was started anew on a line of gradually increasing prosperity which renders its future as cloudless as that of any of our institutions. In Mr Dawes, by a wonderful concurrence of circumstances, God gave us, as it seems, the only man in the world who could instrumentally have saved the College from destruction, and assured for it a permanent prosperity. When I think of such facts, I can only exclaim, "Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out!"

The reader will call to mind the statement formerly made of the excruciating pain which I had once experienced at the thought, and in view of the fact, of adopting sentiments and assuming positions which would render one the object of deep reprobation, and occasion his separation from the fellowship of those with whom he had in former years been in intimate association, and on terms of open good-will. Few individuals could have had a more sensitive nature in respect to such relations than I had; and the pain which I experienced under such circumstances was but little diminished by the inward assurance that I had parted company with my brethren because I had found truth which they rejected, and was separated from them because I was moving on the line of absolute duty.

When passing through the crisis of the College, the crisis above described, in addition to the odium attached to me as representing the only Anti-Slavery College in the United States, and of a principle of liberal education -- a principle never before adopted in any other such institution since the world began -- that of the education of mind irrespective of race, colour, or sex, a principle then generally held in the deepest reprobation, -- in addition to all this, I stood before the public as a leading representative and uncompromising advocate of what was generally regarded in all Calvinistic denominations, with whom I had been exclusively associated from childhood up, as the most odious and subversive doctrine known in the churches. As a necessary consequence, my separation and isolation from old associations and fellowships were complete.

The following fact will give the reader a distinct apprehension of the sentiment with which Brother Finney and myself were then regarded. When spending several months in the city of Boston, during one of our vacations, I received an invitation from an influential member of Park Street (Congregational) Church to dine with him in company with his pastor. When I came into the presence of that pastor, I was at once made distinctly conscious that my presence was an offence to him. So marked was the disrespect with which he treated me, and so painful, as I saw, was my presence to him, that, as soon as the formalities of the occasion would permit, I took leave. Between fifteen and twenty years after that, I met that pastor again. As we came into each other's presence, he grasped my hand, saying, "Brother Mahan, I have desired for years to have an opportunity to make a confession to you. You remember the time when I dined with you at the house of Brother F. in Boston. On that occasion your presence was perfectly odious to me, and I felt deeply ashamed to sit, as an invited guest, at the same table with you. I now assure you that I have for years felt as deeply ashamed of my then self as I then did of you. Permit me to say to you, that you are now in my heart as a very highly-esteemed servant of Jesus Christ." The sentiment entertained by that individual on the occasion referred to perfectly represents the regard in which we were then held by the mass of the ministry and membership of the denominations designated. No persons could have been more deeply odious to the churches than we were at that time.

But what was my experience under these circumstances? The exact opposite to what it ever had been before in similar relations. Walking, as I consciously did, in "the light of God," and in the path which Christ had made plain before me, and with His smile consciously resting upon the face of my soul, it was to me a very small matter truly to be "judged of man's judgment." I then clearly understood what the Saviour meant when He said, "Your joy no man taketh from you." I was straitened in my brethren, but they were not straitened in me. I cannot recall a throb of pain, or a feeling of unkindness or bitterness, that had place in my mind during all these years. With Christ in our hearts, and in communion and fellowship with Him, we shall breathe the same Spirit towards the Church and the world that He does. I was under the uninterrupted consciousness that, in the relations then existing, I was called upon, in my interior spirit and visible life, to represent the heart and life of Christ, and consequently that "anger, wrath, malice," must never have place in my heart, words, or acts; that when "reviled, I must bless," and when "persecuted, I must endure it." Nor did I find it difficult to "possess the soul in patience" then. I was conscious of no internal struggle with sentiments or emotions of bitterness. Christ was too near, and my joy in Him was too full, to allow a place in my heart for any such feelings.

One of the special objects which I have in view in recording the above facts is, to bring to light a very common and dangerous error. When individuals, members of "the household of faith," receive injuries and provocations, they too commonly regard themselves as delivered to allow any roots of bitterness whatever to spring up in their hearts, to trouble their spirits, and to defile their character. No, my brother; "you do not well to be angry" when wronged, injured, or provoked by your brethren or the men of the world. Your character, on the other hand, should then and there take on, not the spirit of anger or vengeance, but the divinest form of virtue known in the kingdom of grace -- "the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which in the sight of God is of great price." "Let no man take thy crown." This you always do when you allow any man to anger you. The final conclusion which I deduce from the experiences above presented is this: We are "complete in Christ," "can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth us," and in all circumstances of our earthly existence can be "more than conquerors through Him that hath loved us."

Chapter 25

SUSTAINING AND ANTICIPATORY GRACE

In reference to all temptations and "trials of faith" which await believers while journeying towards the heavenly country, this specific promise remains for us: "God is faithful (worthy to be trusted), who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able, but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it." This promise should be omnipresent to our faith everywhere and under all circumstances, and with a firm and fixed trust for the grace here specifically promised, we should face every temptation which may fall upon us. There is one feature of this subject, however -- a form of grace which I do not recollect ever to have heard discourses upon, or known to have been written about -- a form of grace which I deem it of special importance that all should be fully instructed about. I refer to what may be called anticipatory grace -- a form of grace by which we are prepared beforehand for any great and special duties or trials which await us.

I will illustrate my meaning by an allusion to some special events in the experience of Paul. Aside from the visible and audible revelation of Christ to him at the time of his conversion, there are four recorded instances in which Christ revealed Himself to the apostle in a similar form, and in each instance for the specific purpose of preparing him beforehand for his great life-mission, for special and perilous duties, or for great trials and tribulations. The first of these special manifestations occurred when he was in Jerusalem, and was then in the full expectation of devoting his life to the salvation of his countrymen, and was intended to prepare him for a mission of which he had never thought of before, and which was unlike that to which any other individual had ever been called in the history of the race. Without such a manifestation, and the special revelation which accompanied it, Paul never would have become "the apostle of the Gentiles," and never could have been prepared for such a mission.

Of this mission Paul gives the following account: "And it came to pass that, when I was come again to Jerusalem, even while I prayed in the temple, I was in a trance: and saw Him saying unto me, Make haste, and get thee quickly out of Jerusalem: for they will not receive thy testimony concerning me. And I said, Lord, they know that I imprisoned and beat in every synagogue them that believed on Thee: and when the blood of Thy martyr Stephen was shed, I also was standing by, and consenting unto his death, and kept the raiment of them that slew him. And he said unto me, Depart: for I will send thee far hence unto the Gentiles." This revelation was only preparatory for the special one which he subsequently received while at Antioch, and when "the Holy Ghost said, Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them." With what absolute assurance did the first revelation prepare his mind to go forth in obedience to the second!

The next revelation of the kind occurred during the early part of his ministry at Corinth. He had "fought with the beasts at Ephesus," had been "scourged, imprisoned, and put in the stocks at Philippi," had fled for his life from Thessalonica and Berea, had encountered the derision of the philosophers at Athens, and was then in such "peril from the lying in wait of the Jews "in Corinth, that he would unquestionably have left the city but for the following special vision of Christ which he then had : -- "Then spake the Lord to Paul in the night by a vision, Be not afraid, but speak, and hold not thy peace: for I am with thee, and no man shall set on thee to hurt thee : for I have much people in this city." No wonder that, "for a whole year and six months" after he had received that vision, he continued to preach the gospel to that people, and that without fear.

The special vision next vouchsafed was when he was in the castle in Jerusalem, and was then in the midst of the greatest possible perils, with years of gloomy imprisonment in prospect. Of this vision we have the following tenderly impressive account : -- "And the night following, the Lord stood by him, and said, Be of good cheer, Paul: for as thou hast testified of me in Jerusalem, so must thou bear witness also at Rome." Little power, after that, had chains and prison walls to confine the boundless freedom of that soul.

When in the midst of that fearful tempest in which "neither sun nor stars in many days appeared, and no small tempest lay upon them, and all hope that any of them should be saved was taken away," then Christ did not Himself appear, but sent His angel with a special message of cheer, hope, and assurance. Let us read the inspired account of this vision : -- "But after long abstinence Paul stood forth in the midst of them, and said, Sirs, ye should have hearkened unto me, and not have loosed from Crete, and to have gained this harm and loss. And now I exhort you to be of good cheer: for there shall be no loss of any man's life among you, but of the ship. For there stood by me this night the angel of God, whose I am, and whom I serve, saying, Fear not, Paul; thou must be brought before Caesar: and lo! God bath given thee all them that sail with thee: Wherefore, sirs, be of good cheer: for I believe God, that it shall be even as it was told me." Thus, by such anticipatory revelations was the apostle prepared for the great exigencies, and trials, and tribulations of his eventful life.

Grace superabundant is provided for and promised to all believers for every "time of need," and special grace for all special necessities. This also we may all expect, that for new and overpowering trials we shall be prepared by anticipatory grace, which will render us more than conquerors when the evil day comes upon us. It does not appear that such grace is now vouchsafed in the specific form in which it was to Paul. Yet we may rest assured that "the Great Shepherd and Bishop of our souls" will not only come to us and walk with us after we have been put into the furnace, but will anticipate our trials of fire by special and gracious preparations. In my own experience there have been periods not a few, periods in which for a long time all providential occurrences combined their influence as very severe trials of faith. During each of these I have been not only sustained by special and all-sufficient grace, but each of them was anticipated by special promises, on which the mind was made to repose, and by special divine influences -- promises and influences all tending to one specific result, to prepare the mind for the peculiar trials which were to follow. I will refer to a few facts of the character under consideration.

Prior to the occurrence of the calamitous events in the history of the College, the events above described, this passage was brought home with inexpressible sweetness and power to my heart: -- "Hast thou not known, hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? there is no searching of His understanding. He giveth power to the faint, and to them that have no might He increaseth strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall: but they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint." The portions of the passage most deeply impressed upon my mind were the two following, the first especially : -- "He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might He increaseth strength." Why these promises were brought home with such power upon my mind and heart I could not tell. They consciously girded me, however, "with everlasting strength" for any providences which God might see fit to send. But when the sudden and crushing avalanche did descend upon us, I then understood fully why its descent had been so specifically provided for by anticipating grace.

The calamities, and the new duties thence arising, found me standing immovably upon a rock of strength, where the former could bring no disquietude, and "endued with power from on high" for the latter. In connection with the quietness and assurance which those promises inspired, and while feeling myself as self-helpless as a feeble worm surrounded with a circle of fire, with what ineffable interest did I read such promises and admonitions as the following: -- "Fear not, thou worm Jacob, and ye men of Israel: I will help thee, saith the Lord, and thy Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel." "Fear thou not: for I am with thee: be not dismayed for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness." I knew well that the Spirit of God would not, with such undying interest and life-imparting power, bring home to my heart these and kindred promises, if He did not intend that I should rest upon them. Then, when the conscious object of the neglect and reprobation of my brethren and former associates, and when consciously regarded by the ministry and churches generally with whom I had been in full fellowship as "a troubler of Israel," how can I express the almost agonising joy with which I would read such passages as the following -- "I, even I, am He that comforteth you: who art thou, that thou shouldst be afraid of a man that shall die, and the son of man, which shall be made as grass; and forgettest the Lord thy maker, that hath stretched forth the heavens, aud laid the foundations of the earth; and hast feared continually every day because of the fury of the oppressor, as if he were ready to destroy? and where is the fury of the oppressor? The captive exile hasteneth that he may be loosed, and that he should not die in the pit, nor that his bread should fail. But I am the Lord thy God, that divided the sea, whose waves roared: the Lord of Hosts is His name. And I have put my words in thy mouth, and I have covered thee in the shadow of mine hand."

How could calamities disturb my peace or awaken fear when they always found me thus encircled with such "exceeding great and precious promises.," God's "horses of fire and chariots of fire"? Why should we fear the descent of an avalanche when it must bring down with it, and that "from God out of heaven," such "everlasting consolations and good hope through grace"? How and why should man's neglect anger and disquiet us when it brings directly to our heart "the smile of the Lord" as "the feast of our souls"? Often, when made most deeply conscious of the intended neglect of brethren with whom I had once "taken sweet counsel, and gone to the house of God in company," have I turned aside and wept for overflowing joy of heart as the above passage would lift its divine form before my mind. I have long ceased to wonder at the words of Paul. Permit me to cite his words once more -- "And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong."

While the events above referred to were passing, I was called, under circumstances of peculiar embarrassment, to spend our winter vacation of three months in Boston. The church which finally engaged my services had negotiated with Brother Finney to secure his. These negotiations were carried on to within a few days before I left home, he having finally declined to go. In the communications from the church, he was assured that expectation had become so fully centred in him that I, who was a perfect stranger to all but a very few individuals, would be able to do but a very little in the city. Under such circumstances I went there, and, of course, found things as might have been anticipated.

My first evening (week-day) lecture was attended by not more than forty individuals, and these seemed to have come together from a consciousness of duty rather than an expectation of spiritual profit. Weeks before I left home, and while all were expecting that Brother Finney would spend the winter in Boston, my mind became most intensely interested in the declaration of Christ, "The kingdom of heaven is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal, until the whole was leavened." I was led to reflect upon the manner of His ministry, and the principles in conformity to which He laid the foundations of His eternal kingdom. "He went about everywhere doing good," proclaiming the Word of Life, conferring upon all who would receive Him ''power to become the sons of God," banding them together as "a little flock," and yet as the sacramental host of God; and as soon as He was glorified, "enduing them with power from on high" for the great world-work to which He had called them. "This," I said, "is the leaven which Christ cast in amid the elements of the world of mind for the world's moral renovation."

In view of that fact, my life-mission was made perfectly manifest to my mind. I was to do all I possibly could to induce every mind that I could draw under my influence to "receive, in the love of it, the truth" which Christ had made known to me, and to be "baptized with the Holy Ghost" for the exemplification and propagation of that full redemption in the world and among believers. These believers, "full of faith and of the Holy Ghost," and everywhere, by precept and example, "holding forth the Word of Life," would act as Christ's leaven in the churches until the whole were leavened. Never for a moment, after that passage thus opened upon my mind, did a shadow of doubt cross my mind in respect to the nature of my divinely-designated mission and work, or in respect to the ultimate result. The truth presented thrilled through my whole intellectual, moral, and spiritual being, and endued me with immortal courage and strength for the work before me.

When I arrived in Boston, the facts presented might have rendered me utterly despondent, and induced me to go to some other field, but for the anticipatory grace and preparation above presented. As it was, with that truth in my heart "as a burning fire shut up in my bones," I contemplated these facts with absolute "assurance of hope." Nor was I disappointed in respect to the results. Those few who listened to that first discourse went home to think, to pray, to "speak often one to another" and to their brethren upon the subject; and in a few weeks I found myself addressing, from Sabbath to Sabbath and on the evenings of the week, the most crowded audiences that could be collected anywhere in the city. The immediate result was, that many sinners were converted, and many believers "washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb," and found God as "their everlasting light," while "the days of their mourning were ended." The permanent result has been, that the leaven thus cast in has remained as a perpetually assimilating and sanctifying power in the churches.

As indicative of these results, I will refer to a single fact. Some two or three years after the above-stated occurrences, Dr Channing inquired of the celebrated seamen's chaplain in the city, Dr Taylor, whether the latter could designate any individuals, or class of individuals, whose inner and visible lives accorded with the revelations of the New Testament in respect to what believers are privileged to become. "There are many such," Dr Taylor replied. At Dr Channing's special request, Dr Taylor designated a lady whom he well knew, and who had for two or three years "walked in the light of God." At Dr C.'s written request, that lady called upon him. As soon as they met, the Doctor said to her, with much feeling, I desire to hear from you about this full redemption of which so much is said in the churches in the city and country." The lady then detailed to him her own personal experience on the subject, telling him how Christ had been presented to her mind; how she had, by faith, received Him; how He had "endued her with power from on high," and what the results had been in her inner and outer life. Dr Channing wept like a child while listening to that narrative, and said, as the lady took her leave, that he should take an opportunity to converse with her again on this subject. Immediately after this the Doctor left the city on his summer vacation, and died while absent. In an address which he delivered just before he died, on the subject of slavery, he made a devout reference to Christ as having made atonement for our sins, as living in the world as "God manifest in the flesh," and as the foundation of all our hopes.

The facts above stated -- facts connected with Dr Taylor and the lady referred to -- I give as given personally to me by these individuals themselves. The power under which I spoke, of this, I absolutely know, that that power was not my own. All that I can say of it is, that I consciously stood "in the light of God," and spoke "as the Spirit gave me utterance." Nor can I conceive how it was possible for me thus to have spoken but for the anticipatory baptism of light and power which I received before it was determined that I should visit the city at all. When will ministers, and believers universally, recognise their absolute dependence upon the Spirit of God for real Christian thought and utterance? Can any man "say that Jesus is the Christ but by the Holy Ghost"? When will Christians admit the fulness and adequacy of the grace of God in Christ, and of that grace as distributed to us by the Holy Ghost for all our necessities? Are we, or are we not, "complete in Christ"?

While a gracious Providence was thus caring for all my interests, a very singular event occurred an event unlike any other which I have ever experienced, either before or since that time. I had been engaged for some time in excessive labours in New England. The result of these labours was a very depressing and almost shattering effect upon my nervous system. Any sudden calamitous event occurring at that time, or any unexpected intelligence of such an event, might have utterly prostrated my system. I was on my way from Boston, through New York, to the city of Poughkeepsie, where I had an appointment for protracted labours for a considerable period. In the city of New York, intelligence awaited me of an event of the most afflictive and startling character that could have occurred -- an event in respect to which I had had no agency or responsibility whatever -- an event which I had not the remotest reason to anticipate, and the thought of which had never approached my mind. While sitting in the cars alone by myself, and engaged in quiet meditation, a question in these exact words was directly put to my mind: "How would you feel if, on your arrival in New York, intelligence of "-- such an event -- "should meet you"? the event being specifically designated. I was never in my life more distinctly conscious that a question was put to me by another mind than my own than I was on that occasion; nor by any facts of experience, or any of the known laws of association, have I been able to account for the fact under consideration on any other supposition.

The first acquaintance that I met with, on my arrival in the city of New York, gave me information of the occurrence of that event. The question put to me in the cars, however, had induced such specific reflections, and moral and spiritual preparations, that the intelligence had no disturbing effect whatever upon my mental or physical system. For myself, I can give but one account of the facts before us. That question was put to me by another mind than my own, and was put for the specific purpose of insuring a needful preparation for the intelligence which I did receive, and this as a means to a higher end, namely, that I might have strength for the accomplishment of the great work which was accomplished through my instrumentality in the city towards which I was journeying. The inference which I drew from such occurrences is this: -- Another mind than our own has the care of all our interests as "believers in Jesus," a mind that understands all our needs, and who is "touched with the feeling of our infirmities," a mind whose ever wakeful and watchful presence always encircles us as a "munition of rocks," and who will not fail to anticipate all our great emergencies by needful preparations. I write these things, reader, that, by an entrance into the same rest of faith, your heart with mine may ever inwardly sing --

"Safe in the arms of Jesus,

Safe on His gentle breast."

I refer but to one additional case of the kind now under consideration, and that pertains to the darkest and most trying period of my Christian life. I left Oberlin to take charge of a new university. The basis of the endowment of this institution was a tract of land of two hundred and seventy-five acres, most propitiously located in the immediate vicinity of the city of Cleveland, Ohio. This property, which promised to render the university a better endowed institution by far than any other in any of the Western States, was obtained, and by written covenant was held, by myself and two other individuals in trust, for the purposes named. By the trustees of the university, and by the trustees in trust, a power of attorney was given to one of the latter to lay out this property into city lots, and sell the same for the benefit of the institution. After matters had proceeded for a time, the trusters and community were utterly astounded by the disclosure of the fact, that, under that power of attorney, all this property had been disposed of for private speculation, the house which I had built, and in which my family was residing, being included in the sale, no deed having been yet conveyed to me. By a bogus. settlement, against which I recorded a written protest, and for which the trustees afterwards expressed the deepest regret, the ruin of the university was consummated. Standing in the midst of these ruins, with the little property I had put beyond my control, with a large family upon my hands, and with no visible means for their support, I found myself more completely insulated from former associations than I had ever been before, and under the darkest cloud with which I could be overshadowed.

Yet for what I was here called to endure I had been most fully prepared by influences and "enduements of power from on high," -- influences and enduements specifically anticipatory of what did come upon me. Some months prior to my leaving Oberlin my mind had been intensely occupied -- I could not conjecture why -- with the utterance made by our Saviour in view of His approaching sufferings at Jerusalem, namely, "Verily, verily, I say unto you. Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit." Here, I saw, is the immutable condition of fruitfulness in the kingdom of God. What that condition is, is made manifest by the circumstances in which those words were uttered. Christ had distinctly before His mind the entire sufferings and the terrible death which awaited Him. All this He could have avoided had He chosen to do so. "No man took His life from Him; He laid it down of Himself." Had He spoken the word, His persecutors would an have fallen dead before Him. Had He "prayed the Father," "twelve legions of angels" would have appeared for His rescue. That He should surrender Himself to the baptism with which He was to be baptized, that was His Father's will. When Christ, from simple respect to the Father's will, and in view of the eternal fruits thence to result, thus voluntarily "became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross," then "the corn of wheat fell into the ground and died."

So when our wills fall so absolutely into the will of God that we fully and unreservedly consent to do, to be, to become, and to suffer all that God may appoint us, asking nothing and choosing nothing but as He may will for us, then the condition required is perfected on our part, and the promise contained in the words, "If it die, it bringeth forth much fruit," is ours. Under the most distinct, deep, and impressive apprehension of this condition and promise, that black cloud came over me, and for several years shut me in on every side. "Now," I exclaimed, "is the period of my existence when 'the corn of wheat must fall into the ground and die!' While the cloud shall remain, not a murmur, nor sentiment of discontent, must for a moment have place in my mind. Not a wish or choice must be entertained that the 'trial of fire' shall be less severe or less protracted than God wills. Not a movement of anger or ill-will must enter my heart, to whatever injuries or provocations I may be subject. In no single instance must I speak unadvisedly with my lips, and absolute integrity must be maintained, whatever the losses may be which I may suffer thereby." I have no idea but that I should have fallen in that evil day, but for the anticipatory grace and strength which had been previously vouchsafed to me. Had I failed in any particular to fulfil the condition under consideration, I might have been saved from death, but should have failed, I doubt not, of the fruitfulness which has followed, and may yet follow.

Sitting, as I did, under the shadow of that dark cloud, absolutely losing myself in the sweet will of God there, and thus "learning obedience from the things which I suffered," and being -- because I was through all that period consciously sustained by a power not my own -- "more than a conqueror through Him that hath loved us," I now, as a witness for Christ, have an absolute assurance of the all-sufficiency of divine grace, an assurance otherwise impossible to me. When God at length very unexpectedly took me by the hand, and led me out from under that cloud, and set me again in "a large place," I very soon understood why God had afflicted me. There is one grace -- the most valuable of almost all others -- one grace in which we can be disciplined and perfected but in "the furnace of affliction." When "patience has had her perfect work" there, then the mind becomes possessed, as it otherwise could not be, of "everlasting consolations and good hope through grace," of "assurances of hope," "assurances of faith," and "assurances of understanding," of divine fellowships and fruitions, and of "fulness of joy."

Reader, "despise not thou the chastening (parental discipline) of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of Him." Remember, also, that they only are blessed, and counted happy, "who endure temptation;" that when the hour of trial comes, then and there is the time and place when and where the "corn of wheat must fall into the ground and die."

The final conclusion to which all the above facts and elucidations conduct us is, the absolute assurance with which we may intrust all our mortal and immortal cares and interests to Christ. "Because I live, ye shall live also." When intrusted to Him by an unwavering faith, our well-being is just as safe as His. There is not a condition of existence in which we can be placed in which there is any necessity that we should be anything less than "more than conquerors through Him that hath loved us." When Christ is in us, and we in Him, as He is in the Father, and the Father in Him, we shall be as secure and blessed in Him as He was in the Father, and temptations, in whatever forms they may come upon us, will have no more power over us than they had over Him. "He that abideth in Him sinneth not." In this relation to Christ, into which all may, and all are absolutely bound to enter, we can have nothing less than an "all-sufficiency for all things," and cannot but be "abundantly furnished for every good work," and can do nothing less than "all things through Christ which strengtheneth us." "Great fights of affliction," "divers temptations," "fiery trials," and "resistance unto blood, striving against sin," are eras in "the hidden life," not for inglorious defeats, but for glorious victories and triumphs, "through the blood of the Lamb and the Word of His testimony."

The reason, and the only reason, why any believer, the feeblest as well as the strongest, does not "stand in the evil day," is that he expects to fall, and hence "casts away his confidence." The reason, and the only reason, why I, as above stated, "remained steadfast and immovable" during the long years in which that dark cloud hung over me, was that I expected Christ would "keep me from falling," and held to Him as with a death-grasp. In my absolute and unlimited consecration of myself to Christ, the "corn of wheat had fallen into the ground;" and now, I said to myself; "the hour is come" for it to remain and die there, and by the grace and power of Christ it shall thus remain and die. During all that dark period my faith heard the voice of Him, for whose sake I regard it as an infinite privilege to suffer all that He wills, calling to me as from heaven, "Hold the fort, for I am coming;" and my whole inner being, with all the "little strength" I had, responded, "By grace I will."

And now, reader, having not only "counted," but found, "Him faithful that hath promised," I say to you, and Christ also authorises me to say, that you need not fall when you are tempted. On the other hand, "the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried in the fire, may be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ." "If thou wilt believe, thou shalt see the glory of God." "Be strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might;" and at all times, and under all circumstances, expect to be "more than a conqueror through Him that hath loved you." Then shall you be "as Mount Zion, which cannot be moved, but abideth forever."

Chapter 26

THE INTERCESSORY FUNCTIONS OF THE SPIRIT.

In I John ii. 1, Christ is revealed as our "Advocate with the Father." "If any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous." In John xiv. 16, 26, xv. 26,and xvi. 17, the same original word that is rendered Advocate in the passage above cited, is rendered Comforter, and is applied exclusively to the Holy Spirit. In a very important sense, therefore, we have two Advocates with the Father; each to act in His own special sphere -- two Advocates, namely, Jesus Christ the Righteous on the one hand, and the Holy Spirit on the other. In Rom. viii. 26, 27, we have a revelation of the nature of this peculiar function of the Holy Spirit. "Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought; but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. And He that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because He maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God." As I have never yet heard this subject satisfactorily explained to my own mind, I will dwell upon it for a few moments. In the promises, two things are absolutely pledged to the faith of the believer -- perfect security against all real evil on the one hand, and the possession of all real good on the other.

As examples of the first class of promise; I need only cite the following : -- "There shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling." "I pray not that Thou shouldst take them out of the world, but that Thou shouldst keep them from the evil." That prayer is an absolute promise to our faith. Of the other class of promises, the following will suffice : -- "No good thing will He withhold from them who walk uprightly." "But my God shall supply all your need, according to his riches in glory, by Christ Jesus." "He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?" The promises to prayer have but one limit -- our capacities to receive. "Ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full." So far the will of God is distinctly and absolutely revealed to us. So far we may ask, knowing assuredly that what we ask is "agreeable to the will of God," and that, ''asking in faith,'' "we shall have the petitions that we desired of Him." And here we have the real meaning of our Saviour in the words, "Ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you." What every true believer wills and asks for when he prays is that he may be kept from all that would be to him an evil, and not a good; that he may receive everything which would be to him not an evil, but a good; and that "God will supply all his need," until "his joy is full."

Now, when we come to particulars, and would specify this or that particular object, here come in "our infirmities," and we do not "know what we should pray for as we ought," because we do not know whether particular objects would be to us a good or an evil. Here, also, the Spirit is present to "help our infirmities," and becomes our intercessor for "things which are agreeable to the will of God." What we may not know at all the Spirit knows perfectly, namely, what particular objects would be good, and what objects would be evil to us, and knows, consequently, what objects God wills that we should, or should not, receive at His hands in answer to prayer. The Spirit becomes our Intercessor or Advocate by drawing out our hearts, and working in us to pray "fervently," "earnestly," and with "groanings which cannot be uttered," for those blessings which are "agreeable to the will of God," -- that is, those blessings which He wills that we should receive when we pray for them.

When the reception of the blessings referred to depends upon human instrumentality, the Spirit not only intercedes with and in us, by inducing in us a spirit of prayer for such blessing, but also moves upon the hearts of those through whom the answer is to come to us, to induce them to do in accordance with our prayers. When the blessing is to come through the operations of nature, the Spirit makes intercession for us as before, and, at the same time, works in nature, our bodies in cases of disease, or in nature around, as the case may be, to produce those changes and arrangements which accord with our petitions. When the Spirit "makes intercession for us" by influencing us to pray for specific spiritual blessings which must come to us directly from God, then the same Spirit, who leads and constrains us thus to pray, answers our prayers by "shedding abroad the love of God in our hearts," "revealing Christ in us," bringing us into "fellowship with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ," granting "everlasting consolations and good hope through grace," "rendering us strong in weakness," "giving a tongue and wisdom" in proclaiming the truth, filling us with all the fulness of God," and "blessing us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ Jesus," just according to the nature of the blessing in respect to which He draws out our hearts in prayer. Let us consider some facts pertaining to answers to prayer in the different relations above indicated.

Agency of the Spirit in Inducing a Spirit of Prayer,

and then Securing an Answer through Human Agency.

I have already, in another connection, referred to the case of the building of the second Temple. The building of the first Temple had been, in deed and truth, "by might and by power." Before the work was commenced, the means for its full completion were all furnished, and the civil and military resources of kingdoms were devoted to the accomplishment of the work. The foundations of the second Temple were laid by a small, poor, weak, and despised people, and all this with no visible means to perfect the work begun. Yet the people were commanded to go trustfully forward with the work. The erection of this house was to be, not the work of might nor power, but of God's Spirit. How was the Spirit to do this? Not directly, by a miraculous furnishment of means, but indirectly, through human agency. While the people were to go prayerfully and trustfully forward, the Spirit of God was not only to "help their infirmities" when praying, but to move upon the hearts of kings and princes, and of men who had gold and silver, to induce them, of their own free will, to furnish the means as needed, until "the top-stone of the edifice should be laid with shoutings, Grace, grace unto it!"

When Nehemiah, saddened by the intelligence which he had received in respect to the condition of his countrymen in "the place of his fathers' sepulchres," was inquired of by the King of Persia, the queen sitting by him, in regard to the cause of the sorrow which was too great to be concealed, the sacred writer tells us that "he prayed to the God of heaven" while answering the question put to him. Here we have a striking example of what may be called the double function of the Spirit -- inducing prayer in the first instance, and then influencing the heart of the royal sovereign to act in accordance with the prayer previously induced.

Permit me now to adduce some examples in common life and experience -- examples illustrative of the same great truth. During one of the pecuniary crises in America, a crisis in which almost all building operations were suspended in the city of New York, a Christian mechanic found himself entirely out of work. The only resource for the support of his family was derived from what was received from a few boarders kept by his wife. This woman had exhausted every possible means to keep up this supply. At length she found herself in this condition: She had been enabled to get a satisfactory breakfast for her boarders and family. Not an article of provision remained in her house, and her money and credit were perfectly exhausted. When her children expressed their apprehensions in regard to the future, she replied that their Father in heaven would give them that day, as He had done in the past, "their daily bread," and retired to her chamber for prayer. Some time after she came down singing for joy of heart, and said to her children, "God will supply the means in time for our next meal. I know He will." Immediately after this, a member of the same church with this woman, the wife of a very wealthy citizen, called, and as soon as they were alone in the parlour, exclaimed with tears, "Sister, you must he in distress about something; do tell me what it is. I have not been able to keep you out of my mind for a moment all this forenoon. I have been impressed with the idea that I should come here and give you money. Here, take my purse and do what you desire with it. But do tell me what has happened to you." When shown the empty cupboard in that house, the visitant exclaimed, "I understand it now. Well, have no concern for the future. As long as my wants are met, yours shall be." And so it was. How manifest is the fact that, while the Spirit directed and helped the one individual to pray, He moved upon the heart of the other to do what was requisite to met the petition presented to a throne of grace!

A city missionary in the city of Brooklyn, New York, having failed to receive his usual stipend during the week, found himself on Saturday evening totally destitute of means to supply his family with food for the approaching Sabbath. The matter was presented at a throne of grace. As the family were about to retire to their beds, in answer to the ring of the bell, the missionary found a wealthy merchant standing at his door. "As I was about to retire to bed," said the merchant, "you was so distinctly and impressively presented to my mind, that I dared not sleep without calling and inquiring whether you have any want that I can meet." Before retiring to rest that night, the family of that missionary sat down to a table bountifully supplied with full provisions for days following, and did retire with the sweet assurance that He who inspires and hears prayer, knows also how to secure the answer, and is equally trustworthy to do so.

The only other case to which I would refer is that of the Rev. David Ingraham, who laid the foundation of the American missions among the freedmen in Jamaica, West Indies. This individual was the first fruit of my ministry after I was settled as pastor. He followed me to Oberlin to study there for the ministry, and early became as "full of faith and of the Holy Ghost" as any person I ever knew. After he had been in the Institution several years, physicians assured him that, on account of the asthma with which he was affected, he must spend the then approaching winter in some warm climate, such as the West Indies, or he must die. Under this conviction, he left the home of his parents in the State of Michigan, and left with means insufficient to pay his passage to the city of New York. Yet he left with a fixed determination, if possible, to get to the place he desired to reach, and did so with a fixed trust that God would furnish the means, if in no other way, from help obtained from a wealthy uncle living in the State of New York.

One of the most interesting and impressive tracts published by the American Tract Society contains an account given by a fellow-passenger, a total stranger to our friend, of the influence exerted by the latter in the vessel in which they passed from Detroit to Buffalo, and on board the packet on the canal for about one hundred and fifty miles. Through the influence of that one young man both those vessels became floating Bethels. Stepping off the packet to spend the Sabbath, our friend spoke twice in one of the churches whose pastor was absent at the time, and on taking leave on Monday morning, received an unsolicited gift of twenty-five dollars from some brethren in Christ. From his uncle he received a similar gift, and then came to the city of New York, where Professor Finney and myself were labouring at the time. I shall never forget the quiet and peaceful aspect of that countenance, or the words he uttered, when that young man met me there. "I have no will or choice of my own," he said : "I am as ready to die here as anywhere else, and now as at any other time, if such is the will of my God. I have a deep conviction, however, that it is His will that I should put forth every possible effort to get to the West Indies. If I shall fail in this, then I shall know that the time has come for me to die, and shall most joyfully accept the will of Him 'whose I am, and whom I serve.'"

Being able to hear of but one vessel which was about to sail to the West Indies, and learning that it was in the harbour at Boston, our friend, having received from Brother Finney and myself what we were able to give him, and taking with him from Brother Finney a letter of introduction to some friends there, left for that city. On visiting the vessel referred to, he was told by the captain most positively that no passengers whatever could be received on board his ship, even the cabin being engaged for goods. Returning to his room, our friend carried his case to a throne of grace, praying that God, by the Holy Spirit, would induce a change of purpose in the mind of that captain. Going down to the harbour the next day, and renewing his request, he received the same positive refusal as before. On returning to his room, "and bowing his knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ," "the Spirit itself made intercession" for our brother "with groanings which cannot be uttered." On the third day he rose from his knees, and went down to the harbour with absolute assurance that then his request would be granted. As soon as he met the captain, the latter asked in the kindest words, "Will you step with me down into the cabin?" As soon as they were seated there, the captain continued, "Are you not, my young friend, out of health, and desirous for that reason to sail to the West Indies?" "Yes, sir." "Well, you can have a place on board my ship." "What will you charge me for the passage, captain?" "Sixteen dollars." The regular price was sixty dollars.

Was that young man wrong in the conclusion that it was the same Spirit that gave him such fervency, faith, and assurance in prayer, that moved also upon the heart of the captain to induce such a change in the spirit and purpose of his mind? Do not the express teachings of the Bible, as well as facts such as we are now considering, teach us most absolutely, that while the Spirit intercedes within our hearts by drawing them out in "effectual fervent prayer," that He also has power to turn the hearts of men as the rivers of water are turned, when answers to prayer depend upon human instrumentality?

The following facts, though not bearing directly upon our present inquiries, will be read with interest. On the voyage, the vessel in which our young friend sailed did indeed become a floating Bethel. On their arrival at Havana, the captain offered to take him, without charge, to all the places whither the vessel was to sail. Finding an opportunity to labour with high wages at his trade, that of a cabinetmaker, in a great manufactory of the kind in the city, our friend determined to stop there, the captain becoming responsible to the authorities for his good conduct. The overseer of the establishment was an American, and was the only individual by whom Mr. Ingraham could be understood, all the hands being slaves. Our friend soon understood, however, that all his fellow-workmen were horridly profane in their language. Whenever such an oath would be uttered, the offender would receive from our friend such a look of surprise, sorrow, and rebuke, that in a few weeks not an oath was heard in the establishment. The last evening which he spent in the city, he spent in prayer and conversation with one of those slaves, who had become an inquirer after the great salvation. Gaining needful information about the English islands, our friend returned to us, received ordination, and, with some associates, went to Jamaica, and there laid the foundation of the missions above referred to.

As an illustration of the character of the converts thus gathered in, I will refer to a single example. One of their early converts was an aged coloured man who had long been a beastly drunkard. Knowing that total abstinence was a necessary condition of saving the man from his former habits, one of the missionaries spoke to him on the subject. "Do Massa Jesus," replied the convert, "no wish me to drink any more liquor?" On being convinced that this was the case, he replied, "Well, since Massa Jesus no wish me to drink any more, me will nebber again taste a drop of liquor." The missionary then referred to the man's servitude to tobacco. "Why," replied the convert, "do Massa Jesus no wish me to use any more tobacca?" On being convinced that this was also true, the convert replied, "Well den, me nebber taste tobacca any more." Meeting the aged convert after this, the missionary found him very happy. "How have you got along without liquor and tobacco?" asked the missionary. "Oh, me nebber tich dem any more." "How do you keep down your appetite?" "Me pray Massa Jesus all de time." Here is wisdom! When will believers learn that "this is the victory that overcomes the world, even our faith"?

The Intercession and Agency of the Spirit relatively to

Physical Wants.

If anything is revealed in the Bible, this is revealed there, that prayer has great efficacy relatively to diseases, to rain and sunshine, and events in the physical world around us. "Is any among you afflicted? let him pray. Is any merry? let him sing psalms. Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord: and the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him. Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain: and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months. And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit." Nothing is said here about the subjective influence of prayer in preparing us to receive blessings, or in inducing us to labour diligently to secure them, and thus procure an answer to our own prayers. We are simply informed of what we may expect God to do when we pray to Him. Events, also, in respect to which prayer is affirmed to have great avail on those over which none but God has any control whatever. Such, also, are the teachings of Scripture everywhere on this subject. The individual who repeats the words, "Give us this day our daily bread," and does so, saying in his heart, under the prattle of an infidel philosophy about the laws of nature, that God will do nothing more or less in nature in consequence of our prayers, offers a direct insult to the Almighty. We ask Him, in all such cases, to do for us what we affirm He never will do for us or for anybody else. This dogma, that prayer can have, in our temporal concerns, nothing but a subjective influence, is as unscientific and unreasonable as it is unchristian.

If the Spirit of God is in and over nature, as a free and voluntary determining activity, then, if we are the sons and daughters of the Almighty, it would be, not reason, but unreason, in us not to believe that the Eternal Spirit will determine events around us in accordance with our varying necessities and Spirit inspired prayers. The Spirit is just as able to turn the currents of physical events, as He is to turn the king's heart or the heart of men "as the rivers of water are turned," and no law of nature is violated in one case any more than in the other. It as absolutely accords with the known nature and laws of matter to be influenced and controlled by the free activity of mind, as it does with those of one spirit to be influenced, and even controlled, by the thoughts, feelings, and wills of other spirits. We must deny the living God, or admit and affirm that His free will is the universal law of nature. If God is in and over nature, as a free and rational activity, then it is no more a violation of any law of nature for Him so to direct and control the current of events around us, that He shall be ever manifested to His children as a hearer and answerer of their prayers in respect to their temporal and spiritual interests alike, than it is for an earthly parent to sustain similar relations to his offspring.

If God is not in nature as a Hearer of prayer in the sense now under consideration, then we may say with truth, not only that revelation, but nature itself, as far as rational mind is concerned, is a lie. There is no conviction more intuitive and universal, and no instinct more strictly common to the race, than is the principle of prayer to God in time of need. In times of sudden calamity, and of great and pressing exigencies, it is just as natural to us to pray to God for deliverance and relief, as it is to breathe. Heathen authors of ancient times notice this fact that, in the relations under consideration, all men in common pray, and pray to one and the same God, the Creator and Governor of the universe. Here we have a law of nature, or none such is known to us. The infidelity in the world and the unbelief in the Church, which deny or ignore the "physical value of prayer," is as openly and undeniably opposed to known facts and the deductions of true science as they are to the Bible.

The facts of prayer-cure, "known and read of all men" throughout Christendom, are as absolutely verified as any scientific facts can be, and the deductions based upon the former are as strictly scientific as are those based upon the latter. Take the following fact, stated by Professor Finney under his own name in the Indpendent of New York, and, from personal knowledge, affirmed as real by all the people in Oberlin. A woman in that place had, from a complete paralysis of her system, been confined to her bed for upwards of ten years. In that place lives a sister in the Church who has absolute faith in the efficacy of prayer to procure immediate healing of the sick, whenever the Spirit draws out the heart to prayer for such persons. Having had her heart drawn in a very special manner towards this sad case, she went to the sick woman and convinced her from the Bible that she might receive immediate healing in answer to "the prayer of faith." Having gained this end, the visitant invited several of the female members of the Church, individuals of a common faith with her on the subject. She invited, I say, several of her female friends to meet her in that sick-room. While they were all bowed in prayer, and this woman was praying, the sick one rose up as fully recovered as was the mother-in-law of Peter when Christ touched her hand. From that time to the present, that woman has gone out and in before the people of Oberlin, a living and moving demonstration of the truth of the divine testimony, "The prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up."

I now give two cases which were made public through the religious and secular papers of Chicago, and that by eye-witnesses of known intelligence and credibility, no hint ever appearing that the cases were not real. A daughter of a Congregational pastor in Kansas, a child some ten or twelve years of age, had been confined to her bed as a very great sufferer from a rheumatic affection for upwards of three years. One of her limbs had become perfectly helpless by being drawn up and her knee becoming callous. This child having, as she lay upon her bed, read of the healing in Oberlin, said to her mother, "I can be cured as that woman was, and I want you to pray that I may be healed." The mother having expressed doubt, the child found the promises and declarations of the Bible on the subject, and read them to her mother. The physician having prepared a special application, saying it might be of some use, the child refused, affirming that she desired that Christ might have all the honour of her restoration, and the application was laid aside. At length the child called the mother to her bedside, and said, "Mother, I now have faith to be healed. Will you not kneel down at once and pray for me?" The mother did kneel, and, as she testified, prayed as she never was conscious of being able to pray before. While thus employed, the child left her bed, and laying her hand upon the mother, exclaimed, "Wake up, mother! I am cured;" and "she was cured from that very hour." A clergyman who had called a week after this to see, with his own eyes, what had occurred, stated in the public papers, that he found the child out with other children sliding on the ice, and that with limbs as well and strong as theirs.

A physician whose "praise is in all the churches" in the State of Illinois gives this account of his own case -- he had been for years afflicted with a disease of the eyes, a disease which utterly baffled the skill of himself and all the physicians around him. At length he went to the city of New York, and had his case examined by a council of the best physicians and oculists of that city. All with one consent pronounced his case a perfectly hopeless one, and affirmed that within three months he would be totally blind, and that for life. On returning home, he stated the facts to his wife and two daughters, all in common with himself having faith in God. To them he observed, that one, and but one, hope remained. God, in answer to "the prayer of faith," might restore his sight. Without further speaking, the wife and daughters retired each to a separate room for prayer. The husband and father kneeled where he was, and said, "If thou, Lord, seest it best that I should become blind, I freely consent to be thus afflicted. But if I can better serve Thee with my eyes restored, grant Lord, that I may receive my sight." While thus praying, he distinctly felt each eye touched as with the end of a finger, and knew in himself that a perfect cure was effected. Rising from his knees, he passed into the hall to go to his wife's room to tell her the glad tidings. In the hall, it being totally dark, the lamps not having been lighted up, he met his wife, who threw her arms around him with the exclamation, "Husband, your eyes are cured. I know that God has heard my prayer for that blessing." While she was thus speaking, each daughter came from her room, and throwing her arms around her parents, gave utterance to the same assurance that the mother had done. When the house was lighted up, the eyes of the husband and father were found to be in as sound a state as were those of any individual present, or were those of any individual in the community. So they have remained to this day.

I must here just allude to a statement made to me, many years ago, by Dr Cleveland, then pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in Detroit, Michigan. While I was at his house, a lady of the city, a member of his church, made a call upon her pastor and his family. After she had left, Dr. Cleveland said to me, "That is one of the holiest women I ever knew in my life, and such power in prayer! Her influence is felt throughout the city. Our wicked men of the highest standing are often heard to say, that if 'all Christians were like that woman, we should not be as wicked as we are.'" Her husband, then impenitent, was sick of the cholera years ago. His case utterly baffled the skill of all physicians, until he descended into the lowest state of collapse, a state from which no individual was ever before known to recover. While the physicians and others stood by expecting that each breath would be his last, the wife, looking upon the unconscious face of her husband, said very calmly, "He will not die now." "Why, madam," said one of the physicians, "he is dying, and must be dead in a very few moments." "If that man dies," said the wife, "I am not a Christian. If I have ever had faith at all, I have prayed in faith for his recovery, and if my prayer fails here, I have no hold at all upon God." The man did recover, and no physician, or any other person, could give any account of the fact but this, that in this case, at least, "the prayer of faith did save the sick, and the Lord did raise him up."

For myself I would say, that I have great heaviness and continued sorrow in my heart that the Church, instead of listening to God, has opened her ear to the senseless "twaddle" of infidelity about the fixedness of the laws of nature, until she has experienced a deep eclipse of faith in respect to her solemn duties and high privileges in respect to the subject now under consideration. If you will not believe God's positive testimony here, reader, your faith will be feeble, if you have any at all, everywhere else.

Let us now contemplate the available influence of prayer relatively to events in nature around us. "Ask ye of the Lord rain in the time of the latter rain; so the Lord shall make bright clouds, and give them showers of rain, to every one grass in the field." The command and promise here recorded were inspired by One who understands His own relations to the movements, arrangements, and events of the world around us, and God's relations to us as a Hearer of prayer, quite as well as do those infidel scientists to whose godless teachings our religious instructors, and the flocks they lead, have so lamentably opened their ears. In the New Testament we are positively taught that prayer, relatively to the subject under consideration, and to all our temporal concerns, has all the power that it had in the days of Elias. We are required to "cast all our cares upon the Lord;" and that for this reason, "that He careth for us." To assure us of the universality and particularity of the divine care and superintendence of all our interests, our Saviour tells us. that "the hairs of our head are all numbered," and that not "one of them shall perish," and that God is so omnipresent to us as a Hearer of prayer, and so able and ready to give when we "always pray and do not faint," that "our God shall supply all our need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus," and render "our joy full."

Now, suppose that, in our godless unbelief we entertain the sentiment that, mere subjective influence excepted, prayer has no efficacy in respect to our temporal concerns and to the events which are passing in nature around us, we shall, as a necessary result, insulate ourselves from communion and fellowship with our Father in heaven, and put an impenetrable veil between our hearts and the face of our God in all the ordinary relations and concerns of life, and shall, consequently, find God nowhere. What is still worse, we shall become "mockers," and render our "bonds strong," by continuing to utter the words, "'Give us this day our daily bread,' give us rain, and sunshine, and fruitful seasons; heal our diseases, supply all our wants, provide for the widow and orphan, and be the Guardian of all our cares and interests," and all this while we say in our hearts, "God will change nothing and give nothing in answer to our prayers," our words thus becoming nothing but lies in the ear of God. Let me say this to you, reader, that if God shall ever "dwell with you and walk in you," He will do so in the midst of all your temporalities and relations to the world around you and as the ever-trusted Guardian of those temporalities and relations. Separate the superintendence of God from these concernments, and deny to prayer all "physical value," and your heavenly Father will not "lift upon you the light of His countenance," but will "send leanness into your soul."

Permit me to allude to a few facts bearing upon the aspect of the subject now under consideration. Here I would say in general, that I never in my life knew a single individual who had found God as his "everlasting light," and who did not, both theoretically and practically, hold the view of prayer above presented. At one period, when I was a pastor in the city of Cincinnati, Ohio, out of a population of about forty thousand, upwards of twenty-five hundred persons died of one disease, the cholera. When the pestilence was impending over us I preached to my people very earnestly upon the subject, giving them special advice as to means, and urging them to make their own preservation and that of their families the subject of special and believing prayer. We held two separate days of fasting and prayer upon the subject As the result, not a single individual in my congregation, nor in any family of the same, died of that disease; one man excepted, who openly ridiculed the preaching and measures adopted in respect to the subject, and one little infant, of the real cause of whose death the physician was uncertain. The facts convinced us that it is not "a vain thing to call upon God."

The region of Northern Ohio, the portion of the State which lies immediately south of Lake Erie, is peculiarly subject to excessive rains on the one hand, and desolating droughts on the other. From the time when I became President of Oberlin College I preached much to the Church on the efficacy of prayer in all our temporal concernments, and especially in respect to the evils resulting from excessive rains and drought, and my teachings were most cordially received. Hence it was that, in times of need from the causes under consideration, special prayer was offered and days of fasting and prayer were held. When these fasts became known, we were made the subjects of open ridicule among the population a few miles distant all around us.

In a few years, however, the tone of sentiment among all these people became totally changed. In all periods of drought especially, our people, when they went into the country, would be stopped by this same people, and asked with deep concern whether Christians in Oberlin were praying about the weather, and especially whether we had appointed a day of fasting and prayer in reference to the subject. This one thing we knew, and the people around us knew, that no relation of antecedence and consequence seemed more fixed than that between the ascent of "effectual and fervent prayer" and the descent of the blessing prayed for. One year the drought was so fearful, that but few of the farmers cut any hay at all, and all the late crops failed. The churches of all denominations in two towns lying side by side in Portage County, some sixty miles from Oberlin, came together "with one accord in one place," and spent a day in fasting and fervent prayer to the God of heaven that He would give them rain. Immediately after a thick cloud overshadowed those towns, and poured down upon them all the rain that was needed. What was peculiar in this case was the fact, that the boundaries of that cloud corresponded everywhere with the borders of those two towns. There, and nowhere else in all that region, the rain fell. The people of all that county were witnesses to the strictest truth of the statement now made.

Christians, several years since, had gathered in Central Ohio for a camp-meeting of ten days' continuance, the special object of the meeting being the promotion of personal holiness among believers in Jesus. At the time when the meetings commenced, excessive rains were falling, and for some time had been falling, all over that part of the State. One half day was spent at the beginning of the meetings in united and earnest prayer that God would give them a clear sky under which they might worship Him. Immediately the sky became cloudless over their heads, and during the remainder of the ten days so continued there, and for miles all around; while outside of that circle, and that in every direction, the rains continued to fall as before. From ten to twenty thousand persons attended that camp-meeting, and all bear witness to the facts as I have stated them, and believe that God's Eternal Spirit has power, not only over the hearts of men, but equally so over the elements of nature around us, and that God is a Hearer of prayer in respect to all our cares and necessities alike.

I will, at the hazard of being regarded as "speaking as a fool," refer to an example of a personal nature. I had an appointment, during a season of afflictive drought, to preach in one of the churches of the city where I live one Sabbath morning. As we came out to our carriage, I said to my wife "There is not the remotest probability that it will rain today. I will, therefore, carry in the robe which we usually take with us," and did so. When I kneeled to pray before that congregation, I had no more expectation that it would rain that day outside than inside that house of God. When I began to pray about the drought, however, a power came upon me which rendered that prayer a wonder to myself and the congregation. The Monday's issue of our daily paper contained this statement: "The preacher in one of our churches prayed very fervently yesterday morning that it might rain, and his congregation were drenched with rain on going home at the close of that service." I can never tell when "the spirit of grace and of supplications," in that form, shall be poured upon me. Nor do I feel under obligation to have such experience whenever I pray. All that I can do, or feel bound to do, is to leave my heart open, and let the Spirit intercede in it as and when He chooses.

This I do say, however, that when the Spirit does thus intercede, I always obtain the specific object for which I pray. Nor can any one pray under the intercessory power of the Spirit without the hearer, as well as himself, marking the peculiarity of the prayer. Hence it is that, for many years past, my students, in times of drought, for example, have been accustomed to say, "We shall have rain now. Did you mark our President's prayer?" Nor were they ever disappointed.

The facts that I have stated above accord fully with the unvarying experience of believers in all ages -- believers who have credited God's testimony, and have availed themselves of their revealed privileges at the throne of grace. God is "the rewarder of them that diligently seek Him," and has never said to the seed of Jacob, "Seek ye my face in vain," or taught or required us to pray for what He is not ready to give. It is a fearful thing to "cast off fear, and to restrain prayer before God." We had better not pray at all, however, than to make ourselves "mockers" by approaching the throne of grace with formal requests for blessings which we say in our hearts God will never confer.

A pastor of one of the churches in the city of New York sent to his Sabbath-school, years ago, a tenderly beautiful little poem, containing an account of a visit he had just made to the residence of a poor widow of his church. As he rose in the morning, he felt strangely drawn to visit that lonely habitation. Our Father knows how to meet the wants of His children. On entering, he noticed a very young lad on his knees in prayer in a corner of the room, and heard him say with much fervency, ''Our Father which art in heaven, give us this day our daily bread." Rising from his knees, and bowing to the pastor, the child said, "Our mother told us that she had no food for us today, and did not know where to get it. I told her that I could get food for us all. I would ask our Father in heaven for it. I did not think that our Saviour Jesus Christ would have taught us to pray to our heavenly Father to 'give us, day by day, our daily bread,' unless He would give it, if we should ask Him for it. For this reason I told our mother that I would ask our Father to 'give us this day our daily bread,' and He would give it to us." The pastor left that house at once. He soon returned, however, with a bountiful supply for the wants of all that family. The last stanza of the poem reads thus:

"'I thought God heard me,' said the lad;

I answered with a nod.

I could not speak; but much I thought

Of that child's faith in God."

I can say, without boasting, that I have sounded the depths of the philosophies of all ages, and I have never found in any or all of them a form of wisdom more deep or divine than was manifested by that child. This I also affirm, that that philosopher has been "spoiled by philosophy" whose heart and mind science has not imbued with the identical form of faith in God which dwelt in that child's breast.

Intercessory Functions and Agency of the Spirit in the wide Realm of the Kingdom of Grace.

All evangelical Christians believe that, while the Holy Spirit moves upon our hearts to pray for spiritual blessings in all their forms, He also employs His agency to secure for us the blessings for which we pray. The Spirit, for example, induces in us "the spirit of grace and of supplication" for the salvation of sinners. While He thus intercedes in us for this end, He moves upon the hearts of the persons prayed for, convincing them of sin, and leading them to Christ.

I will give a single example in illustration of the double functions of the Spirit now under consideration. Rev. D. Nash was, prior to the time when he received "the baptism of the Holy Ghost," one of the dullest preachers that ever ascended a pulpit in the United States. Brother Finney once said of him in a public discourse, that that man always, prior to the event referred to, "prayed with his eyes open, and preached with them shut." After his "enduement of power from on high," he became one of the mightiest men in prayer that the world ever knew, and had an almost resistless power in the utterance of divine truth. Wherever he went, "the hearts of the people were moved" by his prayers and preaching "as the trees of the forest are moved by the wind."

At length he was found, upon his knees in his closet, dead before the Lord. He was accustomed, from time to time, to pray with the map of the world before him, and the localities of the various missionary stations marked down on the map. Each station in succession he would make the special object of prayer for a single day or more. In his journal which he kept, his friends found, after his death, such records as the following : -- "I think I have had this day," the date being given, "a spirit of prayer for mission," the name of the mission being also designated. At a subsequent date, a similar record was found in record to another mission, and so on through all the stations. On turning to the pages of the Missionary Herald, the organ of the American Board of Commission of Foreign Missions, it was found that revivals of religion did occur in all those missions revivals occurring in the identical order, and commencing at the very date, of the various records above referred to.

Reader, if at a throne of grace you have not princely "power with God and with men," and if you have not wisdom and utterance to speak for Christ to "edification, exhortation, and comfort," it must be that unbelief has, in your mind, limited the sphere of availing prayer to a very narrow circle, or because you have not "received the Holy Ghost since you believed." Had the Spirit been thus given to you, He would be in you as an interceding presence, drawing out your heart in "effectual fervent prayer" for things which accord with the divine will, and God's Word would be in you "as burning fire shut up in your bones." On this subject I need not enlarge, but will close this chapter with some brief reflections.

General Reflections.

1. We can now understand the power which we have in prayer when we are "full of faith and of the Holy Ghost." The Spirit, who understands perfectly all our need, on the one hand, and the good-will of God on the other, will not fail to "make intercession for us," that is, to draw out our hearts in prayer for every blessing requisite to our perfect fulness of joy, or every form of good, temporal and spiritual, which God wills that we should receive and enjoy. All our petitions will come before One whose paternal heart yearns to meet every want of our mortal and immortal natures, and who has bound Himself; by absolute promise, to suffer "no evil to befall us," and to "withhold no good thing from us," when we thus pray to Him. All our petitions, also, will be presented in the name of Christ, who has absolutely assured us that "whatsoever we shall ask the Father in His name, He will give it us." The Father, therefore, cannot deny our requests without dishonouring His only Son. Finally, in all our petitions, God will hear the voice of His own Spirit "making intercessions for us with groanings which cannot be uttered," and whom He has commissioned to energise with almighty power in the world of nature and the world of grace, to insure for us "the petitions which we desire of Him." "Praying always with all prayer in the Spirit," "nothing will be impossible unto us." These, reader, are the sort of persons we all ought to be. Shall unbelief veil your heart from the face of God, and shut you out from the promise, "Thou shalt call upon me, and I will answer thee, and show thee great and wonderful things that thou knowest not of"?

2. We may also clearly understand why it is that God makes the bestowment of His most precious gifts, temporal and spiritual, conditional upon our prayers for the same. How else, I may inquire, could He be so distinctly and impressively present to our hearts, and known to us as our omnipresent, all-loving, and all-sympathising Father and watchful Guardian of all our interests, the small and the great alike? We call upon Him, and He answers us "in all that we call upon Him for," and that both in respect to ourselves and others, and both in respect to temporal and spiritual interests, concerns, and relations alike, and in every case in which we "cast our cares upon Him," we receive some special and recognisable token of His paternal sympathy and regard. It then becomes omnipresently real to us that God is "our everlasting dwelling-place," and at all times, and under all circumstances, we are the direct objects of His love, sympathy, and care; that "in all our afflictions He is afflicted," while "the angel of His presence saves us;" and that whatever evil "touches us touches the apple of His eye." The main good which we receive through prayer does not consist chiefly in the specific blessings which we obtain, but in the assurance which each answer brings to our hearts that "God is our Father, and we are His sons and daughters." The former may be but a temporary good, of comparatively little value; the latter brings to us an infinite and eternal good, a blessedness as enduring as the eternal years of God, and as blissful as His everlasting smile. It is thus that, while at "the throne of grace," we "obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need," and God thus "grants us all things richly to enjoy," all things temporal and spiritual in connection with the specific gifts obtained --

"Heaven comes down our souls to greet,

And glory crowns the mercy-seat"

We never can know God as our "everlasting light" until He shall be omnipresent to our hearts as a Hearer and Answerer of prayer, "the Rewarder of them that diligently seek Him" in respect to all our interests, concerns, and relations alike, "we casting ALL our cares upon Him," and that for the revealed reason, "that He careth for us."

3. We notice, finally, the important error of those who limit the operations and power of the Spirit to the revealed truth of God. As our Instructor and Teacher, it is, of course, the revealed office of the Spirit to "lead us into all truth ;" and this function is an infinitely important one. It is nowhere revealed, however, that this is His exclusive function, but it is distinctly revealed that this is not the case.

The same Spirit under whose power Christ, on going out of the wilderness, "came into Galilee," worked also in Christ "in raising Him from the dead." By the same Spirit which "fell upon the disciples at the beginning," God is to "quicken our mortal bodies." The same Spirit which moved Elias to "pray fervently that it might not rain," closed the windows of heaven, so that "it rained not on the earth for the space of three years and six months." The same Spirit which moved him to pray again "that it might rain," caused "the heavens to give rain," and "the earth to bring forth her increase." The same Spirit which moved the Church to "pray day and night for Peter in prison," caused the chains to fall from his limbs, put his keepers to sleep, opened the prison doors, and "the iron gate which led into the city," while the angel of God led the apostle forth in safety.

While the Spirit is in us as the light of God, "leading us into all truth," He may act directly upon other departments of our natures besides our intelligence, and, by acting thus, may change our propensities, and correct evil tendencies within us. While He rests upon us as a baptism of power, He may intercede within for things which accord with the will of God, and may then energise with Omnipotent energy in the world of mind and matter around us, to bring to us from God answers of peace "in all that we call upon Him for." Let us not in any direction "limit the Holy One," but, in reference to all our revealed privileges, "be strong in the faith, giving glory unto God."

Chapter 27

CRUCIFIXION AND SANCTIFICATION OF THE PROPENSITIES

The forms of expression by which the provisions and promises of the new covenant, of which Christ is our Mediator, are set before us are quite various and peculiar, and require special consideration on the part of all who would understand the secrets of the hidden life. In Jer. xxxi. 31-33, the provisions and promises of this covenant are set forth in the following language: -- "Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new Covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the Lord: but this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people." In Ezek. xxxvi. 25-27, these same provisions and promises are expressed in the following words: -- 'Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shalt be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you. A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them."

Under the old dispensation, there was a promise to believers quite analogous to those above presented (Deut. xxx. 6) -- "And the Lord thy God will circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, that thou mayest live." The conditions on which God will do all these things for us are stated with perfect definiteness in the Scriptures. In Ezek. xxxvi. 37, these conditions are thus expressed: "Thus saith the Lord God; I will yet for this be inquired of by the house of Israel to do it for them." Again we read, "Then shall ye seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart." Under the old dispensation, the condition of the promise, as then presented, is thus expressed. The people were to "return unto the Lord, and obey His voice, with all their heart and with all their soul."

Near the close of his life, Moses complains of the people, and charges it upon them as a great crime on their part, that God "had not yet given them an heart to perceive, and eyes to see, and ears to hear, unto that day." In other words, they had not only neglected present obedience, but had not sought of God a "heart to perceive, eyes to see, and ears to hear;" in other words, they had neglected to seek from God circumcised hearts, that they might continuously "love the Lord their God, with all their heart and with all their soul." What does God complain of in respect to His Church to-day, and charge upon her as the sin which is the main cause of all her weaknesses, lapses, and backslidings? Is it not this, that she is living in content outside of the provisions and promises of the new covenant, the covenant which, according to the express teachings of the prophet Joel, and, I may add, of all the prophets, includes "the promise of the Spirit"?

Why is it, reader, if such is your state, that God has not "circumcised your heart to love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul"? Why has He not "put His law in your inward parts, and written it in your heart"? Why has He not "sprinkled clean water upon you," and rendered you "clean"? Why has He not "cleansed you from all your filthiness, and from all your idols"? Why has He not "taken the stony heart out of your flesh, and given you a heart of flesh," and "caused you to walk in His statutes," and to "keep His judgments, and do them"? Why has He not "sanctified and cleansed you," so that when your iniquities shall be searched for, there shall be none, and your sins, and they shall not be found"? Why has not God "put His Spirit within you," "endued you with power from on high," and thus "filled you with all the fulness of God"? But one answer can be given to these questions, provided you have not yet thus attained. The Lord your God has not "for this been inquired of by you to do it for you;" you have riot "hearkened unto the voice of the Lord your God," obeyed His will, believed His Word, "laid hold of His covenant," and "searched for Him with all your heart and with all your soul." This is your sin, on account of which you "walk in darkness and have no light," groan in "bondage under the law of sin and death," and are shut out from "fellowship with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ." If now you will believe God's word, trust His grace, "lay hold of His covenant," "inquire of Him to do these things for you," and "search for Him with all your heart and with all your soul," "He will be found of you," and you will find all His "exceeding great and precious promises" fulfilled in your experience, and He will do exceeding abundantly for you above all that you ask or think." "But if you will not believe, you will not be established."

The Nature of the Blessings Proffered to our Faith in this

New Covenant.

It is perfectly evident that two forms of genuine Christian experience are presented to our consideration in the subject before us; that the element of supreme obedience, hearkening to the voice of God, obeying His will, and seeking Him "with all the heart, and with all the soul," characterise each state alike, and that the one is conditional and preparatory to the other. When we "return unto the Lord, and obey His voice with all our heart and with all our soul," we are in one state. When the Lord our God has circumcised our hearts to love the Lord "with all our heart and with all our soul," we must be in another and different state, or the promise is without meaning. We are surely in one state and relation to God when we are "searching for Him with all our hearts," and in another and different state and relation to Him when we have "found Him," He coming to us, and "dwelling in us, and walking in us," as our God, and we having fellowship with Him as "His sons and daughters." When we are "inquiring of God" to do for us what is promised in the new covenant, we are in one state. We are certainly in quite another and different state when God, in fulfilment of the provisions and promises of that covenant, has "put His law in our inward parts, and has written it in our hearts," has "cleansed us from all our filthiness and all our idols," has "taken away the stony heart out of our flesh and given us an heart of flesh," and has "put His Spirit within us" that is, "baptized us with the Holy Ghost." No candid mind will question the truth of the above statements.

But what are the provisions and promises of this new covenant? As far as they include "the promise of the Spirit" the most essential element of the covenant -- on this part of the subject I shall not now speak, having said already all that is needful here. What, then, do the words, "take the stony heart out of your flesh, and give you an heart of flesh," mean? What can they mean but a fundamental change and a renewal of our propensities? We are "by nature children of wrath," "prone to evil as the sparks are to fly upward." When God does for us what is provided for and promised to us in the new covenant, we have "a new heart" and "a new spirit," "a divine nature, which impels us to love and obedience, just as our old nature impelled us to sin.

As preparatory to a clear understanding of this subject, let us consider the following statements of the apostle. "Now, the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law." Behind all these forms of sin, "works of the flesh," lie certain propensities, dispositions, and tempers, which, when touched by corresponding temptations, set on fire burning and "warring lusts" and evil passions, and these induce the sins and crimes above designated. Suppose, now, that these old propensities, dispositions, and tempers are taken away, and, in this state, new ones of an opposite nature are given; in other words, that "the heart of stone is taken out of our flesh," and in its stead there is "given us heart of flesh." Under our renovated propensities, and new dispositions, tendencies, and tempers, or "divine nature," it becomes just as easy and natural for us to bear "the fruits of the Spirit," as it was, under our old ones, to work "the works of the flesh." Here, then, we perceive clearly what is pr~ vided for, and promised to, our faith in the new covenant, what Christ, as the Mediator of that covenant, promises to do for us when He is "inquired of by us to do it for us," and what He will commission the Spirit to work in us when He shall "baptize us with the Holy Ghost"

With the above exposition accords all the teachings of the New Testament upon this subject. The "exceeding great and precious promises" are given us for the revealed purpose that "by these" -- that is, by embracing these promises by faith -- we "might be partakers of the DIVINE NATURE, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust." "By nature" -- that is, under the influence of our old nature, or propensities, dispositions, and tempers,"we are "children of wrath," and "bring forth fruit unto death." Under the dispositions, tempers, and tendencies of our new or "divine nature," we are just as naturally "children of God," and "have our fruit unto holiness," while "the end is everlasting life." Why are we called upon to "reckon ourselves dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord"? Because "our old man," our old propensities, dispositions, and tempers, is crucified, "put to death" with Him, that the "body of sin," our old and evil nature, "might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin." Our old nature, or propensities, dispositions, and tempers, the apostle calls "the body of this death," and thanks God, as we all should, that, "through Jesus Christ our Lord," we are delivered from this "body of sin and death"

One special design of the apostle in the sixth, seventh, and eighth chapters of Romans is to elucidate this great truth. While the old nature remains, fight against its tendencies and promptings as we will, and form what good resolutions we may, "the good which we would we shall not do, but the evil which we would not, that shall we do." The reason, as the apostle affirms, is obvious. "The law in our members will war against the law of our mind, and bring us into captivity to the law of sin which is in our members." From "this law of sin and death" Christ sets us free, putting within us, in place of that law, "the law of the Spirit of life." The same doctrine the apostle obviously teaches in the following passage: -- "So, then, they that are in the flesh (under the dominion of their natural propensities) cannot please God. But ye are not in the flesh (under its control), but in the Spirit (under His control), if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His. But if Christ be in you, the body," that is, the body of sin of which the apostle has been exclusively speaking thus far, "is dead, because of sin; but the Spirit," that is, the new nature or spirit which Christ gives, "is life," lives and reigns within us, "because of righteousness."

Now mark the inference which the apostle draws from his previous reasonings "Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh to live after the flesh." In other words, because that, through the Spirit of Christ dwelling in us, "the body of sin," our old and evil propensities," may he destroyed," and "the old man may be crucified with Him," and we may, "through the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus," be "made free from the law of sin and death," we should indeed cease to "live after the flesh," should be "not in the flesh, but in the Spirit;" and should "reckon ourselves dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord." Just such teaching runs through all Paul's epistles, and, I may add, as the reader will perceive in the light of these suggestions, through the whole New Testament. Paul, for example, says of himself, "I am Crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me." Again he says, "But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world." To Christians he says, "Ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God." Such language implies more than this, that his old propensities, "the body of sin," "the old man," is yet living and warring in the soul, but, by the grace of Christ, are held in subjection. Mere subjection is not death. What the apostle undeniably intended to teach is this: that his propensities, dispositions, and temper had been so renovated that the world, with its affections and lusts, had no more power over him than they have over the dead. Christ, on the other hand, lived in him, and occupied all his affections, and held undisputed control over all his activities. Some important suggestions and reflections here present themselves.

Forms of Christian Experience before and after we have entered into the Privileges of the New Covenant.

We can now understand clearly the difference in the conditions and relations of the believer before and after the promises of t