to believe in the Redeemer, and dishonour him by their lives, have therefore no real faith in him, no love towards him. You must seek for the Spirit's help that you may forsake your sins, and turn from your evil ways. Reverence God's Sabbaths; read his word; be honest and be charitable in your dealings with your fellow-creatures; and strive and pray against evil passions and tempers. These things will prove that ye believe in the Saviour: but rest not on any thing that you can do; for salvation is through the blood of Christ alone. But ask yourselves, are you believers in the Lord Jesus Christ? If you are not, trifle no longer with your immortal souls, but come to him in earnestness and humility. He will receive you, and you shall not perish, for he will give unto you eternal life. All earthly things shall soon pass away; but, whatever distress or danger may arise, believe in the Redeemer, and trust in him, and you are safe. He who died to purchase your salvation with his blood, will never forsake his humble followers; he will uphold them to the last, and give unto them everlasting life.

NAMES AND TITLES OF CHRIST.

(Continued from page 151.)

E. C. H.

PHYSICIAN, Matt. ix. 12.-" The whole head is sick, and the whole heart is faint." This evil nature is in every one of us; and no physician or medicine, but Jesus, and his sanctifying Spirit, can restore us to spiritual health. Let us then, by faith and constant prayer, put our diseased souls into his hands, that the wounds may be mollified, and bound up, and closed, by his healing care. Thus alone can our ruin be prevented, and holiness and happiness be restored to our souls.

PROPHET, John vii. 40.-Our blessed Saviour, as he was the great subject of prophecy, so he was an illustrious prophet himself: as he excelled in all other spiritual gifts and graces, so was he eminent in this also: and gave ample proofs of his divine commission, by his prophecies as well as by his miracles. A prophet, in Scripture, sometimes means a Preacher: in this sense Christ is a Prophet. He enlightens and instructs man

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kind, he discovers to them the evil nature and dreadful consequences of sin; he warns them to flee from the wrath to come, he sets life and death before them, a blessing and a curse, reproves, exhorts, encourages, invites. By his word, and by his ministers, he is continually calling upon sinners to turn from their iniquities, and pointing out to them the only means by which they can effectually be turned.

PRIEST, Heb. vii. 26.-Not only do the sacred writers ascribe to Christ the title and qualifications requisite for the priesthood, but also the peculiar functions of the office, declaring that in the heavenly sanctuary he made an offering to God, even an offering of himself. As Priest he has atoned for sinners' past transgressions; by his precious blood-shedding, he has opened a way for their reconciliation with God. The assurance of mercy, Christ in his priestly office has effectually furnished. He is set forth as a propitiation through faith in his blood, for the remission of sins that are past. Through his merits and intercession, sinners are invited to come boldly to the throne of grace; to cast themselves without fear on the mercy of God, and confidently to look to him as a reconciled and loving Father.

CORNER-STONE, Matt. xxi. 42.-That is, the grand ornament and strength of the whole spiritual temple. The expression, head of the corner, seems to denote that stone which is the uppermost, and binds all under it the closer together. In the same manner, Christ the Messiah, whom the Jews rejected, has united the Gentiles to his Church, and the whole body of Christians together, as a principal corner-stone joins and links together all the parts of a building.

THE FAITHFUL WITNESS, TRUE WITNESS, Rev. i. 5. iii. 14. He who came into the world to bear witness to the perfections, counsels, truths, and will of God to men, and who fully revealed all that he had received from the Father for that purpose. Who died to seal with his blood, the truth of his doctrine; and, after that, rose again the first from the dead, to give an earnest and certain assurance of the resurrection which he has promised us.

SERVANT, Phil. ii. 7.-By taking upon himself a

created nature, Christ became essentially a servant to God, whereas he was before equal to the Father as to his Godhead. He was pleased to abase himself, by submitting to the most indigent circumstances, and the severest hardships, and to humble himself to the very depth of suffering and shame, for our salvation.

THE ONLY POTENTATE, KING OF KINGS, LORD OF LORDS, 1 Tim. vi. 15.-This title the great emperors of the world took to themselves; therefore, the apostle says that it belongs to God only and our Lord Jesus Christ. To him, from whom all power and authority are derived and delegated; who alone possesses immortality in himself, having underived, unalienable, and unchangeable existence, perfection, and felicity: who inherits the light itself, surrounded with the brightest glory, to whom honour and power everlasting ought to be ascribed by all intelligent creatures. O. T. K.

A FRAGMENT.

I READ with great pleasure, in your number for to-day, the quotations from Parnell's Hermit, and was delighted with the remarks on it. As I am very much in the habit of asking myself—-Why? I said to myself Why are you so much pleased with this? The faithful answer to the question is, (there is a great deal of egotism in this,) the paper reflects back some of my earliest recollections; for I was always a lover of poetry, and before I was six years old, I, for my own amusement, got off by rote that poem, and Thomson's story of Lavinia, neither of which I have entirely forgotten; but Parnell's Hermit, from the time I learnt it to the present moment, has given me an object of thought.

During my very stormy pilgrimage it has been a sort of little pole-star; in the gloom of night, it has pointed to the providence of God, whose paths, though through the trackless waters, lead to the haven of eternal rest.

My youthful reflections were,-how I should like to be a hermit! What a delightful life! To lie upon moss; to eat fresh fruits; to drink pure water, so sparkling and so cool. To have no business but prayer to God; to know no pleasure but that of praising him; how very

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pleasant. My imagination went farther than this, for I even embodied my fancy; and to this moment I see, not the cave, but what I thought should be my hermitage. This pretty place embowered in trees, and festooned with flowers, stood in the Duke of Portland's grounds, somewhere to the right between Norton and Worksop. But I believe I was not, in the strict sense, a hermit in my notions; for I fancied myself the youth, (I was then quite a child,) clinging to the old man, listening to his counsels, and learning from his lips. I had always a veneration for age; I said, if I had such a friend as the good pilgrim to guide me, so wise, so kind, what else could I want? The modesty of the youth charmed me, but the greeting of the old man went to my heart.

"The morn was wasted in the pathless grass,
And long and lonesome was the wild to pass;
But, when the southern sun had warm'd the day,
A youth came posting o'er a crossing way;
His raiment decent, his complexion fair,
And soft, in graceful ringlets, wav'd his hair:
Then, near approaching, 'Father, hail!' he cried;
And, 'Hail, my son!' the rev'rend sire replied:
Words followed words, from question answer flow'd,
And talk of various kind deceiv'd the road,
Till each with other pleas'd, and loath to part,
While in their age they differ, join in heart.
Thus stands an aged elm in ivy bound,

Thus youthful ivy clasps an elm around."

We must, however, reverse the moral of the story; for I did not fancy myself the teacher but the taught; nor did I wish to do all the seeming mischief; but the idea of being like the ivy was very pleasant, the multitude of roots thrown out by the plant at every bend, the support and nourishment derived from the elm were all so congenial, for how could I become wise and good by my own unassisted powers! I felt I wanted something"A root not my own;" John xv. 1—7. "Nourishment not of my own concocting;" John iv. 14; vi. 47-58. And who will be my guide to these, unless I cling to some aged pilgrim? I need not say, how distressed my young feelings were, to find the good deceived; the generous imposed upon; and the wicked prosperous; but I shall say, that I was early taught by One, wiser than

my reverend hermit, that "All things work together for good to them that love God." I have not led a hermit's life, but my path has been that of a pilgrim over a flinty soil! but then, it is certainly the path of a pilgrim on his journey home, so I have cause not to be contented only, but also to be thankful. My youthful visions have not been realized, but what is the language of my mature age? My heart says, that

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'My Maker justly claims the world he made." Nay, it says more-it says, that what God wills is not only right, but good. Good, for the world at large; and best, incalculably the best, for every individual among us, if we are indeed Christians :—and if we are not, it is diffi cult to say what would be good. Nature rebels against the dispensations of heaven; but grace says,

"Lord, as in heav'n, on earth thy will be done."

Now, though, as I said before, my way has been stormy, and my path flinty, yet my life has not been unhappy; for, one cannot be unhappy, with

"Lovely, lasting peace of mind!
Sweet delight of human kind!
Heavenly born, and bred on high,
To crown the fav'rites of the sky,
With more of happiness below,

Than victors in a triumph know!"

And whether we dwell in palaces or garrets, there is no real peace of mind to the ungodly and the selfwilled

"A cruel something unpossess'd,

Corrodes and leavens all the rest;
That something, if they could obtain,
Would soon create a future pain."

Man is naturally like the troubled ocean; but the Christian, living in the spirit of Christianity, is like the smooth lake, transparent, pure, and peaceful; a mirror, in which is reflected the azure of heaven, and the sun that enlightens the whole. Ah! who would not be a Christian? He that has an eye for the beauties of nature, ought to be alive to that beauty of character which is reflected from the "Sun of Righteousness."

When deserted by friends, when approaching the last extreme of earthly suffering, our great exemplar said,