very comfortably, till the way grew so narrow that we could not pass; for the Barber's Block to us was made a stumbling-block. We are true friends of brother Philpot's, and trust that we have had communion with him in his writings.

In page 43, he speaks much of false evidences and false gifts, and says that preaching, praying, seeking, striving, desiring, talking, wishing, and even tasting, may not be evidences of a new birth; and here we could get no further, for if a dead man can taste, feel, hunger, and thirst after the bread of life, (which is heavenly bread,) and then fall to hell and perish for ever, we are at a loss for an evidence of our new and heavenly birth, and are left wandering in a dark labyrinth of uncertainty, which would leave our poor souls in confusion.

We assure you that we intend no ill-will to dear brother Philpot. But would only just say that the Lord's burnt children dread fire, and some of us have been saved with great fear, and violently pulled out of the fire, when we expected to have perished in eternal flames. But blessed for ever be the strong and holy arm which plucked us as brands when apparently half cousumed. We know that the Lord's children must be stripped and washed before they can be clothed in clean and white raiment, but when we are sent to strip poor children just plucked out of the fire, let us mind that we do not pull skin, flesh, and all with the burnt and stinking old rags, and so hurt the flesh and bones of Jesus' body. One of our young friends thinks he has not only felt the Author of the Appendix to the Barber's Block pulling at his old rags, (which he desires to have pulled off,) but has felt some rents made in the living body, which caused some acute suffering before he divulged it to us.

A few thoughts on the above subject, by Mr. Philpot, or some of your experienced correspondents, will much oblige

A FEW WRETCHED MEN.

I should be very much obliged to any kind correspondent for an illustration of Eph. iv. 30, and Heb. vii. and latter part of 25, as the subjects have much perplexed my mind.

Sarum, Oct. 9th, 1837

M. G.

THE MINISTRY.

(Extract of a Letter.)

My dear Brother,—It is a sinking thought that if a man is of any use in the ministry to God's tried and tempted people, he must groan deeply in his own poor soul, for an untried parson is nothing but a plague to God's tried people. You know it is not trifles that will bring a man low, and keep him poor, needy, vile, helpless, and dependent upon the power and grace of God. I still feel less than the least of all saints, and the very chief of sinners. About twelve years ago, the Lord gave me a very bitter, grievous thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to buffet me, and I don't know that I have been free from it day or night for twelve hours since. Many times have I besought the Lord to take it from me, but though it still remains, I must confess His grace has been sufficient for me, and I do believe I shall feel it to my sorrow till death puts an end to it; and though this thorn is in the flesh, it does not grieve the flesh, but is the sweetest morsel to my carnal mind; but afflicts my righteous soul, and makes me at times to

hate my life also, as true disciples must. Thousands of times hath it made me sigh and groan in this tabernacle, brought me to know and feel there is no salvation for such a monster as I but by an act of free and sovereign grace, that nothing can take out stains so deep scarlet and crimson but the precious blood of the Lamb, and that nothing can restrain and keep me but the mighty power of God. And though this heavy ballast often threatens to sink my battered bark to rise no more, and I wonder I am not in hell, yet I can see it is for want of this humbling teaching that many gallant ships with more sail in head than ballast in the heart, founder, dash upon rocks, get stuck fast upon sand banks, die in their sins, want rocks and mountains to hide them from the face of Him they have professed to know, preach, and follow, and blaspheme a holy and just God for ever in hell, If Christ were not in our vessel, formed in our hearts the only hope of our guilty souls, depend upon it, Satan, sin, and self, would not cause the wind, waves, and tempests to threaten to carry us away with the flood; and though Jesus appears asleep in the hinder part of the ship, answers us not a word, and many there be at such seasons who say of our souls, there is no help for him in God, yet He hath arisen for our deliverance and proved them liars unto us; Satan hath been rebuked for our sakes, reason proved a lying enemy to our souls and to God, and our evil hearts of unbelief put to the blush as the basest of rebels and the blindest of bats. We have enjoyed a sweet calm in our souls, felt submission to His will, been meekened into contrition, and made less than a little child in humility at His feet. We have wondered at His longsuffering and faithfulness, have praised Him with joyful lips for his goodness and mercy, and blessedly known that He is the Man Christ Jesus who died for our sins and rose again for our justification. I often feel glad Mr. F. has found out Mr. Huntington's works, and that they prove such a blessing to his soul. Our brother S. has been here. I love him dearly. I heard him twice, and feel assured that all who cavil at his preaching are not under a feeling sense of what poor sinners they are. I believe God will honour him in spite of devils or men. I have got to speak to night, so excuse my not filling up the sheet. I would not give ninepence for what is written, but you must; so you see we parsons palm our wares upon the people and make them pay for it. I was lashing away at Antinomians last Sabbath, and a loose professor that came nine miles, thanked me for the discourse, though he said it shook him to the foundation. I said to him, "What, thank me for giving you a good drubbing?" If such men were possessed of a tender conscience and the fear of God, they would want a sack to put their guilty heads in, and not go with a whore's forehead to speak to the parson.

Believe me ever to remain,

Your very affectionate and unworthy Brother,

W

Dec. 12th, 1837.

(Extract of another Letter.)

D. S.

I received yours, and was very glad to hear from you, and thank you and the friends for your kind invitation; but am sorry to say that this year it is not in my power to comply. I hope the Lord, at some future time, will open a way for me to see you again, and as an instrument in his dear hands, impart some spiritual blessing to you. For my own part, I still find this world to be a wilderness, and I am very often bewildered in it. Still my dear Lord is a very present help in time of need, and in great love and mercy he now and then gives me a dead lift, and manifestatively sets my feet upon the Rock of Ages, and puts

a new song into my mouth, even glory to my Three-One God. You may talk about the sweet music of your country nightingale, but there is no music out of heaven so sweet as that which springs from God's everlasting love, made known to the soul by the almighty energy of God the Holy Ghost, through the blessed channel of oneness with Christ, and interest in his precious blood and righteousness. Here God and the sinner rejoice together. Hence says our dear Lord, "As the bridegroom rejoiceth over the bride, so shall thy God rejoice over thee;" (Isa. vi. 2-5;) and again, "The Lord thy God in the midst of thee is mighty; he will save, he will rejoice over thee with joy; he will rest in his love, he will joy over thee with singing." (Zeph. iii. 17.) Thus we see the Lord rejoices over his poor Zion, composed of Jew and Gentile; and however forlorn or desolate they may be in self or of self, he will make them both bud, and blossom, and bear fruit; for "the wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose. It shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice even with joy and singing." Therefore we are to "strengthen weak hands, and confirm feeble knees, and to say to them that are of a fearful heart, Be strong, fear not; behold your God."

Poor, weak, feeble, bewildered, solitary, desert-like, sin-sick, Satanhunted, law-wrecked, trembling soul, "behold your God, even your God, will come with vengeance, even God with a recompense; he will come and save you." (Isa. xxxv. 1–7.) When the blessed Spirit reveals these things in the conscience, and seals them upon the heart, then the soul does sing, and sweetly sing too; and this is one blessed part of the song: "I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my soul shall be joyful in my God; for he hath clothed me with the garments of salva, tion, he hath covered me with the robe of righteousness," &c. (Isa. vi. 1-10.)

Thus the Lord and the saved sinner sing and rejoice together. O the matchless wonders of sovereign, saving grace. Here all hell is defeated, sin destroyed, law magnified, a Three-One God honoured, and vile sinners completely saved, and made more honourable and glorious than the angels in heaven. O my dear friend, may you and I, and the friends at and all God's dear family, enter more and more into these matchless blessings. None can teach them spiritually, nor lead poor sinners into them, but the dear Spirit of God. O for more of his solemn and sweet teachings.

Well, my dear friend, a few more storms, and we shall be wafted safe home, get to our glorious harbour, where storms can never come; no, nor darkness nor hardness of heart neither. All will be light, life, and glory; complete holiness, and indescribable happiness; for God will be all and in all for ever and ever. Amen.

SPIRITUAL CORRESPONDENCE.

TO THE EDITORS OF THE GOSPEL STANDARD.

Dear Sirs, It is incumbent upon all who receive any benefit either from the God of all our mercies, or from man, to acknowledge the same with gratitude, more particularly when any spiritual blessing is received; and as you give in the Gospel Standard encouragement to the feeblest of God's family to testify what the Lord the Spirit has done for them, it encourages me with pleasure to thank you for your address in the Gospel Standard of January, 1838; the reading

of which, the good Lord the Eternal Spirit blessed to the humbling of my soul, particularly in reading the third object. A sweet unction and dew fell upon my spirit, as it set forth my experience, the many changes which I am called to pass through, and the painful paths I am often in. I find Mr. Hart's words true, viz.

"Their pardon some receive at first, and then compell'd to fight;
They feel their latter stages worst, and travel much by night."

I often find the Bible a sealed book, at which time I am the subject of much rebellion, deadness, hardness of heart, and a cage of unclean birds; very little light, much darkness and barrenness of soul; and what adds to my affliction, not an interpreter to be found in a thousand. Faithful men are very scarce, and thousands of false blind guides are leading numbers into the ditch with themselves. O my soul, come thou not into their assemblies, nor suffer me to eat of their dainties! But, blessed be the Lord, O my soul, for raising up a few faithful Jeremiahs, and bringing them out of Egyptian darkness, and sending them at times into our quarter, to the comforting of the poor, scattered, and despised ones, who are without an under shepherd; and as some of God's dear and faithful servants are hastening to a better world, they are raised up that we may not be without witnesses for God, and for the comfort of his tried, tossed, tempted, and afflicted family, to cast up the high way, gather out the stones, and take up the stumbling blocks out of the way. One faithful "Scholar” confesses himself to be in Questioning Cell, and says he has to travel through fire and water to make him a faithful minister of the spirit, that he may be enabled to testify of those things he has tasted and handled of the word of eternal life, to God's afflicted ones. Yet he labours not in vain in the Lord, and he shall receive at the Lord's hand a double blessing, and come forth from all his trials. This I, as a poor believer, can avouch, to the praise of a faithful covenant God in Christ Jesus. He has, blessed be his name, fought my battles, and will also fight his. No victory but by the Captain of our salvation; therefore, no weapon formed against us can prosper. I have in some measure been exercised as he has, and although painful to flesh and blood, yet, it will in God's time yield the peaceable fruits of righteousness to all those thus exercised. The dear Lord bless the Scholar," and give him many seals to his ministry, and many souls for his hire. So prays an unworthy reader.

I also desire to be thankful to "W. W." for his complaint in poetry in the Standard for November, beginning at the 4th verse. It was much blessed to me, being my complaint and inmost soul's desire.

Thus, Sirs, have I, through a host of fears, and much weakness, attempted to address a few lines to you, entirely from your own encouragement in the Standard, which publication I much esteem for its experimental contents. The good Lord encourage you to go on in your undertaking, that it may, in the hands of God the Eternal Spirit, be a blessing to the afflicted Church of Christ. Amen. Walworth, January, 1838.

A BRUISED REED.

My dear Editors,-At the close of another year, amidst all its cares and troubles, and amidst the changing scenes in Providence which the next bids fair to bring me, I pause to consider on the past and the future, to consider what the Lord has done, and what he has yet promised to do for a creature so poor, helpless, and undeserving as myself; not for me only, but for all those who love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity. I say not, in the assurance of faith, for although that is the happiest state we know of here, yet the sincerity of love is made more manifest in the furnace of affliction than in the flowery plains of prosperity, as the strength of the ship's cable may be believed in in the storm; and, brethren, do you not find, that though your anchor is in the vail where you see it not, and yet believe it; though you experience that the cable of love fastened to it has hold of your heart; and though your soul may be cast up and down like a feeble bark on the billows of the sea, still you are held fast to Christ; ye are kept through the power of God unto salvation that is ready to be revealed; it is already prepared and laid up for you in heaven, and only waits until the hand of death shall draw the fleshly curtain aside, and we shall enter the presence of the Lord as spirits of just men made perfect through the blood and righteousness of the Lamb that was slain.

I feel your remark that we should be "men taught of God to write;" for unless our pens are bedewed with the grace of God, it were better that a millstone were tied about our necks and that we were cast into the sea. If we aim at the glory of God, we shall not lose our reward; but if we seek our own, what baseness do we manifest. O that we may say with one of days that are gone, “Though our arms are severed from us in the act, yet will we put the crown on his head."

It is a solemn and a pleasing thought that I am now, through the medium of your pages, addressing very many new born souls. Lord, what am I? what can I think? what can I write? were I not fully assured that he often blesses the weakest means, and chooses the weakest and most foolish things of the world to confound the mighty and the wise, I think I should not dare to take up my pen. But we are all compassed about with infirmity, and imperfection is stamped on the best of men; so let us look to the Lord from whom all blessings flow, and seek his blessing both on writers and on readers. This was Paul's way, he desired the prayers of the Ephesians that he might have utterance. And if an apostle needed assisting in preaching by prayer, how much more do such weak things as we in writing? God's faithfulness has preserved us through the year that is past, and during the coming year the promise still stands good that he will not forsake us.

I feel myself, at the close of this year, the same as at the close of the last, a sinner saved by grace, unmerited and free. I am still led to the mercy seat with, "Lord, be merciful to me a sinner." I find no other plea for pardon than the atonement of Jesus, and no other perfection in me than as I am viewed complete in him. This I often doubt and often call in question; still the Lord supports me; he