and happy to appropriate these words, among a certain class of persons; and if any think what a world we have to pass through, they will acknowledge that it must be a consolation to take these words with them. Whatever young persons may imagine in the morning dream of life, in all the vision and novelty of it, persons who have passed through it have confessed that they stood in need of mighty powers of consolation. There is in the world whatever we may wish to find-something that appals the mind, and almost makes one wish to be nothing.

But who are the persons thus privileged ? Them that love God, and that are the called according to his purpose." The Bible, in innumerable places, affirms that "God works all things according to the counsel of his own will." God has for ages formed his grand plan. We cannot think of the Great Mind living from eternity and forming all worlds without a plan respecting them-letting a world go on without a purpose to answer by it. We can hardly fancy, without absurdity, that God has not his plan far forward-that vast plan by which He works on his great and mighty will. We should think it absurd for God not to have a plan for regulating the world to-morrow? But what difference? Why not for every other day? His divine foresight must reach to the last limit of time. Whatever God has determined for the world there is an absolute necessity that all the means should be provided and adjusted, or else how could the end be secured? You cannot conceive of the world arriving at a right end without proper adjustments, on to the Last Day, when glory and power shall be ascribed to Him who carried out the plan "without variableness or shadow of turning."

It is very reasonable that God should pass a heavenly decree to call men, and make them partakers of his eternal grace. This is the constant representation of Scripture, that good men become so by the power of God, and, in consequence of a pre-conceived plan, are transformed into the followers of Jesus Christ.

But then the only proof that can be given of our being called according to his purpose is, that we love him. The grand question is, not whether God has formed a purpose concerning me, but do I love God? That is the certain proof of being called. The voices of the dead, angels, saints, the whole universe may call, but the effectual calling has not taken place till then the proof of it lies in loving God. Less than this is to trifle with the soul. Now, if such be the happy destiny, who would not wish for this characteristic?

A man called early in life by the grace of God may say, "I know not how long I may live-perhaps half a century. I know of an immensity of evils-a vast record of the wretchednesses of the human race lies before me; now suppose all these attack me!" This man may say again, "I don't profess indifference. I am a man, and do not desire affliction. I may feel a certain trepidation at the prospect before me; but all things work together for good to them that love God.' I can look over the whole dark scene to the brightness of glory-to heaven and paradise."

Is not this the man you would like to travel with-to be his brother in a moral sense? "Let everything come," he says, "that Satan can put there, I dare travel through it; God can turn all into good." Would not you like to travel with similar hopes?

This one text is a very strong declaration, and requires a great deal of faith. But this is pleasing; it implies something extraordinary, otherwise it would not need much of faith, or be of much value. Surely we should be glad that so many things require this elevation and expansion of belief.

Let us look around. What is there in the world? Pains, diseases, cares, vexations; and there is death, the mighty monarch of all, there. Now, can these work together for good? Revert to the apostle.

There are errors, darknesses, temptations, persecutions, wicked men,can all these "work together for good?" Strange machinery! Yes, it is; none but the Great Spirit could move it. Grim friends these! Strange messengers with presents! But they must go if God sends them. He bids them carry gold to those who are rich in faith. But there is a legion of infernal spirits on earth. What are they too enlisted to serve the cause of God? Yes; "all things," says our text. It must be one of their severest punishments to be compelled to serve the saints; but such is really the case. The saints may be said to have the devils for their servants. "Bad ones to trust," you say. Certainly, if God was not in an awful sense to them their "Master who is in heaven." A great deal of good must be reluctantly wrought by evil spirits. If they won't go to hell directly, they shall do good to the church. Let them go to hell if they choose, and leave the grace of God to work among men; but if not, they must come under this sweeping proposition.

But there are present evils so painful to bear-to these unbelief would make exception; but the text is applicable also to them. How strange! If this be true, God can make the forces of evil give new animation to the powers of good. Our God delights in these practical contradictions.

Who is there, looking over a field of graves, could see anything but a field of death? But strong faith would regard it as a field of immortality. Yes, dead men are here; but strong faith looks forward to the time when this spot, now crowded with dead bodies, will be more crowded with living ones than many other places. It is the office of faith to bring this predestined fact to view. What is the value of faith but to make future things nigh and close. It is, then, a wonderful place where God has put us! or rather, God who placed us here is wonderful!

true.

Think of the unquenchable force of unlimited activity! the grand power of God to turn the world round! What astonishing good all things are doing! Reckon up the evil things. This does not look as if you were telling over a treasure; but if the text be true, you may reckon them to be so. To the saints of God, not an evil comes that will not do good. So you may make a catalogue of good things, but numbering the names of evil ones. But then what kind of good? In one sense it is not It is narrated of the stoic philosopher Posidonius, that when a friend came to sympathize with him under a severe fit of the gout, he consoled himself with the doctrine of the sect that there was no such thing as pain; but this is not true. We do not mean that in the thing there is good that there is good in the painful action itself; but that a good is to be the result of it. You know the apostle Paul spoke as strongly as any one, of the mighty mass of evils with which he was encompassed. "No affliction is for the present joyous, but grievous." Consider; the good is of a different kind from the evil. The evil is temporal-the good eternal; the evil natural, the good spiritual ;-does the soul good to its very

centre.

Suppose some painful surgical operation performed in half an hour; the good resulting may be for twenty years, and thus be far greater than the evil. But this is a very feeble comparison.

We should extend our thoughts to eternity. What is on the whole a good what is at the last a good-what is for ever a good; that is the kind of good the text refers to,—that good which advances towards everlasting happiness.

A solemn preparation is necessary for another life; and afflictions, dis

ciplinary and corrective applications, are a cheap price for the blessed result.

God means to confer on the heirs of grace the only good worth the language of poetry and praise; the only good worth wishing for, worth working for, worth living for, worth dying for!

There is a great difference between God and man. God regards all in this life as means; man regards them as ends. We pursue an object as an end to rest in to acquire a feeling of satisfactory possession. We shall certainly be disappointed, and no wonder; it is not God's plan. If a man has supposed this or that object to be something to rest in, it is very probable that for forming this unwise and irreligious purpose he will find his staff a broken one-a thorn-often a spear. In this way a man makes many mistakes. He chooses a residence-thinks how pleasant to be near his friends; he has the means of temporal prosperity, and forms connections. Now, he thinks he has something that can console, and that he may hear securely of bankruptcies and wars. He reckons on this as a sort of end; he is apt to think that if this or that were obtained he would have satisfaction and complacency. God has all the while another end; the man is to be disappointed again and again till he has learnt what is a satisfactory end.

Now the eternal good is of value enough. Sometimes, in human affairs, the machinery seems too large for the object. In the schemes of ambition, pride, and error, it looks as if heaven and earth were moved a tremendous noise-collecting hands from so many miles round;-such a mass of contrivances? And for what?-for what? But not so here; not a little thing with a vengeance, when everything is made a power or an instrument! The eternal felicity of man's soul,-feelings of delight for millions of moments and ages,- "bathed in heaven" like the sword of the Lord! Yes, for this it was worth while to deck the sky with splendours. The vast company of human affairs, it was worth all these for such an end! It was worth while that angels, and devils, and deaths,-that all this mighty mass of agency should be collected and combined for such an end. In eternity it will be pronounced that the good deserved all this.

And shall a good man murmur? How can a criminal complain if, seated amidst the immense machinery, he is sometimes struck? Surely he should be content to meet here and there with a hurt.

By what an immense number of causes is a christian affected. The wide ground is affected by the rain, sunshine, and human labour; a few things go to make that fertile. But if we take the soul of man to make that fruitful, what an infinite number of things are requisite to make the human mind become what God would have it to be! It is astonishing to reflect what a number of things can affect the human mind for good, even the malignant and polluted conceptions of evil. God can make death an avenue to eternal life. Is not this desirable?

It is

Think what evil there is under the contrary predicament! Is it not fair and true to take the reverse? What will not, then, do harm? a dreadful thing when what is bad works for perpetual evil-more bitter, deadly, poisonous darkness. Experience verifies this. See what bad company works-what health works; it only makes men more gaily contented to be wicked. What does wealth work? What does intellect work? Can any human being be content to pass through the world only to see how much evil there is in it ?-passing over such a gulf and finding no bottom.

Let us pray that the delightful state may be ours, that "all things may work together for good."

Frampton, near Bristol, 1815.

THE ADVANTAGES OF RELIGIOUS RETIREMENT.

BY THE REV. W. AITCHISON.

"And when the evening was come, He was there alone."-Matthew xiv. 23. Man is naturally a social being. Infinite Wisdom has assured us that "it is not good for him to be alone." The sympathies of our nature lead us to seek society, and some of the finest feelings of the soul, and the loveliest traits of character, can only be elicited in the genial atmosphere of social intercourse. That soul must be dreary and unproductive as the polar regions, that has never felt itself illuminated and warmed by the sun of human kindness.

Admitting this truth, yet, on the other hand, it is not fit that man should be always in company. His duties as a social being require he should often mingle with his fellow-men-his interests as an immortal being require that he should frequently be alone. Communion with

ourselves in secret is as necessary for our welfare as activity and occupa tion. The present world requires the one: the soul and eternity demand the other.

The general tendency of the human mind in this exciting age is not to recluse or ascetic habits. Most men live in the incessant turmoil of business and publicity. Whilst the recluse life has evermore been replete with mischief, it does not follow that the opposite extreme is free from danger. Our pressure of public duties and engagements is palpably a source of serious detriment to our real improvement in vital godliness. We may become extensively acquainted with the world, and yet be deplorably ignorant of our own selves and God. And if this be the case, can it be matter of surprise that many professed christians, though abundant in laudable religious activities, may, nevertheless, by neglecting the inner life of piety in the soul, become cold and barren, so as to feel that the complaint of the foolish virgins exactly designates their condition, "Our lamps are gone out ?" Otherwise than this no one can expect it to be, who is not often found alone with God, or who disregards the divine command, "Enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret, and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly."

Supposing the necessity of the practice of retirement for meditation and prayer to be clearly felt by us, it remains that we view it as an attractive thing. Many considerations might be used to shew this, but it will suffice for our present purpose to suggest some of the most obvious.

This duty comes to us recommended by the example of all the truly good. Those persons who have excelled in scientific pursuits have always accustomed themselves to be much alone. They have spent many contemplative hours in the seclusion of their studies, in solitary fields and groves, or by the lonely sea shore. From such seasons of philosophic retirement literature has culled her sweetest flowers, and science has gathered her fairest fruits. The same rule has held good in religion. Those most conspicuous in piety, have ever accustomed themselves to much religious retirement. There, their faith has gathered strength, their love has acquired intenser ardency, their hope has received more of heavenly lustre. Thus Job communed with the "Ancient of days," and reaped, in the knowledge of himself and his weakness, the fruits of his severe afflictions. Thus Isaac, in the calm eventide, caught his highest views of that "better" and "heavenly country" which by faith he sought. Thus David gathered the materials for those inspired odes which remain as a rich and sacred inheritance to the church of every age :- "My heart

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THE CHURCH.

no blan Bew rob the oilt a' be bodres ...Jut was hot within me; whilst I was musing, the fire burned: then spake I with my tongue. Thus Solomon learnt wisdom, and discovered the vanity of the things of earth: I communed with mine own heart." Thus John, in the solitude of Patmos, held fellowship in the spirit with an invisible world, and saw the visions of God." Thus the Lord Jesus himself frequently sought the aid of solitude and silence, to hold communion with his Father. If He required quiet meditation, in order that his sinless spirit might rise above the innocent infirmities of the nature he partook, how much more necessary must such retirement be for us! I Again, the duty of religious retirement is recommended by its obvious advantages.

It is necessary, for instance, to enable us to form a comparative estimate of the value of things seen and unseen. There is great danger of our supposing the present world to be far more valuable than it really is. It is a natural tendency of our minds to magnify that which engrosses our thoughts into undue importance. Hence, as the world occupies so much of our time and of our energies, there is danger lest we should fancy this world to be every thing. The comparative sizes of objects can be best ascertained by viewing them at a distance; so, by retiring from the world for a season, and viewing it as it were at a distance, we can best perceive its value as compared with other and better things. Then we shall find, when the feverish excitement of our minds about the world` cools, that as some insignificant earthly object-a leaf, or the branch of a tree, or a fragment of a building-will avail to hide from our sight some bright star, surpassing, most likely, this globe in magnitude; so, some insignificant earthly pursuit will avail to exclude eternity from the mind.

J

But when, in quiet meditation, we allow the thoughts to surmount this space of time and pass away from the evils that cling around our tenement of dust, to contemplate infinite and eternal things, to meditate on our approaching end, on the great day of final account, on the great atoning sacrifice of Jesus, as our only ground of hope and safety at these solemn periods, on the boundless, unspeakable eternity to succeed this transitory life, on our employments, our associations, our condition there then this world, with all its good and ill, its gain and loss, sinks into its due proportions, and, with Paul, we feel that "the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal."

Without solitary, devout reflection, we cannot gain self-knowledge. There may be a diseased amount of self-introspection, which may enfeeble piety, and mar christian usefulness. But there is also a healthy selfknowledge, without which the soul must remain devoid of all true repose and hope. It is of infinite importance that every man should be aware of his true state in reference to the divine law and the atonement of Christ. If, however, we are always living in the crowded world, there is great danger of mistaking our true character. We are likely to take the current idea which we know or suppose our fellow-men form of us to be the correct one, when the estimation in which God holds us may be widely different. (Compare Rev. iii. 17.) It is only by solitary, serious thought, that we can arrive at a correct knowledge of our spiritual state. A man wears his true character when he is perfectly alone. In society most persons assume a kind of mask. We do not mean that in society every man is intentionally a hypocrite, but that in company, the presence of others, the restraints of education, and custom, all exert a certain degree of power to check the exhibition of the hidden depths of character. We live in company cautiously and guardedly. But in solitude we appear as we really are. There, separate from the crowd, the stern voice of