to instil into our infant minds thoughts of the wisdom and love of God. I fancy I see her now conversing with some aged pilgrim, her countenance beaming with delight as the aged one spoke of the faithfulness of a covenant-keeping God. Truly, the memory of the just is blessed." With our departed sister religion was not a gloomy but a very joyous thing. She rejoiced in God her Saviour; her joy was "unspeakable and full of glory." Wherever she went, her countenance, ever radiant with delight, betokened the inexpressible happiness consequent upon a life of faith in the Son of God. But whatever may be seen in health of the grandeur of our religion, it is oftentimes when sufferings overtake us that our Christian graces shine most brilliantly, and the valley of the shadow of death becomes radiant with the glory of heaven. For many years our dear sister was the subject of most acute physical suffering, which was borne with exemplary patience. Being naturally of a cheerful, lively temperament, very few besides herself knew how much she suffered. For eleven months prior to her death she was wholly confined to her bed; and I must say that I have never seen anyone so resigned to the will of God as our departed sister. She lived next door to heaven itself; her conversation was many times not like the conversation of earth, but as though she spoke the language of the heavenly Canaan. Every week since I came to the Circuit to the time of her death I have called to see her, and truly to be with her was a privilege. If ever I saw the reality of religion it was there; there her Christian graces shone the brightest, and as I talked to the aged pilgrim of the better land and its enjoyments, her countenance was lit up with a heavenly smile, and she could say, "I am going to be with Jesus, which is far better." When I prayed with her, it was delightful to hear her loud responses. She possessed in a pre-eminent degree that humility and submissiveness which are so necessary in time of sickness, and she could say truly: "Christ leads me through no darker rooms Than He went through before; He who into God's kingdom comes Must enter by this door." Her state of mind at this time will best be described by the pen of her own daughter. She says: "Her patient submission under most acute and prolonged suffering was beautiful to witness. Often during the night season she would speak of the watchful care of the Most High, saying, 'I have often prayed we may meet an unbroken family in heaven, and I believe we shall. Father and Maria are already there; they await us on the other shore. While lying here all alone, I have reviewed my past life, I see much to mourn over, yet through all God has been faithful and true. I am on the Rock.' I said to her, What Rock?' The dear one replied The Rock; Christ Jesus is the Rock in whom I have trusted so many years, and He has never failed me.' I said, And never will.' She answered, 'Never, never.' On the Sabbath before she died she was inexpressibly happy. She awoke me long before break of day, exclaiming, Oh! how beautiful; oh! how glorious. This is heaven.' I said, 'What is it, mother?' She replied, 'I think it is not for mortal ears; I may not tell even thee, my child. Oh! the sweet unity of the Spirit-the unity of the Spirit in the bonds of peace. How sweet to feel the Spirit's presence. She continued in the same frame of mind throughout the day, constantly praising God. I do not remember that one murmur escaped her lips through all those wearisome months of pain and suffering. Two days before she died she had a severe struggle with the enemy; but after earnest prayer and supplication she exclaimed, My Saviour, Thou art my Refuge, in Thee do I trust,' and Satan fled a vanquished foe, and he was permitted to try her no more. She continued very happy and quite conscious to the last. A few moments before she expired, she said in a clear voice, When my Saviour was on the cross He cried, I thirst.' A spoon ful of water was put to her lips, which she took eagerly, and then another; when a third was offered, she said with the sweetest smile, 'Thank you,' no more." These were her last words on earth. Soon heaven opened on her raptured vision, and she drank the new wine in her Father's kingdom." "One gentle sigh, her fetters break; We scarce can say she's gone Its mansion near the throne." Such was the happy life and triumphant death of Ann Jackson. She passed away on the 30th of September, 1875, aged eighty-two years. "O may I triumph so When all my warfare 's past, Thorne. G. COATES. MR. AARON GENNER. My father was born on January 6, 1828. He was brought up in the fear of the Lord, and throughout his youth the Spirit of God operated upon his mind, but he was not converted until he had reached his twenty-sixth year. Since then he has lived a life of faith, and works, and consistency; first in the south of England, and then in several parts of the north. At Spennymoor he lived some time, and whilst there he devoted his energies to Christ and our cause. From thence he went to Brandon, where he was much loved by the people of God and by all with whom he did business, whether secular or spiritual. He next went to Willington, where he employed his talents in the service and for the glory of God. He was an excellent bass singer, and his whole heart and soul seemed to be in singing the praises of the Lord. Many hundreds of services have been made more efficient and effective by the part he has taken in the service of song. From Willington he went to Cornsay, where our now flourishing Church was in its infancy. Here he showed himself to be an energetic Christian workman. He was the first superintendent of the Sabbath school, which was held in a wood hut, and in the same place many a blessed service was held. Both the school and Church are now large, strong, and flourishing. He was very careful in his conversation, and he always tried to converse for Christ. Hence his example was very powerful. At Crook he was very happy and very useful, and very watchful, and very consistent. His life was always alike, and he was striving every day to be ready for the final call of God. His last place of abode was Cornsay. Here it was he suffered most severely, and at length died with trust and triumph. In the midst of the furnace of affliction, when its flames were almost scorching him, he was patient, and trustful, and happy. Through the grace and power of Christ, he bravely bore his sufferings, and his victory he always ascribed to his Saviour. On his deathbed he tried to be useful, and he was, for he spoke many words of comfort and of cheer to those who by their presence and prayers tried to help him. Near his end he had a terrible conflict with Satan, but the Christian was the conqueror. All fear of death he also overcame, and he looked upon dying as a going home. "All was right," said he, "for eternity," and with a certainty of heaven as his home, he fell asleep in Jesus, on the 19th of September, 1875. ELIJAH GENNER. To SALVATION has reference to some evil either actual or impending. It is essentially the correlative of existent or possible danger. We cannot conceive of it apart from such relations and conditions. proffer salvation to the secure would be as incongruous as prescribing medicine for the healthy, administering alms to the affluent, or proclaiming liberty to the free. To save is to deliver from, or preserve against, the visitation of evil; and salvation is the introduction into the state of deliverance or security. There may be, therefore, various kinds of salvation, and what is the precise character of that intended the word itself does not decide. This must be ascertained by considering the subject of which it is affirmed, and the specific sense in which the term is employed. In tracing the Biblical use of the word we find that it had, at first, chiefly a physical application. In the earlier and historical books of the Old Testament it mostly signifies a deliverance from temporal evil, such as captivity, famine, sickness, or death; and it is very occasionally, if at all, that it has a moral or spiritual meaning. Joseph, when interpreting the providential design of his exile in Egypt, tells his brethren that God had sent him before them to preserve them a posterity in the earth, and to save their lives with a great deliverance. Jacob, his father, when he was a dying, exclaimed, "I have waited for Thy salvation, O Lord!" alluding no doubt to the temporal deliverances he had sought and obtained at the hands of God. The Hebrews were "saved out of the land of Egypt " by God's interposition in their behalf; He broke the power of their oppressor so that he was compelled to let them go free. When their destruction also seemed inevitable on the shores of the Red Sea, Moses told them to "stand still and see the salvation of the Lord, E which He would show them that day," in opening for them a safe passage through its waters, and destroying therein their pursuers. And after the event he and the children of Israel sang unto the Lord in celebration of their deliverance, saying, "The Lord is my strength and song, and He is become my salvation." A great salvation was wrought in Israel when Saul slew the Ammonites and Jonathan vanquished the Philistines. So far the word has exclusive reference to social events and outward conditions, and not to spiritual states and character. In course of time, however, and as we pass from the historical to the ethical, devotional, and prophetic books of Scripture, there is a blending of both senses, the temporal and the spiritual, in its use. This was done, apparently, on the principle of a correspondence between the visible and the invisible; the outward was a type of the inward, the state of the body representing the state of the soul. Thus David prayed, " O Lord, heal my soul"; and Jeremiah, "Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed; save me, and I shall be saved." And further, as the calamities averted were regarded as judicial inflictions, their removal was considered as indicative of an absolution of guilt and a restoration to Divine favour. Hence the prayer, "0 remember not against us former iniquities, let Thy tender mercies speedily prevent us for we are brought very low. Help us, O God of our salvation, for the glory of Thy name: and deliver us, and purge away our sins, for Thy name's sake" (Psalm lxxix., 8, 9). The eighty-fifth Psalm is an embodiment of similar sentiments. In the writer's mind God's temporal providences are considered as the outward expression of His feelings toward His people; they are the smiles or frowns of His countenance, and, therefore, in his apprehension, temporal and spiritual salvation were infallibly connected. At a later period, and chiefly by the prophets, who spoke of things to come, the term came to be used in an exclusively spiritual and supernatural sense, and temporal deliverances were adverted to for the purpose of illustrating the sublimity and importance of the greater salvation. They were material pictures symbolising in sensible forms its transcendent character. It is scarcely necessary to adduce passages confirmatory of this statement, as, especially in Isaiah's writings, they are so readily to be met with. A reference to the twelfth and twenty-fifth chapters, with the four first verses in th twenty-sixth chapter of Isaiah, shall suffice. The Apostle Peter writes in harmony with the fact we are asserting when he says, "The salvation of your souls. Of which salvation the prophets have inquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you: searching what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow. Unto whom it was revealed, that not unto themselves, but unto us they did minister the things, which are now reported unto you by them that have preached the gospel unto you with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven; which things the angels desire to look into " (1 Peter i., 9-1...., In the New Testament writings, therefore, we find the term taking a definite moral meaning, and that of the highest kind; so that to him who rightly understands and enjoys the blessing it expresses, there is scarcely a word of sweeter sound, save the thriceblessed name of Him by whom salvation came to us. It is there used to express that great moral and judicial deliverance, with all its immediate and remote results, which God has wrought out for us as sinners through Jesus Christ. For, theories apart, no one who has carefully studied those writings can have failed of perceiving that in them the human race is ever represented as sinful. Man is described as having universally forsaken God, and gone after vanity and lies. The defection began with our first parents, and has run on through all their posterity. "All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God." And while the fact of man's sinfulness is affirmed, judgment is pronounced upon him as a sinner. Sin is not spoken of simply as an infirmity, a failing; it is solemnly declared to be exceeding sinful-an evil and bitter thing-and they who commit it are worthy of death. And to all men a time and state of retribution are announced. "God has appointed a day wherein He will judge the world, and bring every work into judgment, whether it be good or bad." Consequently we find the lost condition of man solemnly asserted. As all had sinned, it is emphatically declared that by terms of law no flesh can be justified in the sight of God. Now the salvation which God has provided for us through Jesus Christ is a rescue from this state of sinfulness, and guilt, and condemnation; it is a deliverance both from a sinful character and a sinful condition; and it is a restoration to God, to the enjoyment of His favour and the participation of His nature. By it man escapes from the judicial consequences of transgression, and is also brought to a right state of heart toward God. Its central ideas are absolution, purification, and glorification. The condemned are forgiven, the sinful made holy, the rebellious brought to loving obedience, and the estranged and alienated advanced to the privilege of adoption and communion. Our salvation may be described, in its objective character, as a deliverance from heathenism to the Christian Church, and a transition from the Church to heaven. The enjoyment of |