does it sing cheerfully, and joyfully, its hosannahs to Him! Paul and Silas swim in an ocean of delight and bliss. What have not these two men lived to witness? Yes, you observe here again that the world in which they move is quite a different one to yours. In your world such things do not come to pass. Earthly, there is enough: eating, drinking, business, and what more there is of such like. But of the godly? Think only: nothing. But only learn heartily to believe in the Son of God, and then you will find you have entered upon a new world. O! what do we not experience at the onset, when He, for the first time, so meets us, that we now know decidedly-He lives! When He unites with us, and we then stand, as before His countenance; when turning aside and retreating, must no longer be thought of; when He reproaches us with the sins which have been accumulated, and calls out in our heart-we feel he calls" Man, how wilt thou stand before the judgment-seat?" then heart and eyes overflow and we cannot venture to lift up our head before Him. And what do we not experience, when He then erects for us a small tabernacle within the heart, resounding day and night with tones such as were never before heard to sound therein. "Lord Jesus, have mercy upon me!" "Remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom!" And when He begins himself to preach in that little tabernacle, alas! of His blood and its glory and power ;when with this blood he sacerdotally besprinkles the internal threshold and foundation, then the eternal Sabbath opens upon us, and the 103rd Psalm thrills through us in sounds of life. O! what consciousness of perfection! But this is only the commencement of the histories. Now, there will be no end to the divine experiences.

He comes in the morning, He comes in the evening. He knits knots in our life, but only in order to show us His wisdom in unravelling them. He comes, here to help us out, yonder to give into our hands the victory over the attacks of the evil doer - there to comfort us, yonder to refresh us and to strengthen us. He visits us when awake and when asleep. We hear his greetings in sweet exhortations of encouragement with which he surprises us; in presents and pledges of affection which he throws into our lap. Yes, where do we not meet His guardian eye, His hand of deliverance, and His ear inclined down to receive our prayer? And ah! what is that, when we call out to Him, and, behold, the rustling sound of His approaching feet is heard at once, and we have what we demanded, and we lie, like John, on His breast, and besun ourselves in the miraculous light of His favour, and enquire no longer, in anxious doubt, after heaven and after earth, because He is ours. 0, experiences unparalleled! And you know them not! Through your existence no invisible friend passes along, no God of grace wanders, no chain of divine miracles is drawn along, and no sweet wreath of heavenly festivals, of meetings and greetings, blooms! O poor, poor life! you would wish to call poor the life of the saints of God! O! what inexpressible blindness! O! what a foolish perversion of ideas!

And

But once again, let us return to the prison. The terrible and awful crash has also awoke the gaoler. As though quite mad, he rushes from his bed, and flies down the passage into the depths of the prison; but when he sees the cells all open, and that one especially over which he had received orders to keep strict watch, his senses really almost forsake him, and his heart

ness.

is bereft of all courage. Heavy judgment! threatening clouds overwhelm his soul: "Woe is me!" he murmurs within himself, "I am lost. Office forfeited! bread forfeited! fortune, liberty, life itself, and every thing forfeited! That is too much! Who is able to bear it all?" And-O God! what is going to happen?-He has already unsheathed his sword, and over the point of the sword not only hovers his life, but his soul's happiIt is the serpent which threatens him with the wound of eternal death. And now he is just about to place his heart upon the pointed steel, when—and now let there be one left to doubt that grace is free! God steps between, and lays his hand of rescue upon the unhappy man, brings him forcibly back from the brink of the abyss, and takes mercy upon him; imagine only, in a moment, when the internal destination of the man had perfected itself in the hellish growth of a determined despondency and faint-heartedness. Paul serves as the instrument of grace. "Do thyself no harm," he calls out to the desperate man, "for we are all here!" When the gaoler hears this, a soft ray of hope again lightens up within the dark region of his heart. He hastens back to his own chamber for lights. But God has already lighted a light within his soul.

"Yes," thinks he, dimly perceiving the truth through the storm, "these men are indeed what they declare themselves to be, and their God, I see it, lives, and is the true God. Before him I also stand, and shall stand! But how support myself in his presence, I, a wretched sinner?" The elements of a new spiritual creation are actually present, though only as a dawning light upon the depths of the soul, the full and perfect light of day not having yet called forth the new views,

emotions and wants. Still, however, completion of the divine work: "Let there be light!" is not far distant. The gaoler comes back, hurries into the cells of the two men of God, conducts them out, falls trembling at their feet, and exclaims, full of anxiety and inexpressibly distressed: "Sirs, what must I do to be saved ?"1 "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ," is the quick and determined reply, "and thou shalt be saved and thy house!" And the goaler, as is made clear by the sequel of the history, had faith, plucked the lily of peace, and was blessed. But how great and glorious the two Apostles appear here! I admire Samson, that tamer of lions, and I am wonderstruck, when I contemplate the young Shepherd, who upon the plains of Bethlehem strangled the bears, and then laid low the Philistine giant. But here there was more than lion, bear, and Goliah. Here raged the fiend of despair! Here roared the monster of a well-founded terror at an eternal destruction! And behold, Paul and Silas feel themselves equal to grapple with these monsters; a simple but inscrutably profound word is the only weapon which they wield. They wield this sword and the fiends are destroyed. The peace of God enters the heart of the desponding man, he is freed from the folds of the serpents of his gloomy fears, and his soul is healed of its deadly wounds.

Do you mark? Faith, as it opens a world of new views, transplants into a world of new experiences, so it also introduces us into a world of new and divine operations. "He that believeth on me, the works that I do, shall he do also," says our Lord; "and," he adds, "greater works shall he do!" O yes, much ye are able to do, 1 Acts xvi. 30.

2 John xiv. 12.

ye who are without faith. You can satisfy hunger; you can draw from your pockets and relieve temporal misery-clothe the naked-give unto the famished— encourage the faint-hearted in worldly affairs- and guarantee the people a more prosperous future. But now look a moment this way; here cringes a trembling worm, incessantly ejaculating that God is just, and himself a sinner. He despairs of his eternal salvation. Can you procure this man ease and peace? Yonder behold another. "Light, light!" cries his soul. His thirst after truth has carried him through all the systems of human wisdom, but unerring and satisfactory wisdom he has not found. Can you assist this man? See there one who is bound by sin. He has tried every thing in order to shake off the ignominious chains in which he feels himself bound; but no resolution availed him, no moral determinations led him to the goal; the leviathan of passions demolished them like straw. Up, unchain this sighing creature. Here again-O, what a scenewrithes a mortal upon his bed of anguish, pressed down as if between two burning stones, betwixt the thought of eternal destruction and the terror of an irretrievable descent into hell. Open for him an outlet through which he may escape with a firm step from this double danger. Yes, there you stand, and cannot prevent your whole spiritual poverty from being exposed to view. An impotent expression of sorrow on your part is all that the oppressed have to console themselves with. Good counsel is dear, your embarrassment is complete. O, go, then, and bring even the most insignificant among the faithful to the scene of woe, and observe if He will shrink back. Nay, you will rather see him approach the misery, calmly and resolutely, and successfully re

K