Conscience is an unbribable judge.The retention of his office, the performance of its duties, or the enjoyment of its emoluments, does not depend on the good-will of a privileged few, but upon the fiat of the Almighty Ruler; and he has decreed that each shall be secured to him through endless ages. Indeed he is so constituted he can have no need, wish, or use, for any of the possessions of man; and, consequently, he cannot be tempted, still less induced, to take a gift. Much as multitudes may desire, they are unable to prevail on him to connive at their crimes or to side with them in their wickednesses; and were those whose heart is set on doing harm to utter their sentiments on the point, they would say of him, as Ahab did of Micaiah, "I hate him; for he never prophesied good unto me, but always evil." However he may for a time have been silenced or withstood, a single instance cannot be produced in which he has by bribery been knowingly led to clear the guilty and condemn the innocent.

Conscience is an invisible judge.— Within the soul he has his residence and his judicatory. Neither does he ever change. There he constantly dwells; there he makes the whole of his observations; there he perpetually cites all that is for trial; there he continually carries on the examinations; there he invariably pronounces judgment; there he always accomplishes its execution. The result is,

he is hidden from mortal ken. Nevertheless, his presence and procedure cannot be doubted, for they are experimentally known to the individual himself, and by the effects repeatedly manifesting themselves in his behaviour, are theoretically known to others. Is proof called for? Mark the impious Belshazzar, on noticing, while at his profane banquet, the handwriting: "His countenance was altered, and his thoughts troubled him, so that the joints of his loins were loosed, and his knees smote one against another." Listen to the intercourse of Jacob's sons, on Joseph demanding that Simeon should be detained: "We are verily guilty concerning our brother, in that we saw the anguish of his soul, when he besought us, and we would not hear; therefore is this distress come upon us. And Reuben answered them, Spake

I not unto you, saying, Do not sin against the child; and ye would not hear? therefore behold, also, his blood is required."

Conscience is an all-seeing judge.Whithersoever we go, he goes; and wherever we abide, he abides, for he is in us. Yea, the alliance is so close and inseparable, it is totally impossible ever to get quit of him. He is actually a portion of ourselves. Then the darkness and the light are both alike to him, and his location, notwithstanding it conceals him from public and private gaze, affords him a complete view of whatever passes in our inner and outer man. Hence the whole of our cogitations, emotions, expressions, and doings, lie open to his sight. Even if repressed, he eyes. This is no trifling advantage. It saves him from the difficulties, contingencies, and uncertainties, with which our highest magistrates have to contendfrom punishing the guiltless, or from letting the real criminal escape. Instantaneously, easily, and positively, can he say to every doer of iniquity, and to every worker of righteousness, as Nathan did to David, "Thou art the man!" and not less surely fix on each his own deeds. Here exemplifications are needless. The experience both of the unworthy and the worthy will supply enough.

Conscience is an ever-officiating judge. -His situation is no sinecure. During life, in death, and throughout eternity, he adjudicates. In the nursery and at the school, at home and abroad, within the closet and in the study, in the factory and at the shop, in the counting-house and on the exchange, in the field and at the market, in the lecture-room and on the platform, in the prison and at the judgment-hall, in the pew and within the pulpit, in the cottage and at the palace, in the haunts of vice and at the resorts of the godly, at the places of amusement and in the sick chamber, down in hell and up in heaven, he may be seen attending to his responsible vocation. As each muses, feels, speaks, and acts, in harmony with or contrary to the rules of right, and as each will be ceaselessly doing so, his services never can be dispensed with. He faints not, neither is weary. Nor can he expire. So soon as the first rational creature came into existence, he sprang into being, entered upon his arduous and

grave engagements, and will continue to fulfil them as long as such creature remains.

Conscience is an un-omitting judge.— Nothing which deserves to be dealt with does he allow to evade his notice. Circumstances may arise to cause procrastination, but it will not be overlooked. Days and weeks, months and years, may roll on until the grasp of the officer, memory, be so slackened, that it may give him the slip; yet by the aid of peculiar localities, special providences, particular events, certain persons, a suitable word, an appropriate discourse, a befitting text, the direct influence of the Holy Spirit, or the second advent of Christ, he will again apprehend it, when it will assuredly be judged. Think of the famine of Canaan, the journey to Egypt to buy corn, and the cruel children of the patriarch-the dream of Pharaoh, and the ungrateful butlerthe address of the seer, and the criminal Jewish monarch-the storm and the runaway prophet-the look of the Saviour, and the fallen disciple-the earthquake and the relentless jailer— the reasonings of Paul, the falsely imprisoned, and Felix, the unjust governor-the Lord's mere allusion to the fig-tree, and the astonished Nathanael the afflictive prediction of Isaiah, and the basis of the prayer of Hezekiah in his sickness. severally brought to the recollection of the respective parties his disobedience or obedience, and thus furnished the opportunity for adjudication which was promptly seized.

These

Conscience is an administrative judge.Not only does he signify his approbation or disapprobation of the conduct of man, but renders him painfully or pleasurably sensible of it. He de

clares it moral or immoral, religious or irreligious, and confers his meeds, or imposes his inflictions accordingly. Being part of himself, he is literally forced to determine for or against his own works, and be his self-rewarder or self-punisher; to commend them as upright, or to condemn them as iniquitous, and to imbue his mind with self-applause and peace, or with selfreproach and anguish. Of this the solace and tranquillity of the unnaturally sold, perfidiously accused, and wrongfully incarcerated youthful Joseph; the dignified calmness and elevated satisfaction, discoverable in Samuel's

self-vindicative appeal to the people; the holy serenity and sacred exultation that characterises the apostle of the Gentiles' retrospection and prospection; the transport, glory, and hallelujahs of the paradise of God; the terror of Adam and Eve, and their endeavours to shun Jehovah's presence; the compunction, sorrow, and confessions of the psalmist; the bitter tears of Peter; the overwhelming confusion, unbearable upbraidings, and intolerable grief of the traitor; the distressing cry of the three thousand on the day of Pentecost; the shame, remorse, weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth in perdition, are all striking verifications. What a remarkable feature have we here of the Divine administration! How completely does it refute the notion, that the universal Parent is indifferent to the course his offspring pursue, and seem calculated to induce them to "ponder the path of their feet!"

Conscience is an unsparing judge.— Neither towards the righteous nor unto the wicked, does he relax in his requitals. Praises inflame not his brain; lamentations pierce not his heart. He is utterly regardless of either. Elated as the soul may be with joy unspeakable, and with being full of glory, his rewards-and ready as the frame may be to yield under the pressure, wounded and sinking as may be the spirit through remordency and abashment, his penaltiesand prostrated and dying as may be the body from its sympathy, yet he spares not, but chases them with his retributions to the very brink of the grave; then arrests them the instant they reach the unseen state where he can better execute his sentence, and loads the one with a far more exceeding and eternal weight of bliss and glory, and metes out to the other an extremely more extensive and everlasting measure of misery and disgrace. Conscience is an appeasable judge.— Stern as he is, he may be propitiated; but not by the culprit. Were he to really repent, to thoroughly reform, "to bestow all his goods to feed the poor," to go mourning the remainder of his life, to afflict his body with the most excruciating tortures, to offer up his firstborn, yea, to present himself on the altar, he could not insure an acquittal. Repeatedly have these and similar means, enjoined by human authority, been resorted to, but they

have invariably been found to fail. Only the atoning blood of Jesus can suffice. Whosoever has truly beheld Christ as "the Lamb of God," and the sole Saviour of sinners, has been immediately liberated. The gnawing pain of guilt has given place to the restoring ease of pardon, gloomy forebodings to joyful anticipations, and ignominious imprisonment to glorious liberty. The baptized eunuch journeying homeward rejoicing, and the believing multitude of the convicted crucifiers of the Messiah, eating their meat with gladness and singleness of heart, praising God, and having favour with all the people, are demonstrations.

Reader, how are matters between you and your internal judge?-Shrink not from the interrogation, as though it may revive much you have gladly buried in forgetfulness; it may conduct to the happiest issues. Better here submit to the scrutiny, however humiliating and stinging may be the disclosures, than be compelled to undergo it hereafter; for now should you find yourself to be the worst of transgressors, you may procure the justification and gain the smile of the judge, through exercising faith in the Redeemer, and by attending to the promptings of his blessed Spirit; but then it will be too late. There will be nothing for you except hopeless shame, contempt, and woe. Consider this, and the Lord dispose you without delay to faithfully make the inquiry, and to embrace, if you have not done so, Christ as your substitute, that it may be well with you in both worlds.

J. S.

THE LAST HOUR. Therefore be ye also ready for in such an hour as ye think not, the Son of Man cometh.-MATT. xxiv. 44.

SOLEMN thought, that every moment of time is bringing us nearer to the last period of life, when all that is dear to us will pass away for ever; when we shall leave the present to enter on a new scene, where happiness or eternal woe will be our portion! Life has been compared to a dream in a dream, a vapour, a tale that is told, a flower of the field, so transient, so uncertain, so fleeting, that it vanishes suddenly like the morning cloud. How few comparatively think seriously on the momentous question of

their eternal salvation, or ponder on the realities of the unseen world? How seldom does the thought take full possession of the mind, I am drawing nigh to the last moment, to meet death in all its awful array, to encounter its fearful pangs, to wrestle with its stern grasp, to endure its last conflict? What after dissolution will be my condition? Settled and irrevocable, when I shall stand before God at his just tribunal, to give in the account of my past history; when all the secrets of my heart and acts, will pass in solemn review before the eye of him who gave me existence, and made me a responsible being? The truth is appalling, that the subject which demands immediate, decided, fixed attention, so as to rivet the mind on the one great and all-important question of salvation, is seldom regarded thoughtfully, deeply, and earnestly. It is a sad proof of the degeneracy of the human heart, that all which concerns its future and eternal weal should be so neglected, wilfully and utterly rejected, in defiance of revealed truth, in opposition to the will of God, in spite of the righteousness and judgment to come. And yet such is the fact; and thousands float onwards, on the broad stream of time, to the ocean of eternity, without even a pause or a reflection on their eternal destiny. We can describe what the last hour of life may be, but who can tell what is included in the first hour spent in that world where the soul is for ever lost, without hope, without mercy, rejected as reprobate silver? What harrowings of conscience, what remorse, what reflections, what horror in the solemn thought that all there is reality, eternal in its duration, without one moment of mitigation, suffering, and woe! What can be done to remedy the fearful apathy which everywhere meets us, in reference to the higher, and momentous interest of the precious never-dying soul?

We see men engaged in the active course of life, surrounded by all which charms and attracts, eager in pursuit of what in a moment eludes the grasp, plunging deeper and deeper into the vortex of pleasure or dissipation, and fearfully destitute of the slightest concern for the approaching future, when all the schemes and enchantments of the present will have

dispersed like the morning cloud. There is no fear of God manifested, no recognition of his just government, no regard for personal responsibility, no consciousness of stewardship, no dread of consequences, no trembling in prospect of the coming judgment. They appear spell-bound by the magic touch of an earthly power, and yield themselves as willing captives to an influence which destroys their eternal happiness. One great object is prominent, personal gratification, selfish idolatry, or the pedestal of honour; ambition, avarice, or indulgence of habits opposed to all which would elevate the moral character, are too often found to mark their track, in the line of conduct adopted. How sad the reflection, that men love darkness rather than light, and choose for themselves a portion which one moment of time for ever destroys. There is an infatuation, a delusion which blinds the judgment, and perverts the noblest faculties of our nature, when we see such a determined clinging to perishable pursuits, to the utter abandonment of all which is designed to prepare for a brighter, a holier, a heavenly inheritance. "The heart is deceitful above all things; who can know it?" The Saviour sounds the alarm, as if to wake up the slumbering multitude: "Behold, I come as a thief in the night. Be ye ready also, for the Son of man cometh, at an hour that ye think not." How striking the language, how forcible the appeal, how fearful the warning! The last hour is drawing nigh, the moment is fixed by an eternal fiat, and there can be no change in the immutable decree. Mark the deep solemnity, the breathless pause, when the last ebbings within that expiring heart, which so lately beat in its full power, amid the blaze of sunny prosperity, are silently witnessed in the chamber of death. We hear the echo of that voice, which proclaims," He who is filthy, let him be filthy still," for an endless duration.

Character undergoes no change in the passage from time to eternity. Its lines are all so marked and delineated in historic remembrance, that not an iota of the past is forgotten. The cloud of dark witnesses is before the throne, all ready to appear in sad array, to bear their testimony against that sinner, who did not, would not, accept the sweet invitation of a crucified Saviour, to receive a free salvation.

He who rejects the offers of mercy, through faith in the atonement of Christ, who deliberately refuses to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, who despises the riches of his grace, who will not give his heart to the Lord, who prefers the world, with present advantages, to taking up his cross and following Jesus, who treats with cold indifference the precious words of eternal life, who opposes the all-powerful influences of the Spirit of God, who tramples under foot the solemn truth, which appeals to his conscience, his reason, and his judgment, must make up his mind to encounter, in all its dread form, the entire picture of his dark character, the very moment his spirit passes from the threshold of time, before the presence of his Maker. He did not believe in the revelation of his God; he must now believe when time is no more. Belief, when too late, will only aggravate the intense suffering which an eternal woe will perpetuate. Strange and mysterious is the course which a man, destitute of godliness, chooses for himself, when by his conduct he arraigns the right or justice of his glorious Creator, to mark out for him the path of virtue, holiness, happiness, and heaven! His will governs, and he will not come to Christ to be saved. His affections are his own, and he bestows them on worthless objects. He sows the wind only to reap the whirlwind. He moves and lives, and has his being in an atmosphere of temptation; no fear of God, no delight in the sabbath, no love to the truth, no desire to flee from the wrath to come. All is dark, dreary, hopeless, as he passes on his way to the tomb, because he obeys the blind passions of his nature, and yields himself a sacrifice to all which enslaves and binds him to the earth. He is in the depths of sin, in the meshes of iniquity, in the trammels of lusts, dead and indifferent to all which points to brighter and holier objects. Surely the way of the transgressor is hard! and sad as the thought is, how true that many are rushing on heedless to eternity, without one momentary concern about their everlasting condition! Young man, take warning while the lamp of life still burns, and determine from henceforth to consider your ways. Remember that you cannot calculate on a long life. The last hour may be at hand; the pulse which now throbs

in full activity may soon cease to beat, the slightest accident deprive it of its power. There is no escape from the period allotted to your existence: the moment is fixed by an unalterable decree for its termination. Awake to the urgent, pressing, all-important questions, Am I ready to obey the summons, Prepare to meet thy God? Is Jesus my Saviour, my Lord, my everlasting portion? Is he precious to my soul? Do I believe in him, love him, honour him, obey him, delight in him? Is salvation by faith in his atonement the supreme desire and end of my being? Is sin, in all its forms, to me exceedingly hateful? Do I strive against it, shun it, oppose it with all my powers, by the aid of Divine grace? Is holiness of life sought after with all eagerness, through sanctification of the Spirit of God? Is Christ all and in all to me, his promises my joy and consolation, his word better to me than thousands of gold and silver? Have I pondered on the momentous truth in all its solemn bearings, "Except a man be born of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven?" Have I felt the consequence of its utter rejection? Have I thoughtfully considered, that to resist the truth, is to quench the Spirit of God, incur his displeasure, and pave the way to eternal woe? Unless you can heartily respond to these searching questions in the affirmative, you are not in Christ, not saved, not prepared to die. The seed you now sow will bear its fruit eternally. The influence you now exert will bear on your eternal interest. The actions of the present moment will be followed by results, all momentous in their character. Motives cannot fail to insure either eternal shame or everlasting confusion. Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. The moral government of God proceeds without cessation; talents are all to be accounted for; no moment can pass without involving an immense responsibility. The hour-glass drops its sands, life is fast ebbing away, the approach to the unseen world is apparent, the waves of time roll their onward course, and soon all which now charms, enlivens, enchants, will have ended. What is your determination? your resolve? your future course? Let the answer be, Lord, to whom shall I go but unto thee, for thou hast

the words of eternal life. I will no longer delay, but yield my heart to thee, a living sacrifice, and devote myself to thee, to serve and glorify thee for ever. F. S. G.

Tiverton, June, 1855.

THE STRIVING OF THE SPIRIT. FROM the commencement of the Volume of Inspiration to its close, the doctrine of the Spirit everywhere presents itself to the eye of the careful student. Functions, varied and stupendous, are assigned him, both in the matter of creation and of redemption. He is represented as having had exceeding much to do with the Saviour himself, God in human nature, from the moment of his conception to the hour of his resurrection. The great work of enlightening, convincing and converting the world, is all his own. Among the multitude of noticeable things connected with this doctrine, is the caution which is given to the sons of men to take heed of their deportment towards the Holy Spirit. Christians are exhorted to "live in the Spirit," to "walk in the Spirit," to "pray in the Spirit," and to "sing with the Spirit and the understanding." They are further enjoined not to "grieve the Holy Spirit," and not to "quench the Holy Spirit." This language in the New, is in perfect harmony with that of the Old Testament, in which we read, relative to the world when ripe for destruction: "And the Lord said, My Spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh."

There can be no doubt as to the import of the term Spirit in the foregoing language. It is preposterous to say, as some have said, that it means the soul of man. Job instructs such erring readers, when he says, Job. xxvii.3: "All the while my breath is in me, and the Spirit of God is in my nostrils." The scabbard is to the sword what the body is to the soul, and the Spirit sustains to the soul the same relation that the soul sustains to the body. Some others have concluded, that the import of the expression is-" the mind of God;" as if the Lord had said: "My Spirit, which is within me, shall not always be in a tumult or contention about man, as to whether I shall spare or destroy him. It has long been so, but shall be so no longer than the hundred and twenty more years of fresh