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we may be quiet on his breast who leads us on! He will win the battle for us, and we shall arrive at home.

"I was picturing to myself in imagination our meeting with Jesus. I thought how deep, deep love will beam from his eyes, as he welcomes his followers whom he wooed and drew to himself. Then we shall be satisfied. Entire happiness cannot grow in this barren soil; but there our happiness shall be complete. There we shall be fully satisfied. Yet with all these anticipations, often indeed would I give full vent to my feelings in tears when I think how far I am behind, how unlike I am to Jesus. But you know I dare not indulge in this too much, though indeed it is a great relief, and it is sweet to get doing so, when the heart is full. Oh, that the Heavenly Gardener would come and water every plant that he has planted in our hearts, that they might grow luxuriantly! Then would our Beloved come into his garden and eat his pleasant fruits."

Another letter to the same, in which she seems to feel like Rutherford-"I dare avouch, the saints know not the length and largeness of the sweet Earnest, and of the sweet green sheaves before the harvest, that might be had on this side of the water, if we would take more pains." She writes :

"26th September 1870.

"My fifteen days' stay at the shore at Newcastle has been beneficial to my health. I am a good deal stronger, only my head is still very ill, preventing me from being able to read or write much. And I am told, if it does not be better, I must leave off teaching in the Sabbath school for a while. I am not sure whether I will be compelled to do this or not. If I must, I shall certainly feel it very much; for I do love the work. But I know I need no little refining. O how sweet to be pure !— perfectly holy, and with purified company! How sweet to drop all these imperfections and weaknesses, and be altogether like Christ! And this we shall one day be. Happy prospect! but I feel I am blind, I am lame, I do not half see the importance of pressing forward. I cannot run with any quickness. More and more am I convinced, that to be in Christ is only the first step. What high attainments we may arrive at even here! I like the verse, He is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them.' Jesus is able to make us as holy, as useful, as like himself, as it is possible for redeemed sinners to be on earth. The fountain is full from which we are to draw. We know Jesus is honoured by us asking large things. Trying him, we shall find him faithful. He can open the windows of heaven and pour out a blessing richer than we can receive."

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In her note-book are the following entries :"18th September.-Last Sabbath my heart was filled with joy again by seeing another of my class (L. J.) show signs of anxiety. Glory to Jesus! Last week felt happier-O how great is his goodness to me!

"December 25th.-Now I am near the end of this year. I look back. I've had joys and sorrows, many smiles and many tears, many sins and shortcomings, waste of time. Alas, I do not feel progress in holiness! I have seen myself a little better, and oh, how terrible the sight! Oh, I feel in speaking, in thinking, in understanding, I am a child, yea, a beast before God. Oh, that the day were come, O glad day, O happy day, when I shall be grown up, when these childish things shall be gone! Oh, the time when I shall have that perfect love (I mean not sinless perfection in heaven), but when I shall be filled with Jesus as all my desire-when I shall be able to say, no matter how dearly I love any below, I love them not compared with Jesus-to say understandingly, really with Rutherford, 'I would not give a drink of cold water, for all earth can give.' Oh, I feel I'd give the world to experience this. Oh, hasten, come quickly, Lord Jesus!"

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"July 1871.-My dear One, whom I desire to love with all my heart's warmest, truest, fullest, most intense affection, attachment and love, oh listen to my prayer. Thou hast said, 'Whatsoever ye ask in my name, I will do it." I ask :

"To be filled with all the fulness of God; that these vices and passions be uprooted; that I may be made as holy as possible on earth for a redeemed sinner to be; that I may yearn after thyself alone-not so much the attainments as after thyself; that thy glory may be dearer to me than my own heart; that I may have a passionate love for souls; that I may have strong, mighty faith; that I may be as useful as possible for me to be; that I may have love, so that all other love will not be love beside; that I may have exceeding abundantly above all I can ask or think; that I may have all that thy blood has purchased for me; that I may soon feel the answer coming, and wish it sooner; that I may be in pain and ready to die, to see him that my soul loves at home in glory.

"O Jesus, Jesus, here I have written all I can now remember, for my own personal need. I ask not little things, but look for far above what I know to ask. My plea, thy promise,-'Whatsoever ye ask in my name, I will do it.' I am one with thee, joint-heir with thee. In thy name, my Lord Jesus, I ask. Thou wilt do it. I expect."

It was in October 1871 that she was with us for a fortnight. She was in very delicate health at the time. On the day she came, her brother, who drove her, forgot to take her travelling-bag out of the car, and left taking it with him, and with it all her change of cloth

ing. In her weak state of health this was rather a serious matter. I started off, hoping to overtake the car, yet expecting to have to run a long distance. Not far from the manse, however, I found it stopped. Something had gone wrong with the harness, which was being put right. She afterwards told this to some of her scholars, as an illustration that they should pray to Jesus about everything. While I had started off to run, she had gone up-stairs to pray; and Jesus had heard her. She was very much what one would expect from reading her letters and note-books, except that she was much more cheerful than these would indicate. Sometimes she laughed most heartily-real ringing laughter. In the preceding sketch we have incorporated most of the information she gave us about herself, and we have little to add. Her aim was very simple and concentrated. 1. To love Jesus with all her heart. 2. To be holy to the uttermost. 3. To be the means of saving every scholar in her class, and as many others as possible. On the evening before she left us, we agreed to pray for each other. I suggested that we should ask that both might be filled with the Spirit, and be made holy to the uttermost, as I saw that Heb. vii. 25 was uppermost in her mind. This was agreed to. After a moment, she said, "There is a third thing I would like you to ask for me."-"What is it?"-"That I may have a most intense love for Jesus. I would like to have a most intense love for Jesus." So we agreed to pray that we might be (1) Filled with the Spirit; (2) Have a most intense love for Jesus; and, (3) Be holy and useful to the uttermost. Is not this opening of the mouth wide most pleasing to God? Is he not much better satisfied with great petitions than with small ones? They are like himself, and he more readily answers them. One of our great sins is "limiting the Holy One of Israel." She wished to avoid this.

She read her Bible very much while with us. I asked her what means she found most useful in keeping Christ before her mind. She said she read a chapter in the Old Testament, and one in the New, each morning; and that she selected two or three verses out of them for meditation during the day; and that she found this one of the most useful. She loved the Song of Solomon, and seemed to realize clearly that Christ was her Husband, and to enter deeply into the spirit of the Book.

She prayed evidently very often, not only retiring after each meal, but while sitting silently on her chair in the sitting-room. I remarked to her that, seeing the Lord had blessed her efforts for him as he had done, she must have prayed much for her class. She said they were often upon her heart during the week. "And were you enabled to expect that the Lord would convert them?" "Yes; he gave me a considerable measure of faith when I prayed for them."

There did not seem any pride or vanity about her, though by nature she was very ambitious. She seemed afraid of being lifted up on account of her success, and asked God to make her humble. The Lord turned her

ambition into a good channel, and made her ambitious to be holy and useful here, and to be near Christ in heaven, and to learn much of him, and enjoy much of him there. She wondered if she would be permitted to recline on Jesus' bosom, and talk to him as John did on earth. This was what she desired. I don't suppose that the Lord has any fault to find with such ambition. It pleases him. It gratifies him greatly. It sends a thrill of pleasure through his heart. Would that we were all ambitions after that fashion! One day I said I supposed she would like to get better, if it were the Lord's will, and work for Jesus a little longer.

"Yes, if it were God's will, I would like to live a little longer for two reasons. First, I would not like to be taken away till I was more like Jesus. And second, If he were pleased to spare me I would like to live to serve him. But chiefly for the first reason." At another time, when speaking of her health being so restored that she could work for him, she burst into tears. The thought of it seemed to overcome her.

She gradually grew weaker and weaker till she died. Yet, by distributing tracts, and lending books, praying for a blessing upon them, she sought to be useful to the very last. One day her minister, Rev. Mr. M'Ilveen, whom she very highly esteemed, asked her to write out a short account of the conversion of some of her scholars, that he might make use of it in the Ballynahinch Sabbath school. She did so. We have already given a fuller account of the same in her letters to her fellowteacher, and therefore will not repeat it here. We will give that portion of it which refers to one of her scholars who had died :

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“A— showed signs of anxiety. She burst into tears. Why do you weep?' I asked. She would not tell. 'Is it because you wish to come to Jesus?' 'Yes." In a few days I went to see her. Have you found peace?' 'Yes,' she replied; but would say little more about it. I could get little but 'yes,' or 'no,' in answer to my questions. I felt discouraged. Perhaps she is not really changed, I thought. However, I resolved to watch and see. Still she appeared earnest and attentive. One Sabbath I said to her, 'Are you as happy as you used to be?' 'Far happier,' was the reply. Gradually my fears about the reality of the change began to remove. She grew ill and unable to come to the Sabbath school; and soon it was evident the seeds of consumption were sown. She knew it, but showed no signs of grief, always appearing cheerful and happy. She often said to me, 'All my hope is in Jesus.' 'Could you get your choice,' I asked, 'would you get better, or not?' 'I would far rather go. I would like to see Jesus.' At length, what I watched and longed for came. Her naturally reserved manner was thrown off. She spoke freely to every one who saw her, warning them to come to Jesus, telling them what she had found in him, and that there is no other way to heaven but by him. Her

took one by | find your leisure hours spent in this way really delightful.

father, mother, sister, and brothers, she one, and talked to them very earnestly. Her mother, seeing her very severe suffering, said to her, 'A-, you are very ill.' 'Yes, I am very ill; but, ah! what about it all: one half-hour in heaven will make up for it.' To one of her class who had come to see her she said, 'Hasten to be ready: I will come to meet you, and to meet our teacher.' She wished to write a letter to the Sabbath school and her class, but was too weak. 'What is the world to me now besides Jesus?' she remarked. Once she lifted her well-worn Bible and clasped it to her breast. The last chapter she requested to be read to her was the 55th of Isaiah. She was filled with joy. One whole night she sang 'Hallelujah to the Lamb.' And now she has joined the ransomed round the throne, to sing for ever the praises of the Saviour she loved."

At the same time that Lizzie Irvine wrote this account of her class, she wrote a short address to young Sabbath-school teachers, which she gave also to her young pastor, that he might make use of it in his school if he pleased. It may be useful to other teachers.

"DEAR YOUNG FRIENDS,-If really saved yourselves, -if, really, you have tasted the sweetness that is found in Jesus, you will doubtless be yearning for the salvation of those immortal souls committed to your charge. Do not say, I am too young-too inexperienced; Jesus will not show me the fruits of my labours. Not so; he will do it; he will, in answer to prayer. I remember when first I wished for success. How delightful it would be, I thought, could I see the hand of Jesus at work among them; could I only hear one ask, 'What must I do to be saved?' I prayed, I watched, Sabbath after Sabbath. At length his hand was stretched out. I saw signs of anxiety-real anxiety, I believe. Oh, how delighted I was! What joy I felt that Jesus was indeed working!

“If you have not already, you too may feel this joy. Tell them much of Jesus. Hold him up before them, that they may be attracted by his loveliness, and ask, invite, entreat them to come to him; to come now. Everywhere you meet them, speak a word for Jesus. Bring each one of your precious charge by name before the Lord, and ask, and seek, and wrestle for her salvation. Go from your closet to your class; pray by the way to the Sabbath school; pray much; and He who longs to fold the lambs in his arms, will not deny your request. Then will you indeed realize that it is sweet to work for Jesus; that it is not toil when his approving smile is upon you.

"Visit your scholars during the week; visit them not only when sick or absent. You cannot be rightly familiar with your class, unless you know them at home. You may feel a little timid at first, as I did, wishing I were back before I had well started. This timidity will vanish before the welcoming smile of your scholar. The parents also will soon welcome you, and look for your visits almost as much as their children; and you will

"Dear young teachers, be earnest, be faithful. Perhaps the time is near when you must part with those dear ones. Every moment is precious. You know not how soon will be your last opportunity to tell them of a Saviour's love. Surely their souls are too precious to lose; and surely our Saviour is too precious for us not to be in earnest when the work is for him. Will we not labour? Will we not toil? Will we not be in earnest when it is for Jesus, for him who loved us and gave himself for us? And oh, how sweet, when the work is finished, to hear the 'Well done, good and faithful servant!' and to meet those for whose salvation we yearned, over whom we wept when on earth-how sweet to meet them at home!

"Give him all the glory to whom it only belongs. Our success will cease if we take the glory to ourselves. It belongs only to Jesus; 'tis his work from first to last, though he condescends to use us as instruments. Thank him for owning your labours, and go on with your glorious work."

And now she came to die. We might have thought that one who walked so closely with Jesus would have died in rapture. But Jesus saw good that it should be otherwise. Her latter end was peace, but not rapture. She walked through the dark valley by faith, not by sight. The reasons for this we cannot tell. "What I do thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter." Perhaps to comfort others who may be cast down. Perhaps it was needed for herself, that patience might have its perfect work. As Rutherford says, "The lintel-stone and pillars of his New Jerusalem suffer more knocks of God's hammer and tools than the common side-wall stones." When her body was weak, the devil was allowed to attack her, and suggested that she had never been converted at all. She did not believe this; but for the time her confidence was shaken. On a scrap of paper, written in pencil, is the following sad record, every word of which, however sad, shows the Christian. None else could have written such lamentations:"February 1872.-Sitting alone. Weeping, weeping. The cause is: first, I do not realize the presence of Jesus. I do not enjoy prayer. I feel it just prayer and nothing more. No manifestations of his presence drawing out my heart in sweet communion. Second, I do not feel I am growing, and am wondering is anything wrong. I cast myself on Jesus for sanctification. I believe he taught me so. I asked him to do his own work. Surely I should be growing. My prayers seem to be shut out. I do not feel that desire for his glory above everything else-love for souls, &c.-for which I have long been praying, anything increased. Also passions and corruptions not subdued. And the dreadful thought, I may say for the first time since I thought I was saved, has even crossed my mind-viz., that after all might I be unsaved? Also my distress is increased

by the thought that my life must be spent rather uselessly, and not filled up with work for Christ, as I passionately longed for. I am also ashamed of the grave appearance I have before others; for oh! how can I be joyful that am weighed down with sorrow? When will the night of weeping be past, and the morning of joy appear? I am very, very weak in body; but this would not cause the sadness." [Yes, dear friend, it had much to do with it.]

A few days before her death, I received a letter from her, giving a somewhat similar account, though scarcely so gloomy. She said she had been reading M'Cheyne, and that two passages in his works had been the means of disquieting her mind. Near the close, she said, "Oh, it is miserable not to have the assurance I continually enjoyed before." I wrote advising her to cease reading M'Cheyne and everything else but her Bible, and giv- | ing her such encouragement as I thought she needed. In the end, I told her what Duncan Matheson once said to a person like her:-"What! you perish? I tell you, woman, if you went to hell, the devil would say, 'What is that woman doing here, aye speaking about her Christ? Put her out, put her out, put her out!' When she eame to this part, she laughed heartily, and it seemed to give her some comfort. Persons will go in the next world to the place for which they are fitted. There is great truth in what John Newton said one evening at a party. He had mentioned that a young girl had died. "And how did she die?" asked a young lady. "You have forgotten," replied the good man, "to ask a far more important question." Why, sir, what can be more important than how one dies?" "Yes," said he, "it is far more important how one lives."

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Death arrived on March 23, 1872. A few minutes before her departure, she said, “I don't doubt my salvation." The Rev. Mr. M'Ilveen was present and had prayed. The Rev. Mr. Davis, "her dear reverend friend," for whom she had much affection, on account of great kindness shown to her during her illness, just then came in. He had not been long engaged in prayer, when her spirit went to be for ever with the Lord. "Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours, and their works do follow them."

She was buried on the 26th, in the graveyard of First Ballynahinch Presbyterian Church,-the Revs. Messrs. Shanks, M'Ilveen, and Patton taking part in the funeral services. The children of the Sabbath school sang round the open grave a hymn which she dearly loved-Rest for the Weary.

Reader, should not Lizzie Irvine's life put you and me to the blush? She did not live long; she had not many outward advantages; she had few opportunities of usefulness. Yet how much she glorified God, and how many sinners she led to Jesus! She was indeed "a vessel meet for the Master's use." But is not Jesus as able and willing to use us, if we put ourselves into his hands? Are we in earnest at all? Have we given Jesus more than half a heart? Does the love of Christ constrain us as it did her? Shall we not henceforth live to him who died for us and rose again? Let us live for eternity-live for eternity-LIVE FOR ETERNITY. The lesson of her short life is just the old motto of John Eliot, missionary to the American Indians-" Prayer, and pains, with faith in Jesus Christ, will do anything."

W. J. P.

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LESSONS FROM THE PAST APPLIED TO THE PRESENT
BY WILLIAM G. ELMSLIE, M. A.

NE of the shrewdest sayings in the Book of Ecclesiastes is contained in the words "The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and there is no new thing under the sun." Most wise men, since Solomon's day, have been very much of the same opinion, and have therefore adopted the salutary habit of receiving alarming announcements of unprecedented events and startling speculations with a degree of coolness and a want of agitation very aggravating to the promulgators. But, just as in days of old every newly discovered land was immediately peopled with all sorts of horrible hobgoblins, so there is always a class of persons ready to find in every remarkable event nothing less than the end of

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the world, and to build on every fresh scientific discovery all manner of sensational theories, while those unfortunate people who are ignorant how very often the same farce has been played over since the world began, are immediately filled with fear and perturbation. It may therefore be of some profit, as well as interest, to look for a little at a few simple considerations, suggested by the general course and character of human thought in the past, which ought to influence our attitude in the present.

Perhaps the first thing that strikes a man in surveying the history of human thought, is the immense variety and divergence of opinion amongst the leading thinkers of every age. This phenomenon is readily explained by the manner in

which schemes of philosophy originate, and the | the sphere of metaphysics, I shall neither hold treatment they subsequently undergo. Every great that all existence is matter, nor that all existence system of thought may be regarded as the fortifi- is mind; but I shall conclude that it is partly cations raised by an earnest and powerful man to both. Again: in the department of ethics, when enable him to hold his own against the mysteries an Epicurean secularist assures me that temporal and terrors and temptations of life that pressed in well-being should receive all my attention, and on his soul and threatened to enslave him. No on the other hand a Stoic ascetic maintains that sooner are these erected than they are occupied moral well-being is alone worthy of a wise man's and defended by a band of eager disciples. But care, I shall take the middle course, and attend in course of time the defenders fall out among to both. As a final example of the extremes to themselves, and the old battlements are altered which philosophers will go, take on the one hand and discarded, till finally they stand, like the those optimists who declare the world and manancient forts in which our ancestors used to resist kind to be in a perfectly satisfactory condition, their foes-ruined, solitary, and useless, except and on the other hand Schopenhauer, who proin so far as they furnish materials for the erection nounces this world to be the worst possible of of more modern habitations and defences. all worlds, and existence a constant endurance, partly miserable and partly horrible; thus coinciding with the Buddhist doctrine that the greatest good that can happen to a man is to reach Nirvana, where his soul is extinguished like a lamp blown out, and he is finally at rest, having no longer anything to fear, no longer anything to expect.

The record of the rise and fall of each successive philosophy is like the story of the Tower of Babel, which was built to surmount the world's evils and reach heaven's security. For a time the building progressed, but gradually there appears a confusion of tongues among the builders, and all that remains is a ruin, which stands a❘ melancholy monument of its helpless impotence to accomplish what was expected of it.

Now, when we remember the original diversity of the great systems, arising from the varied character and circumstances of their founders, and add to this the innumerable modifications of them produced by successors, we cannot wonder that many who repaired to the schools of philosophy with high hopes have returned grievously disappointed, and altogether hopeless of arriving at any conclusion amid so great a strife of tongues. It seems to me, however, that there is "a more excellent way" of dealing with the confusion than to take refuge in absolute philosophical scepticism. When the scientific investigator finds that the results of his observations do not agree, instead of adopting any one of them, he takes the average, or mean, as likely to come nearest the truth. Now, though I know the suggestion will appear to the sincere believer in philosophy detestable as well as absurd, why should I not apply the same method to discordant philosophical speculations. And should the results obtained coincide with the common notions of mankind, my confidence in the practical goodness of my method will be increased. Thus, in

Such sweeping and one-sided representations remind one of a certain Pea, which in early summer sat in the upper end of the shell and looked down on its five brethren below, and— whether from this unbrotherly habit or for some better reason-it took to philosophical pursuits, and began to speculate concerning the external world. Now, it had never been outside of its shell to observe the world directly, but seeing that its shell was green, and that its five brethren were green, and finally that itself was green, it came to the conclusion that all the world was green; and, like other modern scientific disciples of Hume, it thought that its reasoning was strictly logical. But, as the summer grew hotter, the pea-shell and its inhabitants, to their grief and dismay, became aged and wrinkled and yellow; and now the philosophical pea, observing sadly that its shell was yellow and its five brethren yellow and itself yellow, concluded that all the world had likewise become yellow; and again it was convinced of the soundness of its argument.

This little fable makes it unnecessary for me to state elaborately that over-drawn theories in philosophy are simply the result of fixing the

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