passion; his feet ran; his arms embraced; and his lips covered him with kisses.

And this is the manner of the welcome that every sinner receives from God Himself, who comes back to Him, in self-judgment. Have you come? Sinner you are, sinner in your sins, but only return to Him, and in the tender compassion of His loving heart, He will cast around you His everlasting arms, and kiss you with the kisses of His mouth,-blessed token of your reconciliation to Him. But the

riches of a Father's grace stop not there. The best robe, the ring, the shoes, the fattest calf, the lordly feast, merriment, music, and dancing, are the manifold expressions of the delight and joy of the heart of the father in the case of the return of his long lost son. And so also, the sinner reconciled to God is clad with heaven's best robe, the righteousness of God, His Christ, sealed with the Holy Ghost (2 Cor. v. 21; Eph. iv. 30); fitted to walk before Him, to share communion with Him and the enjoyment of heavenly merriment at His festal board.

Beloved reader, is this portion yours? If not, why not? Oh, that like this poor prodigal, you may come to yourself, and return, saying, "I have sinned," that God may lavish His grace upon you. If you follow the world, you must reap its portion, but kiss the Son, and you are delivered from wrath; return in self-judgment, and the kiss of everlasting reconciliation with God will be yours.

E. H. C.

EIGHTEEN HUNDRED YEARS

TOO LATE !

WAS listening to an earnest preacher of the Gospel the other day, who, when he came to speak of the work that was necessary to put away sin, to meet God's claims, and save the sinner, and wishing

to show that the sinner's doings would not avail, cried out,-" My friend, you are too late -eighteen hundred years too late,-it was done. and done by Christ upon the cross of Calvary!"

It struck me as being a very novel way of putting the matter, the truth of which is irresistible if people will only look at it for a few moments.

It is quite clear that the work of atonement was absolutely necessary. "Without shedding of blood is no remission" (Heb. ix. 22); "It is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul" (Lev. xvii. 11). These two scriptures place it beyond question that a sacrifice must be offered up, and that the blood of the victim must flow ere atonement for the soul could be made, or remission for its sins obtained. A work must be done. But by whom? Christ or the sinner? This is an important question, and, for the inquiring soul, would settle a host of difficulties. Was the work done by Christ on the cross, or has the sinner to do it? Is it by

M

the death of Christ, or the works of man, that redemption is accomplished and the soul saved? By Christ on the cross most assuredly. He came "to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself" (Heb. xi. 26); "By his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption' (Heb. ix. 12); "Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree" (1 Pet. ii. 24); “Having made peace through the blood of his cross" (Col. i. 20); "When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished: and he bowed his head and gave up the ghost" (John xix.); “I have glorified thee upon the earth; I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do" (John xvii. 4).

Christ having come, saying, "Lo, I come to do thy will, O God!" and having done it, could add, “I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do," hence it is too late for the sinner to attempt the doing of it. IT IS DONE! not being done, but done, absolutely done, by Christ, eighteen hundred years ago. Does the sinner persist in his doings? How applicable the preacher's words,-"My friend, you are too late, the work is done; you are eighteen hundred years too late; it was done, and done by Christ, upon the cross of Calvary!"

No wonder, then, that the Word of God says, again and again, that it is not by our works that we are saved, but by believing in Another, who has accomplished the work for us. It is "to him that worketh not,"-that is, renounces the very idea of salvation by works-" but believeth on

him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness" (Rom. iv. 5). Works flow from the knowledge of salvation, but never are the means of obtaining it. Just as a stream never produces the spring, but the spring the stream, so with salvation. When I am saved by grace, through faith in Christ, I have life, eternal life, and the natural consequences of that life, and of that saved state, are praise and gratitude to God, and service to man.

How blessedly in its place, then, are the Apostle Paul's words to the jailer,-" Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house" (Acts xvi. 31).

E. A.

SATAN'S FORT.

HE following melancholy incident occurred some years since, and illustrates the dreadful issue of a soul's entanglement in Satan's delusions.

The S were one of two families

in the outskirts of T―, in the south of England, who were regularly visited. One winter's evening the writer sat with S-, his wife, and their two daughters, seeking to lead

them to Christ; but instead of asking that question of questions, "What must I do to be saved?" S raised some question concerning election, by doing which he, like so many others, doubtless sought opportunity to show his orthodoxy on this much controverted point of truth. He was a

staunch Calvinist, so that election was his boasted fort. But, through the misuse of Scripture, alas ! this doctrine, so precious and sustaining to the saved, was Satan's fort too for poor S, who used it to retain him captive, immuring him finally by his devices in the lowest dungeons, as the sequel proves. It is Satan's common and delusive practice, to occupy the unsaved with what alone is applicable and yields joy to the saved, and vice versa. What profit is there to be found in a consideration of election" for guilty, hell-deserving sinners, when "God commands all men everywhere to repent," in view of the dreadful day which fast hastens on?

One Lord's Day morning, after the conversation above referred to, the boys of my Sunday school class told me that S had disappeared the evening previously, after I, having been visiting in a neighbour's house, had passed by his door; that he was absent all night from home, and nobody knew where he had gone. Going to his house next day, I learned there was hope that he went to see relatives living at some distance from T-; but the hope was doubtful, inasmuch as, contrary to his usual custom, he went out in his worst clothes.