AN OLD TESTAMENT NARRATIVE, &c. 117 overlooks the same prospect; but the people of God are no longer there. Priest and prophet have disappeared, and there is no Elijah now to plead in their behalf. A Turkish mosque stands where arose the altar of God, and the Muezzin's voice rings where arose the prayer of the prophet. try's enemies are destroyed, but her sufferings are not allayed. The crowd may return home, but he, accompanied by his servant, re-ascends Carmel, Standing on the now silent and solitary summit, in sight of the forsaken altars, he surveys for a moment the heavens above him, and the scene around him; the sun is just bathing his burning forehead in the western wave ere he sinks to rest, and not a cloud is on the brazen sky. Casting himself upon the earth, AN OLD TESTAMENT NARRATIVE APPLIED and burying his face between his knees, again he prays. But where is the lofty bearing and stern aspect that just now awed the people, as he brought fire from heaven? Gone with the fulfilment of his task. He was then defending the God of Israel before scoffers and idolaters, and his voice and aspect became his great mission. But now he is pleading for pardon for his suffering, sinful country; he is entreating God to take his erring people once more to his arms, and pour upon them his blessings, and he is in the dust, as it becomes such a mediator. For three years and a half, not a drop of rain has fallen in Israel, and he now beseeches the Lord to water the earth and stay the famine and woe of the land. As he closed his prayer, he bade his servant go and look towards the sea. He obeyed, and | returned, saying, "I see nothing." Again the prophet poured his supplications into the bosom of the God of Jacob, and again sent his servant to see if there were signs of rain. Again he returned, as before. Still Elijah's faith did not shake. Again he prayed, and again sent his servant, till the seventh time. But the seventh time he came back, saying, "There is a little cloud rising out of the sea, like a man's hand." It was enough-Faith was satisfied, and Elijah arose and said to his servant, "Go up, say unto Ahab, Prepare thy chariot, and get thee down that the rain stop thee not." He heard the sound of the coming storm before it arrived, ay, heard it long before, in the silence that followed the death of the prophets. And, lo! what a sight appeared from Mount Carmel! Dark and angry clouds began to roll up the scorching heavens the sun went down in gloom-the sea rose and shook itself to meet the coming tempest-fierce lightnings traversed the angry masses, as they pushed themselves upward-the thunder came muttering over the Mediterranean, as it rolled its vexed waters against the base of the mountain -the sound of wind and rain was borne landward-and day was turned into sudden night, as the storm burst on the land of Israel. The thirsty and barren earth again smiled in verdure, and the long curse was removed. What a day of terror and of grace that had been to Israel! and as the prophet lay that night and listened to the descending rain, methinks his heart swelled with deeper gratitude than ever before to the God of his fathers. Mount Carmel still stands by the sea, and TO SABBATH SCHOOL TEACHERS. FELLOW-LABOURERS in the fields that are white to the harvest, we all feel that it is difficult to say whether we should labour most or pray most. O for that fellowship with God which, in the very midst of its awful bliss, seems to put the sickle into our hand anew! O for that holy labour, which is carried on in the enjoyment of present communion! I was lately helping my Sabbath school teachers to gather out the precious lessons of Gen. xxxii. and xxxiii. for their classes, when the subject rose to my view in a light that led me to apply it to the teachers themselves. I. Fellow-labourer, you are often found, on a Saturday evening, thinking anxiously of the morrow. You have made efforts through the week to have a good attendance of your somewhat troublesome and fickle scholars, and have prayed for them too. But it is now Saturday night, and to-morrow is your day of opportunity. Are you not oftentimes like Jacob? are you never "greatly afraid and distressed?" You form your plans, and think what you may say and do-as Jacob divided his bands and flocks, and resolved what to do. But you fear the terrible opposition of the carnal mind: the utter apathy of some; the good-natured playfulness and levity of others; the careless neglect of more; and the actual resistance of a few. You feel you have no power against this host; no control over their wills; and you feel before God "not worthy of the least of all his mercies." Only He made your duty plain to engage in his work. He said, Return to it, and I will deal well with thee." 66 II. Fellow-labourer, do you not now go alone! Your arrangements are all, mentally at least, completed, and you turn to Him that quickeneth the dead. "Jacob was left alone." So you are now alone. Even your books and papers are laid aside, and your chamber is still. “Abba, Father!" bursts from your lips, and the Intercessor repeats the words at the golden altar! Jacob's words and arguments are not recorded; they were such as suited the solemn moment. They were so strong that the Intercessor drew near, and "wrestled with him till the breaking of the day;" as if to show that he felt himself grasped, and detained, and fairly arrested by this feeble worshipper on his knees! Is it not so with the sake of the Intercessor, who that night put his incense round it. you? Has Sabbath morning not begun to dawn? has the hour never advanced toward the time when Mary Magdalene would have been rising VI. And now you journey on-cheered ever to prepare her spices, ere ever you could cease after with this token of good-will in God to you your vehement longings, your earnest cries to and your scholars; and the next time you are the Lord for the outpouring of his Spirit on found at the altar, it is not " sacrificing to your your scholars, whose enmity to God you fear net," or "burning incense to your drag," but and lament! And have you not also found owning the name of "El-elohe-Israel" (Gen. yourself introduced into so near a meeting | xxxiii. 20), ascribing the praise to “God, the with the Lord, that, independent of to-morrow's God of Israel." And from that day forth, you answer, you have gained a blessing; you have are sent back again and again to that same altar, found him speak peace, and promise greater with similar thanks, arising from repeated blessthings to your own soul? You are left weaking: "Glory to God in the highest !" "He hath and helpless, "halting on your thigh;" but no mercy on whom he will have mercy." longer able to doubt the Lord. III. Fellow-labourer, the day now dawns, your preparations and arrangements are all made, and so you come to your class. You enter the room. "Jacob lifted up his eyes, and, behold, Esau came!" And now, therefore, if ever, is the time of getting the blessing that was sought last night. Jacob put his company in three divisions; and this done, waited the result. You commence your labour; the hum of voices is heard; you fairly meet these souls whose alienation from God you so deeply feel, and have so often deplored. IV. But, fellow-labourer, Esau's step was heard rapidly traversing the ground, till all at once his eye met his brother's. Instantly they fell on each other's neck! Where is the sword and spear? where is the knit brow? where is the scowl of defiance? Last night's intercession was carried up to God, and, behold, now "they wept!" Have you never seen it thus? You stood in your place-you timorously lifted your eye on the row of scholars before you-you spoke the word-you met them with the sword of the Spirit. What now? Some are moved. A tear falls from some of the sternest of them all; their feelings are touched; their conscience is reached! They seem interested in all you say; they need no inducement to remain hanging on your lips; and you speak with "the tongue of the learned" concerning the Wellbeloved of the Father-the unspeakable giftthe eternal life given to us, in the person and work of the only begotten Son of God. VII. Fellow-labourer, may it be thus with you and me, week after week, till our pilgrimlife is done, and we sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to tell together God's marvellous grace, in the kingdom of God. LESSONS. FROM THE EARLY SINGING OF BIRDS.-How am I reproved for sluggishness by these watchful birds, which cheerfully entertain the very dawning of the morning with their cheerful and delightful warblings! It is a pity that Christians of all men should suffer sleep to take so much out of so small a portion as their time on earth is. But, alas! it is not so much early rising, as a wise improving those fresh and free hours with God, that will enrich the soul; for that is experimentally true which one in this case has pertinently observed, that if the world get the start of religion in the morning, it will be hard for religion to overtake it all the day after. FROM THE LOVE OF A DOG TO HIS MASTER.-How many a weary step, through mire and dirt, has this poor dog followed my horse's heels to-day, and all this for a very poor reward! All he gets by it at night, is but bones and blows. O my soul, what conviction and shame 'may this leave upon thee, who art oftentimes weary of following thy master, Christ, whose rewards and encouragements of obedience are so incomparably sweet and sure! O let me make a whole heart-choice of Christ leave him, nor turn back from following him, though for my portion and happiness, and then I shall never the present difficulties were much more, and the present encouragements much less. FROM A WITHERED POSY.-Finding in my walk at posy of once sweet and fragrant, but now dry and withered flowers, which I supposed to be thrown away by one who had formerly worn it, Thus, said I, vidence has blasted and withered them. Whilst they does the unfaithful world use its friends, when Proare rich and honourable, they will put them into their bosoms, as the owner of this posy did whilst it was fresh and fragrant, and as easily throw them away when they come to be withered. Then, Lord, the smiles and honours of men less, and thy love and let me never seek its friendship. O let me esteem favour more!--Flavel. V. Fellow-labourer, what has God wrought! how he has heard and acknowledged you! Do you not now look on the changed countenance of that once stubborn boy, or that gay-thoughted girl, and say, "I have seen thy face as though I had seen the face of God!" (Gen. xxxiii. 10.) That altered countenance, betokening an altered state of feeling, is so evidently God's answer to your prayer of faith, that you recognise God himself in that change. The acknowledgment of your last night's request is so obvious and undeniable, that you cannot mistake the evidence it yields of God smiling on you. He is thus telling you by facts that your appeal to him, combined with your diligent and faithful efforts, has been well-pleasing in his sight, for it is the height of madness and spiritual infatuation, THE SOUL AND THE BODY. Do the souls of men out-live their bodies? Then REASONS WHY THE YOUNG SHOULD GIVE THEIR YOUTH TO CHRIST. 119 to destroy the soul for the body's sake-to ruin the precious soul for ever, for the pleasures of sin which are but for a moment; yet this is the madness of millions of men. Every cheat and circumvention in dealing, every lie, every act of oppression, is a wound given the immortal soul, for the procuring some accommodation to the body. O what soul-undoing bargains do some make with the devil! He is a great trader for souls. He hath all sorts of commodities to suit all men's hum ours that will deal with him. He hath profits for the covetous, honours for the ambitious, pleasures for the voluptuous: but a soul is the price at which he sells them; only he will be content to sell at a day, and not require present pay: so that he is paid on a death-bed, in a dying hour, he is satisfied. We smile at little children, who, in a kind of laborious idleness, take a great deal of pains to make and trim their babies, or build their little houses of sticks and straws. And what are they but children of a bigger size, that keep such ado about the body, a weak pile, that must perish in a few days? Two things a master commits to his servant's care, saith one-the child and the child's clothes. It will (be but a poor excuse for the servant to say, at his master's return, "Sir, here are the child's clothes neat and clean, but the child is lost." Much so will be the account that many will give to God of their souls and bodies at the great day. You rob your souls to pay your flesh. This is madness. O my friends, let me beg you not to love your bodies into hell, and your souls too for their sakes; be not so scared at the sufferings of the body, as, with poor Spira, to dash them both against the wrath of the great and terrible God. Most of those souls that are now in hell, are there upon the account of their indulgence to the flesh; they could not deny the flesh, and now are denied by God. They could not suffer from men, and now must suffer the vengeance of eternal fire. Seeing there is so strict a friendship and tender affection betwixt soul and body, let me persuade every soul of you to express your love to the body, by labouring to get union with Jesus Christ, and thereby to prevent the utter ruin of both to all eternity. Souls, if you love yourselves, or the bodies you dwell in, show it by your preventing care in season, lest they be cast away for ever. How can you say you love them, when you daily expose them to the everlasting wrath of God? O cruel souls! cruel, not to others, but to yourselves, and to your own flesh, which you pretend so much love to! Is this your love to your bodies? What! to employ them in Satan's service on earth, and then to be cast as a prey to him for ever in hell? The saints love them too well to cast them away as you do. I beseech you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies living sacrifices to God, which is your reasonable service. (Rom. xii. 1.) Except you have gracious souls, you shall never have glorified bodies: except your souls be united with Christ, the happiness of your bodies, as well as your souls, is lost to all eternity. O that this sad truth might sink deep into your consideration this day; that if your bodies be snares to your souls, and your souls be now regardless of the future state, assuredly they will have a bitter parting at death, a terrible meeting again at the resurrection, and horrid reflections upon each other, naturally charging their ruin upon each other to all eternity; whilst they that are in Christ, part in hope, meet with joy, and bless God for each other for evermore.-Ibid. FOR PARENTS. O! this is a cutting consideration, My child is in hell, and I did nothing to prevent it; I helped him thither. If you neglect to instruct your children in the way of holiness, will the devil neglect to instruct them in the way of wickedness? No. If you will not teach them to pray, he will teach them to curse, swear, and lie. If ground be uncultivated, weeds will spring. If the season of their youth is neglected, how little probability is there of any good fruit afterwards! How few are are converted in old age!-Ibid. PASSING AWAY. SUPPOSE that one of our active business men, who has been seen every day passing up and down our streets, and whose name and countenance are familiar to thousands, should be seen to turn abruptly, as he passed along the side walk, and to enter suddenly a door from which he should never come forth again. Suppose that no one could enter that door to bring him back, and no intelligence of him could ever return. What an event would it be for mer to wonder and to shudder at! That mysterious door -crowds would gather about it and gaze at it, awestricken. And although precisely this does not occur, yet much in this way are men disappearing. Men who are seen in our streets and in the walks of business for years, and whom it is so natural to see that ye unthinkingly expect always to see them, are all at once gone for ever. The places that knew them, know them no more. Suddenly, perhaps in middle life, they are missed in the places of concourse and of trade, and they come not again. Do their partners and their acquaintance never pause, mentally, and look at the mysterious door through which they passed, and wonder whither that entrance leads, and with what kind of preparation it will be safe to follow? That path trodden once, and but once -men are every day withdrawing from our midst, to tread it alone. As they withdraw, they seem to say to those whom they leave behind, "Be ye also ready." REASONS WHY THE YOUNG SHOULD GIVE THEIR YOUTH TO CHRIST. 1. God regenerates the most of his chosen in early years. If that early risers were mostly the men that grew rich, and lived long in the world, who of you would not leave lying late in bed? Truly, they that rise in the morning of their days, and turn unto God, be mostly the men that ever overcome the devil. They that continue in the bed of their security late are in danger of having their bed in hell for ever. "A young saint, and an old devil," is a proverb which was certainly hatched in hell. God and men break colts when they are young. 2. God doth regenerate most easily those souls whom he turneth early.-Know it, sirs; pain is necessarythank sin for it. Had not sin entered, never had we known pain, grief, fear, or shame; but now there is a very natural necessity for it. Sin is a painful, grievous, fearful, shameful thing: nor can I see how the honour of God's justice could possibly have excused repentance. Spiritually, as well as naturally, we are born in sorrow. Both sorts of children cry before they laugh: all new creatures be first mourners. But all are not in the same degree so; nor are all equally long sowing in tears, before they do reap in joy. Some sinners are lanced more deeply than others; and God keeps open the wounds of some of his children longer than others, as he pleaseth. But ordinarily we see young Timothys be not struck down like Sauls; or, if they be, they be not kept so many days in frightful darkness. And is this a small thing? Think of it, and say, "If my body had a sore, of easy and speedy cure, if the surgeon were applied quickly unto, I should not suffer a little matter to hold me from him. My soul and body is all spiritual wounds. God alone can heal them. Those which he doth heal easiest and soonest, they be those of first comers most commonly. Tardy and late comers are healed rarely, and so as by fire when they be. What should ail me? Why should I not presently arise, and go to my Father? Why should I buy dearly God's hardest blows?" 3. God doth honour singularly, and reward with grace extraordinary, his early converts.—If any, they be those that have two heavens; great service and sweet assurance on earth, and greater degrees of glory also than others above. Most divines think so. Late converts too much imitate the Indians, that eat the honey themselves, and offer but the wax unto their deities. "They give God but the bran of their life, when Satan has had the flour," as some have expressed themselves. None so much honour God, and none are so honoured by him, as those who give honour to him, and accept it from him, in your early days. Infer you, then, my young folk, You must convert presently, or delay with loss; even with certain danger of hell, and certain loss of much of heaven.-Burgess. DOING NOTHING. "HE made me out a sinner for doing nothing!" This remark fell from the lips of one who was under conviction of sin, and of whom we asked the question, How were you awakened? It was in a revival of religion, in 1832. He had heard a sermon from the words, "Woe to them that are at ease in Zion!" It was a new thought to the poor man, who had been comforting himself with the plea that he had done nothing very bad. But now he saw that his greatest sin was the very thing in which he had been comforting himself-doing nothing! We were reminded of this incident by meeting in an old religious magazine with the following interrogatories on the words, "Curse ye Meroz." The writer says: By whose authority? The angel of the Lord's. Why then is Meroz to be cursed? Because they did nothing. What ought Meroz to have done? help of the Lord. Could not the Lord do without Meroz? did do without Meroz. Come to the The Lord Did the Lord sustain, then, any loss? No, but Meroz did. Is Meroz then to be cursed? Yes, and that bitterly. Is it right that a man should be cursed for doing nothing? Yes, when he ought to do something. Who says so? The angel of the Lord: "That servant which knew his Lord's will, and did it not, shall be beaten with many stripes." (Luke xii. 47.) Reader, have you done-are you doing any thing for God-any thing for your own soul-anything for the souls of your fellows? If not, you have been and are doing every thing against them. Arise and do something. "Work out your salvation with fear and trembling." "Follow the Lord fully." your light so shine before men, that they seeing your good works, may glorify your father who is in heaven." Those who neither think nor do in time, will find time to think and suffer in eternity. RIGHTEOUS OVERMUCH. "Let That which I have often blamed as an indiscreet and dangerous practice in many fathers, is, to be very indulgent to their children whilst they are little, and as they come to ripe years to lay great restraint upon them, and live with greater reserve towards them; which usually produces an ill understanding | between father and son, which cannot but be of bad consequence. And I think fathers would generally do better, as the sons grow up, to take them into a nearer familiarity, and live with them with as much freedom of friendship as their age and temper will allow.--Locke. CONSOLATION ON LOSS OF CHILDREN.-In sending so many children to the place of happiness before you, you are, as it were, glorified by piecemeal: instead of planting families from yourself on earth, you have contributed towards the planting of colonies in heaven; and instead of recruiting the forces of the Church militant, have furnished the trophies of the Church triumphant.-Ford. THE CHRISTIAN TREASURY. 121 THE GOSPEL TREASURE. ADDRESSED TO THE YOUNG. IN your story books you have read many things that have greatly pleased and amused you. You have read of travels, and shipwrecks, and adventures; of foreign lands, and the wonderful things travellers speak about them; about the philosopher's stone, that was to change whatever it touched into gold; the elixir vitæ, which was to make immortal every one that drank of it; of the famous El Dorado, on whose shores whosoever arrived was henceforth to be happy; of hidden treasures, and stores of gems guarded by magicians and necromancers as carefully as the tree in the garden of the Fates was watched by the dragon that never slept. You have read about these and many other things of the same kind, and of the disappointment of those who pursued them expecting to get what they promised, and how at the very moment they thought to have realized all, they found that they had been seeking a fool's paradise--things not to be attained, and of no great worth if they had;—all of them fables; day-dreams of warm but vain imaginations; clouds with a sunbeam or a rainbow brightening for a mo| ment upon them--for a brief moment--for the cloud melted and left nothing behind but the viewless air in which it hovered and floated. If you will believe it, there is a real and true treasure far greater than any or all of them; and what is better still, this treasure you may get possession of. If you do, it will make you good and rich, and happy in this world, and also in the world to come: you shall dwell in the high places of the earth, and afterwards in the high places of the heavens-in the palace hall of God, and near his right hand amongst the angels, and the spirits of just men made perfect: you shall stand upon the sea of glass, and see the rainbow that is around the throne, and eat of the fruit of the tree of life that is in the midst of the paradise of God: you shall be blessed ones amongst the blessed ones: you shall be clothed in shining garments, crowned with unfading amaranths, have golden harps put into your hands on which to give praise to the Lamb for ever and ever. I write this paper to tell you about this treasure. If you read it with care, you may find that your time has not been ill spent. | When war is in a country, it is a ruinous thing. Men's lives are not safe--men's property is not secure; arined plunderers go about| searching for it. They seize whatever they can. The more each gets he better is he pleased. In such times, men who had money or other valuable things, used often to gather all together, bundle it up, dig in the earth, and hide it there. This they did to secure it, and thus, when the war was over, they might dig it up again and enjoy it. It sometimes happened that they were disappointed; the man who hid the treasure in his garden or his field was slain, or died before the return of peace. No one but himself knew about his treasure, and so no more was heard about it for a long time. It would also happen, that long after, some one ploughing in the earth, or turning it over with his spade, would stumble upon the treasure so carefully hidden. As the gold glittered before him in the sunshine, he lifted up his hands in joy, and counted himself happy. It so happened once with a shrewd man. Digging in a field he came upon a treasure. The field was not his own. He concluded, as the field was not his own, so he had not a just claim to the treasure. The owner of the field, though he knew nothing about the treasure, and though he would have been never a hilling the poorer, though the treasure had never been discovered, yet, because it was in his field that it was hidden, might have disputed the claim, or even, if a greedy and powerful person, might have wrested the whole of it from the poor man who discovered it, or put him off with some wretched pittance. The man who discovered it knew all this, and was, as you have been told, a shrewd man. What does he do? The first thing he did, was to examine the treasure, and to cast in his mind the value of it; he found that its value was greater than the value of all the property he was master of. He next covered up the treasure again, and said not a word about it to any one. He then sold all that he had, and with the money went and bought the field. It was now his own. Thus he came to the possession of the treasure. In the Gospel according to Matthew, we read the words of our Lord Jesus Christ (xiii. |