you may receive of his light and life. If at times. you feel utterly indifferent, only say, "Lord, teach me to pray; give me the desire to pray"; and let this single petition dwell in your heart, and rise again and again in your thoughts, until a better desire dawn, and you can again offer the sincere prayer for forgiveness and strength. You know that there is only loss and danger to the soul in absenting yourself from the mercy-seat. It is not then a mockery to come, even when you are cold and indifferent. It is to come to your Father,—to come, just as the little child goes to his earthly parent, with all his griefs and his joys, knowing that he will find help and sympathy and love.

"Be constant at the throne of grace,

And persevere in prayer."

Remember, too, the words of promise, "If ye, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father who is in heaven give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him." "Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities; for we know not what we should pray for as we ought; but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered."

Expect not always to feel the same interest and the same fervor; but having striven, by reflection and serious meditation, to awaken in your soul a sense of the Divine Presence and of

your own wants and needs, then hesitate no longer; and however imperfect, however brief, the prayer thus offered will never fail of its answer in God's own time and way.

Make then your choice firmly and deliberately; say to yourself, "I am determined henceforth to be a disciple of Christ; I know in my better moments the infinite importance of spiritual realities; I know the unsatisfactory nature of all mere earthly pursuits, and I am determined to choose Him for my Guide and Friend who will never fail me, who so lovingly invites me to come to him."

You will often fail; you will daily fall short of your resolves; you will still have to struggle with feelings of indifference and apathy; but there will be deep in your soul this consciousness: "I have resolved, before God, to strive to be his child. I will no longer live as an alien from my Father's house. I will come back, and whatever discipline of sorrow or trial he may appoint, I will receive it gratefully, as a means of leading me nearer to himself";

"For now my spirit sighs for home,

And longs for light whereby to see,
And like a weary child would come,
O Father, unto Thee!"

Is not such a deliberate choice, such a simple resolve, possible?

Does it not now depend

wholly on yourself, and does not God require it of you? The Spirit is again pleading with you. Grieve it not away. Give up everything, rather than quench its influences; for "now is the accepted time." It may be that your whole future well-being will depend upon the faithful use you make of your present convictions, of the present consciousness of your wants and needs. To stand still is to go back; for light will dawn upon you, only as you "follow on to know the Lord."

Avoid for the present aught that would tend to dissipate your better feelings and more spiritual desires, and seek faithfully and earnestly, through communion and prayer, strength resolutely to choose the narrow path of life.

When shall thy love constrain

And draw me to thy breast?
When shall my soul return again
To God, her only rest?

"Ah! what avails my strife,

My wandering to and fro?

Thou giv'st the words of endless life :
Ah! whither should I go?

"Here at thy feet I fall,

I long to be made free;

I fain would now obey the call,
And give up all for Thee."

LETTER V.

THE NEW BIRTH.

I FEAR that you are perplexing your mind with mere theological subtilties, and are hesitating in the plain path of duty, from a false expectation of what you think you ought to feel and experience. You know your inward needs; you are conscious that your past life has been sinful, that you have not cherished the true feelings of a child toward God, that, although surrounded by many religious influences, you have not hitherto regarded love to God and faith in Christ as the one thing needful; and you know too, that having been awakened, through the influences of the Spirit, to this sense of your spiritual wants, the religious choice, the yielding yourself up to these inward, divine promptings, lies wholly in your own power. No one can constrain you to make it, or can deter your from entering on, the only true path of life. It must be the resolve, the act, of your own free-will, resulting from an inward conviction of its fitness and its necessity, and of your obligation to your God and your Saviour.

But you are waiting to possess some peculiar feelings of interest in spiritual things, to realize some secret, entire change, something altogether different from anything hitherto experienced, before you think that you have any right to regard yourself as having truly entered upon the Christian course. The new birth to you something strange, and mysterious, something with which you have little to do,— a change to be wrought for you, not within you, and with your own co-operation.

seems

Let us, then, understand distinctly what is implied in this phrase, what is its true meaning.

―

I reply, it is a change of aim, of purpose, of desire, of character; a change sometimes, indeed, effected suddenly to human sight, the particular event or season of excitement to which it is ascribed being often the occasion rather than the cause of its development, but generally a secret and gradual transformation of the inward life, begun on earth, to be completely consummated only in heaven. It is a change of motive and desire, the birth of the spiritual nature, the awakening of a spiritual conviction. With some, but with comparatively few in the present imperfect state of Christian society and education, this takes place very early in life. Where the child has been surrounded by religious influences, and has received a truly Christian education, his first