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to an instantaneous madness, we must conclude that it was caused by some preternatural agent operating on their organs. So admirably has our indulgent Master been pleased to guard this important truth against the most plausible evasions of self-conceited men."

The joyful import of these miracles of dispossession wrought by Jesus, or by His disciples in His name, is distinctly expressed on the occasion of the return of the seventy, telling with joyful surprise: "Lord, even the devils are subject to us through thy name." The Lord, pointing out the connection between the overthrow of Satan and the establishment of His kingdom, said: "I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven." So He urged the conclusion upon His enemies: "If I with the finger of God cast out devils, no doubt the kingdom of God is come unto you." Yes, this is what it meant: the conqueror of Satan was there in person, and these were foreshadowings of the final victory. The Jews rejected Him, and the kingdom of God which had come unto them was taken from them, but the purpose of God is not thwarted. Yet a little while, and He that shall come will come, and will not tarry. Amidst the present conflict, while we are not ignorant of Satan's devices, we know that "the God of peace will bruise Satan under your feet shortly."

These views are submitted with the hope that they may enable the reader to discern the important practical truth which the recorded circumstances of particular miracles are designed to inculcate. But chiefly with the prayer that their souls may be refreshed, their faith strengthened, and their hope animated by a view of Jesus, even in humiliation, revealed as a perfect Saviour. These miracles are not designed to furnish a display of absolute power. Omnipotence need not have become incarnate for this. That which speaks elo

quent consolation to our hearts is that it is not omnipotence on the throne, but in lowliness and suffering. He is not in the form of God, but in the form of a servant, who does these works. In His original glory He could by a word have hurled the usurper to his place, but that would have brought no deliverance to us; nay, the word of righteous judgment would have swept us away in the same condemnation. When we behold Him in the likeness of sinful flesh casting out devils, then in Satan's conqueror we see man's Saviour. We see Him not only exercising a Divine power, to still the storms which reveal the disorder sin has wrought in nature's harmony, but exercising a love-bought right to restore a redeemed people to an emancipated world. When all manner of sickness is healed by His touch, we behold not only the proofs of His power to deliver us from the pains of mortality, but in the removal of the consequence we see a proof of the removal of the cause. He can deliver from suffering and death, because He has put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself, as He expressed it when He said to the cavillers of that day: "That ye may know that the Son of Man hath power on earth to forgive sin," (then saith he to the sick of the palsy,) "Arise, take up thy bed, and go to thine own house." What a wealth of joyful assurance is there to our hearts in the simple record which follows: “And he arose and departed to his house." We may echo the praises of the marvelling mnltitude as they glorified God, who had given such power unto men. What power? Such displays of Omnipotence as awoke the song of the sons of the morning at Creation's birth? Such power as attested the divine mission of Moses, wrought deliverance for His people, and struck terror to the hearts of His enemies? No, but redeeming power, power on earth to forgive sins, power to bid the helpless and oppressed arise, freed from the consequences of

that which brought sin into the world, and all our woe; power which shall change our vile body that it may be fash ioned like unto Christ's glorious body-the power whereby Ho is able even to subdue all things unto Himself. Jesus, as a worker of miracles, is Jesus revealed as the Saviour, able to save to the uttermost.

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The cold damp cemetery holds, is faced

With lines that find their parallels deep traced
Within our souls. Thus works Thy chisel, Lord,
In strokes severe. Yet be Thy name adored
For all Thy dealings! In Thy purpose deep
A blessing lies, unscanned by us who weep
Amid these shadows. Night will soon be past-
The cloudy night of time that ends at last
In heaven's bright morning. Yet a little while,
And we shall greet that blissful morning's smile
With hallelujahs. Then Thy love's deep thought
Shall be unfolded. All Thy blood has bought
Shall come with Thee; and each we loved and knew
And mourned for here, shall rise upon our view
In brighter, lovelier form-akin to Thine-
Thy work, Lord Jesus!-perfect, pure, divine !—
Thus reunited, through eternal days

Our joys shall be Thyself-our theme Thy praise !

PARENTS.

WE have seen that the Christian's home should be a reflection of his character, as one dead unto sin and alive unto God by Jesus Christ, and that all its arrangements should testify that the Lord rules there. We have considered marriage as the ordinance of the Lord, and have exhibited the duties of husbands and wives to one another. We come now to consider their duties as parents, and to view home as the sphere of the most delicate duties and the highest temporal enjoyments of both parents and children. The previous chapters may be regarded as introductory to this chapter. For although the condition of a Christian's home must have an important bearing on his own character, happiness, and influence in society, its influence is most absolute in the formation of the character of his children. And important as the discharge of the relative duties of husband and wife may be to themselves, their children, after all, will be the greatest sufferers by their failure. Nor is it to be forgotten that in that case children suffer innocently, at the hands of those from whom they cannot escape, and who are bound by the strongest obligations of nature and by the ordinance of God to seek their happiness and well-being.

Both in nature and in revelation God has given the highest testimony to the importance of this relationship. In nature he testifies its importance by the strength of the affection which he has implanted in the bosoms to which the

helpless infant is first pressed, to which its very helplessness is a charm, which anticipates the feeblest expression of its wants, and which would regard the neglect of these wants as the most unnatural of crimes. When the infant shall have reached the full vigor of manhood, he will not be more safe, nor, in some respects, more powerful than he is under the guardianship of this affection, to which God appeals as the most inalienable and unconquerable of the human heart. It has been beautifully and truly said: "The child may in mature years speak with the voice of command to those whose services he has purchased, and who obey him because, in the barter they have made of their services, it is their business to obey; but he cannot, even by the most imperious orders which he addresses to the most obsequious of slaves, exercise an authority more commanding than that which, in the first hours of his life, when a few indistinct cries and tears were his only language, he exercised irresistibly over hearts of the very existence of which he was ignorant."

A Christian, studious of the will of God, must conclude that there are high ends to be served by an affection so controlling and so enduring. This conclusion will be strengthened by the fact of the complete and prolonged helplessness of infancy. The young of inferior creatures are indeed protected by an instinctive parental affection of marvellous power. But a few weeks complete the period of their dependence, and they are dismissed to wander through earth or air, without the slightest remembrance of ties that once seemed so tender. The dependence of an infant on its parents is more complete; a multitude of wants and sufferings appeal irresistibly to parental compassion through days of toil and nights of watching; but it is also prolonged through years, and only ceases by slow degrees, as the help

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