You are

You are a father.-But the obligations involved in your fatherhood you have not weighed well. a worldly man; and your industrial pursuits are so eager that you have not a serious thought or real hope above or beyond earthly things. When the world smiles, you are happy, miserable when it frowns. As a friend of the world you are an enemy of God. Did it never occur to you, that in the path of worldliness and enmity, your son is coming right behind you? For your own sake, and for his, beware!

You are a moral man.-But now and again you fall into sin. Your word is not to be depended on. You would over-reach in a bargain. An occasional excursion for pleasure or business on the Sabbath is indulged in. You are sometimes overcome with drink; and you were never known to mention serious Godliness, unless in scorn. Surely, in these circumstances, obdurate as your heart is, you might pause and reflect that your son is coming right behind you.

You are a professor of religion. Your leaf is green. You hear the Word and respect the Sabbath, and

You are

or at the dictate of fear. Your piety is but a name, a little paint, a suit of apparel occasionally worn for show. You never were in earnest. to this day unconscious of God, of sin, of grace, and of the wrath to come. Turn round, my dear friend, and you will see your son coming right behind you.

He

Your little loved boy at home thinks and reasons about you. "My mother wishes me to pray, and read my Bible, and keep from bad company. But my father never prays. I often see a newspaper in his hand, or a novel, but the Bible never. never speaks about religion, except in criticism and jest. He never spoke to me in his life about my soul; and surely if there were a Heaven or a hell, my father would have told me of it. If I needed salvation, he would not have been silent on the subject. My mother is too severe with me. I am coming right behind my father."

way.

CHOOSE THE GOOD PATH. Choose the perfect way of truth. Walk in penitence. The Lord Jesus is the Trust Him, and go on praying and singing. Remember, it is the way of holiness. The great sacrifice by which the Lamb purged our sins is its power, its life, its glory, its attraction. Angels love that way. The Holy Spirit overshadows it; and at every turn of the road the Heavenly world stands forth to the eye in bolder outline. Look to Jesus. Plead the promise to you and to seed; and it may be, that when you look back-oh! happiness-you will see your son coming right behind you.

your

As a father, what power you have, what privilege, what obligation! You are working eternal evil. You may do everlasting good. It is not your work, but your example, that chiefly tells on the eternal destiny of your son. He sees that you have no

you.

you. With

religion, and he grows up just like With your whole heart, therefore, seek the living God. Turn to Him in repentance for your sins. Believe and live; for the Lord Jesus is able to save even you. And salvation, including pardon, righteousness, and redemption, is of free grace. Oh! come now, come now, for time presses, and God invites, and the blood of Jesus cleanses, and the Spirit quickens. Teach, train, lead, draw your children, that they may be saved. This is your great life-work on earth. If that is undone, everything is lost. What a double Heaven Heaven will be to you, if for ever and ever you see your sons and daughters coming right behind you !—Rev. Wm. Magill, Cork.

Ir is quite common to call preaching dull. It is sometimes dull enough. But, if the whole were known, it would be found that most of the dullness is in the people who so complain. It is because they have no interest in the truths preached, or for religion, except as a matter of form or entertainment. All right kinds of preaching will be dull to them.-United Presbyterian.

SEEK first the kingdom of God, and let wealth come or go in its wake. He who, in the market of a busy world, gains money and loses his soul, will rue his bargain where he cannot cast it.-Arnot. WHEN scientists want me to stay and argue with them, I say to them, in the words of the prophet, "Abide ye here with the ass, while I go yonder and worship."-Daniel Butler.

76

M

Faith makes the Christian. Life shows the Christian.. Trial tests the Christian. Death crowns the Christian.

"It is the Last Hour."

(1 JOHN ii. 18.) Revised Version.

OST solemn thought! that God should teach
His servant

That even then Time's latest hour had come ; That even then, the day of grace was closing,

And Earth-poor Earth-about to meet her doom!
If so, then now rejoice, dear fellow-Christians;
Lift up your heads! Redemption draweth nigh;
The clouds are breaking in the Eastern distance,
And signs of dawn appear athwart the sky.

Our night of waiting for the Master's coming
Is drawing rapidly towards its close:
It may be now the "hour" is almost over,
Its final moment may have come, who knows?

Perchance our Lord is even now intending

To summon us to meet Him in the air:
Then let us be prepared at any moment
To join our Saviour in His glory there!

The last Earth-hour! O sinner, pause and listen:
Dost thou not hear those "clanging bells of Time?"
No day fo thee, if thou art not with Jesus,
But night for ever in a sunless clime!

Oh do accept Him as thine own Redeemer :

He suffered death that thou should'st ransomed be; Wilt thou not come, and sweetly whisper, "Thank you," By living now for Him, who so loved thee?

Confess the evil of thy past misdoings,

Ask Him to pardon all thy life of sin;
Implore the gift of His most Holy Spirit
To make thee altogether pure within.

The last hour closeth! Earth proclaims this loudly;
The thunder notes of war repeat the strain;
The woes of life take up the solemn chorus,
And tell the tidings to mankind again.

CHARLOTTE MURRAY.

Man-Which?

CHERE is this sharp distinction between

THERI

a reformed drunkard and a reformed man:-A man who finds the cup degrading -causing him the loss of property and friends-may take the pledge, and become a reformed drunkard; but convince him that he would be equally honoured and prosperous if he still continued to drink, and he would go back to his cups. Not so with one who is convinced that DRUNKENNESS IS A SIN; and only one of many sins of which he has been guilty. Let such an one, moved by the grace of God, turn from strong drink, and every evil, to Christ, as his only and all-sufficient Saviour, and he will be likely to stick :-he is a reformed man.

Of what effect is a temperance pledge, with the clause, "God helping me," taken as a prayer or a trust, by a wicked and impenitent man, who expects to remain in all his sins except drunkenness? Does Christ save partially? Does God impart grace to deliver from one sin alone, while the sinner intends to continue a rebel? How ill such teaching accords with the Gospel, concerning man's utter sinfulness and ruin and dependence upon Divine grace, every Christian should know. There is a Divinely appointed method of saving drunkards just as other sinners are saved? God appoints no reformation process whatever as a preparation to receive Christ and His finished salvation. The Apostles everywhere preached an immediate salvation, and men were saved first and reformed afterwards.

It is not until we have passed through the furnace that we are made to know how much dross was in our composition.