ing been so long in the fish's belly, and himself going to be so long in the bowels of the earth, he pointed especially to the safe deliverance in the one case, and the glorious resurrection in the other, as what might, in the fullest sense, be considered a sign from heaven, is to give a turn to the answer quite unsuited to the circumstances. Had such been the purport of our Lord's allusion and reply, it would have substantially granted what they sought. One sign only, indeed, he would have promised, but that, to use the words of Calvin, "as good as all: with this alone let them be content, that as Jonas, after having escaped from the depths of the sea, preached to the Ninevites, so they also should hear the voice of a prophet raised from the dead."

It is not, however, to Jonah's safe deliverance from the belly of the fish, and afterwards doing the work of a prophet, but simply to the fact of his being there that our Lord alludes. Nor is it to his own resurrection from the dead, after having been confined for a certain period in its mansions, and resuming his great work, that he directs their thoughts. He speaks only of his descent into the lower parts of the earth, and thus points in the very opposite direction to that on which their expectations were fixed. "A sign from heaven! (he virtually says to them) will nothing but that satisfy you that I am the messenger of Heaven, and as such entitled to your homage and regard? Will you receive no Messiah, attend to no prophet, but one who comes to you surrounded with a blaze of heavenly glory, and attended by ministrations of angels? Your own Scriptures, if read aright, are sufficient to expose your error, and put to shame your ncredulity. Jonah, whom you justly reverence as a true prophet, and who was received in that character even by a Heathen city, carried with him thither no such attestations in his favour as you expect from me; so far from it, he had but newly escaped from that belly of hell,' to which divine justice had for a season sent him, in chastisement for his sins: yet the Ninevites listened to his preaching, wisely looking more to the truth of his message than to the circumstances of his person. And I-so completely do ye misunderstand the nature of my mission, and miscalculate regarding the circumstances that are to mark the execution of it-must pass through a still deeper process of humiliation than Jonah. The signs, as to my personal condition, which are to discover themselves in me, are to grow darker, and not brighter; they are to be derived, not from the highest heavens, but from the lowest depths-from the very regions of the dead; yet am I not the less on that account the ambassador of Heaven, and possessing, as I do, credentials of a far higher kind than any that were to be seen in Jonah, be assured that if you reject me, the inhabitants of the Heathen city, who repented at his preaching, shall rise up in judgment to condemn you.'

This, we conceive, is the purport of our Lord's anwer, and the precise object of his reference to Jonah. He meant to tell them that they were looking entirely in the wrong direction for an undoubted seal of his divine commission; and that the circumstances in which he appeared, and the nature of the work to which he was bound, required that he should bear

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upon him the signs, not of heavenly splendour, but of profound humiliation. Any other sign-any sign such as they expected-would have been a false one; it would have given a wrong impression of his character and work, and served to encourage them in the carnal views they cherished respecting the Messiah. He had no want of signs, in the proper sense, to manifest who and what he was; but they were signs which did not so much distinguish his person as revealed his character and work; and when so many deeds of miraculous working had proceeded from his hand, testifying how great, how truly divine a work of healing and recovery he had come to do among men, he justly charged them with hypocrisy in not being able to discern the signs of the times, and mocked their expectations of a sign from heaven, by presenting them with a counter-sign from the heart of the earth. The perfect similarity in principle, also, between his case and that of Jonah-both having been made to bear so remarkably the signs of God's displeasure at the very time they were charged with a divine commission

should the more easily have reconciled the Jews to the absence of a sign from above in the case of Christ; and their belief in the mission of Jonah, and the repentance of the Ninevites at his preaching, could only serve to show how utterly inexcusable it would be in them, if, with so much more now to carry their convictions and subdue their hearts, they should still reject the call of Heaven, and perish in their sins.

It requires no great discernment to see this in the case of those Scribes and Pharisees; but the error into which they fell was the natural offspring of a carnal heart; and under a somewhat different form is constantly repeating itself. There are two different ways especially in which it is often appearing in our day.

1. It appears in those who, instead of looking to the message of the Gospel, and applying their hearts faithfully to the things which it sets before them, fix their eye upon something in the circumstances of the bearers of it which is different from what they conceive it should be, and which they deem sufficient to excuse their neglect or rejection of the message itself. The doctrines pressed upon their acceptance may be ever so well fitted to commend themselves to their conscience, and the duties to which it calls them may be ever so necessary and important-but they have some fault to find with the instrument through which it is conveyed to them, or the manner in which it is delivered; and therefore they will give themselves no concern about the matter. It is not enough for them that divine Truth descends from heaven to present herself to their embrace; she must come attired in the precise form and dress which they conceive suited to her lofty origin, otherwise they will not so much as give her an audience! It is not enough that the call to repent, and to do things meet for repentance, is heard by them, and inwardly responded to by the voice of conscience, and approved by every consideration of reason and propriety-if it is not also accredited to their outward senses by becoming signs of honour and authority, they will scornfully resist its demands! What folly and infatuation in men of reasonable minds! As if the shell were more than

the kernel it contains-or the voice of Heaven were only to be listened to when it speaks in accents such as please and gratify the outward ear. Surely, when that voice cries, the first and grand consideration should always be, what does it cry-not how, with what particular tone, or with what attendant circumstances! And whenever there is really the voice of God, speaking in a messenger of his appointment, or through an instrument of his choice, no one will remain ignorant that it is so who deals faithfully by it. "If he will do His will, he will know of the doctrine, whether it be of God."

2. The same error, however, still more frequently appears in a rejection of the claims of the Gospel as a whole, or of some of its particular parts, from its wanting a certain kind or amount of evidence which is pre-supposed to have been essential to it, if it really possessed divine authority. The Scribes and Pharisees would not own Christ as a heavenly messenger, from the signs he actually showed; but they professed their readiness to do so if he produced a sign of a different kind—a sign from heaven. The people at large would not believe upon him, because he had saved so many from mortal disease and death during the period of his active ministry; but if he could have saved himself from the doom of impending destruction, when hanging on the cross, then they would have believed. So, the wayward will of man, in its mad controversy with the will of God, is always ready to take exception against the means he graciously employs to overcome it, and pitches upon something else, something of its own, which alone it will condescend to regard as satisfactory. It has the audacity of prescribing to its Maker, and instead of humbly sitting down to weigh the grounds on which he challenges its belief and obedience, it presumptuously insists upon certain terms of its own as indispensable. If Jesus of Nazareth had really been the Son of God, certain unbelievers have said, and indeed still say, then all his own countrymen would doubtless have believed on him he would never have been rejected by the great majority of these; and his Gospel, if salvation really depended upon the reception of its truths, would not have been confined to a small portion of mankind, but would assuredly have been communicated by a merciful God to the whole world. What is this but impiously to prescribe to God? to demand certain signs on his part before he is entitled to receive any faith or confidence on ours? It presumes to do what no one who knows the proper standing of a creature will ever dream of doing to search the mind of the Lord, and act the part of his counsellor; while it leaves unexamined the many clear and infallible signs by which he has approved the cause and testimony of Jesus, and which have never failed, when calmly and seriously considered,

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to draw forth anew the confession of the centurion: "Verily, this man was the Son of God." It is with these we have to do-not attempting to say what -hould have been, or to meddle with matters too high for us; but with the simplicity of little children searching the record which God has seen fit to give o us, and to deal in earnest with the realities it unfolds. If we do this, we shall find in such facts as

Christ's rejection by the Jews, and the partial spread of his Gospel, but new evidences of the truth of his Word; for they are what this itself has led us to expect.

Again, how often, when we come down to particulars, do many excuse themselves from receiving a certain doctrine, or practising a certain duty, because it is not revealed with all the fulness, or inculcated with all the plainness and frequency with which they imagine it would have been if truly of God! In this way men have excepted against the fundamental doctrines of grace, because they think they can somehow explain away the terms in which these are unfolded,' or because they do not meet with them in some portions of Scripture where they would have expected to find them. Or men deny, for example, the divine authority of the Christian Sabbath, and their obligation to set apart one day in seven for special service to the Lord, because they allege, if such were the will of God, it would have stood out more distinctly and plainly expressed in New Testament Scripture than it actually does. But who art thou that wouldst dictate to God how he is to disclose his will, or propose the requirements of his service? The question for thee to consider is, not how it might have been done so as to render all evasion impossible on the part of those who seek for it, but, Is it not done so distinctly that it may be clearly enough gathered by all who are honestly desirous to ascertain his mind and will? What humble, spiritual, child-like Christian fails to derive from the Bible the doctrines of grace? What genuine disciple of Jesus, treading in the footsteps and breathing the spirit of his Master, does not hail every returning Sabbath as it comes round, with the words of the Psalmist: "This is the day God has made; in it will we rejoice and be glad ?" For those who seek excuses in regard to what they should either believe or practise, there will be no difficulty in finding them;-but for those, on the other hand, who would walk humbly with their God, and are content to look at the signs which he himself has furnished for their guidance and instruction, there is, blessed be his name, a sure and sufficient light to direct them. "For the ways of the Lord are right, and the just shall walk in them; but the transgressors shall fall therein."

REFLECTIONS UPON THE PUBLIC EXE

CUTION OF TWO YOUNG MEN.

I HAVE just returned from witnessing the exe cution of two fellow-sinners and fellow-immortals, whose lives were considered forfeited to the laws of their country, and for whom, it was said, there could be no mercy in this world. I had witnessed executions before, but under very different views and feelings; for then 1 knew not myself as a sinner, exposed to a more terrible sentence than I have now seen executed. On this occasion I was forcibly reminded of these words of our Saviour: "Think ye that they were sinners above all men that dwelt at Jerusalem? I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.”—Luke xiii.

never been sipping of the isoned cup, nor venturing on the enemy's ground, nor sleeping at thy post, nor putting down thy weapons? Alas! these are painful recollections of narrow escapes. Let me be more watchful that I enter not into temptation; let me awake to righ teousness and sin not; let me run the race that is set before me, looking unto Jesus-looking so stedfastly unto Jesus as to obtain his support, his intercession, that my faith may never fail, but that I may so run as to win the prize, even Christ himself, the author and finisher of my faith!

THE DEPARTED CHILD.

His seat is vacant at table-it is vacant at the fireside-it is vacant at the altar. A thousand afflicting incidents remind his parents that he is gone; but, often as this saddening thought recurs, it is softened and transformed by the cheering recollection that he is gone to glory; and the full heart almost disburdened of its sorrows, responds to the songs of holy resignation:

"Why should we mourn departed friends,

Or start at death's alarms?

'Tis but the voice that Jesus sends
To call them to his arms."

Delightful idea! Supported by this, I have seen the parents of a much endeared child sitting with composure beside his bed of death.

They were parents familiarized with sorrow. Once they had been blessed with an ample fortune and a numerous offspring. But the hand of God had been upon them. Stripped of the one, bereaved of the other, they were left in the decline of life, naked and defenceless, like the trunk of an aged oak, whose leaves and branches have been swept away by the pitiless storms that have beat upon it. One little son, the child of their old age, alone remained to them. His brethren and sisters were dead, and in his life the life of his parents were bound up. Hitherto they had considered this son as a special gift of Providence, granted to solace their sorrows in old age, to minister to their wants in death, and afterwards to preserve their name and become their memorial among the living. He was, indeed, a lovely child; and what rendered him the more so in the eyes of his godly parents was, that he also feared God. Often as he hung upon his mother's arm, or clambered upon his father's knee, and stroking back his grey hairs, he would inquire of them so earnestly about death, and talk to them so sweetly about heaven and Jesus, that their hearts were overcome, and their lips had not the power of

utterance.

Thus did this child increase in wisdom as he increased in stature; till one day, like the child of the Shunammite, he cried out, My head! My head!--Like that child, too, he was carried from the field unto his mother. But, alas! no prophet of Israel was nigh. No swift Gehazi ran from Carmel to lay the staff of the holy seer upon the face of the child. It was indeed a sickness unto death. His soul, however, was resigned--his faith in the promises immovable. "Do not grieve thus," said he to his aged parents, as they watched the changes of his countenance, and in pensive silence bedewed his pillow with tears; "God will take care of you, and he will take care of me too. My body will be laid in the grave, where the body of my Saviour was laid. My soul will fly up to heaven, where I shall see my brothers and sisters, and Jesus

Christ, and the angels who attend him. Have you not often told me that he is the friend of children? earth, and I am sure he will bid them welcome to his I have read, too, how he took them in his arms on arms in heaven." Thus early ripe for glory, this dear child, without a murmur and without a groan, drew his last breath, and fell asleep in Jesus. I saw, in- . deed, that his parents wept; but their tears were tears. of joy. Happy, thrice happy parents, called to comsign a spirit thus ripe for glory, unto God who mit such precious dust into the sepulchre, and to regave

it!

THE WORLD.

THE world is seldom what it seems
To man, who dimly sees;
Realities appear as dreams,
And dreams realities.

The Christian's years, though slow their flight,
When he is called away,

Are but the watches of a night,
And death the dawn of day.

MONTGOMERY.

WILBERFORCE AND THE SABBATH.

THE celebrated Wilberforce ascribes his continuance for so long a time under such a pressure of cares and labours, in no small degree to the conscientious. and habitual observance of the Sabbath. "O what a blessed day," he says, "is the Sabbath, which allows us a precious interval wherein to pause-ta come out from the thickets of worldly concerns, and give ourselves up to heavenly and spiritual objects! Observation and my own experience have convinced me that there is a special blessing on the right employment of these intervals.

"One of their prime objects, in my judgment, is to strengthen our impression of invisible things, and to induce a habit of living much under their influences. O what a blessed thing is Sabbath, interposed between the waves of worldly business, like the divine path of the Israelites through Jordan! Blessed be God, who has appointed the Sabbath, and interposed the seasons of recollection. It is a blessed thing to have the Sabbath devoted to God. There is nothing in which I would commend you to be more strictly conscientious, than in keeping the Sabbath-day."

The

A FATHER'S PRAYER. PHILIP JAMES SPENER had a son of eminent talents. but perverso and extremely vicious. All means of love and persuasion were without success. father could only pray, which he continued to do, that time and in any way. The son fell sick; and while the Lord might yet be pleased to save his son at any lying on his bed in great distress of mind, nearly past the power of speech or motion, he suddenly started up, clasped his hands, and exclaimed: "My father's prayers, like mountains, surround me !" Soon after his anxiety ceased-a sweet peace spread over his face-his malady came to a crisis, and the son was saved in body and soul. He became another man. Spener lived to see his son a respectable man, in pubof his life after his conversion.-N. E. Puritan. lic office, and happily married. Such was the change