occurs in any other place ;-false professors of the religion of Jesus are called "clouds without water." And so it often happens; clouds here and there present themselves, but they pass over our heads,— there are no gentle droppings from them-no refreshing showers; they are floating clouds without water. Such are those who have a name to live, and are dead before God: you may meet them in society, and they will speak of the world, and its amusements, and vanities, and pleasures. They have indeed a Sunday's form of godliness: but a religion that is confined to times and seasons, and that does not breathe through the every day circumstances of life is a poor thing. Such professors are as clouds without water, and awful is their state if they repent not;-" to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever." (Jude 12, 13.)

I think I must mention one passage more to you-about the Snow; it is in Job ix. 30, 31:-"If I wash myself with snow water, and make my hands never so clean; yet shalt thou plunge me in the ditch, and mine own clothes shall abhor me.' You remember that Job was a man that feared God and eschewed or avoided evil, (i. 8;) there was none like him on the earth. This God said of him, (i. 8,) but when Job thought of himself as standing before God, he said, How shall a man be just with God? if He will enter into judgment with him, he cannot answer him one of a thousand, (ix. 1—3 :) see also ver. 15, and then the one I have quoted," though I wash me with snow water.” Now there is no water so cleansing, so purifying, as the snow water,

and the Patriarch alludes to this. Though he said, I was cleansed and cleansed again from every visible defilement, and no one single blemish could be detected on me BY MAN, yet when He looks on me, whose eyes are as a flame of fire, searching to the inmost thought, not only shall there be specks here and there, but like one plunged in the ditch, "mine own clothes shall abhor me." So, my beloved children, man cannot stand before God in his own righteousness; for in his sight can no man living be justified: see especially Zech. iii. 3, and compare Ps. xxiv. 3, 4, with Ps. xviii. 20, and in each see the Lord Jesus as the One and the only one who had clean hands and a pure heart, and who, in the VIRTUE THEREOF, having not only obeyed the law, but magnified it and made it honourable, claimed the right of entrance into the holy place; and as the obedient man who was God, sat down at the welcome of the Father at his right hand, (Ps. cx. 1,) angels, principalities, and powers, being made subject unto him. (1 Pet. iii. 22.) The Scriptures afford abundant illustrations on this subject, but I must not fatigue you; but you will find it a profitable exercise, if the next week, at breakfast, each one brings some passage from the word of God, in which the rain and dew and snow are used in illustration. Some months ago, if you remember, you did so, and we were all much interested.

Believe me to remain, dear Children,

Ever your affectionate Father.

LETTER V.

AND GOD CALLED THE DRY LAND EARTH; AND THE GATHERING TOGETHER OF THE WATERS CALLED HE SEAS: AND GOD SAW THAT IT WAS GOOD. AND GOD SAID, LET THE EARTH BRING FORTH GRASS, THE HERB YIELDING SEED, AND THE FRUIT TREE YIELDING FRUIT AFTER HIS KIND, WHOSE SEED IS IN ITSELF, UPON THE EARTH: AND IT WAS SO. AND THE EARTH BROUGHT FORTH GRASS, AND HERB YIELDING SEED AFTER HIS KIND, AND THE TREE YIELDING FRUIT, WHOSE seed WAS IN ITSELF, AFTER HIS KIND, AND GOD SAW THAT IT WAS GOOD. AND THE EVENING AND THE MORNING WERE THE THIRD DAY.-Genesis i. 10-13.

MY DEAR CHILDREN,

Two days of the history of our globe had now run out, and the third came full of blessing. The character of this day's creation was twofold, as the account in Genesis i. fully manifests. The first part was a call for the dry land (which evidently had been created in the beginning) to appear;—the second, the Creation of the three great orders of vegetation-trees, herbs, and grass; but I know of no part of Scripture that brings out the character of this day's creation so strikingly as the 104th Psalm. The inspired Psalmist looks back 3000 years, and brings the whole subject most blessedly before our minds in the 104th Psalm, from 1st verse to the 6th:-" WHO laid