"LOOKING UNTO JESUS."

I HAVE no doubt but that you have striven against your violent temptations, against the carnal enmity of your minds, against the corruptions of your hearts, against your evil tempers and your besetting sins, with all your might; and, after all this wearisome toil and labour, matters are still the same, and sometimes rather worse. Then you resolve, and watch, and work with more care, more diligence, and more good intention; and the more you labour, the more the stream runs against you. Then you fret, grieve, and conclude that your family concerns and daily and unexpected trials are laid in your way for the purpose of hindering you, and that it is in vain for you to strive any more, for that you never shall obtain deliverance. All these things are against us. Seeing, then, that we gain no ground this way, let us try another. Let us see what looking to Jesus will do. Hear, therefore, what He says: "Look unto Me, and be ye saved, all ye ends of the earth; for I am God, and besides Me there is no Saviour." Here we are to look for salvation, and for all the help we stand in need of: "I will look to the hills, from whence cometh my help; my help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth.” And what did anybody ever get by this? Why, "they looked unto Him and were lightened, and their faces were not ashamed." Is this all? No. While we look, as "through a glass darkly," we are changed into the same image, from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord. Looking, Mary, will do more than labouring. "Let us,

therefore," says Paul, "lay aside every weight, and the sin that doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us; looking unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith." Looking, Mary, implies believing. "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness," that all that were bitten by the serpents might live, "so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth in Him may not perish, but have eternal life.” Looking implies hope and expectation. God has laid help upon His dear Son, who is "mighty to save;" and, when poor sinners hear of this, they are led by the Holy Spirit to hope for it in Christ, and to expect it from no other quarter. And you know not how Jesus is charmed at poor sinners looking to Him. Hear what He says: "O My dove, that art in the clefts of the rock, in the secret places of the stairs, let Me hear thy voice; let Me see thy face; for sweet is thy voice, and thy countenance is comely." And He adds, "Turn away thine eyes from Me, for thou hast overcome Me."-Huntington's Posthumous Letters.

THORNS prick us. They are the hedges which God has planted to keep us in the way of life.

REMINISCENCES OF DUGALD BUCHANAN.

"The memory of the just is blessed."—PROVERBS x. 7.

THE parish of Balquidder, the county of the freebooter, Rob Roy McGregor, gave birth to Dugald Buchanan, in 1716, at the farm of Ardoch, in the valley of Strathbogie. His father rented the farm, and was owner of a small meal-mill there, the remains of which are still standing. Both his parents were estimable persons-people of sterling Christian worth of that class which constitutes the very bone and sinew of a healthy commonwealth.

He speaks of his mother with great veneration and affection. "I had the blessing," he says, "to be born of religious parents, who took great care to train me in the fear of the Lord, especially my tender mother, who followed all the means used for my improvement with her fervent prayers at a throne of grace for my conversion."

The following passage from his diary shows he was, at a very early period, the subject of religious impressions: "To the best of my recollection, when between five and six years of age, I went on a Sabbath day, without my mother's knowledge, and amused myself foolishly; and, after returning home, my mind was filled with heavy accusations of conscience for breaking the Lord's Day. Previously I did not pray unless pressed to it by my mother, but now I began to pray without any entreaty."

66 as the

In 1722 his excellent mother died. Of the loss thus sustained he speaks with deep emotion. Her example, her instruction, her maternal solicitude for his soul's welfare, were, he says, thorns that hedged up my way, on the removal of which I began to slight duty." There were, however, at certain intervals, a revival of these early impressions, after his mother's death, each constituting a link in the chain of successive convictions. Terrible visions of the day of judgment greatly frightened him, and he fancied he found himself, along with others, sentenced to everlasting burnings. For two years in succession these visions came at intervals. He thought of God only as an angry God, and from his ninth till his twelfth year he lived in a kind of stupid despair.

He closes the portion of his diary that ends with his twelfth year with the following observations :-"Instead of honouring God with my first-fruits, Satan_got the first-fruits of all my abours. I did no duty to which I was not pressed by my parents, or by a slavish fear of hell. When I take a retrospective view of this period of my life, I am led to see the absolute necessity for regeneration by grace for renewing our will, and conforming the soul to the image of God. Man is helpless and hopeless in himself." How true as well as touching are the

words of Samuel Rutherford-"I have nothing but my loathsomeness to commend me to Christ. He must take me as I am for nothing, or not take me at all.”

Dugald Buchanan received the rudiments of education in one of the schools belonging to the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, which was founded by a few devoted Christian gentlemen in Edinburgh, in the year 1701. One of these schools was planted in Buchanan's native parish, under the charge of Mr. Nicol Ferguson, a man of Christian character. At the age of twelve Buchanan was considered qualified for the situation of a tutor, which shows that he made fair progress for one so young. He soon obtained employment as tutor in a family who were remarkable for every kind of profanity, with the exception of the mistress of the household, who was an excellent person. Before he was a month in this family he learned to speak the language of Ashdod, and shortly afterwards exceeded every one of them in uttering oaths and imprecations. "I sinned," he says, "without restraint, except when I thought of death." At this time his terrors of mind were overwhelming. He heartily resolved to refrain from committing sin, but his resolutions were soon at an end. In less than eight days he was just what he was before.

Allusions in his diary lead to the inference that he early showed a precocity of intellectual vigour that promised future eminence, and which encouraged friends to make especial efforts to promote his educational efficiency.

At the age of fourteen years he went to Stirling, probably to prosecute his education. He remained there for two years, very much in his former condition of alternate deadness and alarm. In subsequent years he narrowly escaped death from a series of accidents which are particularized in his diary. His preservation he wholly ascribes to the interposition of God's good providence, of which he was a great observer in after life.

After a stay of six months in Edinburgh, Buchanan returned home to Ardoch. He was now in his eighteenth year, and his father was anxious that he should enter upon some profession or trade. He was apprenticed for three years to a house carpenter in the parish of Kippen-a step in many respects conducive to his good. He associated with a better class of companions, and attended with greater regularity the house of God. Under the godly ministrations of Mr. Potter, minister of the parish, he profited considerably He abandoned his former careless ways, felt brokenness of heart for sin, and found sweetness in the promise"I, even I, am He that blotteth out thy transgressions for Mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins." Not rightly understanding the true meaning of these words, his legal heart inclined him to put confidence in his prayers, tears, and other acts of duty.

He fell again into the same despairing state of mind, because he sought salvation not by faith, but, as it were, by the works of the law. The law cannot heal a wounded conscience, and as yet he had not attained to Him "whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation, through faith in His blood."

In the twenty-fifth year of his age, an interview with a godly sister proved instrumental in emancipating him from his longcontinued bondage. He was carelessly wandering in the fields on the evening of the Lord's Day, when his sister met him, and seriously remonstrated with him for abandoning the house of God. He told her he thought he had "counted the blood of Jesus Christ as an unholy thing, and had done despite to the Spirit of grace." He, moreover, remarked that he had not bowed his knee to God for four years, and would never pray again. His sister, however, who dearly loved him, and longed for his salvation, earnestly urged him to pray and humble himself before God, who would have mercy upon him as a poor condemned sinner. Her earnest and loving solicitations prevailed, by the blessing of God, and he prostrated himself at a throne of mercy. "I stood," he says, "like the publican, afar off, and said, 'God be merciful to me a sinner!' from a real sense of guilt and misery." God, who hears prayers, not for our sake, but " for His own name's sake," heard Dugald Buchanan, and the result he tells us in the following words "The Lord instructed me with a secret and powerful conviction that my sins were pardonable, notwithstanding their heinous aggravations, and that His name would be glorified in pardoning even the like of me." For eighteen months afterwards he was sorely exercised with mental temptations and blasphemous suggestions. These Satanic assaults renewed his despondency, and caused deep prostration of spirit. Prayer was his resourceejaculatory prayer in the fields, and long and earnest wrestlings in the closet. At this period the Scripture, "Shall I bring to the birth, and shall I not cause to bring forth," came with overcoming sweetness and power to his soul, and peace, under a sense of the pardoning mercy of God in Christ, took hold upon his mind.

He was now in his twenty-sixth year, and compares himself to the man who had his eyes half opened, and saw men as trees walking. He went to Cambuslang, where a remarkable work of grace was then progressing, under the ministry of Mr. McCulloch and Mr. George Whitfield, the great evangelist. Here he was greatly comforted by hearing people relate their religious experiences to one another. The very large number of conversions that took place at Cambuslang during Mr. Whitfield's stay there are well-known historical facts. On one Sabbath, upwards of thirty thousand persons were present to hear Mr. Whitfield

:

On Sabbath, January 2nd, 1743, the Lord opened Buchanan's eyes to see the Mediator in all His offices, and his soul was overwhelmingly gladdened. On the 6th of February, of the same year, he was filled with seraphic joy as he surveyed the wonders of redeeming mercy. He says "I saw, as it were, the compassionate Jesus passing by me when I was wallowing in my blood, and saying to me, 'Live.' This was indeed a time of love to me, a vile man. O my soul, come and be swallowed up in admiring this love--this boundless love to thee, the chief of sinners! O my soul, wonder at the freeness of it, without any merit! Be astonished, O ye heavens, at this love! O ye angels, and saints, and redeemed of the Lord, behold the wonderful match-Thy Maker is thy Husband; the Lord of hosts is His name.' O my soul, be ashamed to meet such a Husband in the filthy rags of thy own righteousness."

"On August 6th, 1743," records Buchanan in his diary,* "my closed lips were opened, and my mouth was filled with the high praise of my God. My chains and fetters fell off, and I was set at liberty. The Lord proclaimed His name in Christ, and made all His goodness pass before me."

From August, 1748, till July, 1750-a period of two yearsBuchanan was, however, deserted of God and bereaved of the comforts and joys of salvation. During this sad period he was tempted to the foulest sins-sins which he hated with his whole heart.

On the 15th of December, 1750, the Lord graciously restored to Buchanan's soul the joy of salvation, of which he had been so long deprived. At this time he, after strict examination, found in himself spiritual marks of being a genuine believer. He was convinced of the universal depravity of his nature. He found that he had received Christ in all His offices, and that his obedience flowed from a principle of love to God.

(To be continued.)

RELIGION is the best armour, but the worst cloak.

TAKE God into thy counsel. Heaven overlooketh hell. God can at any moment see what plots are hatching there against thee.-Gurnall.

THE Christian must in all his ways have three guides-Truth, Charity, and Wisdom-Truth to go before him, Charity and Wisdom on either hand.-Hall.

Buchanan's diary resembles, in many respects, the autobiography of the great Thomas Boston, a work which he appears to be familiar with. The diary gives what is truly reliable, and shows that Dugald Buchanan was a man remarkably exercised anent the great matter of salvation.