Harbinger, Jan. 2, '65.

British Millennial Barbinger.

JANUARY, 1865.

WITH thankful heart we sit down upon our prefatory mile-stone in order to muse a little upon the incidents of another year's journeying o'er the roadway of life and duty. We remember that our tent is pitched a year's march nearer home, and that what is done cannot be recalled, so as to leave no effect, and that, what should have been done, but is not, cannot now be done, so as to fill its proper place and produce its full measure of influence for good. The retrospect seems to say "Work while it is day, for the night cometh when no man can work”-"Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might, for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom in the grave whither thou goest."

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It is seasonable to remember that the religion of Christ is not one of transcendental abstraction and visionary speculation, but one of right-feeling, goodspeaking, and well-doing, the result of faith in the Son of God. Jesus, who is the foundation of our hope, the object of our faith, and the subject of our love, is also the model of our conduct. 'He went about doing good," and he has left us an "example that we should follow his steps," and if we have his spirit, we must walk as he walked, for love must translate itself into life. As then, dear readers, we have pondered these things, so do you! Let us not lose the individual in the crowd-the disciple in the church. It is right enough to ask what the church has done, but the better and still more needed inquiry is, "What have I done?" "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do," speaks to us individually, and not to the many collectively. The church may have done much good service and we may have been idle, useless, and injurious. Depend upon it that, if the former apply, the latter must also, for influence is exerted by each member of the body, and he that gathers not scattereth abroad-he who does no work for Christ is a stone of stumbling.

It is pleasing to know that 1864 has given a decided increase of membership to the churches as a whole. Some churches, of course, have contributed nothing in this direction. Others, too, have done worse than nothing-they have reduced the aggregate increase by reporting fewer members than they had a year ago. Do you belong to one of those churches? If so, surely you are called to prayerful examination! Have you done what you could? Have you been at ease in a church which is making no progress? Have you not felt keenly troubled? "Not much troubled," do you say? Then your case is bad! You need converting! We don't say that you have never known the Lord, but we do say

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Harbinger, Jan. 2, '65.

that if you have known him you have backslidden and have need to return to the Shepherd and Bishop of your soul. "Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light. See that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil." But perhaps you number in one of these churches that have been blessed with increase. Then take heed of the we-" We have done"-" We have prospered." Look well to yourself! What hast thou done? "Some of my money," you say, "helped on the work." Very good. If the Lord sent it through you 'twas quite proper for you to place it in the church-treasury. But have you been completely faithful? Are you quite sure that an undue proportion has not been devoted to self and family, to pleasure and vanity, or to probable future contingency? Would you feel quite comfortable if to-night the Master were to take a seat at your table and say, "Let us together go over your cash transactions - put down for that purpose every item of income and expendiditure-I wish to determine whether in expending what has been entrusted to your stewardship proper regard has been paid to the relative importance of the requirements which have been pressed upon you? Would you feel quite comfortable in writing out the year's balance sheet for the purpose of putting it thus into his hands? Pause a little! Put down this paper and answer the question fairly to your own conscience, as in the presence of the all-seeing God. "Not quite satisfactory," do you say? Well, then, rectify it at once! Determine the amount and hand it over for the Lord's work. Was it not only not given where it should, but squandered on self, so that now you have it not to give? Then pray the Lord for time, mark out a course of self-denial for this year by which it may be redeemed and be more faithful in future. Remember that "there is that which withholdeth more than is meet and it tendeth to poverty." This is true in all departments of life. In agriculture, in commerce in education, in national and other enterprises it holds good-withhold more than is meet, and poverty is the result. Many of God's children are poor in this world, who would have been otherwise had they been faithful in appropriating a proper proportion of their income to the Lord's immediate service. God sends supply through the hands of his children, and those who will not faithfully appropriate what he sends, cannot be trusted with increased means. To those who are faithful in the little, he can, and will, entrust more. Now, therefore, perform the doing of it; that as there was a readiness to will, so there may be a performance also out of that which ye have. "Ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich," and he who “ministereth seed to the sower, both minister bread for your food and multiply your seed sown, and increase the fruits of your righteousness." But perhaps, in this respect, you have faithfully discharged your obligations. Then take warning on another point. Some suppose that, as they contribute freely, they are entitled to indulgence in other departments of service. Have you fallen into this error, and is your service all summed up in the word contribution? If so, the case is a bad one. Money will fill its own place, but not that of anything else. Liberal contribution will not take the place of Bible contemplation, communion with God, exhortation of brethren, warning of sinners. Your contribution may be considerable, but where are the converts that a consistent life and solemn warning have brought to Christ? You don't know! Cannot find them! Not

Harbinger, Jan. 2, '65.

THE CITY OF GOD.

sure that there are any, though you have been some years in the church? Bad account, Sir! Will never pass. Go on thus, and depend upon it you will be cast out as an unfaithful steward.

Some who received our first issue last year, will not see this. They have ended their labor and their works do follow them, to tell for or against them for ever. Suffer then the word of exhortation.—Commence this year with a faithful examination of heart and work? How solemn are the responsibilities which rest upon us? "Be steadfast, unmovable, always abounding, in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord."

THE CITY OF GOD.-CHAPTER I.

THE FOUTAIN-HEAD OF SPIRITUAL THINGS.-2 COR. I. II.

CORINTH was the shame and glory of Greece, as Greece was the shame and glory of the world. The natural man-such as development without supernaturalism can form and fashion-was there in his perfection. The grapes in the vineyard were ripe, but the ripeness was only poison and corruption. The merely sensuous and artistic cultivation was wonderful-the perception keenthe imagination vivid-the rhetoric charming. Rome conquered Greece by wielding heavier forces of iron materialism, but Greece in turn conquered Rome by imposing upon her intellectual dominion. The conquered people reigned by their ideas and their civilization. Rome had the advantage in fundamental virtues, in physical strength and valour, in political instinct and wisdom. The iron power took by right, as well as by force, the visible throne from which law and rule were to issue; but the mental forces were, after all, triumphant— the inward dominion remained with the people whose philosophy and fine arts became the wonder and study of their rulers.

2. But how fruitless 'was such dominion-if we regard moral influence, and spiritual power. We may transfer to canvas the glories of nature and the tragic aspects of history, we may chisel the stone until language only is wanting to express the visible passion, we may spin mental philosophy in the academy, or reproduce dead ages in the theatre-but in the midst of all this excitement of flesh and mind, we may be thoroughly godless. It was an easy matter in Greece to find fine paintings, life-like statues, and faultless elocution, but hard and almost impossible to find pure and noble men. The dead things had strange beauty-almost a divine air about them-the living things were the shame of creation. It was thoroughly made manifest in the history of Greece that mental culture and natural discovery, standing alone, would accomplish nothing for the moral elevation of man. Indeed, moral depravity of the foulest dye

went hand in hand with intellectual advancement.

3. The Apostle represents humanity in his day by two typical races, the Jew and the Greek. One trained under the bondage of law and ritualism-the other left in the open field of nature. One class accustomed to. sublime displays of immediate power from God, the other habituated to theories of life fashioned by the understanding and the fancy. It was the purpose of the Lord in both lines of development to lead the people into the discovery of their helplessness and wretchedness. The law working wrath, created bondage, and no glory streamed through the bars of the prison house. "O, wretched men that we are, who shall deliver us from the body of this death?" The Gentile was to discover that his philosophies and theories were but rags and fig-leaves, which would

Harbinger. Jan. 2. '65.

neither heal his sores nor cover his nakedness and deformity. The true light and power, the sure relief and guidance of humanity—was not to be anything evolved from the spirit of man, or discovered among the secrets of nature, but something lescending from heaven and from God with mission authentic and beneficent. 4. The Jew, in accordance with his training and usage, was seeking a sign and the Greek, after his nature and faculty, seeking wisdom-one asking for power and the other for theory, but neither of them having any regard to the moral, issues. The grandeur of miracle or the subtlety of speculation were sought after, as men may seek for a blaze of fireworks or a gallery of paintings. In the midst of such fruitless and diseased inquest, there came that manifestation from the unseen, which combined both power and wisdom. A sorrowful but royal looking face emerged from the awful darkness round Mount Calvary. One numbered with the transgressors, and slain as infamous, was pointed out as the object of love and worship. The tragedy of the cross in majesty of sovereign power, as well as in heights and depths of divinest wisdom, eclipsed and put to shame all other pretences to authority or doctrine. So God poured contempt on the boasted wisdom of the world, by disclosing under such strange circumstances of apparent weakness and wickedness, the true fountain head of energy and healing, the central source of higher life, deeper life, and life everlasting,

5. Eighteen hundred years ago, a great teacher appeared in Corinth. He had no academic robes on, and there was no nimbus of philosophic glory round his head. In weakness, fear and much trembling he prosecuted his work, yet there mingled with his reverential fear the most unshaken firmness. And this courageous assurance was not nourished by vapours from the flesh, but sprang from the clearest insight, from the warmest love, and from the most enlightened conscientiousness. He might be acquainted with many elements of natural science or speculative philosophy, but he had a nobler office and mission which demanded the concentration of his power. He was determined not to know, or make known amongst the people, anything else save Jesus Christ and him crucified. This does not narrow his work to the unfolding of a single element of divine doctrine. Christ and him crucified comprehended all the phases of the divine reality, all the aspects of the new life from the birth of the holy child to the glorious appearing of the great God our Saviour., True enough, he considered the cross was the heart or fountain of life, but we know that he traced with skilful hand all the principal veins and arterial channels of that perfect and divine polity which had descended out of heaven from God.

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6. Philosophies are from below-Christianity is from above-the former, true or false, are of men, but the latter is of God. The world by wisdom knew not God. The boasted development could only serve to shew that man and nature were in perilous disorder, the lord and the kingdom equally in ruins, and no elements of rectification in either. Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." This is commonly but falsely applied to the glory and rich enjoyments of the next world, importing that we have no adequate conception of that which is approaching. However true this may be, it is certainly not the special truth which the Apostle is delivering, for the things which the natural man could not see with his eyes or hear with his ears, or conceive in his heart, have been revealed unto us by the all-searching, illuminating Spirit. "But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit, for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God." The language would be entirely obscure and enigmatical if it signified the Father searching his own mind: the work is done by another. Neither can the searching be done by an attribute, but obviously demands a personal agent. Here we perceive the office of that divine and revealing Spirit, who, in the mysterious and ever-blessed Unity, is one with the Father and with the Son.

7. The natural or animal man, whose five senses are perfect, stands in a right relation to nature. From the immense scroll overhead, which is spangled with stars; from the deep sea, whose solemn music is heard on every shore; from kingly mountains, whose brows are above the storm; from forest, field, and river, where beauty is revealed in affluence; from all natural provinces, tidings stream into