fore"let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.” And let us never think that a falsehood is become powerless by mere disuse; it is rather so much the more dangerous, because from its strangeness men do not know how to meet it. Neither will the possession of the Scripture save us; for Christ is not necessarily in them any more than He is necessarily in the holy communion: the Scriptures may be read, as the communion may be received, and yet Christ may not be with us.

These are the days, at any rate, to do what indeed all times require, and the neglect of which in times past led greatly to this present mischief; these are the days to speak loudly, that salvation to each of us is the presence of Christ in our own individual souls, the realizing, in short, of that promise which he gave to his disciples in the words of the text. Either we have Christ with us, or that promise is our warrant for being sure that His absence is not His fault but ours; that He will be with us if we seek Him, and open our hearts to receive Him. But what we want, and what He has promised, is His personal presence with ourselves. It is not His presence with the church that will save us, but His presence in our own hearts. His presence with the church, that is, with other Christians, will doubtless save them; but they are not our saviours, nor must we look for our safety from them. The point for us to seek

is that He should be present with us; that our own personal faith should apprehend Him, our own personal love cleave to Him. Then He is with us, and we with Him, then are we His and shall be His at the great day.

Great was the pleasure which it gave me to see so many of you assembled at the Lord's table this day. We rejoice to see our brethren taking hold of what may be a means of grace; we hope naturally that it will be so to them. But Christ is in the holy communion only to those to whom He is present at other times; we apprehend Him by faith, and if faith is not in us, then neither is Christ in the sacrament. Do not say, "because I have received the communion, therefore I have received Christ," but rather, "because I have received the communion according to Christ's ordinance, therefore I hope that it will be to me a means of receiving Christ, and that by the use of that and the other means of grace I shall receive Him." But the point to be satisfied of is, not whether you have eaten and drunken the bread and wine of the communion, but whether Christ the most Holy, He whom after the flesh we know no more, is present with us, as a Spirit with spirits, possessing our inmost souls.

Perfectly we dare not hope that He will be, till we see Him as He is, but that He will be with us truly and effectually, this it is not extravagant to

hope for, but it is death to despair of it. We come to Him as already His, so far as His good will is concerned; this is, as I said before, our Christian privilege, we belong to His people visibly, we are authorized to call Him our Saviour, because we have been baptized into His name. Our life's work it is to realize to ourselves individually what is true at first of us by a charitable presumption, which calls us saved because Christ wills us to be so. This we must make a real personal truth by our personal prayer and watchfulness, aided, it may be, by the prayers of others, for as we should be forward to pray for others, so we should desire that others would pray for us; aided by others' prayers, but yet not so as to take from ourselves the stress of the matter; we must ourselves draw near to Christ, drawn to Him by God; man's help can be but secondary. When we find our spirits becoming conformed to Christ's Spirit, when we find ourselves shrinking from sin more and more, and loving Christ more and more, then we shall feel that Christ's promise has reached even to us. Then we shall have our own comfort, in which no stranger intermeddles; our own faith, not resting on men, or outward institutions, but on the apprehension of things divine by the personal act of our own souls; our own salvation, because we are one with Christ and Christ with us, whether the Church, that is the company of other men who

should in like manner have each realized His promise to themselves, be truly as well as nominally one with Him, whether it be, as it ought to be, the pillar and ground of truth, holy and without blemish, or whether it be gone astray after its idols, and antichrist sits enthroned in the midst of it.

March 27, 1842.

A PRAYER,

WRITTEN FOR THE EVENING OF EASTER DAY, MARCH 27, 1842.

O LORD God Almighty, we thank Thee that Thou hast brought us safely to see another return of this day, and to share in the services of Thy church in commemoration of Thy blessed Son's resurrection. Grant to us all, that these services may not pass away wholly without fruit; that this and others of the festivals of the church may find us every year not less but more fit and disposed to celebrate them worthily, and more thankful to Thee for the benefits which they are intended to celebrate.

We pray of Thee to forgive us for all our inattention and carelessness during Thy worship this day. Teach us to feel that such inattention is a mark of the state of our souls; that we attend to all that we care for, and that if we do not

attend to Thy word, and to our prayers and praises of Thee, it is because our hearts are indifferent to Thee. Grant that we may feel our own state more truly, and then the tidings of salvation will not be heard with indifference.

If we have derived any good from any part of the public worship this day, grant that it be not lost to us. Encourage every thought of good which thou hast put into our minds, and strengthen every such thought, and add to them. Let not the thoughts and pleasures of our daily life steal them from us, but let them be kept alive to bring forth fruit daily. Let Thy word be continually more plain to us, and more welcome; let it be continually more and more pleasant to us to pray to Thee. Encourage our great weakness by some of Thy gracious answers to our prayers, that feeling the comfort of Thy help we may not fail ever to ask for it.

We pray to Thee for all our relations and friends in all places. May this day have been to them all a day of happiness and spiritual blessing. Assist us to remember them in our prayers, according to our bounden duty, praying for them and for us that we may be drawn together to Thee and kept with Thee always. Give Thy blessing upon our particular work here, and bless this school. Grant to us Thy spirit of wisdom,