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between Jehovah and his people. A HAND, or arm, is the instrument or mean of communication; and this Christ is to his people : he reaches out and takes from the divine fulness, and deals of it unto every one of them, according to his respective need.” What other arm could raise itself so high or let itself down so low?

On this ARM OF THE LORD, it is at once my privilege and my duty to lean. On an arm of flesh I dare not rest, for God has most solemnly anathematized such confidence. For “ thus saith the Lord, Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart de: parteth from the Lord."* On him I may repose, in full assurance that he will never fail me. The Church in her pilgrimage state is thus beautifully described, in the question of an admiring spectator: "Who is this that cometh up from the wilderness, leaning upon her beloved ?"| Numerous, very numerous, are the occasions on which I have need of such an omnipotent support.

In them all I am certified of obtaining it. Does sickness lay me low, and press my aching body on the couch of disease and pain? Well, I hear this encouraging oracle from heaven : « There

is none like unto the God of Jeshurun, who rideth upon the heaven in thy help, and in his excellency on the sky. The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms.” * Does “the strong man armed” assail me? My Saviour is stronger than he, and, having already overcome him for me, will overcome him in me. Are my iniquities, my besetting sins, my native corruptions, too powerful for me? He has undertaken to “ subdue” them. Is the fear of man formidable to me? I may say to myself and to my companions in tribulation, what Hezekiah said to his subjects on Sennacherib's approach “With him is an arm of flesh; but with us is

1 the Lord our God to help us, and to fight our battles.”' f Am I sunk to the lowest depth of temporal distress ?

Have the severest of earthly calamities plunged me into an abyss of misery, from which I am tempted to doubt whether there is any possibility of deliverance? A voice of hope reaches me even there. “Behold, the Lord's hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear.” | Is the last enemy at hand, and does my timid nature shrink from the final struggle? That last

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enemy is to be destroyed. I have to encounter him by a better arm than my own,

and which assures me of success.

I may meet him with the shout of anticipated triumph “O, sing unto the Lord a new song; for he hath done marvellous things: his RIGHT HAND, and his HOLY ARM hath gotten him the victory.”*

Is there a depth so deep, a height so high,

A distance so remote, but thy Right Hand, That spans with ease the world-empeopled sky,

And holds within its palm the sea and land,

The fugitive that flees from thy command,
Can

grasp and chasten; or the child of woe,
That trembles, as the reed-leaf on the strand,
Where tempests thunder, and the torrents flow,
Can reach, and soothe, and save from all he dreads

below?

ARM OF THE LORD! once on the cross outspread

In mortal pangs; by thee, o'er heaven's broad plain, The Godhead's regal sceptre now is swayed,

And all the hosts of glory own thy reigns

Nor there uplifted dost thou plead in vain, In thine high-priesthood's interceding grace,

For thy redeemed, the purchase of thy pain,

The fallen and guilty, but high-honored race,
Whom thou hast snatched from wrath to see thy glo-

rious face.

ARM OF THE LORD! awake - awake - arise !

Display and magnify thy glorious might: 0, scatter from earth's bounds thine enemies;

By once uplifting, put their throngs to flight,

And hurl from his dark throne the prince of night! Raise o'er a prostrate world thy banner, — PEACE;

Assert to every heart thy sovereign right; From sin's hard thrall each captive soul release, And bid the reign of crime, of guilt, and sorrow, cease!

THE BELOVED.

MY SAVIOUR is the Beloved of the Father and of his people. By this affectionate appellation he was spoken of by Jehovah, or by the prophet in his name, when the sad " song" of the unfruitful vineyard was set to Isaiah's harp. "Now will I sing to my well-beloved a song of my beloved, touching his vineyard. My well-beloved hath a vineyard in a very fruitful hill; and he fenced it, and gathered out the stones thereof, and planted it with the choicest vine, and built a tower in the midst of it; and also made a wine-press therein: and he looked that it should bring forth grapes; and it brought forth wild grapes."

My Saviour, is my soul a part of such a vineyard to thee? Does thy hand, instead of receiving with a gracious smile the sweet fruits of

* Isa. v. 1-7.