earrtspoOentr. LETTER FROM KOLAPOOR. MY DEAR SIR :—ln my last I men tioned some indications of wavering in terest in idolatry, but found myself diverted into grievous lamentations that this God-dishonoring system derives its chief support from the prestige and money grants of a Christian nation. I do honestly believe that this support of idolatry by the British Government is ROW the most formidable hinderance we have to the progress of the Gospel in India. On the large and increasing class of enlightened Hindus, Government officials and others, who see the folly of idolatry, and are more and more inclined to neglect and discard it, this Govern ment sopport operates as a powerful check to keep them from showing any disrespect to the idols in word or act; while to the priests, poozanis, and more bigoted of the people, it furnishes a ready, powerful, practical argument in favor of idolatry. To the hesitating, doubting mind, they have only to plead : eg Who are you to object to what Govern ment sanctions and supports? Even these Christian rulers favor and support our gods. Then how dare yon, a Hindu, neglect or revile them ?" This argument is felt most, keenly' when pressed on the mine - Wan in quirer convinced of the truth and 'almost persuaded to avow his faith in Christ. Mahadoo Trudum is , one of, our most intelligent inquirers. He has committed to memory the Catechism, Ten Corn mandments, the Christian Creed—more Christian truth than most. orthodo* Christians in your long established' churches. He seems thoroughly !con vinced, of the truth; and as thorotighly, dislikes Hindu idolatry and super— stition. But he is wofully stumbled by , this Government support of the gods '; and priests. His family has a large pecuniary interest in idolatry. Ms brother is a poojari of the famous god doss Toolsabac. This brother and all his Mends reproach him for neglecting the' idols and daring to think of becoming a Christian. They say : "What, you, a Hindu, forsake Toolsabae, when even the Christians dare not withhold her support ?" Mahadoo feels - this argument keenly. He fails to apprehend tie poli tical Motive . and reasoning of the Gov ernment, and cannot understand how' a Christian people can givii; their prestige money to Support,iplatry, and at time believe it to be offensive to God and destructive °Nauman souls. This inquirer is now here, visiting me almost daily, and in my anxiety to win him wholly to Christ and the, truth, I some days spend two, three, and even four hours conversing and praying with He paints, with painful eroquence, the= degrading, cruel, hopeless bondage in which the minds of the great mass of these ignorant people are kept by their fear and worship of the idols; and then, in view of this unanswerable argument from Government support, urged by -such men as his brother,-he begs me, in most touching terms, to represent the case to the Governor of B.ombay, and get him to withdraw this support from the idols. , I tell- him that the Iveapons of our warfare are not carnal, but- moral and mighty only through God. He at once Teplies: "True, if our ru)ers were hen therm, we would try to enlighten them, and pray God to : convert theni and, make' then Christians, so that, they would cease.,to support false' gods and worship theltue God only. But if; after becom ing Christians, they should continue to. .support tile idols, what would be the gain:?`, Might they not as well have re. 'Rained Hindus? * * * Does the true-(hod, indeed, wish you Christians to, support idolatry with your money and great power ? Then, how can it be offensive to him ? And why has He forbidden it?" I urge him to be true to his own per sonal convictions—to confess Christ before men, and help me to enlighten the people, to persuade them to forsake the idols and believe in Jesus and the true God. He replies: " But how can I persuade the people to forsake the idols, when you Christians are building and repairing their temples, and constantly giving money to the priests and poojaris to worship them ?" I pray with him, making a special pe tition that God will so enlighten and impress his mind with His own blessed truth, that he will see and feel the priceless value of a treasure in heaven above all earthly good, and may at once have grace and courage joyfully to con fess Christ before, his countrymen. He .always prays. with me, and very intelli gently, but with a special petition that God will reveal to me the terrible enor mity of this great sin of idolatry, and give me grace . end courage to go to the Governor and Queen Victoria and per suade those Christian rulers no longer to support with their power and money this masterpiece of Satan for blinding and destroyinf human souls. I 'wish, .with all my heart, those Christian rulers, and other Christians, too, could hear this poor Hindu pray, and listen to his entreaties on this sub ject. His importunity` is very hard to bear. He seems to talk, eutreat, and pray with a full conviction of the terri ble enormity of this sin, and that Chris tians, in supporting it, are responsible %store God for all the present misery and eternal ruin its continuance may entail. Mahadoo declares his wish add purpose to receive baptism and confess Christ before men as soon as Govern ment ceases to support idolatry. It is quite possible he sees that such Govern ment action would diminish "the of fense of the cross" to him in so doing. But even on this supposition, the strength of his feeling and entreaties reveal in clear light the thoughtful Hindu's view of this support of idolatry by a Christian people, and the enormous hinderance it opposes to the progress of Christianity in India. I had in mind to speak of the eager ness of the people for• our Christian tracts and books, and of some other facts and impressions connected with this tour. But the length of these letters and press ing duties forbid. Let meisay; in closing, one impression, not new,l3ut vivified and deepened, on this tour is; that 5. We need more men. for this work. The scale of effort by which we are attempting to evangelize India is a very mockery. With 3,000,000 of idolaters around me, reached by no other missionary, how is my, influence to be felt? Thousand of my hearers on this tour never saw or heard a mission arT before, and never will again. What is one discourse in , a life-time 'to , , ds s o avail with-min begotted with sin and 'superstition, so ensnared in this crafty network of this arch-deceiver ? Calduliting results on any scale of hu man reasoning, and to conquer India for Christ we need an army of 300,000 missionaries. But we will not lose sight Of our moral vantage grOund. The ele ments of , the human conscience, as well As of God's truth; and the promised aid of His own Spirit,' are all in our favor. Give us «one to chase 1000, and two to put 10,000 to flight," and we will ask no more. This would give roe 550 for my parish Ooper, and; five times that number for , the wide wastes around me. Give us these-nay, give •us the tenth Part of these—one to chase 10,600 and two to put 100,000 to flight—and, with God's 'blessing, you shall soon have results to quicken your own faith and cause joy in heaVen. Bat, my brother, believe rne, this need is very urgent. On our present goa l ie of effort - Ay - hat right have we—what right have you—what right has the Church of God in Europe or Americat—to expect results ? If Christians would not mock G-ocl i 'with their prayers for the world's conversion, the men and meane r for: this work must. batforthcording. 'Would to God I could make this cry heard in every church of Christendom—in every school of the prophets—by every young man girding on his armor for Christ's service—Brethren, we need more men for this work. Your soldiers are faint ing and falling on the battle-field. Send us more men. Pray, pray ye . the Lord of the harvest to send laborers into this harvest. And when. ha sends you, coxE. In the loved service' of the GosOel, yours most sincerely, R. G. WELDER. KOLA:POOR, INDIA. ALL THINGS ON TRIAL. BY BIM E. B.,ADAXS,'D.D Prove all things"---is -pot only a Diirine command, but 'a law - of the uni verse. . Everything that lives has its trial ; is under this law. The germ struggles into existence' against manifold resistances, and rising into the full corn, or to -14. stately tree, • it overcomes a thousand hostile ' foieek By these it grows Vigorous, gains maturity, and realizes its highest utility. ,Allsentient 'creatuiee'suffer, frein theirkiwn - species, from other orders, from the severities of *attirtis froin'the invAing htind of man. It would seem that God does what he dethands ofUs.i pr,Oies, all thingsp t not for the enlightenment of his 'own nor 'fox' the' 'Continuing of his views, but for the noblest end—the complete development and life of the Universe. • - .:God - tests this planet. He fills that rage in the'earth's centre. The vapors which expand in its caverns, the fearful forces which rock the islands and conti nents, and expend themselvesin volcanic action, are the prO . Cessiii . by which the woith and quality of our globe are test ed: Other idanets are subject to the same law. They, too, are sustained by internal conflict, and their surfaces indi cate the probation through which they have passed. And the fact that earth quakes, whirlwinds, fires and floods have not crushed nor consumed this globe, and others in our system, is evi dence that they will survive until they shall have answered the Divine purpose of their creation. God has proved angels. It was de sirable that the virtue of the moral universe should have a trial. Had it met no resistance, there could be no visible proof of its genuineness. God would indeed know, but angels and men might not know. Some of the princi palities and powers failed. Their vir tue was not. genuine;:.could not with stand such resistances as were needed to prove it. Others passed through the ordeal unscathed, and their virtue is confirmed forever. God has proved—is proving man. His virtue needed proof. He failed ; he still fails; he would fail fatally but for the power that God gives. The trial of angels and of man originally proceeded not by an arbitrary law ; it was sub mitted to reason and to will. It was not greater than, by the offered aid of God, they were able to bear. Those whose virtue survived the trial, stood by their own will and purpose; those who failed, yielded by choice to evil. They could suffer evil in no other way than by their own spontaneous election. THE AMERTOAN PRESBYTERIAN, THIJRSDAY, EAU UST ; 1, 1 1866. We get and keep it in the same way. Now, if there may be less virtue in the world, there is a better quality, and so more in value. It is a proved virtue. God had a right thus to test his moral creatures. We claim that right with our works, our property. There is need of this. But for the testing of some inventions, where, if they fail, they will do no harm, they might fail where the result would be utter ruin to many No doubt the trial of angels slid of primeval man was made just when and where failure resulted in the least :pos sible evil ; and success, so far as it was realised,- secured the greatest good. God is now proving us and all crea tures. We are in probation. We have not yet learned all we need to ,know of ourselves, of the creatures, and of God. We are learning the principles of the Divine government, the power of sin, the wants of our moral being, the way of preparation for God's loftiest purpose in behalf of man, for the noblest develop ment of our being. We believe that every -sorrow which enters the heart, every pain that tortures the body, every agony which the mind feels and masters,' every struggle of soul with temptation, every failure of hope, every pang of remorse that plows its deep furrows into our heartd, and every joy that-ligtlts up our spirits with transitory rays,' is an element in the process of our discipline, a part of the deep, earnest probation which precedes our eternity, and in which we are to fail or gain a glorious vic tory. • THE EVANGELICAL SCHOOL IN NAPLES. The Esperance contains an interest ing letter, dated Naples, January 19th, Ntrritten. by :tastor Kollhr, who is con stantly engaged in the work of evan gelization. From this letter, we select the following : 7 - With thanks to God, and the joy of an overflowing heart, I write these lines. On my return here, I am enabled to record a fresh impulse to the work of evangelization, in which I have been engaged for the list five years. The fruits are .'palpable, underilabir . That you may be convinced of this, I need only invite you to accompany me in im agination to a festival, such as Naples had never before witnessed. During the Christmas holidays, the ladies who assisted us in the manage ment of several evangelical schools, re solved to assemble, from every part of the city, in one room, all the children who belonged to the schools, that they might, partake of an entertainment pro vided for them. Christmas trees were to be brilliantly lighted, and presents were to be distributed among the chil dren of the 'Lazaroni—the very poor, who live by begging—in memory of the Child who was the root and the offspring of David. But where was a room to be found large enough to contain the hurt, dreds of our youthful friends ? How wonderfully had their numbers increas ed ! Neither our place of worship, nor our other gathering places sufficed for their accommodation. It was necessary to obtain a large public hall, in which to celebrate the triumph of the faith but lately progressive, and still secretly op posed. Well for us, that in this land there is no reason to doubt the protec tion of the Italian magistracy in such public demonstrations of the advancing liberty, of conscience. ; One of-our evan gelists went to the Chief Magistrate of the city, who very gladly placed at our disposal tbe vast hall of Montoliveto, where only a short time before the royal I:irincess,presided at a festival. =.lle the words: "Yait j Are engaged in the instruction of the young. Yeti. are,endeavoring to do good to the country. This satisfies us, and we wish you great success." Forthwith our schools received the necessary directions.' Each took the badge assigned it, and with ribbons on the arm and flags unfurled, they moved, the boys on foot and the girls in omni buses, through the streets of Naples. The immense hall was soon filled to overflowing. All around stood long tables full of presents, and upon these tables were also tall Christmas trees ; upon the walls hung Italian inscriptions, among which were the words: e Suffer the little children to come unto me." ' Religious bongs now arose. More than five hundred children praised the Lord in, their native language, at one time altogether, , at another, thootoloach separate Scheel. All these joyful, cleanly dressed children_were gathered from the streets, and rescued from indescribable ignorance. This entire multitude of youthful minds is already the second or third generation brought ander the influ ence of our Neapolitan schools. Num bers of the earlier scholars, male and female, many of them as under-teachers, took part iu this memorable festival. I mentioned that, it •*Eta five years ago when I timidly endeavored to gather a few young boys in the first schools that were opened. With fear and trem bling I asked myself, Will they come? Will our effort be tolerated ? Will not prejudice, ignorance, and fanaticism en deavor to take our scholars from us, and to close our schools ? But behold I The Lord has protected us with his migty arm. The thirst for knowledge - hasled the children to us by hundreds. Some two thoUsand have, through the learn ing of the alphabet, found the way to Jesus. The confidence of the parents has overcome the malignant influence of the priesthood. We have been permit ted to'come into the pure light of day. Oar schools are protected by law. They celebrate their festival with evangelical songs under the protection of the magis- trates. The celebration is marked by the greatest order. Only one polieeman is to be seen, and he is stationed at the door to keep back the too eager parents. The children themselves wait patiently until the address is finished, and then come to the table, one after another, in order to receive the presents so earnestly desired. The most valued are pens, paper, and lead-pencils. Seven of our schools are assembled here, and we regret that we could not also invite those of Salerno and Caserta. What progress in so few years! What elements of strength ! We have been frequently compelled to change our locality. If we - are driven 'from one place, we take fre'sh hold upon another at a short distance. Every 'attack of our adversaries has imparted new strength to us. The-Lord be praised! His servants have not been idle. Many teachers have performed apostolic labor May their zeal remain humble, and become more faithful than ,ever One lady of my congregation supports a girl's school, the first in Naples, at her .own expense ; with her money she gives her time, and withdraws herself from the splendor of a life of wealth, in order to instruct the daughters of the fisher men of Mergelin a, not only in Italian, but also in French. An English lady teaches classes of grown.up girls in her own, house every, evening, and Sunday school classes every Sunday. Our Com mittee of Evangelization has been equally active. With their, unfortunately, too limited means, they maintain four schools independent of the evening classes. It is due to their perseverance that, our work can live and grow. The great efforts of Pastor ,Appia have pro duced living fruits.. Italian evangelists, have trodden in - his footsteps. Some have left thpir civil callings, others the silence of the cloister; in order, with us, to watch over and instruct these youths. At another time I will give you an ac count their labors among those of matarer age. To-day I have only the beaming countenances of the children in memory ; their youthful voices in my ear, alid thanks to God in my heart. "WHAT DOES IT MEAN ?" The above question is asked with re ference to the fact reported, that the only pastorate within the bounds of the Pres bytery of Steuben has just been dissolv ed. The implication is, that the Pres bytery are lacking in the true spirit of Presbyterianism, or there would have been alarger number of installations. It is acknowledged that the churches do not seem to be possessed of a spirit - of change; but the query is raised, Why are there no more pesters, ecclesiastically so called ? Now, the query , arises whether an installation is a fulfilment of the great Presbyterian idea of the pastorate ? Is it not rather permanency? And it is certainly true that installation, at least, within the bounds of this Presbytery, has not always insured any great degree of permanency in that relation. Our good Brother Gelston, as a " Stated Supply," has outlasted - a goodly number of pastorates during his ten yeais of faithful labor at Naples. There •is Brother Vorhis, too, who has recently left Hammondsport, after a service of about eight years as'" Supply." Raw son, at Jasper, and Niles, at Corning, are now just completing• their seven years of pastoral service in their fields of labor. And Leine and Bradbury have each supplied the phurches ' of Crinistor and I Howard for four years. Corning has had three " pastors," good.rrien arid true, the longest pastorate of which was:four years, the otbey 'two pistorates covered periods of two years each. • It is believed that in the matter of stability in the pas toral relation, the Presbilery of Steuben will not compare unfavorably with • other Presbyteries whose records indicate a larger number of installed pastors. Is there not another question of higher im portance which needs to be considered, namely : What means it, that of the whole number of installations within the bounds of our Church, so ' feW of them indicate permanency in the pastoral relation ? Said a witty "Stated Supply," of the importance of the pastoral relation, " I fully believe in being installed for life over a church, it has such an air of stability. Now, there is my good Brother has been installed for life thir teen times, over as many churches, and now has another call on hand." Can we blame any- particular church if it does not indicate any very great veneration for the solemn services of installation, after having enjoyed several such occa sions within the period of ten or a dozen years ? Yours for PERMANENCY THE LIQIJOR-SELLER'S DREAM. I am a man of literary turn ; my readings have been extensive and varied, for my father designed me for be Goa- Pei ministry; and, yet I am, after all, bat the keeper of a third-rate tavern, obliged to get my 'tying by selling rum and lager beer. My theological training brought me early to study moral and religious sub jects, and pry into the occult sources of human thought and feeling. As may be supposed, my quiet reflections in re gard to the rightfulness of my business are often very unpleasant. Perhaps you will inquire here why a man of,my turn should thus continue employed inu man ner so at variance with my early tastes and convictions ? I can give you no better answer than to state, what is strictly true, that in early life I inherit ed the calling, with the house I live in, from my father—never having bed suf. ficient decision of mind to make a change. As all know, our business of selling liquor brings us in contact with the very worst classes of society ; with those w hose moral natures have been' hardened, till I have sometimes fancied these blasted wrecks to be but devils, remaning yet a little while in the flesh. 0 ! if I could blot from my memory what I have heard, seen, and felt in the past twenty years, I would reckon myself prepared for the kingdom of heaven I Atie yet, unlike other inn-keepers, I am myself a strictly sober man, having my mind clear and self-poised I sell liquor only as a law ful mode of getting money, realizing all the time that I return no valuable con sideration ; but often, rather, sending others unprepared to their final account. The mere employment in itself is irk some and disgusting to the last degree ; and yet, Prometheas-like, I seem chained to it. Taking up a paper, a few evenings since, after I had closed my bar-room, I read the following incident, recorded of a man named John Seaver, who under took, on a wager of $5OO, to walk (with out sleep) one hundred miles in as many consecutive hours, at Poretmouth, N. H. I read :-- " In the ninety-fifth hour he fainted and fell. Every hour of the last four he was bathed all over with rum and alum. In the ninety-ninth hour lie again fell in faint ness. Thu last hour at length arrived, and with his assistants he completed his forty-two circuits in thirty-three minutes. In an hour's time he was at his home, and on his pillow, no doubt like Sancho Panza, blessing the man who first invented sleep' But for him sound sleep was not safe. His 'medical attendant, Di. Perry, was with, him through the: night, - awakening him every hour. He, was under so strong ner vous excitement, that he at times had to be ,held in bed by his attendarits. His dreams were fearful—of more miles to travel, and that his bandages were lost, and that his bathing material had given out. This was evident by his exclamations." The closing sentences of the above impressed me deeply ; I thought of my business; and the horrors of twenty _years' experience in a tavarn . loomed up, a panorama, as distinct as a painting could make it to my eyes. Seaver had quit his task, and yet the mental and moral impressions remained stamped on his being as active as before! Suppose, thought I, the experiences of my bar-room life should remain with me after I die ! It was horrible ! It re minded me of Clarence's dream, which I bad read when a young man. I reached up into the closet and took down an old copy of Shakespeare, and turned to the passage in Richard 111., Act 1, Scene IV.:— " Arethought what pain it was to drown, What dreadful noise of water in my ears; What sights of ugly death within my eyes! ----My dream was lengthen'd after life; I pass'd, methought,. the melancholy flood With that grim ferryman which poets write of, - Unto the kingdom of perpetual night. --Rethought a legion of foul fiends Environ'd me, and howled in mine ears Such hideous cries, that, with the very noise ' I trembling wak'd, and, for a season after, Could not believe but that I was in hell, Such terrible impresson made my dream." The words,. of Richard, also, under similar circumstances, came into my mind:— " 0, coward conscience, how doss thou afflict met *Conscience has a thousand several tongnes And every tongue brings in a several tale, And every tale condemns me for a villain." J. shut the volume, went to bed, and tried to sleep. At length I dreamed; I thought I was dead, and my 'soul went —.-Forth To seek the empty, vast, and wand'riug air. I was surrounded by myriads of poor, ragged drunkards, and, like the pedes trian, I thought I was employed at my usual task of slaking the unquenchable . fire, as of old. I was the proprietor of a vast drinking palace, lighted by a lurid, yet dingy flame, that gave every face an awful expression. ' never had loOked upon so vast a crowd of human forms before ; and every face was fami liar to my eye. Men whose countenances were yet youthful and unlined by pas sion'pr care, came up to my bar. I recognized them as those who had " commenced" with me in early life: but some of whom had, years ago, passed out of my, field of observation and labor. To each in turn I handed -the bottle, and as they drank, their faces grew old and haggard, and they disappeared, as in a dissolving view, only to make way for the next trembling customer. But what astonished me most of . all was, that I possessed the faculty of remem bering all the previous occasions that I had thus served them. They were all familiar faceS, and I had a clear recol lection of every word and transaction that had ever occurred between us ! I soon began to realize that my business was perpetual, and one that was mine ,against all coiupetition. I thought I had ceased to observe times and seasons in the progress of my labors. I never shut up the bar or the house ; the cus tomers came and went jnst as fast as I could wait on them ; and what was most wonderful of all, I never seemed to tire of my occupation, but had the wonderfnl power to continue ' , it without lassitude or nourishment ; in fact, I began to realize-that my whole being, with every faculty of my soul, were concentrated in one thing—forever to quench, an un quenchable fire! As .the money drop ped in my till the coins were .glittering gold ; but as I ,took the - m thence they , either fall into _brittle dust, or turned into creeping %reptiles I Like Milton's hero at Hellgate, I convulsely shrieked at the - conternplation of my life-long task, and awoke. A. r.x6 isrettantrato. THE EXPERIENCE OF COWPER. An unconscious testimony to the Divin e indwelling occasionally exhibits itself i n strange—yes, in fearful—forms ; for it i s contrasted with strange and fearful forte s of suffering. I can never listen to the singing of some of the hymns of Cowper without a thrill of reverence for the grace of God.which could work so mightily in a diseased soul. Some of Cowper's most affecting lyrics, to which millions of Chris. tian hearts have turned lovingly as to the most truthful expressions of their own experience which they have ever found, except in the Psalms of David, were com posed during those eleven years in which, as he tells us, not a solitary moment of hope of his own salvation ever cheered his soul. By those rivers of Babylon he sat down and wept; and his wailings have been heard in thousands of the sanctuaries of Zion to-day. 0, mystery of grace—that regenerating love should thus gleam out and make radiant the path of sympathizing beholders, when not a ray of it could find ingress to the bleared and swollen eye of the unconscious believer! May I venture to probe the mystery ? Can it be the object of such a phenome non to give to the nneverse a monument of God's triumph over Satan, in a conflict the severity of which submerges weak human nature to depths which light cannot pierce? In the shock and struggle of that warfare, in which the 'supremacy of man's soul is contested by unseen beligerents, may it not be that God sometimes suspends the hiding of his power, and. lays out the forces of his Will in majesty 'which human consciousness cannot bear to look upon ? Shall men se. God in: such conflicts and live ? But the reflex influence of such experience upon the usefulness of the believer is more intel ligible. I have heard it. said by one, the fragrance of whose memory yet fills this place, that "no man could be qualified to write a commentary on the Psalms of David, who had not known some great sorrow." So, when God regenerato a chosen one who is to become .dear to 'the_ hearts of many generations,' the secret method of grace sometimes is`to work out the change by processes which shall disclose its reality to all minds but his. To hint the volume is sealed until the time of the end., Yet his tremulous , fingers have written it that Scriptures might be fulfilled: " I will lead the blind by a way they know not; I have surnamed thee, though thou hest not known me." Even upon the insane experience of such a soul, we may reasonably found our faith in the divinity of the power which dwells in it. 'We turn from the testimony of such a one in his despair, to his testimony as we doubt not he rehearses it to awestruck angels. " Poor Cowper," as thy friends used to call thee—" Our guide, our teacher. our brother," rather woald we name thee —what thiiakest thou 1710 W of God's deal ings with thy soul ? Dost thou not under stand those mysterious eleven years? Was it trot worth eleven years of sorrow to be thus enabled to express some, of the expe rience of God's people in all coming t;ine'! Was it not worth eleven years of conflict, to be thus disciplined as the witness of God to unborn millions among whom this shall be told as a memorial of thee ? Was it not worth eleven years of bondage to the poiver of s darkness, to be thus led to the composition of one such song of Zion as 'that in which thou hast taught us that " God moves in a mysterious way ?" Was it not worth eleven years of despair, to be thus moved by the throes of thine own anguish to, assure all other believers, as thou bast done, that " There is a fountain filled with blood ?" Dot thou not now see that when thou didst say for our comfort. " Then, in a nobler, sweeter song, I'll sing thy power to save," thou didst speak words of unconscious prophecy ?—Bibliotheca Sacra. SPIRITUAL VICTORIES WON BY ,DISCOUBAGEMENT AND FAILURE Blessed are the souls in whom not the strength of nature only, but that of grace has been so brought low, even to the very dust, that they have learned to call nothing that they have their own. Often must the believer, like Antmus, grow stronger for having touched the ground ; often must he experience the. sentence of death in him self, must feel himself a being without heart or hope, incapable and even insensi ble, so that he may learn to trust, not in himself, nor in any other, but in Him who raises the spiritually dead. The Christian must hold on to God, through conflicts and agonies; he must fight while his blood runs down and glues his 'hand to his sword. So must he hold on Fhen that hand is be numbed and stiff with cold; when strength and consciousness seem gone together, and only an instinct remains through which the soul is able to fling itself like a dead weight upon Christ. Yet even here is "an overthrow worth many victories Through being chilled and mortified in the smallest, most inwardly humiliating thing:; through being beaten away from the bro ken' cisterns of self and of all creatures, we learn, as we could never without this have done, to look to Christ as our well of fife , and so to find all our fresh springs in hi"' as to be able to say with a simple and sill' cere heart, "Lord,. give me ever more ''r this water, so that I thirst not." I know mat how to speak of that great era in the Christian's soul when, through the strength of a patient following, ot, through the sweetness of a loving recoghl tion, it finds Him whom it has long loved, and passes,ein that finding, from the strait ened life within itself into the free out" looking froth self into Christ. When i$ ceases to 'eonfer with flesh and blood, to watch over its own I chana•es and Buena L tions for the'sake of attaching itself ittl -7 plicitly to Him who i ps the whole of wh! .. l liro have in part; liken it lives no lore' s by faith, but by Christ, holding Him tt.' t surely to think of that it holds y, self=wiLel has done with self-questioning, with . a analysis, believes in. the love by wh' i.A .L e lives, and can appeal for all answer m LP fact of its own life.—Patience of Hope.
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