back every sail, and, whatever might be the mission on which his ship was bound, or whatever the risk he ran, would not put up her helm, and, pale with dread, steer for the waves were his boy was sinking? He re Child of God! pray on. God's people are more dear to him than our children can be to us. gards them with more complacency than all the shining orbs of that starry firmament. They were bought at a price higher than would purchase the dead matter of ten thousand worlds. He cares more for his humblest, weakest child, than for all the crowned heads and great ones of earth, and takes a deeper interest in the daily fortunes of a pious cottage than in the fall and rise of kingdoms. Child of God! pray on. By prayer thy hand can touch the stars, thy arm stretch up to heaven. Nor let thy holy boldness be dashed by the thought that prayer has no power to bend these skies, and bring down thy God. When I pull on the rope which fastens my frail and little boat to a distant and mighty ship, if my strength cannot draw its vast bulk to me, I draw myself to it-to ride in safety under the protection of its guns; to enjoy in want the fullness of its stores. And it equally serves my purpose, and supplies my needs, that prayer, although it were powerless to move God to me, moves me to God. If He does not descend to earth, I-as it were-ascend to heaven. Child of God! pray on. Were it indispensable for thy safety that God should rend these heavens, it should be done--a wondering world should see it done. I dare believe that; and "I am not mad, most noble Festus." Have not these heavens been already rent? Eighteen hundred years ago, robed in hu manity, God himself came down. These blue skies, where larks sing and eagles sail, were cleft with the wings and filled with the songs of his angel train. Among the ancient orbs of that very firmament, a stranger star appeared, traveling the heavens, and blazing on the banner borne before the King, as he descended on this dark and distant world. On Canaan's dewy ground-the lowly bed he had left-the eye of morning shone on the shape and form of the Son of God; and dusty roads, and winter snows, and desert sands, and the shores and very waves of Galilee, were impressed with the footprints of the Creator. By this manger, where the babe lies cradled-beside this cross, upon whose ignominious arms the glory of the universe is hung-by this silent sepulcher, where, wrapped in bloody shroud, the body is stretched out on its bed of spices, while Roman sentinels walk their moonlit round, and Death-a bound captive-sits within, so soon as the sleeper wakes, to be disarmed, uncrowned, and in himself have death put to deathfaith can believe all that God has revealed, and hope for all that God has promised. She reads on that manger, on that cross, deeply lettered on that rocky sepulcher, these glorious words "He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?" And there, lifting an eagle eye to heaven, she rises to the boldest flights, and soars aloft on the broad wings of prayer Faith, bold faith, the promise sees, And trusts to that alone, Laughs at impossibilities, The Blessedness of the Saints. to your And shall dwell in the land that I gave ye fathers; and ye shall be my people, and I will be your God. I will also save you from all your uncleannesses; and I will call for the corn, and will increase it, and lay no famine upon you. And I will multiply the fruit of the tree, and the increase of the field, that ye shall receive no more reproach of famine among the heathen.-EZEKIEL XXXVI. 28, 29, 30. A COUNTRY cleared of its inhabitants wears a mournful aspect. It may be that the emigrant has left poverty for plenty. Still it is not a pleasant thing to see nettles growing where the garden bloomed-the smoke-stained gable-the roofless ruin-the empty window, out of which the fox is peering, and where the morning sun was wont to shine upon the Bible and a pious patriarch. There is something chilling about that cold hearth-stone where the fire of a winter evening gleamed on the faces of a happy circle, while the mother plied her busy wheel, and, forgetful of the toils and dangers of the day, the shepherd dandled a laughing infant on his knee. Those are now silent walls that once sounded to the evening psalm, and from which, when Sabbath rested on the hills, a decent family went out, wending their way by the lakeside to that old ruin beside whose crumbling walls the fathers of the exile sleep. The wind, as it sighed among the trees above that roofless home, has seemed in our fancy's ear to sound the prophet's lament, "Weep not for the dead, neither bemoan him, but weep sore for him that goeth away, for he shall return no more, nor see his native country." Such scenes, the pain of which, indeed, lies more in fancy than in fact, give us an image of the desolation which reigned in the land of Judah during the time of the long captivity. By rule of contrast, they enhance also the pleasure with which we turn to look on this glowing picture-a land teeming with inhabitants, the rich plains studded all over with cities, each busy as a bee-hive-the valleys clothed with corn, crowded with reapers, and ringing to their song-every terrace in the close embrace of vines, and flocks bleating on a hundred hills. Such a scene, in fact, as surveyed from some eminence, awoke the piety and poetry of David-"Thou crownest the year with thy goodness, and thy paths drop fatness; they drop upon the pastures of the wilderness, and the little hills rejoice on every side. The pastures are clothed with flocks, the valleys also are covered over with corn; they shout for joy, they also sing." The fulfillment of my text to God's ancient people would have invested this prophecy with interest, even although its application had been altogether confined to the Jews; and, for this reason-Their God is our God, and every thing which he did for them is a most precious pledge of what he can and will do for us. "He is the dwelling-place of his people in all generations." Thus while faith turns her eye upon the future—a future often dark enough-she draws courage and comfort from the past, saying, "I will remember the years of the right hand of the Most High." But, in fact, we have more to do with this prophecy than the Jews had. Under those blessings which God poured into their cup-those temporal mercies which filled their mouths with meat, and their hearts with gladness--lie the better mercies of Messiah's kingdom. This shines plainly forth through the mystic language of the prophet. The conversion of the Gentiles is, for instance, distinctly announced in the 36th verse, "Then the heathen, that are left round about you, shall know that I the Lord build the ruined places, and plant that which was desolate. I the Lord have spoken it, and will do it." In the succeeding chapter, again, the resurrection of the body and the renovation of the soul are set forth under the vision of dry bones. In the same place also have we not a kingdom shown forth more enduring far, than any which ever had its seat in Palestine? "And David, my servant, shall be king over them, and they all shall have one shepherd; they shall also walk in my judg ments, and observe my statutes, and do them; and they shall dwell in the land which I have given to Jacob, my servant, wherein your fathers have dwelt; and they shall dwell therein, even they, and their children, and their children's children, for ever; and my servant David shall be their prince for ever." It appears to us that this language can not, without violence, be applied to the old Jewish land and people; and that the Roman ploughshare has buried such a fancy under the ruins of Jerusalem. With the blood of man's best brother on their heads, the Jews, like Cain, are vagabonds. They have no dwelling in the land which God gave to Jacob; for eighteen hundred years they have been wandering the world, nor have the soles of their feet yet found a resting-place. A nation scattered and spoiled, they are a bye-word, a proverb, and a hissing-nor land, nor temple, nor oracle, nor prince, have they, nor shall have, till turn |