when I was walking again in the same solitary place where I was brought to see myself lost and helpless, as was before mentioned: and here, in a mournful, melancholy state, was attempting to pray, but found no heart to engage in that or any other duty.

"And having been thus endeavouring to pray, though being, as I thought, very stupid and senseless for near half-an-hour, and by this time the sun was about half-an-hour high as I remember -then, as I was walking in a dark thick grove, unspeakable glory seemed to open to the view and apprehension of my soul. I do not mean any external brightness, for I saw no such thing; nor do I intend any imagination of a body of light, somewhere away in the third heavens, or anything of that nature; but it was a new inward apprehension or view that I had of God, such as I never had before, nor anything which had the least resemblance to it. I stood still, and wondered and admired; I knew that I never had seen before anything comparable to it for excellency or beauty. . . . . I had no particular apprehension of any one person in the Trinity, either the Father, the Son, or the Holy Ghost;

but it appeared to be divine glory that I then beheld; and my soul rejoiced with joy unspeakable to see such a God, such a glorious divine Being; and I was inwardly pleased and satisfied that He should be God over all for ever and

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"I continued in this state of inward joy and peace, yet astonishment, till near dark, without any sensible abatement; and then began to think and examine what I had seen, and felt sweetly composed in my mind all the evening following. I felt myself in a new world, and everything about me appeared in a different aspect from what it was wont to do.

"At this time, the way of salvation opened to me with such infinite wisdom, suitableness, and excellency, that I wondered I should ever think of any other way of salvation, and was amazed that I had not dropped my own contrivances, and complied with this lovely, blessed, and excellent way before. If I could have been saved by my own duties, or in any other way that I had formerly contrived, my whole soul would now have refused. I wondered that all the world did not see and comply with this

C

way of salvation, entirely by the righteousness of Christ.

"The sweet relish of what I then felt continued with me for several days almost constantly, in a greater or less degree. I could not but sweetly rejoice in God, lying down or rising up."

"I am with thee!" When men would draw up a charter or title-deed or act of partnership, how are words multiplied in the endeavour to provide against contingencies of death, fraud, or misapprehension, and a thousand other changes and chances incident to mortal life. But One who changes not in purpose, in power, or in love, sums up the whole charter of pilgrim blessing in four brief words, which constitute, so to speak, the formula of personal covenant with which, from Abraham downward, we find His servants sent forth on their Divine missions.

"I will be with thee was the form of words with which Isaac at Gerar was adopted in the place of his father. "Certainly, I will be with thee," the warrant and pledge given to Moses at Sinai, and to Joshua at Bethpeor and Jericho. "The Lord was with him," the sufficient statement of the covenant with Samuel and with David.

"I will be with thee," the prophet's bulwark and support. "Lo, I am with you alway," the parting assurance of the ascending Lord when He had given commission and authority to His Apostles; "I am with thee," an echo from Olivet which came in the night to one "born out of due time," even to Paul, the Apostle of the Gentiles.

And thus it is still. "I will never leave thee nor forsake thee" is the token even now given away at the pillar of Bethel to each one who there takes his stand; and as the ray of light, examined through the prismatic glass, is found to separate into distinct though blending hues, so this Divine assurance will be seen through the glass of the evangel to contain innumerable distinct yet harmonious promises of blessing for the pilgrim way.

But the ray is only a scintillation from the sun itself. Brief as is the inscription on the seal of the covenant, its pledges, its conditions, and its promises, may be yet further traced back into the compass of a single word wherein lies summed up, completely and for us, all that Israel saw of glory and received of promise.

IMMANUEL, "God with us:"-here is the sig

nification of the mystical ladder of glory which shone out against the midnight sky of Palestine, here, the source and security of the "I am with thee" of the promise-charter.

We know not whether it was in response to secret aspirations after a revelation such as Jacob's, indulged in a later solitude beneath the fig-tree's leafy shade, that He, the Immanuel and promised Seed therein foretold, spake to Nathaniel of a more glorious apocalypse which should be his, when he, too, should see heaven open, and should behold the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man. But we do believe it herein to have been intimated that, upon the completion of an everlasting union and communication between earth and heaven by the ascension of incarnate Divinity into the glory of the Father, the Spirit would reveal perfectly that way of access into the Holy places, even then shown forth in His declaration of Himself as the Son of man to whom the disciple did homage as Son of God.

And, as in that other day, the angels of God ascending and descending upon the ladder of glory were made manifest to him, the inheritor of the land, concerning whom they