UR winter has been more than usually severe, reminding the old among us of the winters of their earlier time; and, alas! reminding many of them of declining strength and growing inability to resist the subtle depressor of the vital force, that finds out the chinks and crevices of the earthly house. It has reminded all of us, surely, of a phrase which the Holy Spirit uses thrice in Scripture, and the expressiveness of which we must have realized, as with wary step and watchful eye we made our way along the frozen footpath. Each of the three texts has something in it peculiar to itself. One is a prayer; one is a note of praise; the third is a prophecy. There is something to be learned from each, if we have but the docile spirit.

"Let their way be dark and slippery," prays David in the 35th Psalm, among many other terrible imprecations on his persecutors. These imprecations have been a great difficulty to many a tender-hearted child of God, who wished to think kindly of David, and reverently of the Spirit of the Lord that spake by him. They have missed from them the forgiveness and charity which their consciences approve, and their New Testament enjoins. Nor, though silenced perhaps, are they satisfied when some one declares the imprecations are prophecies, and speaks to them of Hebrew tenses. There they are, very earnest and vehement calls upon the Lord to deal in severity with certain persons obnoxious to the psalmist. What is to be made of them?

It may be a little help toward the straightforward solution of the mystery, if we remember that, under the Old Testament, visible and outward prosperity was a common sign of divine favour. On the other hand, visible and temporal misery was the evidence of divine anger. Not only the thoughtless and superficial, but reflecting grave men of deep feeling, like Job's friends, believed this. To them, Job's physical pains and temporal losses were proofs of some secret sin that had provoked divine displeasure. This opinion lasted till the Saviour's time. The disciples held it. "Master, who did sin, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" Nor was this opinion without plausible warrant in Scripture. While men had not the New Testament and its ample encouragements to walk by faith, the Lord was so frequently interposing with visible wrath on the guilty, and temporal favours to his people, and promises and prophecies shaped themselves so much and so necessarily in the form of current providences, that the impression was not without countenance in the Old Testament Scriptures. Prosperity to the wicked, therefore, was like a certificate of good character from the Almighty. Their success against the Lord's servants would be held by themselves and

others to be proof of his regard, and to be conclusive of his disregard of those whom they had cast down. Success to the enemies of the Lord's people, therefore, compromised his character. Their overthrow vindicated that character. They themselves set up and established this test. It was no hardship that they should be brought to it. It was no want of charity to pray, "Lord, glorify thyself. Show them thy justice and holiness. If I am forsaken of thee, and if they triumph against me, they will believe thou favourest them. Prove to them, O Lord, that thou art not with them in their wickedness. 'Yea, let them say continually, Let the Lord be magnified, which hath pleasure in the prosperity of his servant. And my tongue shall speak of thy righteousness and of thy praise all the day long'" (Ps. xxxv. 27, 28).

In proof of the statement now offered, let careful reference be made to Rabshakeh's special pleading, Hezekiah's message to Isaiah, the prophet's message in reply, and Hezekiah's prayer (Isa. xxxvi., xxxvii.) Let proud and wicked men walk on securely and prosperously, and all ideas of right and wrong, and of God's relation to them, will be confounded in men's minds. Let their way be made dark and slippery, and, on the principle universally recognized, God will be vindicated, and it will be made clear that the Judge of all the earth loveth righteousness and hateth iniquity.

What the men of the world only learnt slowly from God's providences, the psalmist perceived when he went "into the sanctuary of God." The old sad problem of the prosperity of the wicked troubled him, vexed his spirit, and raised bitter thoughts in his heart which he dared not utter lest they should be a stumblingblock to God's simple ones (Ps. lxxiii. 15). He went into the sanctuary, where millions since have got light and comfort, and "then understood I their end. Surely thou didst set them in slippery places." And so his perplexity is turned into a psalm, and the ode that begins with a bitter complaint-"Where is the use of my serving the Lord?"-ends with the firm convictionfirmer, perhaps, because of the struggle through which it has been regained-"It is good for me to draw near to God."

In a dark and evil time the prophet Jeremiah was shown this same solemn truth. Priest and teacher had become profane, and God's own house was not free from their crimes. "Wherefore their way shall be unto them as slippery ways in the darkness; they shall be driven on, and fall therein" (Jer. xxiii. 12).

Plainly these slippery ways are dangerous ways. Did we see any of our friends on them, we should warn them off. Did we know of those treacherous underground lakes of inflammable gas, such as but lately destroyed

so many miners' lives, how eagerly we should hasten to give warning! Had we been standing by the water in the Regent's Park, and seen the premonitory symptoms of the yielding of the ice, how loudly we should have shouted to the excited throng, so many of whom were drowned! And if friends, neighbours, companions, if we ourselves be on these slippery places, how thankful should we be for the knowledge of our situation and for the timely warning!

"But is warning of any use? Is it not said, 'Thou hast set them?' If God has done it, there is an end." So one might say, on his first thought of the matter. But here the second thought is better than the first. In Scripture language, God is often said to do that which he simply permits others to do. So we say, "Lead us not into temptation;" when, if we are asked what do we practically mean, we should say, "Lord, let us not be tempted; be pleased to keep us from it; lead us away from it when our steps are by our own hearts set towards it." Although, therefore, men be on slippery places, if they find out their danger, turn from it, and cry unto God for help, we may be very sure he will hear them, and if they are only willing, he will, moreover, set their feet upon a rock, and establish their goings. So let us look for the paths over which a wise man's eye sees the warning, "Dangerous," written.

1. A career of uniform prosperity is one of them.— A. R began life with nothing but steady habits, a little education, and good health. From apprentice he became head of a department, junior partner, managing partner, head of the firm. Ile is not an old man yet. Everything he touches prospers. Wealth is like a spring bubbling up under his feet. He is universally respected. He is a sensible, and a peculiarly amiable man. He never knew trouble-never had a change. All things have gone smoothly with him. Ah! but it is dangerous walking on places so smooth! It were safer were they a little rough. It is hard for A. R- to believe that the Lord is angry with him. With the poor wretches in the hospitals to which he subscribes, and the fallen in the "Home" of which he is a supporter, it is credible enough; but with him-why, the Lord has blessed him and enlarged his coast, and been with him. It is hard for him to believe that the fashion of the world perisheth. The poor old men in the Asylum have learned that the world is a shadow, but it is very real and substantial to him. He goes to a prayer-meeting, and the hymn runs—

"Earth is a desert drear."

But his carriage waits at the door; his home is resplendent with light, warm with heat, and, better still, with the warmth of human love and all kindly charities. He is universally respected, and he is not unconscious that he deserves respect and confidence, for he is upright, humane, and kindly. He is quite prepared to hear of the drunkard, whose constitution is broken down by sin, whom the city missionary found shivering in the

garret, with icicles dropping from the broken slates over him, crying out, "Oh, I am vile and miserable!" But he is, he will be strongly tempted to think, not vile, nor, he is sure, miserable. He is on one of the slippery places. There are men so situated, and "because they have no changes, therefore they fear not God" (Ps. lv. 19). "Positively," said a well-conditioned and amiable lady of a minister, "he speaks to us as if we were all sinners !" "Here now," said a gentleman, and by profession a Christian, while examining a book of hymns"The dying thief rejoiced to see

That fountain in his day; And there may I, as vile as he, Wash all my guilt away.'

I as vile as the dying thief! Rubbish and nonsense! I'll have nothing of the sort!" And to such feelings, though not probably expressing themselves in this coarse and well-marked form, is A. R- exposed. Undoubtedly it should be the aim of his friends to set the truth before him with discrimination; not as though he were vile in the same form and way as the dying thief or the shivering drunkard; not as though his sin were of the same form as the sins that shade off into present misery; but as the sin of one to whom God is less than his gifts-of one who in God's own world feels too much independent of God, and who for only one such feeling of independence, only one hour's living "without God in the world," requires a forgiveness that only comes through one Name-the sin of one who believes all respectable men, and all true evidence, but who has not yet believed the simplest and yet most solemn statements of the true and faithful Witness, and has not come unto Him that he might have life. So should the truth be pressed upon him, that, by the blessing of God, he might escape the danger of his slippery place, and set his feet for stability and security on the rock.

2. A sudden change for the better often puts a man on a slippery place. He used to be kept down by his circumstances. He was many a time at his wit's end; he many a time had good reason to cry to God, for he sorely needed help, and there was not a creature to whom he could appeal. He had nothing to be proud of. He was grateful for deliverances, and watchful about duties. All at once the pressure is taken off. He is lifted above care. He has visible resources so many and so near, that the invisible does not seem so indispensable. He has troops of friends. He is relatively elevated. A little virtue is considered much for one in his position; and a little shortcoming is thought pardonable, and gently dealt with. The court that is paid to his wealth, it is easy to credit to his worth; and so the place is made more and more slippery to him. The elevation is too great. He grows giddy. He forgets himself; he fears nothing when there is most cause to fear. The caution, self-restraint, and lowliness of spirit that he exercised in the valley, he lays aside on the mountain-top. Saul and Jehu were quite different

as crowned kings from what they had been in private stations; and many a man has changed his character, or his apparent character, even more rapidly. A member of a Christian church, in humble circumstances, gave of her means according to the standard of giving in the place. The death of a rich and almost unknown relation made her suddenly affluent. The actual possession of money to a large amount upset all her previous ideas. The gold seemed to fascinate her. She could not bear to part with it, and actually became penurious. A rapid change from heat to cold, or cold to heat, is perilous to the bodily health; and there is still greater danger to the spirit from a rapid transition from adverse to prosperous circumstances. Who will go to such, and say, solemnly and affectionately, "Sir, I hear you are in a most dangerous situation. You have become suddenly rich. Beware of the danger. Pride, security, presumption, and a hundred other dangers, beset you. Do not climb the hill without a guide; do not go into the mine without the safety lamp; do not travel the road without the care of the 'Leader and Commander;' do not, for your soul's sake, venture into the battle without putting on the whole armour of God."

3. Some situations, by their very nature, are slippery places.-One can realize a great deal of money, but it is in a trade where many have already fallen victims to the very appetite which they thrive by satisfying in others. One has a fair prospect of doing well by trading with the natives on the African coast; but he must make up his mind to do without any means of grace. One can become managing partner in a West India house; but he must allow himself to be thought "a Catholic," that he may live where the house has its foreign agency. One has a promising situation offered him, but he must not be scrupulous about Sabbath-keeping; and another can rise by the influence and patronage of certain friends, who mean, however, to take "the cant and strictness out of him," and make him "sociable and rational;" that is, a free-living and irreligious man. "You shall have five hundred a-year, a hundred a-year of increase, and a residence," said an employer to a young man. I have some conscientious feeling against "Oh, nonsense! My dear fellow, you must put conscience in your pocket." And he did; he shelved a decided religious conviction, as he thought it, and is outwardly prospering. They are all in slippery places. Perhaps they secretly wished for such things as the Lord did not seem about to give them. Perhaps when conscience suggested the danger, they secretly said, "Never fear; I will take the chance." Perhaps the Lord has granted them the desire of their hearts in his anger, as he gave a king to Israel. Who will "run to that young man" and tell him that gold bought at this cost is too dear; that he is tempting the devil to tempt him; that the gains so acquired may involve the loss of

his soul?

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4. Long immunity from the consequences of sin is a slippery place. The first sin that was committed was

followed by remorse, self-reproach, perhaps a lively sense of the danger incurred, perhaps a solemn resolve that the first crime should be the last. Time and temptation took the edge off these feelings, and the sin was repeated. So were the subsequent experiences, but diluted with a growing sense of safety. At length the secret feeling of the heart begins to be, "I have indulged in this so often without any bad consequences, the risk cannot be as I thought it at first." And so the evil-doer gains confidence in crime, and hastens to destruction. God is letting him alone. Did he taste the bitter fruits of his sin-were his iniquity found by him to be hateful-there were some hope of him. As it is, he is like to come to the secret conviction that God regardeth not good, neither doth he regard evil. Oh, how slippery is this place! "Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil." There are hundreds of men and women sitting in Christian churches, yes, and at communion tables, who have done wrong without detection and exposure, until they have settled it in their hearts that the chances are in favour of their escaping the penalties. How else could there be every now and then some disgraceful disclosure that grieves the heart of Christians, and opens the mouth of every scoffer? Oh, that one could sound in their ears, and fix in their memories, that "though a sinner do evil an hundred times, and his days be prolonged, yet surely it shall be well with them that fear God: but it shall not be well with the wicked, neither shall he prolong his days, which are as a shadow; because he feareth not before God." For then surely they would hasten from the slippery places, and flee to the shelter the Lord has provided in the one name-the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

Reader! where are you standing? Is your spirit haughty? Is the taste of power sweet to you? Can you venture on the borders of danger? Are the privileges you once enjoyed in the church and the closet no longer sweet to you? Have you grown indolent in your duties? Can you now equivocate, like Abraham with Abimelech, when taken to task? You are in slippery places. "Escape for thy life!”

Some daughter of Eve may read this page, who has found home less happy than the houses of others. The party of pleasure, the evening of gaiety, the dance and song, the pleasant speeches of strangers, have become necessary to keep up the excitement that is essential to her life. In some such temper, perhaps, Dinah fell. Far less trifling with temptation on Eve's part brought in sin and all its bitter fruits. Beware! You are on slippery places. Many have fallen down on just such places already.

The frosts of winter are necessary. They clear the atmosphere, and brace the healthy human system. And we cannot have them without having" slippery places." And the honest ambition, the vigorous enterprise, the laudable success of life, are necessary. We cannot have

progress without them. And if there be these, there must needs be in things moral the "slippery places." God's people will walk warily on them, get off them as soon as they know them, and be more cautious and watchful in all their subsequent life, just because they had unwittingly been on them. They have walked in their integrity. They have trusted in the Lord; therefore they shall not slide (Ps. xxvi. 1). Watch such an one in the slippery places off which he is hastening: "The law of God is in his heart; none of his steps

shall slide" (Ps. xxxvii. 31). But as for the wicked, who choose to be there, who are allowed in God's judgments to be there, they walk for a little without any apparent injury. But, saith the Lord, "Their foot shall slide in due time for the day of their calamity is at hand, and the things that shall come upon them make haste" (Deut. xxxii. 35). Oh, be persuaded that there is no safety for you, there can be none, but in fleeing-fleeing at once-to God in Christ, that he may stablish, strengthen, and settle you!

A

HUNDRED years ago there were spiritual giants in the Eastern Counties of England, as well as in Lancashire and Wales. The sixth leader of the great revival of last century whom I wish to introduce to my readers, was a man as remarkable in his way as either Grimshaw or Rowlands. Like them, he lived in an obscure and out-of-theway village. But like them, he shook the earth around him, and was one of those who "turn the world upside down." The man I mean is John Berridge, Vicar of Everton, in the county of Bedfordshire.

Of all the English evangelists of the eighteenth century, this good man was undeniably the most quaint and eccentric. Without controversy he was a very odd person, a comet rather than a planet, a man who must be put in a class by himself, a minister who said and did things which nobody else could say or do. But the eccentricities of the Vicar of Everton are probably better known than his graces. With all his peculiarities, he was a man of rare gifts, and deeply taught by the Holy Ghost. Above all, he was a mighty instrument for good in the orbit in which he moved. Few preachers, perhaps, a hundred years ago, were more honoured by God, and more useful to souls, than the eccentric John Berridge.

YEARS AGO.

In this, however, there is nothing that need surprise us. He was never married, and lived entirely alone. He resided in an isolated rural parish, far away from London, in days when there were no railways, and even turnpike roads were not good. He was settled at a distance from his own family, in a county where, apparently, he had no relatives or connections. He wrote very little, and was chiefly known by his preaching. Add to these facts the mighty one, that Berridge belonged to " a sect everywhere spoken against," and we need not wonder that the records remaining of him are very few. But there is a memorial of him that will never perish. The last day will show that his Master kept "a book of remembrance," and that "his record was on high."

John Berridge was born at Kingston, in the county of Nottinghamshire, on March 1, 1716, within a very few years of Whitefield, Wesley, Grimshaw, Romaine, and Rowlands. The village in which he was born may be seen any day from Kegworth Station by those who travel to the north along the Midland Railway. His father was a wealthy farmer and grazier at Kingston, who married a Miss Sarah Hathwaite, in the year 1714. John Berridge was his eldest son. He had three other sons, about whom I can find out nothing, except that his brother Thomas lived and died at Chatteris in the Isle of Ely, and survived the subject of this paper.

Here also

whom he was a particular favourite.

he received the groundwork of his education, but at what school, and under what teacher, I have been unable to ascertain. It is evident that even when a boy he was remarkable for seriousness and steadiness, so much so as to excite the attention of all who knew him. There is not, however, the slightest proof that he knew anything at this time of Scriptural religion; nor was it likely, I fear, in those days, that he would hear anything about it in Nottingham. No doubt, in after-life he had abundant reason to be thankful for his early morality. Steadiness and correctness of life, of course, are not conversion, and save no man's soul. But still they are not to be despised. The scars left by youthful sins, even after forgiveness, are never wholly effaced, and often cause bitter

sorrow.

Berridge himself ascribes his first serious impressions to a singular circumstance :- "One day, as he was returning from school, a boy, who lived near his aunt, invited him into his house, and asked if he might read to him out of the Bible. He consented. This, however, being repeated several times, he began to feel a secret aversion, and would gladly have declined if he had dared. But having obtained the reputation of being pious, he was afraid to risk it by refusal. One day, however, as he was returning from a fair, where he had been spending a holiday, he hesitated to pass the door of his neighbour, lest he should be invited as before. The boy, however, was waiting for him, and not only invited him to come in and read the Bible, but also asked if they should pray together. It was then that Berridge began to perceive he was not right before God, or else he would not have felt the aversion that he did to the boy's invitations. And such, he says, was the effect of that day's interview, that not long afterwards he himself began a similar practice with his companions."

Facts such as these are always interesting to those who study God's ways of dealing with souls. It is clear that He often "moves on the face" of hearts by his Spirit long before he introduces light, order, and life. We must never despise the "day of small things." The impressions and convictions of children especially ought never to be rudely treated or overlooked. They have often a

green spot in their characters which ought to be carefully cultivated by good advice, kind encouragement, and prayer. Berridge unfortunately seems to have had no one near him at this critical period to guide and direct him. Who can tell but the counsel of some Aquila or Priscilla, if they had found him at Nottingham, might have saved him from many years of darkness and agonising exercises of mind?

At the age of fourteen Berridge left school, and returned to his home at Kingston, with the intention of taking up his father's business. This plan, however, soon fell to the ground. For some time his father used to take him about to markets and fairs, in order that he might become familiar with the price of cattle, sheep, and pigs, and learn his business by observation and experience. The next step, of course, was to ask him to give his judgment of the value of animals which his father wished to purchase-a matter in which necessarily lies the whole secret of a grazier's success. Here, however, poor John was so invariably wrong in his estimates, that old Mr. Berridge began to despair of ever making him fit to be a grazier; and used often to say, "John, I find you cannot form any idea of the price of cattle, and I shall have to send you to college to be a light to the Gentiles."

How long this state of suspense about Berridge's future life continued, we have no means of ascertaining. In all probability it went on for two or three years, and was a cause of much family trouble. An old Nottinghamshire grazier was not likely to let his eldest son forsake oxen and sheep, and go to college, without a hard struggle to prevent him. But the son's distaste for his father's calling was deep and insuperable. His religious impressions, moreover, were kept up and deepened by conversation with a tailor in Kingston, with whom he became so intimate that his friends threatened to bind him to articles of apprenticeship under him. At last old Mr. Berridge, seeing that his son had no apparent inclination for anything but reading and religion, had the good sense to give up his cherished plans, and to consent to his going to Cambridge. And thus John Berridge was finally entered at Clare Hall on October 28, 1734, in the nineteenth year of his age.