which sometimes betrayed him into sin. One communion Sabbath I had constructed the old exercise known in Scotland as the "Fencing of the Tables," on the words, "Lovest thou Me?" Among other things, I urged that if any one was a loving disciple, he must exhibit the spirit of the Master, and be patient, meek, and gentle. I had no thought of W. M-; but as I went on he was moved, and became agitated. At the close of the address he rose from his seat at the table, and hastily went out. The door of the church was left slightly ajar, and I, from the pulpit, though no one from the pews, could see his movements. He went to a plot of grass beside the church, and, slowly kneeling, bent his head down to the ground. Thus he continued in prayer for some time. It was an impressive sightthe aged disciple outside at the Master's feet, doubtless saying, "Search me, O God, and know my heart;" and his fellow-disciples inside singing, "O send thy light forth and thy truth." Verse after verse was sung, and still the venerable figure was prostrate, his thin, gray locks waving in the keen spring wind, and I was growing very anxious about him. At length he rose, entered the church with calmed look; the characteristic quiver was on his lip, which told me that in his heart he was saying, "Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee;" and he took his place again at the table. He afterwards told me that he had had a season of most blessed communion, and I believed him; but the scene outside the church was too sacred even for me to refer to.

But to return to J. M. Having to leave home, it was some time before I could see him again. I then found, however, that a change of the most wonderful and blessed nature had taken place. His countenance was now radiant with joy. Whenever he saw me, he said, "Oh, sir, I am so glad to see you, for your last was a blessed visit to me. I went to Jesus, as you bade me, and, after crying awhile for mercy, I was heard. I came and got rest from him. And the peace and joy I have had since then are wonderful." Here his voice quivered with emotion, tears filled his eyes, and it was a little time before he recovered his composure. He then went on to say: "Folk that come to see me say, 'You'll be weary there.' But I say, 'No; it is a sweet bed to me now.' They winna believe me. But it is so; it is so. And I wadna change my state here for a' the world. If as great a change as has come ouer me since then, were to come on a' the folk o' the place, it wad be a different warld. What pleasant nights I hae when they are a' asleep. Oh, then Jesus comes to me and comforts me! Sweet promises are brought to my mind, and I hae a pleasant time." I had a long and interesting conversation with him, and came away marvelling and rejoicing. The elders soon heard of the case, and, visiting him, were fully satisfied that a remarkable case of conversion had indeed taken place. Experienced Christians of other denominations, as well as they, went to see him, with the purpose of guiding

and directing him. And they found that the benefit was mutual. They established him by their experience, and he gladdened them by the Word and Spirit that were so richly dwelling in him. I also saw him frequently, and became fully convinced that a mind of great simplicity had become the subject of saving illumination. Meanwhile, winter had come and gone, and early spring saw him restored to health. On 16th April I find it noted: "Saw J. M. He repeatedly said he was thankful for his recent affliction, which was the means of awakening him to his ruined condition. He blessed God for me as the instrument in His hand of bringing him to Christ, and said that now my very name was dear to him. But he said, 'What makes me glad is precious Christ. I am a happy man now. I have to praise sovereign grace for what I am, and hope to do it in eternity. How the warld would love Him if they felt as I do. How happy I am! Just yesterday I was sair cast doon, when there came into my mind, "Fear thou not, for I am with thee; be not dismayed, for I am thy God," and that brought me comfort.'"

"May 17.--Found J. M― much stronger in health, and growing in grace. I told him he must now serve and honour Christ in health. 'Oh, yes,' he said; 'it would be a sad thing if I diuna, after a' he has dune for me. I was in a sad case when I lay doon. I saw I was a sinner, and didna ken whaur to flee to. But that place, "Come unto Me," was brought home to my heart wi' power. I have often read it, and had it read to me since then; but I never felt the words wi' the same force. But I hae mair light noo. It is the pleasantest thing I get to speak aboot-Christ. Some folk come in who can speak to me aboot Christ, and I am so happy. Others say I shouldna speak so much. But I maun. It's little that I can do for Him; but with the sma' gift I hae, I will speak to others aboot Him. It wad be sair to me no to speak aboot Him who has dune so much for Some said, when I was better that I would forget a' aboot it; but I winna. They say the warld will come back. But I'm dune wi' the warld. I'll just tak' the sma' picks o' it He gies me, and be thankfu'; and look up to Himsel' for mercy.' And so he continued to the close."

me.

In July, just a year after his gracious change, he was seized with a sharp illness, which soon ran its course. I saw him, and found his heart still right with God. He was trusting in Him whom he had believed; and though his sensible comfort was not so great as at first, he enjoyed peace. An incessant cough distressed him, and prevented continued attention. But there was no darkness or fear; only childlike resignation.

After satisfying myself that all was well, I asked if he had any earthly thing he desired, any little comfort or cordial for the body, or any of his little worldly affairs unsettled. He said there was nothing. The only earthly wish he had was to be spared till Tuesday. It was Friday, and I scarcely thought he could survive other four days. On asking him why he wished to live till

Tuesday, he said that a few who feared the Lord had agreed to hold a prayer-meeting occasionally in his house for his sake, and that Tuesday was the night of it. It had been a refreshing means of grace to him, and if it were the Lord's will to spare him, he would like to be at one other. And his desire was given him. The meeting came, and a wonderful power of prayer was granted. There was a remarkable elevation of tone and sentiment in all the services. One who was pre

sent, an able and intelligent elder, told me that he was so transported by what he heard and felt, that he could hardly think those who were present were in the body. It was more like a heavenly meeting. And certainly it was a meeting at the gates of heaven, for that night the angels carried J. M- to glory. I never met with a more striking illustration of the words, "Lord, let it alone this year also, till I dig about it, and afterwards thou shalt cut it down."

D. R.

OOKING to the character of our current literature, may it not be said that, to a large class of minds in the present age, nothing could well be more new than the old theology of the Reformation? The gospel is older than Luther; but to every succeeding generation it is still new-good news from God,-as fresh now as when it first sprung from the fountain of Inspiration. It was new to ourselves-surprising, startling, and affecting us strangely, as if it were almost too good to be truewhen it first shone, like a beam of heaven's own light, into our dark and troubled spirits, and shed abroad "a peace which passeth all understanding." It will be equally new to our children, and our children's children, when they come to know that they have sins to be forgiven, and souls to be saved; and to the last sinner who is convinced and converted on the earth, it will still be as "good tidings from a far country," as "cold water to a thirsty soul." It can never become old or obsolete, for this obvious reason, that while it is "the everlasting gospel,” and, as such, like its author, unchangeable, "the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever," yet it comes into contact, in every succeeding age, with new minds, who are ignorant of it, but need it, and can find no peace without it; and when they receive it as "a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ came into the world to save sinners," they will learn from their own experience that the old truth is still the germ of " a new creation," the spring of a new life, a new peace, a new hope, a new spiritual existence, to which they were utter strangers before.

There are many, even in Protestant communities, who have long been familiar with the sound of the gospel, to whom this inward sense of it, in its application to their own souls, would be nothing less than a new spiritual revelation. The doctrine of Justification, by grace, through faith in Christ, is the old doctrine of the Reformation, and the still older doctrine of the gospel; yet the vivid apprehension of its meaning, and the cordial reception of its truth, must be a new thing in

From "The Doctrine of Justification," by the Rev. James Buchanan, D.D., Professor of Divinity, New College, Edinburgh. T&T. Clark, Edinburgh.-Characterised by the breadth of view, the fulness of information, and the accuracy of statement and style by which all the works of the venerable author are distinguished.

the experience of every one, when he is first enabled to realize and to believe it. The free pardon of all sin, and a sure title to eternal life, conferred by the mere grace of God, and resting solely on the redemption and righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ—this, as the actual and immediate privilege of every sinner, on the instant when he begins to rely on Christ alone for salvation, as he is offered to him individually in the gospel -may come home, with all the freshness of new truth, even to many who bear the Christian name; and a realizing sense of them, in the conscious experience of their own souls, will be the best safeguard against the prevailing errors of the times, and the danger to which so many are at this moment exposed, of being "tossed about with every wind of doctrine."

If we take a calm survey of the state of religious sentiment in the present crisis-for it is a crisis, and a very solemn one-we can hardly fail to observe that the minds of many are uneasy and unsettled; that there is a wide-spread feeling of unrest and dissatisfaction; and that this feeling manifests itself mainly in two apparently opposite tendencies, which have been so strikingly developed in the present age as to constitute its most marked and characteristic features;-the one is the tendency towards Rationalism, whose final goal is a cheerless and dreary Scepticism; the other, the tendency towards Ritualism, which can only find its complete realization in the Church of Rome. We see one large class of educated men relinquishing some of the most fundamental articles of the Christian faith, as if they had no need of them for their salvation, and contenting themselves with such lessons as Reason can learn by the mere light of Nature, or at least prove by rational arguments; and we see another large class of educated men betaking themselves to forms and ceremonies, to sacramental grace and ascetic practices, to auricular confession and priestly absolution, as if they could not find, in the simple gospel of the grace of God in Christ, enough for their soul's need, without borrowing some additions to it from the inventions of men, and even from the corruptions of Popery. Each of these tendencies is a symptom of the same radical evil-the want of true peace, and good hope through grace; for those who have listened to Christ's voice, and complied with his

gracious call," Come unto me, and ye shall find rest unto your souls," have an anchor, both sure and steadfast, which keeps them, amidst all the fluctuations of human opinion, from drifting with the current; and neither scepticism nor superstition has any charms for them. "They have drunk of the old wine, and have no desire for the new; for they say, The old is better." Those who yield to these opposite tendencies differ in many respects from each other; but they agree in this: they have both abandoned the old doctrine of Justification, as revealed in the gospel, and revived at the Reformation; and that cardinal doctrine is the one truth which alone can neutralize their respective errors, just as in the times of Luther it had power to overthrow alike the speculations of the schools, and the superstitions of the Church. They differ in being more or less convinced of sin, more or less earnest in seeking salvation, more or less sincere in professing a reverential faith in God's Word-for the hale-hearted Rationalist contrasts unfavourably in these respects with many an anxiousminded Ritualist-but the gospel doctrine of Justification, expounded in all its fulness, and exhibited in connection with the great scriptural principles which it involves or implies, is the most effective instrument at once for rousing the conscience of the Rationalist out of its false security, and for relieving the conscience of the Ritualist from its slavish anxieties and fears.

The false security of the Rationalist arises, not from the knowledge and belief of Christ's gospel, but from ignorance or disbelief in regard to the demands and sanctions of God's law; and the doctrine of Justification, as it is taught in Scripture, is fitted to break up that false security, and to awaken every thoughtful man to a sense of his real condition in the sight of God. For, in its negative aspect, it teaches us, first of all, how we cannot be justified-it excludes the possibility of pardon and acceptance, in the case of man fallen, on the ground of his own obedience, and insists on the necessity of a satisfaction to divine justice, such as shall be at once an adequate expression of God's infinite abhorrence of sin, and an effectual means of securing all the ends of punishment under his moral government. What the Rationalist most needs at the outset is a work of the law on his conscience; a clearer and more impressive apprehension of the spirituality and extent of its preceptive requirements; a deeper sense of sin-of the fact of sin, as undeniably chargeable against himself, and especially of the guilt of sin, as that which exposes him to imminent and awful danger; a realizing conviction of those threatened penalties, which are expressive of God's holy hatred of it, and his inflexible determination to punish it; and a close and faithful application of the whole law to himself individually, as a sinner in the sight of God, standing before his awful tribunal, and awaiting his sentence, as a righteous judge. Without some such experience as this, he will feel little or no interest in the question of Justification, and will scarcely be able to understand what it means, or what principles are in

volved in it. But that doctrine, when it is scripturally stated and explained in all its fulness, is related to the law as well as to the gospel; and for this reason it is admirably adapted to his case, just because it brings out, and places clearly before his conscience, the great fundamental principles of man's inexcusable guilt and God's inflexible justice; and also because, when it proceeds to unfold a scheme of grace and redemption, it never loses sight of these principles, but exhibits them, all the more impressively, as exemplified and embodied in that scheme itself, which is a divine provision for the vindication of God's law, with a view to the free exercise of his mercy towards the guilty. Let this doctrine take effect, first of all, in its legal aspect, bringing the law to bear on his conscience, convincing him of the guilt which he has incurred, and awakening a sense of the punishment which he has deserved, as a sinner in the sight of a holy and righteous God; and then, but not till then, he will be prepared to understand and appreciate it, in its evangelical aspect, when it proclaims a free pardon, but a pardon founded on a divine propitiation-a gracious remission, but a remission by means of a divine redemption—a full salvation, but a salvation procured by a divine satisfaction to God's eternal justice.

The anxieties of the Ritualist, again, arise from some sense of sin, combined with a more or less earnest desire of salvation; but accompanied also with much remaining ignorance in regard to the fulness and freeness of the gospel provision for his immediate pardon and acceptance with God, and a latent feeling that there is still something that remains to be done or suffered by himself, in the way of satisfying the justice, averting the wrath, and propitiating the favour of his righteous Judge. He has "a zeal for God," but "not according to knowledge;" and "he goes about to establish," at least in part, "his own righteousness," instead of “submitting," at once and altogether, "to the righteousness of God." Hence he has recourse to confession and penance, not merely for the mortification of sin, but for relief from a sense of unforgiven guilt; and hence, too, his zeal in almsgiving and good works, not as expressions of gratitude for grace received, but as a means of deprecating the wrath and securing the favour of God. There is much in his state of mind which contrasts favourably with the careless indifference of multitudes who are at ease in Zion—who have never felt that they have sins to be forgiven or souls to be saved-and who are only lulled into deeper security, and case-hardened in impenitence and unbelief, by their partial knowledge even of the message of mercy in the gospel. One must feel a deep and tender sympathy with every earnest soul, which is really convinced of its sin and danger, and struggling to obtain deliverance-and many a Ritualist may be in this condition. What he needs is a deeper and more thorough conviction of his ruined and helpless condition as a sinner, utterly unable to expiate any of his past sins by his own sufferings, or to secure divine acceptance by anything that he either has

into other hands. St. Andrew's Square, to the east of the Saltmarket-for long the Buchanan Street or Regent Street of Glasgow-and Glassford, Virginia, and Miller Streets, received into larger mansions the richer men, and the orchards and green places in the wynds became built over, to make the most of the ground. The wynds thus became arteries to long winding veins or closes, as they are fitly called, running up and down through the thick built spaces dense with flesh and blood; and only | thereabout, when you carefully felt your way, could you make out any vital pulse at all. At length, some sixty or seventy years ago, the Wynd Church was removed, and its site turned into the Kail (or green) Market, and the present St. George's was built in Buchanan Street; many of the people bewailing that it was removed so far into the country! But even then, there were many respectable families in the wynds living in the old roomy houses, with their dark wainscot and marble chimneypieces, families whose sons are now among the merchant princes. But these families also moved to other newer streets and squares, and the old houses became subdivided and sublet to humbler people. Yet still, in the memory of persons lately or now living, the voice of psalms and family worship, morning and evening, was heard from many a dwelling there. The Tron Church still remained a favourite place of worship. It was near the Old Exchange and the Cross, and when Dr. Chalmers preached his famous sermons there, on the Thursday afternoons, the church was crowded with the best of the city, breathless under his burning words. During his ministry the wynds could not be forgotten. Many a merchant and lawyer was induced to spend some hours in the week visiting the poor and teaching their children. Men like David Stow, the founder of Normal Schools, who first reduced his theory to practice there, laboured for years, and not in vain; for after they had ceased through age and infirmities to devote their time and strength, their hearts would warm at the mention of the wynd or close where they had laboured for years; and they would delight to tell how, out of their thirty or forty Sabbath scholars, so many had become ministers, or doctors, or merchants, or in humbler places were married and living godly lives at home or abroad.

But still the wynds deteriorated. Many a building yielding a large rental was left without repair. From the influx of thousands of Roman Catholics from Ireland; from there being so many dark devious dens to which the thief and the harlot, like beasts of prey, could retire, and from which, as night came down, they might creep out to seek their prey; from the gradual exclusion to a large extent from the district, of the sober, industrious, God-fearing native element; from the multiplication of whisky-shops; from the wild orgies of Saturday night, and the annual saturnalia of the Fair (rather the foul) holidays, with their shows and dancing-booths; from the old churches gradually losing their hold of the district by losing the members that lived in it and

watched over it;-from all such reasons the wynds became worse and worse every year. The Tron Parish Church before the Disruption, and the Tron Free Church after, under the pastorate of Dr. Robert Buchanan, still held up the old flag, and continued to lead successive regiments-all volunteers as for a forlorn hope--to rescue even the few that still might be saved. In addition to the parish school, relinquished with the parish church, Dr. Buchanan, by the help of various friends, had purchased a candle manufactory in the Old Wynd at a cost of £1100, and had turned it into a school. Another was opened in a hay-loft in the Bridgegate. Sabbath schools were organized for children and adults; an unusually able missionary, James Hogg, full of quaint humour, tender human sympathy, and graphic power of speech, was appointed; and finally, through the Free Church Building Society, a new Wynd Church was projected, and was opened in 1854 on part of the old historic site. It was in the previous year that I was introduced to the work. As a divinity student drawing near the close of my preparations for the ministry. I wished to add to my curriculum the practical studies, which could best be carried on in such a district, as a medical student would in the hospital and by the bedsides of the poor.

I shall never forget my first impressions of the houses I visited, and the people gathered out to be taught. The old candle work, whatever it did in its first condition, was not, even now in its second, making much appreciable difference on the darkness of the district. I have not forgotten the pithy words with which I was greeted among my first efforts by an experienced Sabbathschool teacher of the Free Tron: "Ah, sir, its awfu' work this. The folks here are like rotten wood; they winna haud the nail!" Mr. Hogg spent a day with me in redding the marches of my future work-a field of twelve acres, closely covered with 12,000 souls-and thus helping me to some insight into the variety of the soil. Our first visit was to an upper room, which we reached by climbing half a dozen dirty, crazy stairs. From the upper staircase window we could see the old crow-stepped gables of neighbouring tenements, and the broken chimney-pots over many a roof. My friend without ceremony lifted the latch, and stood like the sudden apparition from another world before the startled group within. Standing in his shadow, I photographed the faces and fixed the impression. The room was large, but with bare walls, and without chair or table. A few bricks in the fire-place had been blackened by an occasional fire. The boards of the "set-in" bed had evidently been turned into fuel, and only a few rags and a little straw lay in the corner. Three persons sat on the floor with a broken bottle and a couple of broken tea-cups. They were drinking as we entered, and a cup hung suspended in the hand of one to be duly photographed. The householder, a little wizened man of fifty, sat opposite the door; his wife, about the same age, with a draggled dress and dirty mutch, from which her untidy