Daily your diligence renewing. Toil on! tho' clouds obscure your sky, Deep in your soul lie strength and power. Toil on! tho' weary and distressed, For all life's cup is mixed with sorrow; And laugh to scorn your best endeavor; LOST! LOST! BY 8. J. H. 8. "I was called," says a venerable divine, "in the early part of my ministry, to stand beside the bed of a beautiful young mother whose life was fast ebbing away. Anguish, deep, hopeless anguish was riveted on her countenance. Death was knocking for admission. Her time had come. I asked her if she was willing that I should pray with her Her reply was, "I have no objection, but prayers will be of no avail now; it is too late, too late; I must die; I am lost! lost for ever!" I prayed earnestly with her, but her hard heart was untouched; there was in it no fountain of love to its Maker, and it was "too late." "What was the cause of her cold and careless indifference? Listen, mothers, and from her who, "being dead, yet speaketh,' learn a lesson. This lovely mother was, at a very early period of her life, deeply and seriously impressed with the importance of religion, and the arrows of conviction were fastened in her heart. "My mother," says she, "sent me to the dancing-school, and I danced all my convictions away!" As she lived, so did she diewithout Christ in the world." "THE EYES OF THE LORD." READERS of the Bible well know that God is represented as having eyes. This language has led some into very wrong views, especially ignorant people. They consider God to be pretty much like themselves, even in form: a being possessed of bodily members, like creatures. The question seems never to occur to people, How can God be everywhere, and see all things at once, if he exists in the form of man, and if his eyes are like ours? It is true that the scriptures speak of the "arm of the Lord," and of other bodily members as belonging to him. In the use of such language, however, the scriptures only condescend to our abilities of understanding things; God accommodates his works to our capacities, and in such language makes known to us his otherwise incomprehensible attributes. The arm of the Lord is his power, his ear is expressive of his knowledge, and when he is said to have eyes we are to understand that he sees all things, and that nothing can be hid from his sight. Thus we have this truth expressed in the book of Proverbs: "The eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and the good." The scripture passages, speaking of God's hearing and seeing all things, are used to prove his omniscience, an attribute of God on which we should often reflect. "Thou, God, seest me," should be as living a truth within our hearts, certainly, as it was in the heart of "Hagar, Sarai's maid." Frequent and serious meditation of the fact that we are never unnoticed that if even no human eye is looking upon us, the Lord looks down from heaven and sees all our most secret desires, plans and feelings, no less than our actions, would be a most fruitful source of good unto us. From how much sin would we be pre served? The eyes of the Lord are in every place. No matter where we are, at home or abroad, upon land or upon sea, under the eyes of men or hid from them, God sees us. In our families, in the social circle, in our closet, in the church, at the banquet, in the ball-room, at the drinking-house, and wherever we may be, the eyes of the Lord are upon us. These eyes are open over us at all times. We have ours closed much of our time in sleep. We can behold each other only when near together and in the element of light. Not so the eye of God. He never closes his eyes in sleep. In thick darkness he sees us as clearly as in a noonday's sun. "Darkness and the light are both alike to thee," (Ps. 139: 12.) From the beginning of our being to the end of our life, whatever our career may be, we are always under the inspection of omniscience. Whatever may be our circumstances, God looks upon us. Rich people often look not upon the poor; proud people not upon the humble; the healthy often not upon the sick; the enemy not upon him whom he hates. God sees them all, irrespective of their circumstances. A living remembrance of this truth is sufficient to fill us with astonishment. Our fellow beings, creatures like ourselves, if the sun of prosperity sheds its rays with brighter glare upon and around them, than upon us, will soon turn their eyes away from us. If by outward circumstances they rise above us in station of life, they can no longer look down to notice the poor, the unfortunate. If we give offence to our neighbor, he will, in passing us, cast his eyes in an opposite direction. So deals man with man. Thus creatures, treat each other who are descendants of a common stock, and alike doomed, after their bodies, to return unto dust. God is not of such disposition. As the heavens are high above the earth, so are his thoughts and ways high above the thoughts and ways of man. Though he is the king eternal, invisible and immortal; independent, above, and before all, he yet condescends to look upon, yea, to dwell with men. A poor, sinful fellow, whose breath is in his nostrils, soon soars upon the wings of vanity into the heights of dreamy nothingness, and cannot any longer look down so low as to behold those walking in the path of wakeful reality. Alas, what despicable delusion! Pitiable, indeed, are these flights of pithless hollowness. Who art thou, O man, that thou shouldst get so far above thy like as to forget them, whilst the Most High deigns to look upon thee and them. It is a wonder, especially viewed in the light of human ways of dealing with each other, that God's eyes should ever fall upon us except to destroy us. So high above us, and yet so condescending in his notice of us. So independent of us, and yet making our cares his own. So wickedly forgotten by habitual ingratitude, and yet never permitting "the eyes of all to wait upon him" in vain. "What is man that thou art mindful of him!" A sinner by nature, and a greater sinner by practice. In rebellion against his Maker; full of enmity against his Saviour, and doing despite to the spirit of God, by whom he is to be sanctified. Upon such men, yea, even upon the vilest, God looks down with a pitying eye. Patiently he upholds them; with wonderful goodness he provides for them, and with an everlasting love he woos them. Wonderful, wonderful, that God, who needs not man to praise his name, as unnumbered multitudes of holy beings are engaged in doing this from the foundation of the world, should stoop in his mercy so low as to cast his eyes upon us-even upon us. "O what is feeble, dying man, Or any of his race, That God should make it his concern To visit him with grace! "That God who darts his lightninge down, Who shakes the worlds above, While mountains tremble at his frown; The fruits of an unwavering faith in the omniscience of God are of the most wholesome character. True belief of this truth reveals itself in a truly practical way. Let a man remember always, that the eyes of the Lord are upon him, and his conduct will be ordered accordingly. Is not this the principle of our actions in the sphere of social intercourse, and in the dealings of human beings with and among each other? How careful not to appear rude, and what study of, and attention to the rules of politeness. What anxiety to make a favorable impression whilst under the eyes of our fellow mortals. So, also, in the course of the deceiver. What consummate dexterity is often revealed in the practice of cheating. The shrewdness in concealing truth and realities behind the curtains of fraudulent, deceptive appearances, evidences the most studied care in the commission of this sort of wickedness. Before men, men will strive to appear to advantage. Under the eyes of his fellow beings, the defrauder will abstain from any appearance that could reveal his real character. The thief, in his lawless attempts upon the property of others, will be very careful not to be seen by men. The robber goes forth in the night; puts on a false face; ventures attacks only upon the stranger, and will have none to see him except the companion of his nefarious business. And should man cower beneath the gaze of human eyes, and be able to disregard the sight of him who has "eyes as a flame of fire?" This would be insolence and presumption of the most daring kind. And yet are poor, forgetful sinners, guilty of this in thousands of cases. It cannot be denied, that multitudes professing to believe in God and his character, as revealed in the Bible, are habitually practicing wickedness. Would this be the case if they remembered that "the eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and the good?" The conduct of great numbers of professors of religion affords most painful but certain evidence of the alarming extent of this popular infidelity. Men will not do this or that in the sight of others, because it will lower them in their esteem, or deprive them of character and standing. But the vision of the Most High resting upon them continually, and which they profess to believe, is practically denied. Yet such persons also hope to get to heaven in the end. How few earnest Christians even are not guilty of apparently small acts and deeds which they would greatly dislike to become generally known, and from which they intend to be freed before they close their eyes in death. What can be the cause of this dread of observation, in things wrong, by our fellow men, when, as professed believers, we have not the fear of God before us? Does it not prove most con clusively, that there is a sort of fine-spun infidelity lurking in our hearts? Or does man exact a stricter course of life than the Holy One? Do not many curse and swear among the profane who would not dare to do it in the presence of decent men? Does not God know this? Alas, for the hypocrite and the self-deceiver! They may hide from human view their inward ugliness; the eyes of one beholds it all: "Woe unto you, hypocrites! for you are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness." Reflect and remember, the Lord beholds the evil. But if this doctrine tends to restrain the wicked from evil, it is also especially full of comfort to the true child of God. It is acknowledged to be a great blessing when children enjoy the oversight of kind and faithful parents. It is also lamented as a sore affliction if children are early deprived of parents by the hand of death. Their character and comfort depend indeed very much upon parental faithfulness. Where a proper spirit prevails in the family, the children greatly delight in the presence of their parents. A friendly glance of the eye causes their little hearts to beat in high emotions of joy. They anxiously seek an affectionate look from the parent, because in it, as the sunshine of love, they feel so happy. Much greater is the joy of the child of God when it realizes a heavenly Father's smiles. To possess, day after day, the consciousness that the eye of that Father, whose greatest delight is to do good unto his children, is constantly watching us for our good, is truly a never-failing fountain of consolation, and an inestimable blessing. Where such a faith lives in the heart, the following lines are ever expressive of the sentiments of such a heart: "And whilst thou shalt smile upon me, Foes may hate, and friends disown me, In the world and by the world the faithful have to endure tribulations. They journey through a strange land. They are pilgrims as their fathers were. The complaint often is, "Woe is me that I sojourn in Mesech, that I dwell in the tents of Kedar!" But a remembrance that "the eye of the Lord is upon them that fear him, upon them that hope in his mercy," inspires within them a fresh hope that their heavenly Father will "deliver their soul from death, and keep them alive in famine," (Ps. 33: 18, 19.) Exposed to trials and temptations, engaged in the warfare against sin and Satan, the courage of God's children would often fail and their strength be found insufficient for the conflict, if a sense of his presence, the recollection of his preserving care, did not nerve them to endure the heat and remain faithful unto death. "They |