the English ones, having common figures and expressions, give rise to the suspicion of a common source, which is very probably to be found in the prose writings of Augustine. We are now transferred from England and Scotland to the African shores of the Mediterranean, on which he lived, and thus in sweet and holy "meditations" gave utterance to the high-born and heavenly aspirations of his spirit:"O Jerusalem, my mother, holy city of God, dearest spouse of Christ; thee my heart loves; for thy beauty my soul longs with excessive desire. How fair, how glorious, how noble art thou. Altogether beautiful; there is no spot in thee!

"Happy should my soul for ever be, if I might be thought worthy to behold thy glory, thy blessedness, thy comeliness, thy gates, and walls, and streets, thy many mansions, thy thrice-noble citizens, and thy mighty King in his beauty. For thy walls are of precious stones, thy gates of the most excellent pearls, thy streets of purest gold, in which a joyful alleluia, without ceasing, is sung. Thy many mansions are founded upon square stones, built up with sapphires, covered in with golden tiles, into which no one enters save the clean; no defilement dwells in thee.

"There charity reigns full and perfect, because God is there all in all. Him without end they see; and in always seeing Him they beam with his love. They love and praise; they praise and love. Their whole employment is the praise of God, without end, without flagging, without toil.

"Happy were I : yes, truly and eternally happy, if, after this frail body is dissolved, I might be deemed worthy to hear those songs of heavenly melody which are sung to the praise of the eternal King by these citizens of the upper country and the bands of blessed souls. Fortunate were I, and too blessed, if I were deemed worthy to sing those songs, and to stand in the presence of my King, my God, my Captain, and to behold Him in his glory."

The source from whence Augustine drew his expressions

and figures, the Apocalypse, especially the last two chapters, brings us to the disciple—

"Who leaned at supper (when Christ Jesus sate)

Upon the bosom of his Lord and King.

He from above this Paradise did bring,

Perused the walls, and viewed the same within,
Described it largely, all our loves to win."

Thus have we followed the Lord's song south and north of the Tweed, thence to Africa, and on to the isle called Patmos, where the vision recorded was beheld: "He showed me that great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God, having the glory of God."

The Sufferings of Christ.

N speechless agony He hangs upon the cross.
Even his heavenly Father withdraws from him.
The darkness which surrounds the cross was but

an emblem of the Sufferer's soul. Who can speak the mysteries of the scene? All the other sorrows of his passion are not to be compared with the dereliction he now endured. How bitter the pang of separation from God is can be best told by those who most ardently love him. His presence is life. It has made apostles sing praises in prison, and martyrs triumph at the stake. What then must the Son of God have now felt, whose love to his Father was perfect, and whose union with him was inexpressibly intimate! Of no other part of his passion did the Saviour utter a complaint-not of his sufferings in the garden, or at the bar of Pilate, or when nailed to the cross-not under the insults of the Jews-not of the thorns, the nails, the vinegar, the gall-not of the flight of his disciples. But when his heavenly Father withdrew the communications of his presence, he exclaimed in the depth of his anguish, "Eloi, Eloi, lama, sabacthani, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me." Then was the travail of his soul-then

did he endure the wrath of God, the curse of the law, the temptations of the powers of darkness, all the woe arising from a full view of the evil of sin, and of the accumulated guilt for which he was about to atone.

Well may the Greek Church have adopted the remarkable language which occurs in the Litany-" By thine unknown agonies." Yes; what we know of these agonies is little indeed, is but a faint image of the incomprehensible and unutterable reality of the sufferings which he endured. We are able only to say that he sustained all the pain of which his perfect human nature was capable; and all the anguish inflicted by the anger of God, the penalty of sin, the terrors of judgment, the assaults of the devil. And if in this world a single drop of Divine wrath, falling into the conscience of a sinner, has at times quenched every hope and involved him in inconceivable misery, darkness, horror, and despair, who shall measure the depth of that agony when all the vials of eternal wrath were poured out even to the dregs on the head of the Redeemer! Daniel Wilson.

Putting on the Armour.

HE Christian is often ready to say with Gideon, "If God be with me, why is this befallen me?" Why do I find such strugglings of sin within me? The

answer is soon given-Because you are a wrestler, not a conqueror. When one is made a Christian, he is not called to triumph over his slain enemies, but carried into the field to meet and fight them. The state of grace is the commencing a war against sin, not the ending it. Your soul may take comfort in this, that you are a wrestler; this struggling within you doth evidence two contrary natures— the one from the earth, earthy-the other from heaven, heavenly. Yea, for thy further comfort know, though thy corrupt nature be the elder, it shall serve the younger.

Gurnal.

Light in the Valley.

OHN GREGSON used to live in the hollow of a deep valley formed by towering Welsh hills, and in a locality in which civilization appeared to be at its lowest ebb. To describe his house, himself, or his occupation-to make people who did not know him. understand the amount of good he did, and what a power, and an authority, and a help he was, would be a difficult task indeed; yet, though very poor, and living in a very dark place, his light could not be hid.

His house had been partly built by himself; and many pleasant little stories he used to tell of the load of stones which Squire So-and-so had allowed him to cart away from the quarry; of the fir-trees which another kind friend had given him, and of the help which his neighbours had rendered in making his humble dwelling water-tight. Attached to the house was a little patch of garden ground, and here, according to the season, the sweetest vegetables bloomed and ripened, and, occasionally, though very rarely, a hen or two might be heard cackling or a pig snoring in its sty.

What was John himself? The most indescribable of men, bandy-legged, stunted in his growth, a most ill-shapen little old man altogether. It was only when he talked with you that you forgot his outward awkward gait, and felt that there was a soul enshrined within that crooked figure that would have adorned the most comely body that ever was created. He was the best scholar, the best reader and writer in the village, and every one who could read somehow or other fell into his tone, and adopted his emphasis; every one who could write insensibly slipped into his style of writing. He was a good singer, too, and many a winter's evening did he spend in copying out tunes to be practised for the following Sunday, when the singing pew would be crowded with instrumentalists and instruments of all kinds. Through the long, dreary winter months, every Wednesday evening John's summons would be heard resounding