hastens its approach; every Sabbath when you meet for worship you get nearer to the sound of the joy-bells which, as for a bridal, are ushering in the eternal Sabbath of the sky. Surely you will not be weary nownow when your salvation is so much nearer than when you first believed. Does the pilgrim halt when he is in sight of the shrine? Though the racer may be panting and breathless, surely he will press on when the goal of his wishes is before him. Courage, my flagging brothers! A few more tossings of the proud waters, and they shall roll their last troubled wave! A few more struggles and temptations, and they shall cease to worry thee for ever! A few more battles, briefly and patiently sustained, and the last enemy shall be destroyed! A few more months and years of weariness and of toil, and there shall be the opening gates of heaven, and the vision of the King in His beauty! Oh! weary not, then, in the discharge of your duty and your voluntary cross-bearing; and in the glory which your faith can glimpse even now you may see the recompence that awaits you. "He that endureth to the end, the same shall be saved."

Think, then, of the happiness of reaping this promise of the inspired Word! How it includes every possibility of satisfaction which your highest ambition can desire! If earthly harvests are seasons of rejoicingand, when the last sheaf is gathered and the last load housed, the husbandman rejoices in thankfulness and revels in festivities, and counts all the toil of the entire year as a forgotten trouble, because of that one blissful hour-what must the heavenly harvest be? Salvation realised; all the tormenting solicitudes of life over; sin banished; not a stain of the accursed thing left; the spirit dowered with a richer portion than the first father lost; no limit to the capability; no end to the enjoyment; mind going out always after God; and at His right hand pleasures that are for

evermore.

Praise.

Praise is the only part of duty in which we at present engage which is lasting. We pray, but there shall be a time when prayer shall offer its last Litany; we believe, but there shall be a time when faith shall be lost

in sight; we hope, and hope maketh not ashamed, but there shall be a time when hope lies down and dies, lost in the splendour of the fruition that God shall reveal : but praise goes singing into heaven, and is ready without a teacher to strike the harp that is waiting for it, to transmit along the echoes of eternity the song of the Lamb. In the party-coloured world in which we live, there are days of various sorts and experiences, making up the aggregate of the Christian's life. There are waiting days, in which, because Providence fences us round, and it seems as if we cannot march, we cannot move, as though we must just wait to see what the Lord is about to do in us and for us; and there are watching days, when it behoves us never to slumber, but to be always ready for the attacks of our spiritual enemy; and there are warring days, when, with nodding plume, and with ample armour, we must go forth to do battle for the truth; and there are weeping days, when it seems as if the fountains of the great deep within us were broken up, and as though, through much tribulation, we had to pass to heaven in tears. But these shall all pass away by

and by-waiting days all be passed, warring days all be passed, watching days all be passed; but

"Our days of praise shall ne'er be pass'd,
While life, and thought, and being last,
And immortality endures."

Preparation for Heaven.

It is perfectly possible for you to dwell with enkindled imagination upon the happiness of heaven; Fancy may lend her brightest colours in warm and vivid picturings of its realities and joys, while you are not advanced in the very humblest degree of preparation for the real, true heaven of the Bible. Perhaps you have just passed through some sad bereavement, you have stood by some freshly-opened grave, and at the time of your softening, and when sorrow was busy at your heart-strings, you have felt a sort of consolation as you dwelt upon the thought of heaven -heaven, where parted hands should clasp again-heaven, where friends should neither weep nor change in the unintermittent recognitions of Paradise; or, perhaps, it was in the

time of your reverie, and, as you thought painfully upon human frailty, you reposed upon the thought of a material heaven-a heaven that should have all earth's beauty, but unchequered by earth's vicissitudes, and unstained by earth's defilements. Some such picture perhaps flashed before you as that which the daring painter has embodied in his picture of the Plains of Heaven-waters which storm never ruffles, skies which clouds never shadow, trees of perpetual greenness, flowers of unfading bloom, air laden with sweet strains of song from the ever young inhabitants-each a crowned harper unto God, abiding in tranquil security for ever; and as the voluptuous vision has dazzled you, you have sighed and said, "Oh that I had wings like a dove! for then would I flee away and be at rest." Or perhaps that was not your case; perhaps what attracted you most was the surpassing benevolence of heaven, the warm, congenial cordiality which obtains there no looks sinister, no purposes unfriendly; and as you thought of that atmosphere of love, you longed to be away from earth, the land of crime, and grief, and selfishness, and to dwell in those blest abodes