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The Visitor's Note Book.

A WORD FITLY SPOKEN.

THE following instance shows the importance of speaking a word in season for Christ. "A word fitly spoken, how good it is!" How it fastens itself upon the conscience and heart, and brings forth fruit in due season!

More than fifteen years ago, when called to watch with an old gentleman, eighty-two years of age, who had been a devoted Christian more than fifty years, who was totally blind, and suffered constantly with intense pain, I found him patiently bearing all, leaning on Christ. I was about sixteen years old; and as I entered the room, the lady introducing me, he said— "I want to take your hand in mine. And so you have come to sit up with me. I should think by your hand, that you must be a young man. I want to talk with you by-and-by." When the family had retired, he asked me to place my hand again in his, and said—

"I want to ask you a few questions. Are you a Christian ?" I thought I must answer honestly, and said, "No!"

"Do you mean to be some time ?”

"Yes!"

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'Well, then, what are you waiting for?"

I was speechless. But the questions were daily in my mind until I gave my heart to Christ.

WHOSOEVER.

He knew

A YOUNG man was greatly troubled about his soul. that he was a sinner in God's sight: and so deeply did he feel this, that he was often ready to lie down in despair, saying, "Is it possible that God can save such a miserable sinner?" In the daytime he thought of hell as his justly-deserved punishment, and at night he would sometimes imagine himself shut up in the pit of outer darkness. He tried to reform, and lived proudly on his good works; but alas! he got nothing better, but rather grew worse. One evening, however, he was passing a large building, where a servant of the Lord was preaching. He went in.

Soon after he entered, he heard the preacher call attention to the words of our blessed Lord, “Whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life." (John iii. 16.) Mark, said he, this word, "WHOSOEVER!" For the first time this

troubled hearer began to perceive the freeness of God's grace in the gospel, and to think there was some hope, after all, even for such a sinner as he was; because "whosoever" included him and every one else who accepted Christ for his Saviour. I need not say that, by the power of the Spirit of God, his heart was thus led to look wholly to Jesus for salvation, and he thus found joy and peace in believing, and has delighted in the service of the gospel for many years.

Dear reader, have you thus simply accepted Christ? Are you trusting in Him who died on the cross to save sinners? Is the precious blood of Christ the sole ground of your peace with God? With many others this saved young man can say—

"Until I saw the blood, 'twas hell my soul was fearing;
And dark and dreary in my eyes the future was appearing:
While conscience told its tale of sin,

And caused a weight of woe within.

"But when I saw the blood, and looked at Him that shed it,
My right to peace was seen at once, and I with transport read it:

I found myself to God brought nigh,

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And Victory' became my cry."

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But there is another " WHOSOEVER," equally general in its scope, and free in its application. Yet, oh how wide the contrast! "Whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire." (Rev. xx. 15.) Mark, it is "whosoever; no matter who it is, or what plea is raised, it is "whosoever;" for God is no respecter of persons. How solemn ! If a man has not Christ Jesus, the Son of God, the giver of everlasting life, for his Saviour, how can his name be written in the book of life?

SYMPATHY.

I was sitting at my window, in Islington, when a flock of sheep passed by. One of the poor things was so fatigued and lame, that it lay down on the ground. The drover beat it with his stick; but he could not make it stir. In a rage he left it, and went after the other sheep. In a few moments another flock came up; when several of the new-comers gathered round the poor panting sheep; and after sundry rubbings of noses, and sympathising bleatings, he quickly rose, and scampered off to join his own flock. Surely we may learn lessons of kindness even from the brute creation. "The tears of sympathy are sacred drops from the well of life."

CHARLES WESLEY.

In many respects the two Wesleys were parallels in contrast. John probably excelled in logical faculty and administrative ability, but Charles stands unrivalled as the sweetest lyrist the Christian Church has hitherto produced. The greatest charm of his verse is not alone the smoothness of its numbers, or the choice and graceful flow of its diction, for in these alone no hymnist, living or departed, has ever yet appoached him; but in his magic skill-we had almost said his gift of inspirationwith which he makes everything external translate the varied phenomena of his interior life. Historical incidents, Grecian mythology, and the good old Bible stories are all pressed into service and employed with singular beauty. They are in fact but the characters or forms in which he happily expresses the secret, subtle working of his own heart. Speaking, as he does, always therefrom, and that in such bold and beauteous imagery, no wonder he meets responses from every breast, and that varied as is the diversity of his compositions, they are regulated by the ever-changing feelings that worked and welled within him. If Burns spoke the heart of universal nature, and received from her the loudest capable response, no Christian poet has more fully expressed the hopes and fears, the griefs and joys, the struggles and triumphs, of a soul full bent for the kingdom of God, nor excited in such a soul a louder and longer echo. What other writers of hymns mostly employ mechanically, and that with varied effect, Charles Wesley always uses with an ethereality approaching as near pure spirituality itself as material emblems can possibly reach. His like in this respect the Church will most probably never see again. He is not alone the Asaph of Methodism, but of the entire Christian Church.

Take a few hastily-selected examples from his almost innumerable hymns. His wrestling Jacob stands among similar productions like Mont Blanc in the midst of mountains. Does he see David flying to the rescue of a lamb from a lion? The incident is but a key to unlock an experimental enjoyment.

In the devouring lion's teeth,

Torn and forsook of all I lay;
He sprang into the jaws of death

From death to save the helpless prey.

Is his imagination engaged with an old Roman soldier, clad

in mail, with his imaginary deities embossed on his armour, and so ready to battle? His heart supplies the sequel.

What though a thousand hosts engage!

A thousand worlds my soul to shake!
I have a shield shall quell their rage,
And drive the alien armies back;
Portrayed it bears a bleeding Lamb:
I dare believe in Jesu's name.

He is visiting Land's-End, in Cornwall. As he stands on the narrow tongue of earth stretching between the two oceans, he sees and seizes the spirituality of the scene in the hymn beginning:

Lo! on a narrow neck of land.

In a stone quarry, amid the blasting and breaking of rocks he wrote:

Come, O Thou all-victorious Lord,
Thy power to us make known;
Strike with the hammer of Thy word,
And break these hearts of stone.

We might go on illustrating, but we forbear. The difficulty is not to select, but to pass one of his divine songs. Perhaps the finest anadiplosis or reduplicatory form of expression found in any versifier is at his hand. Even Shakespeare's oft-quoted line does not surpass it: "'Tis true 'tis pity, and pity 'tis 'tis true." Wesley's is founded on David's verse connecting the soul with death, the eyes with tears, and the feet with falling.

My soul through my Redeemer's care,
Sav'd from the second death I feel;
My eyes from tears of dark despair,
My feet from falling into hell.
Wherefore to Him my feet shall run,
My eyes on His perfections gaze;
My soul shall live for God alone,

And all within me shout His praise.

Soon after Charles Wesley's marriage, his wife and first-born were despaired of, through a virulent attack of small-pox. The wife recovered, but the child died. A poem found among his private papers, after his own death, describing his mind during the event, contains these two touching couplets:

But still my better half survives,
Joseph is dead, but Rachel lives.
In yonder cloud of gold I see
The child who owes his birth to me.

SANCTIFICATION.

THE experience of pardon constitutes a turning-point in the history of the saved, Inexpressibly joyous and no less sacred is the hour when faith first realises its object, and a vital union is effected between the sinner and his Saviour. That design of God, which gave direction as well to all His providential dealings as to the visitations of His Holy Spirit, is now at least in part accomplished, "This my son was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!" The believing penitent himself is conscious of the greatness of the change which has passed upon him. Out of darkness he has emerged into "marvellous light." Guilt is cancelled. The terrible dread of final punishment exists no more. In his heart the love of God is shed abroad, and his lips are opened to declare, "O Lord, I will praise thee; though thou wast angry with me, thine anger is turned away, and thou comfortest me."

But it were wrong to suppose that the work of grace is finished, or that its completion is even virtually secured by this act of the Divine goodness. There still remains much to be done in the soul of the believer. True, he is delivered from the power of sin, but it is the purpose of God that he should be cleansed from all its indwellings and defilement. He is enabled now to walk in newness of life, but it is the will of God that he should be sanctified wholly, and be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Henceforth he must guard the sacred trust which has been committed to him. He must diligently use his every talent for the glory of God. And he must seek for the full renewal of his nature, and the entire consecration of his powers and possessions, that he may present the whole, a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to the Lord. To obtain this grace is the privilege of every true believer; but if destitute of this holiness, "no man shall see the Lord.”

The proper idea of sanctification involves three distinct elements. First there is separation to the service of God. Next there is the endowment with the grace and power of the Holy Spirit. Then there is the dedication and employment of our various faculties according to the dictates of revealed truth. To secure this result, on the part of His followers, was the end of our Saviour's appearance in the flesh, of His sufferings and death, and of His resurrection and ascension to the right hand of the Majesty on high. Thus His solemn appeal unto the Father: "For their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth."

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