and his relations to heaven, of his state by nature and his state by grace. Mark this. "By one man's disobedience sin came into the world, and death by sin." When Adam broke the happy rule of obedience sentence of death was passed upon him-"In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." He died. Yes, he died, though in the flesh he lived. His spirit was consigned to torpor, to bondage. His body and mind felt only the shadow of the curse. It was not his body by the eating of the fruit, not his mind by the desire for knowledge, but the spirit by voluntary severance from God that incurred the full, ay, the merited measure of Almighty wrath. Adam lived after the fall, yet in the fall he died; the FALL was death, it was disobedience, it was relinquishment of union with God. In him all perished. He had but a blighted soul to bequeath by paternity to his children; they inherited thata soul scarred by sin, dead in sin, by nature fallen. Behold, then, the distinct meaning of the second birth! It is the restoration by God Himself for the sake of Christ of the life that was extinguished in Adam. There must be a second birth, the soul must be regenerated; we must be transformed into the likeness of the Second Adam who restores what we lost in the first. The mind resting on its own powers cannot attain to a knowledge of God.

The complete man was lost in the father of the race. The death inflicted on Adam was an immediate death of the soul in its subjection to sin and the consequences of sin. The complete man is restored only in the Second Adam, who passed unscathed through the fiery trial of a temptation that was threefold in its nature and addressed to body, soul, and spirit, accomplishing for us an eternal salvation. Under the fall the spirit languishes, under grace it revives. Under the fall it can but struggle in darkness, like the first efforts of a volcanic flame to escape into the free air; when re-born, re-made, re-vivified by the breath of God, the struggle ceases and it darts upward, and, like the liberated flame, aspires to heaven and reflects the light of heaven, rejoicing in its strength and freedom. "Marvel not that I said to you, ye must be born again."

We have seen that the third element in man is that which lifts him above the dust with which his life is entangled into fellowship with God. In that fellowship his spirit will culminate in its knowledge of God and in admiration of that finished work which the angels desire to look into. It will bring the body and the mind with it. His life in heaven would be incomplete unless the whole of man were there. As in our sense of "identity" we can understand that the three elements of our nature are in union, so by a corollary we may not find it hard to believe that "there are three that bear record in heaven," and that these three are one. The body shall

be glorified," it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body;" the mind shall be purified," it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power;" the soul shall be perfected,-it is dead by sin, but shall be alive to righteousness. God has taken the form of man to restore man to the likeness of God. To the three persons and one God be all praise. Amen.

LIGHTS AND SHADOWS OF MISSION LIFE AMONG THE KARENS.

KO THAHBYOO.

"He is a chosen vessel."-Acts ix. 15.

ABOUT the year 1833 a prisoner lay in one of the jails at Rangoon. The man was a Karen, who, with thousands of his people, groaned under the cruel oppression of Burmah. Bowed down by even a heavier yoke of ignorance and superstition, this wild mountain tribe retained amongst them, though mixed with folly and absurdity, some rays of truth, which they cherished even beyond the hope that some day the iron bondage of Burmese tyranny would be broken, and they would be free. Strange it is that this forest race, sharing with the tiger and the hyena the rocky fastnesses of Tavoy, had among them a tradition that "white foreigners should come from the West who would tell them of an eternal God and the way of life." So that when the roar of British artillery was heard rolling like thunder along the shore, striking terror into the hearts of their Burmese rulers, it sounded like sweet music in the ears of the poor, despised Karens, for it told them of the coming of the "white foreigners" who would bring with them "the knowledge of the words of God." One of this wild people, described by visitors as "untamable as the wild cow of the mountains," and even more daring and intractable than most of his countrymen, having been robber and a murderer, was Ko Thahbyoo, the prisoner for debt in the Rangoon jail, afterwards, by the grace of God, the first evangelist, commonly called among the churches "the Apostle of the Karens." As he lay there, sad and desolate, his condition touched with pity the hearts of some of the Burmese converts, and one of them, having paid his debt, became, according to the custom of the country, his temporary master. Softened by the kindness of the Burmese Christians, he listened to the sweet story of the Cross,

66

and eventually was converted to Christ. Through him access was gained to his countrymen, and for years he might be seen pioneering little parties of teachers through the dense jungles and mountain passes to the rocky homes of the Karens. Sometimes alone, at others accompanied by the missionary and a few followers," as described by the pen of a gifted writer, herself one of the mission band, "they threaded their trackless march through the Karen wilderness, over hills and across streams and ravines which appeared almost impassable, with the fierce, wily tiger by the wayside, and troops of grinning, chattering monkeys overhead, huge mountains stretching far into the clouds, with the wild streamlets which feed some mighty river, dashing, bounding, and leaping from rock to rock down their precipitous sides, like snow-wreaths gifted with the spirit of life; and far down in the deep valley rolls the calm Poluck slowly and gravely to its destination, like the river of a good man's life, gliding through this earthly vale to the ocean of a blessed eternity. Among scenes like these, and others wilder and darker, they went, scattering seeds of truth of priceless value in their way, and greeting many a thirsty lip with the water of life,' and waking in the dead spirits of the wilderness a pulse which never beat there before. The Gospel of the grace of God, now transforming its power, how it lighted up that moral wilderness, truly wild, horrid, and dark,' with beams of sacred radiance and joy. Its power is the same to brighten the Karen valleys and homes or penetrate the dim courts and alleys of densely crowded cities. It warms into life souls dead in trespasses and sins, in the wilds of Tavoy or highly favoured Europe. Everywhere man's need is the same, everywhere the gift of God is eternal life to all who believe in Jesus. Truly, God's ways are not as our ways, nor His thoughts as our thoughts. What the Holy Spirit said of the persecuting Saul of Tarsus might have been said of Ko Thahbyoo-he is a chosen vessel'—and well and earnestly did he fulfil his mission to his people, as the annals of the Karen churches testify. He was the first-fruits of Tavoy unto God,' for this man's conversion was the means of attracting the attention of the missionaries in Burmah to the race to which he belonged, and of founding a mission which, for interest and success, has scarcely been equalled by any mission of modern times. The people received the Gospel gladly, believing the mysterious prediction of their elders that the white strangers had come across the sea to teach them the words of God,' and release them from their present state of bondage and degradation. And were not these hopes realised? Let the triumphant deaths and happy homes of the Christian Karens bear witness to the constraining, transforming power of the love of Christ and the truth as it is in Jesus."

THE KARENS.

"The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light."-Isa. ix. 2. On the eastern side of the Bay of Bengal, and south of Burmah, is situated a territory generally supposed to be the Davnal of Kolomg, now called by the English Tavoy. It is described in our geographies as a province famous for the luxuriance of its vegetation and the variety and value of its forest trees. It is bounded on the north by Burmah proper, on the east by Siam, on the south by Lower Siam and Malaga, and on the west its coast is washed by the blue waters of the Bay of Bengal. Within these limits is a country not only rich in nature's loveliness, but consecrated by the memory of some who have lived, and laboured, and died among its people; who, counting not their lives dear, had forsaken home and friends to carry the glad news of salvation to these "regions beyond," where for centuries have brooded ignorance, and darkness, and the very shadow of death. Tavoy is remarkable for its natural beauty of hill and dale, of rock and river, and luxuriant flowering trees and shrubs, of which the hand of God seems prodigal in this favoured spot. Among those which particularly attract the notice of strangers is the Amherstia nobilis, with its drooping branches and large pea blossoms of red and yellow, hanging down more than a yard long. The nodding clerodendron, indigenous to the glens of Tavoy and Arracan, is described by Dr. Mason " most elegant flowering plant he ever saw." The flowers are white, in long panicles at the extremities of the branches, from which they make a graceful curve, and hang down perpendicularly from ten to fifteen inches, like an inverted cone. Each blossom hangs from its panicle like an eardrop, so that order and elegance seem inseparable from this beautiful plant. The delicate tuberose, whose snowy bell pours its sweetness on the air at evening, is common in the native gardens, as well as the fragrant-flowered minnerops and the henna-tree, or camphere, the gorgeous jonesia, and a great variety of orchids form part of the Tavoy flora. An abundance of tropical fruits and vegetables affords food to its inhabitants, and many brilliantly coloured birds, with numerous animals and reptiles, make the forests and hills resound with their songs and voices. Tavoy produces several metals of value, particularly tin. Scarcely any more precious stones than garnets have been found, but every considerable stream "rolls down its golden sand." Gold mixed with tin is found in the sand of the River Henzaie, and near the old city of Tenasserim people may be seen washing the sands for gold. In this land, where truly "every prospect pleases, but only man is vile,” dwell a people scattered up and down among its moun

as the

tains and jungles of simple habits, indolent, and addicted to drunkenness, who have for ages been bond-slaves to Burmah, but released on the subjection of Tavoy to English rule. They are called Karens, or Wildmen, on account of their rude, migratory habits. "Many opinions have been advanced," writes Mrs. Judson, "but who they are, or whence they came, if they be not indigenous to the Karen wilderness, is a mystery even to themselves." They have never embraced Buddhism, the national religion of Burmah. Doubtless the treatment they continually received at the hands of their oppressors increased their aversion to idolatry. The Karens were everywhere cruelly oppressed by the Burmese, among whom they dwelt, and by whom they were considered as inferiors and slaves, being compelled to pay large tributes to the Burmese Government, and perform every kind of servile labour. They everywhere presented to the eyes of the first missionaries the sad spectacle of a downtrodden race of bond-slaves; at the same time a remarkable phenomenon of a people without any form of religion, or established priesthood, believing in the existence of God, and in a state of future rewards and punishments, and cherishing a set of traditions of unusual purity and interest. Blended with tradition they had some singular prophecies that "white foreigners would come across the sea to teach them the words of God." Hence, when the missionaries of the Cross first went among them they evinced the greatest delight, and welcomed them with the utmost enthusiasm. They believed that the mysterious predictions of their elders were about to be fulfilled. "Take this book and observe its precepts," said a white man to a Karen in the jail at Tavoy nearly a century before the entrance of the Gospel there, as he put into his hands the Book of Common Prayer, with the Psalms, in English, printed at Oxford. Who this white man was, or what induced him to give the Karen an English copy of the Psalms, will most likely for ever remain unknown. He may have been a kind-hearted Christian, who sympathised with the wild forester, and in the hope that the Gospel would some time reach Tavoy gave him this portion of the Bible. The Karen to whom the book was given had been thrown into jail on the charge of "praying and teaching others to pray for the arrival of the white foreigners." He had assured the people that God would appear for their deliverance, and exhorted them to remember their ancient tradition that God had once dwelt among them, and that He had departed to the West; but that they had the promise of His return, and though long delayed He would assuredly reappear, and would come with the "white foreigners," with whom He had departed, and whose ships were from time to time then seen on the coast. "When God returns," said he, "the dead trees will bloom again, the tigers and serpents will become