thine; I will have fellowship with none but thee,let me sup with thee: yea, give me thine own flesh to eat, and thine own blood to drink.' Ah! dear Christian reader, it is because we have so little to do with Jesus, we admit him so seldom and so reluctantly to our hearts, we have so few dealings with him, travel so seldom to his blood and righteousness, and live so little upon his fulness, that we are compelled so often to exclaim," My leanness, my leanness!" But, if we be "risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God;" let us seek to know Christ more, to have more spiritual and enlarged comprehensions of his glory, to drink deeper into his love, to imbibe more of his spirit, and to conform more closely to his example.

But that which forms the great secret of all personal revival, is yet to be disclosed; we allude to a fresh baptism of the Holy Ghost. This a declining soul needs more than all beside. Possessing this in a large degree, he possesses every spiritual blessing it includes, and is the pledge of every other. Our dear Lord sought to impress this, his last consoling doctrine, upon the drooping minds of his disciples: his bodily presence in their midst, he taught them, was not to be compared with the spiritual and permanent dwelling of the Spirit among them. The descent of the Holy Ghost was to bring all things that he had taught them to their remembrance; it was to perfect them in their knowledge of the supreme glory of his person, the infinite perfection of his work, the nature and spirituality of his

kingdom, and its ultimate and certain triumphs in the earth. The descent of the Spirit, too, was to mature them in personal holiness, and more eminently fit them for their arduous and successful labor in his cause, by deepening their spirituality, enriching them with more grace, and enlarging them with more love. And fully did the baptism of the Holy Ghost, on the day of Pentecost, accomplish all this the apostles emerged from his influence, like men who had passed through a state of re-conversion.

And this is the state, dear reader, you must pass through, would you experience a revival of God's work in your soul: you must be reconverted, and that through a fresh baptism of the Holy Ghost. Nothing short of this will quicken your dying graces, and melt your frozen love; nothing save this will arrest your secret declension, and restore your backsliding heart. You must be baptized afresh with the Spirit; that Spirit whom you have so often and so deeply wounded, grieved, slighted and quenched, must enter you anew, and seal, and sanctify, and re-convert you. O arise, and pray, and agonise for the outpouring of the Spirit upon your soul; give up your lifeless religion, your form without the power, your prayer without communion, your confessions without brokenness, your zeal without love. And O, what numerous and precious promises cluster in God's word, all inviting you to seek this blessing! "He shall come down like rain upon the mown grass; as showers that water the earth." Psalm lxxii. 6. "I will heal their backslidings, I will love

them freely; for mine anger is turned away from him. I will be as the dew unto Israel: he shall grow as the lily, and cast forth his roots as Lebanon. His branches shall spread, and his beauty shall be as the olive-tree, and his smell as Lebanon. They that dwell under his shadow shall return; they shall revive as the corn, and grow as the vine; the scent thereof shall be as the wine of Lebanon." Hos. xiv. 4-7. 66 Come, let us return unto the Lord; for he hath torn, and he will heal us; he hath smitten, and he will bind us up. After two days will he revive us, in the third day he will raise us up, and we shall live in his sight. Then shall we know, if we follow on to know the Lord: his going forth is prepared as the morning; and he shall come unto us as the rain, as the latter and former rain unto the earth." vi. 1-3. Seek, then, above and beyond all other blessings, the renewed baptism of the Holy Ghost. "Be filled with the Spirit;" seek it earnestly,seek it under the deep conviction of your absolute need of it,-seek it perseveringly, seek it believingly. God has promised, "I will pour out my Spirit upon you ;" and, asking it in the name of Jesus, you shall receive.

One word more: Be not surprised if the Lord should place you in circumstances of deep trial, in order to recover you from your soul-declension: the Lord often adapts the peculiarity of the discipline to that of the case. Is it secret declension? He may send some secret rebuke, some secret cross, some hidden chastisement: no one has discovered thy concealed declension, and no one discovers thy concealed

correction. The declension was between God and thy soul, so also it may be is the rebuke; the backsliding was of the heart, so also is the chastisement. But if the sanctified trial works the recovery of your soul, the restoration to Christ of your wavering heart, the revival of his entire work within you, you shall adore him for the discipline; and with David, extolling the dealings of a covenant God and Father, shall exclaim," Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now have I kept thy word. It is good for me that I have been afflicted, that I might learn thy statutes!"

Lastly: Set out afresh for God and heaven, as though you had never started in the way before. Commence at the beginning; go as a sinner to Jesus; seek the quickening, healing, sanctifying influence of the Spirit; and let this be your prayer, presented, and urged until answered, at the footstool of mercy: "O Lord, revive thy work! Quicken me, O Lord!

Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation!" In answer to thy petition, "He shall come down like rain upon the mown grass; as showers that water the earth;" and thy song shall be that of the church, "My Beloved spake, and said unto me, Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away. For lo, the winter is past, the rain is over, and gone. The flowers appear on the earth, the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land. The fig-tree putteth forth her green figs, and the vines with the tender grape give a good smell. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away."

"The love of many shall wax cold."-Matt. xxiv. 12.

HAVING described the hidden and incipient declension of the believer, we propose in the present and succeeding chapters, to trace this melancholy state in some of its more advanced stages, as it is seen in the languor and decay of the graces of the Spirit in the soul. It is no longer the concealed, but developed, character of spiritual and personal declension that we are now to consider. Its type is more marked, and its symptoms more palpable and visible to the eye. It has arrived at such a stage as to render concealment impossible. Just as in the physical frame, a slight sinking in the heart's pulsation, even though the seat of disease is invisible, may be traced in the external symptoms that ensue; so, in the spiritual man, when there is a secret unhealthiness of soul, the effects are so marked in their character as to leave no doubt of its existence. The man may not himself be sensible of his backsliding state; he may wrap himself up in the fearful deception that all is well, close his eyes voluntarily against his real state, disguise from himself the rapidly advancing disease, crying peace, peace,' and putting far off the evil day; but with a spiritual and advancing believer,