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the right hand of God, the Almighty He remained in his room, Father."

The Counts of Mansfield, with upwards of a hundred men on horseback, met him at the boundary of their territory, and escorted him with every mark of respect and distinction to Eisleben. Thus the miner's son, honoured alike by peer and peasant, retired to the place of his birth!

The business which brought him there he found more difficult to settle

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than he expected. "Dearest Kate," he writes to his wife, we are here sitting like martyrs, and wish again to be with you: but it cannot be arranged in eight days, as I thought. Tell Magister Philippus that I wish him to correct his sermon, for he has not rightly understood why the Lord in his parable has compared riches to thorns. Here is the school where we can thoroughly learn what that means."

On the 14th February he writes— "To my sweet wife, Catherine Luther von Bora. Grace and peace in the Lord. Dear Catherine,--We hope to be with you again this week, if it please God. The Almighty has manifested the power of His grace in this affair. The lords have come to an agreement upon all the points in dispute except two or three; and among other great ends achieved, Counts Gebhard and Albert are reconciled."

But Luther and his Ketha were never to meet again in this world. His labours at Eisleben were great. He preached four times, besides attending sedulously to business of various kinds. And it was apparent to all that though the spirit was willing the flesh was very weak. On the morning of the 17th he was persuaded by his friends to abstain from attending the business conference.

much en

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gaged in prayer. In the evening, however, he joined the company in the dining-room, and conversed with much cheerfulness, but chiefly regarding the future state. At ten he retired to bed, and at one in the morning awoke very ill. His sons, the Count and Countess Albrecht, with other friends and two physicians, immediately surrounded his bed, and he told them he was dying. My dear Jonas," he said, "I think I shall remain here at Eisleben, here where I was born." He prayed with much fervour and confidence, thanking the Father for having revealed to him His Son Jesus Christ, in whom he believed, whom he had preached and confessed, whom he loved, and with whom he was now to dwell for ever. Three times he exclaimed, "Lord! into thy hands I commit my spirit!" he grew visibly weaker Dr. Jonas said to him," most reverent father, can you die with firm confidence in Christ, and the doctrines you have taught ?" He unhesitatingly and distinctly replied, "yes." It was his last utterance; shortly after, between two and three o'clock in the morning of the 18th of February he slept in Jesus.

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In all honour, even as if it were the remains of a prince, the body of Luther was carried back to Wittenberg. The Pastor Burgenhager preached a funeral sermon, and Melancthon pronounced an oration in Latin (which was immediately translated into German) beside the coffin, before it was committed to its last resting-place in the city church, near the pulpit from which the great reformer had so often proclaimed the good news of salvation.

ᎷᎪᎡᏀᎪᎡᎬᎢ .

DAVID'S SIN AND DAVID'S PSALM; OR, HOW INFIDELITY

men.

TREATS THE

BY THE REV. ENOCH

THERE are few things out of which infidelity has made more capital than the faults, failings, and sins of the children of God. When driven by fair and honest reasoning from every other stronghold-if, indeed, it has any refuge worthy of such a designation - it almost uniformly betakes itself to a morbid anatomy of the inconsistencies of professors, and thinks that in them it has a sufficient shield for its unbelief. Though it renounces the Bible as an unauthorised book, a fabrication of deceiving and ignorant men, a creation of priests for the purpose of keeping the world in awe, it manages with startling inconsistency to appeal to the same book when it thinks that something may be found there to the disadvantage of godly Its principles of criticism are wonderfully elastic and convenient. The Book is untrue when it enforces duty, when it narrates miracles, when it appeals to the sanctions of eternity, but it is most true when it records some disgraceful transgression on the part of some one holding a high position as a child of God. Of Abraham, for example, it believes nothing but what is least creditable to him. As to his leaving his country and his father's house in Mesopotamia, and going in faith to an unknown land with God as his guide; and as to his willingness to offer up Isaac, his son, in homage to the same God; this is all a myth which some one suddenly created, or which gradually grew; but as to his prevarication with respect to Sarah, his wife, before Abimelech, that must be true. As to Jacob, it is incredible

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BIBLE.

MELLOR, M.A.

that he ever saw as it were a ladder spanning the vast interval between earth and heaven, and filled with angels ascending and descendingincredible that he could wrestle with the angel of God until the breaking of the day; but it is most credible that he deceived his father, and by guile obtained the blessing meant for Esau, and most credible, too, that he availed himself of Esau's maddening hunger to obtain the birth-right for a mess of pottage. The flood of Noah must be rejected as a pure invention, and the righteousness of Noah as seen in his general life; but his drunkenness on one occasion is really incontestable, though here, too, it is concealed how that was, in all probability, purely accidental, and arose from ignorance of the properties of the vine.

And with respect to David, this curious method of criticism has been still more signally displayed. As his life is still more detailed, so it affords more scope for the exercise of this perverse and disingenuous spirit. And of all the men of Scripture there is none who has been made the subject of such sarcastic merriment as the shepherd king. And here, too, you will see the same curious selection from the narratives of his life as shall be most damaging to his reputation. His slaying of the lion and the bear, his encounter with Goliah of Gath, and his exploit with sling and stone must be relegated to the limbo of legends as inventions of an after age, for the purpose of glorifying his memory; but his guilty conduct with respect to Uriah and his wife must,

perforce, be accepted as fine and characteristic illustrations of what may be the piety of a man after God's own heart. So that if you would know what seems to be the supreme canon of historic criticism, as applied by modern scepticism to the Scriptures, it is somewhat as follows:-Reject the Bible whenever it contains anything wonderful or creditable to its leading heroes; but believe every word which paints them with dishonour and disgrace. The bright parts are false,the dark parts are true!

Now without going at length into the exposure of this uncandid spirit and method, it may be briefly inquired how it comes to pass that in a book which it is alleged was written for the purpose of glorifying certain heroes, these discreditable acts should have been recorded at all. Against biographies in general, it has been charged as a fault that they conceal the worst side of their subjects; and some persons after reading such highly flattering narratives have felt as if they had been perusing the lives of angels instead of men, and wondered that no one discovered their perfection till they died. And where friend writes the biography of friend it is not unnatural that the softening influence of death should make one feel unwilling to lift the veil from certain unquestionable flaws; and it is no wonder, where the biographer is an enthusiast, if faults become beauties in his sight. But he must have been a curious friend, and still more curious enthusiast, who wrote the life of David, when he could set in such dazzling and searching light, sins and follies of such abounding magnitude. A partial friend, a thorough partisan, an idolatrous enthusiast, was he who

was he not

penned these records! What?-and yet he could describe with such terrible faithfulness and fulness his double and related sin of adultery and murder! We are not bound to reveal all the sins of our friends, and why silent about these crimes of David? He was not silent because he dared not be. He was under a higher inspiration than his own. He knew that he had to give a true portrait, and not a pleasing picture or a distorted caricature. He had to give the life of David to the world, with all its lights and shadows, its high principles and its low inconsistencies. He had to give us a photograph of the king of Israel, and to show us the face of his spirit with its fine expression and its disfiguring warts and moles. This he HAD to do, and this he has done. The drawbacks are put in as clear a light as the excellencies, the blemishes as the beauties. And what is more; if we have the faithful history, we have also the faithful psalm, and this psalm written with the pen of David. If it had so been that we had read of David's sin but not of his repentance, or if we had seen him glory in his shame, then men might have pierced with their shafts of ridicule a man who could commit such crimes, and yet be denominated a man after God's own heart. But do we not hear of his repentance? Do we not find him like a pelican in the wilderness? Is he not as a sparrow upon the housetops? Is not his heart withered like grass ? Do not his bones cleave to his skin? and may not men count them by reason of his sorrow? Are not his tears his food and his drink? Was he not so troubled that ofttimes he could not speak? Was he not

unable to look up by reason of his grief? Was not his moisture turned into the drought of summer? Have we not, in the Fifty-first Psalm, a perfect wail of sorrow, as from a man deep down in the horrible pit and the miry clay, craving for mercy and forgiveness as the only blessing that could save him from despair? If infidelity has enough of modesty left in its face to admit of a blush, let shame crimson it, that it can chuckle over David's sin, and not weep with

him in his repentance; that it can talk of nothing but his blemish, as if beneath and around it there were not beauties such as reverence, faith, love, unselfishness, which raise him to a distinction which all may covet but few attain. We may well draw near with silent and reverent foot to the closet of the royal bard, as, on bended knee and with streaming eyes, and with heaving heart, and with wailing voice, he is wrestling for pardon, and cries, "My sin is ever before me!"

THOUGHTS FOR THE LORD'S TABLE.

BY THE REV. GEORGE SMITH, D.D. "Let a man examine himself."-1 COR. xi. 28.

FROM that memorable night when our Lord, in an upper room at Jeru salem, instituted the Supper, with a view to commemorate the fact of His atoning death, down to the present time, this ordinance has been one of the great means through which

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God has communicated His holiest influences to His people. It has been in His Church a great fountain of light and life, diffusing gladness and strength to those who have observed it aright. Both in rude and polished ages, in seasons of persecution and prosperity, when celebrated by the early Christians in the damp vaults of the catacombs, or as observed in modern edifices of convenience and comfort, it has alike proved itself to be divine by its actual adaptation to the wants of the faithful followers of Christ. It teaches impressively the great truths involved in our redemption from the pollution of the present evil world, and the condemnation of the world to come. It promotes our love to each other and to the invisible

Saviour; it brings consolation to the heart of sorrow, it calls into exercise all the graces and virtues of regenerated humanity; it awakens pure and disinterested thoughts, and stimulates divine purposes and hopes in relation to future earthly duties and eternal joys.

It is evident, however, that in order to observe the ordinance of the Lord's Supper with acceptance and advantage, our minds must be in harmony with the sacred exercise. We must not only eat bread and drink wine, but we must perform these acts as expressive of certain sentiments and feelings in accordance with their design. Hence arises the necessity of self-knowledge and self-examination. In a religion entirely ritual and external a man can scarcely mistake as to the question whether he is religious or not; but in a religion like ours, which is spiritual as well as outward, there is room for self-deception, and, of course, much need of careful self-enquiry.

The delicate and difficult duty of

self-examination devolves upon us in relation to our actual state and daily habit before God. "Examine yourselves," said the Apostle Paul to the Corinthians, "whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves." They were ready enough to examine him, to investigate his credentials as an Apostle, and to prove or try his claim as an inspired teacher. He, from a sincere desire to promote their religious welfare, reminded them of the personal obligation under which they were placed to examine themselves. And so we should enquire, each one of us, Am I reconciled to God by the death of His Son; and, if so, am I growing in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ?

Now, if self-examination be at all times useful and necessary, it is especially requisite to a right partaking of the Lord's Supper. Certain cor ruptions had sprung up in the Corinthian Church, in the observance of this ordinance, and the Apostle Paul, who had not been present at its original institution, but who had been fully instructed by direct revelation from Jesus Christ in its true nature and design, undertook to explain the proper manner of celebrating it, and among other instructions said, "Let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup." This injunction, like the more general one to which we have already referred, is personal. A man is to examine himself, not his pastor or his fellow-communicant, but himself. There are occasions on which we may not only lawfully give, but lawfully require from each other, a profession of the hope that is in us; but when suitable means have been taken to

secure purity of communion in the Church, our thoughts, in prospect of commemorating the Lord's death, should be introverted, be turned in upon ourselves, and not directed to others, so that we may wait only upon God. We are not to judge each other, but each one to judge himself. And this, not as though the act were intended to discourage our approach to the Table, under a dread of unfitness, but to render the path of duty clear to our own minds.

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The subjects on which we should examine ourselves are purely religious, and are infinitely important. They ought, obviously, to have regard to the principles we hold. Some persons affect to undervalue religious sentiment, and affirm that it is a matter of indifference as to what opinions we entertain, if the life be in the right. But the influence of principles cannot fail to be great on the formation of character and the regulation of practice, and if the heart be not right with God the life cannot be acceptable to Him. God had respect to Abel, and then to his offering; and we must first be "accepted in the Beloved," before any act of service will be pleasing to Him who seeth not as man seeth, but who looketh at the heart. Let us, then, each one, enquire, in prospect of approaching the Table of the Lord, Have I right views respecting God? His essential Being and unity, His natural and moral perfections, as revealed in the Scriptures, challenge my attention and belief. Do I believe in the ever-blessed Jehovah ? or am I without God in the world? Have I correct impressions of my own state as a sinner, guilty and undone, unable to make atonement for the offences I have committed against the law and love

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