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Though scarce the half we view,
Yet 'tis a circle true,

Yon beauteous orb on high:
And many a thing besides
Man doubts, or e'en derides,
When hidden from his eye.

Proud children of mankind,
Poor creatures are, and blind,
And little 'tis they know;
Full many a thread they spin,

And many a search begin,

While from the wished-for goal they do but farther go.

Lord, let us see Thy grace,

Rejoice before Thy face,

Nor trust in vanity!

A simple mind bestow,

And, while we dwell below,

Thy happy loving children may we be!

Our hearts it will not grieve

Gently this world to leave,

When time the call shall give;

Then may we soar above,

And in that heaven of love

With Thee for ever live!

Cool blows the evening air ;-
Brothers, to rest repair,

In God's good name.

Lord, in Thy mercy keep,

Grant us in peace to sleep,

And to all sick and sad ones grant the same!

F. B.

Kissing on the Windows.

BY REV. W. POOLE BALFERN.

E once saw a very bright and pretty little girl walking down the street and constantly stopping to look at herself in the shop windows. The apparent joy and sparkling vivacity of the child attracted and fixed our attention. On observing her more

closely we found that she had evidently been newly clad; her clothes were not only clean, but fresh and bright; her golden ringlets fell upon her shoulders; her face was radiant with joy, and her bright blue eyes sparkled with delight as she again and again cast forth admiring looks towards her own image as reflected in the shop windows as she gaily passed along, until at last, fairly overcome with the sight of her own beauty, she repeatedly stood still, and drawing near to the windows as she passed along in a sort of silent rapture, pressed her lips again and again to the plateglass and kissed herself. And she did this repeatedly as we watched until distance and the passers-by hid her from our sight.

Thinking over the self-adulation of the child, we thought we had only beheld in her outward conduct a very striking picture and illustration of certain states of mind very common to many. Among others, this child we thought very much resembles those who are always the most pleased with what is termed the last and most perfect phase of religious thought. With such often the teachings of the past are ignored, and the Word of C is only so far received as it agrees with their preconceived opinions. The Bible is, indeed, with them a kind of variegated wardrobe of mind adornment, out of which their fancy and ingenuity are constantly selecting something new with which to adorn their last-born crudities, and hold themselves up to the admiration of those whose recent beliefs, so far as they think they have any, resemble their own. Such men do with the Bible as they do with themselves-they live upon its surface, which they kiss in various ways as they do themselves, never condescending to go as guided by Divine light into the deeps of their being and a knowledge of sin, and hence, whatever they may recognise of the truth of the Scriptures, they never feel or acknowledge their need of a Saviour. The homage they yield to Him is only that of the lip, and His words only so far received and used as they afford them an opportunity of self-display and

In the little girl kissing

indirect adoration of themselves. herself on the windows we see their mental and religious photograph drawn to the life-the happy face and last new dress very significant indeed in relation to the spirit and beliefs of such.

Others emulate this child's spirit and conduct in the importance they attach to certain vestments and outward forms. Such men declare that they can only properly officiate before the people as the Priests of God as they are clothed in a certain dress, and for these external symbols of their creed they have shown themselves willing to suffer the penalties of at least a modern and comparatively luxurious martyrdom. The absence, however, of all earnest contention for those living truths of the everlasting gospel for which the primitive confessors of the faith faced death in all its most revolting forms, declares too plainly that they have no existence in their experience, and that their zeal for a certain dress in many instances is but a sensuous adoration of ecclesiastical pride and idolatry of themselves.

Others there are also who, while repudiating such outward forms of worship, and are very zealous for what they term the simplicity of Protestant ritual, are equally earnest in seeking to clothe themselves in the apparel of their own good deeds, arrayed in which, they do not hesitate, like the Pharisee of old, to give themselves the kiss of self-idolatry, and to praise themselves as they enumerate their good works even before God; so satisfied, indeed, are they with their own creature performances as a ground of acceptance before the Great Judge, that they do not hesitate to declare that God is their debtor, and must receive them as clothed in the costly vestments of their own virtues and made perfect by the work of their own hands. To such men the death of Christ is a mystery they cannot understand, and the fact that He came here to seek and save the lost but the figment of a perverted conscience or morbid self-consciousness.

Others, under the influence of a still more subtle spirit of

self-deception, make a Saviour of their feelings and mystic sensations; they like "to go up from nature up to nature's God." In sympathy with a gifted poet they sing:

"When thoughts

Of the last bitter hour come like a blight
Over thy spirit, and sad images

Of the stern agony, and shroud and pall,
And breathless darkness, and the narrow house
Make thee to shudder and grow sick at heart,
Go forth under the open sky and list

To Nature's teachings, while from all around—
Earth and her waters, and the depths of air—
Comes a voice!"

This voice such profess to hear, and declare that it is audible to them through certain feelings, tranquilising, elevating, and pure; but it is not a voice which weans them from love of fame, which preserves them from the kiss of self-love and the subtle spirit of intellectual pride and selfidolatry; on the contrary, the voice of Him who, while He is the Lord of nature is no less the King of salvation, is seldom heard through His own works, or, if heard, only to be despised and its meaning rejected as foolishness.

Do you who read these lines see yourself reflected in any one of these experiences? Does the conduct of the little child here depicted reflect your spirit and belief? If you are trusting in mere religious sentiments which exclude Christ, however beautiful to yourself and pleasing to others, you are but worshipping yourself, and kissing your own opinions in the glass of a vain and self-deceiving imagination. If you are resting upon the outward forms of worship, however correct and educated your taste, trusting to your good deeds or refined and mystic feelings evoked by the influence of nature, or warm admiration of the beautiful and the true, you are but kissing self, like the little child in the window, and you are as truly guilty of idolatry as those who bow down to worship an image the work of their own hands. The Word of God declares that we have all sinned, that

we are all lost, and that all our own righteousnesses are but as filthy rags; that by the deeds of the law no flesh living shall be justified; that the blood of Christ only can cleanse us from sin, and that He only by His free grace can save us from its guilt and dominion; and that only as we renounce self and all hope in ourselves, and embrace Him only by faith, can we be saved or reach a safe and scriptural evidence; that our self-trust and ignorant idolatry of ourselves has been killed, and that God has received us as His children, and accepted and saved us in the Great Son of His love; and if, as the result of God's teaching and grace, we are thus brought to know ourselves and to trust in Christ only for our acceptance with God, the spirit of the poet will be ours:

"Lord, mine must be a spotless dress,
But 'tis not mine to weave it;
For Thou hast wrought my righteousness,
I have but to receive it.

Fair robe divine! the grace is mine,
And all the glory, Lord, is Thine.

It is not mine to toil for peace;

Thy cross, O Christ! doth make it.

I only need from toil to cease,
And gladly, simply take it.

Sweet peace divine !-the grace is mine,
And all the glory, Lord, is Thine!

It is not mine to purchase life,

I take because Thou givest;

Wielding Thy power 'mid sin and strife,
I live because Thou livest.

Glad life divine !-the grace is mine,
And all the glory, Lord, is Thine."

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