contemptible “ tricks of trade" in order to make money or make a living, when our Father has pledged Himself to care for us all the journey through?

2. " Mary," Middlesex. We render hearty thanks to God for His exceeding goodness in enabling you to enter on the path of simple obedience to His holy word. May He graciously strengthen and sustain you! May He fill you with the joy of His own blessed presence! You may find the path rough and lonely; but oh! the light of His countenance will more than make up for all that. Go on, dear friend, steadily on. Cleave to the Lord with purpose of heart. It is but a little while of toil, trial, and suffering here, and then the eternal rest of our Father's home above, in unbroken fellowship with the One who loveth us and hath washed us from our sins in His own blood. To Him we do most earnestly commend you, dear friend, in spirit, soul and body. May He deliver you from every evil work, and preserve you unto His heavenly kingdom!

3. "C. A. C.," Valparaiso. We are deeply interested in your letter. May you all be greatly helped and strengthened in the way of truth! We trust the Lord may soon open the way for you to have His table spread in your midst, so that you may taste the sweet privilege of remembering Him in His death-the sweetest privilege of the church of God on earth. Wait on Him about it-wait together-wait patiently. not run before Him. See His hand opening the way ere you move one step. Be much in prayer, and in the study of His word. Read Psalms cxxxiii. and Philippians ii. May you realise and illustrate those precious scriptures!

Do

4." M. S. S.," St. Petersburg. Accept our warmest thanks for your deeply interesting letter. Be assured you have our hearty sympathy and earnest prayers in all your exercise. We give you for your comfort, 1 Peter v. 10, and Hebrews xiii. 20, 21.

CONVERSION: WHAT IS IT?

PART II.

IN our paper for January, we sought to set forth the absolute need, in every case, of conversion. Scripture establishes this point in such a way as to leave no possible ground of objection for any one who bows to its holy authority. " Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven." Matthew xviii. 3.

This applies, in all its moral force and deep solemnity, to every son and daughter of fallen Adam. There is not so much as a solitary exception, throughout the thousand millions that people this globe. Without conversion, there is-there can be no entrance into the kingdom of God. Every unconverted soul is outside the kingdom of God. It matters not, in the smallest degree, who I am, or what I am; if I am unconverted, I am in "the kingdom of darkness," under the power of Satan, in my sins, and on the way to hell.

I may be a person of blameless morals; of spotless reputation; a high professor of religion; a worker in the vineyard; a Sunday School teacher; an officebearer in some branch of the professing church; an ordained minister; a deacon, elder, pastor or bishop; a most charitable individual; a munificent donor to religious and benevolent institutions; looked up to, sought after, and reverenced by all because of my personal worth and moral influence. I may be all this and more; I may be, and I may have, all that it is

possible for a human being to be or to have, and yet be unconverted, and hence outside the kingdom of God, and in the kingdom of Satan, in my guilt, and on the broad road that leads straight down to the lake that burns with fire and brimstone.

Such is the plain and obvious meaning and force of our Lord's words in Matthew xviii. 3. There is no possibility of evading it. The words are as clear as a sunbeam. We cannot get over them. They bear down, with what we may truly call tremendous solemnity, upon every unconverted soul on the face of the earth. 66 'Except ye be converted, ye cannot enter the kingdom of heaven." This applies, with equal force, to the degraded drunkard that rolls along the street, worse than a beast, and to the unconverted good templar or teetotaller who prides himself on his sobriety, and is perpetually boasting of the number of days, weeks, months or years during which he has refrained from all intoxicating drink. They are both alike outside the kingdom of God; both in their sins; both on the way to eternal destruction.

True it is that the one has been converted from drunkenness to sobriety-a very great blessing indeed, in a moral and social point of view-but conversion from drunkenness to a temperance society is not conversion to God; it is not turning from darkness to light; it is not entering the kingdom of God's dear Son. There is just this difference between the two, that the teetotaller may be building upon his temperance, pluming himself upon his morality, and thus deceiving himself into the vain notion that he is all right, whereas, in reality, he is all wrong. The

drunkard is palpably and unmistakably wrong. Every body knows that a drunkard is going headlong, and with awfully rapid strides, to that place where he will not find one drop of water to cool his tongue. It is clear that no drunkard can inherit the kingdom of God; and neither can an unconverted teetotaller. Both are outside. Conversion to God is absolutely indispensable for the one as well as the other; and the same may be said of all classes, all grades, all shades, all castes and conditions of men under the sun. There is no difference as to this great question. It holds good as to all alike, be their outward character or social status what it may-"Except ye be converted, ye cannot enter the kingdom of heaven."

How important, then-yea, how momentous the question for each one, "Am I converted ?" It is not possible for human language to set forth the magnitude and solemnity of this inquiry. For any one to think of going on, from day to day, and year to year, without a clear and thorough settlement of this most weighty question, can only be regarded as the most egregious folly of which a human being can be guilty. If a man were to leave his earthly affairs in an uncertain, unsettled condition, he would lay himself open to the charge of the grossest and most culpable neglect and carelessness. But what are the most urgent and weighty temporal affairs when compared with the salvation of the soul? All the concerns of time are but as the chaff of the summer threshing-floor, when compared with the interests of the immortal soul-the grand realities of eternity.

Hence it is, in the very highest degree, irrational for

any one to rest for a single hour without a clear and settled assurance that he is truly converted to God. A converted soul has crossed the boundary line that separates the saved from the unsaved-the children of light from the children of darkness-the church of God from this present evil world. The converted soul has death and judgment behind him, and glory before him. He is as sure of being in heaven as though he were already there; indeed he is there already in spirit. He has a title without a blot, and a prospect without a cloud. He knows Christ as his Saviour and Lord; God as his Father and Friend; the Holy Ghost as his blessed Comforter, Guide and Teacher; heaven as his bright and happy home. Oh! the unspeakable blessedness of being converted. Who can utter it? "Eye hath not seen, or ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. But God hath revealed them unto us [believers] by His Spirit; for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea the deep things of God." 1 Corinthians ii. 9, 10.

And now let us inquire what this conversion is, whereof we speak. Well, indeed, will it be for us to be divinely instructed as to this. An error here will prove disastrous in proportion to the interests at stake.

Many are the mistaken notions in reference to conversion. Indeed we might conclude, from the very fact of the vast importance of the subject, that the great enemy of our souls and of the Christ of God would seek, in every possible way, to plunge us into error respecting it. If he cannot succeed in keeping people in utter careless