tendencies removed, having even our bodies brought into subjection, shall we approach with acceptance, with deep longing desires, and with the assurance of faith, to Him who is all-powerful and all-gracious unto those who earnestly seek Him.

Let us then look unto this High Priest; let us remember all that it cost Him to obtain this priesthood for man; let us see in His sacrifice of Himself the hatefulness of sin, which could not be washed away without the coming unto this earth and the sufferings and death of the Son of God. Let us loathe sin in ourselves, and fear its dreadful consequences, if its effects were so awful as to require such an atonement, in order to our Lord's entering upon His functions of mercy. If there are any of us living on in sin, without God and without hope in the world, oh, let us turn unto Him, who is so merciful and gracious, so ready to receive us into His favour, so benevolent in the bestowal of His treasures. Let us come unto this great High Priest, who beholdeth us with tender compassion, though it be with stammering lips, and present our prayers in His

presence; let us cry unto Him from the depths, and He will surely hear us. As He had compassion, when on earth, upon the poor and the outcast and the wretched, so hath He now pity upon all who feel their need of Him, and who with a true heart seek in Him that salvation which they require. And let all who are striving after holiness, who feel that their life is indeed hid with Christ in God, go forward daily with earnestness in their heavenly calling, remembering that all things are theirs, and that they cannot ask more than Christ is willing to bestow; that He loveth most those who desire most; that they must ask in faith, nothing wavering, and that, while engaging earnestly in prayer, they must seek by the power given them to strive against sin, to resist every conscious self - indulgence which leadeth unto evil, and to bring their special offences daily, by humble confession, unto that blood of sprinkling which speaketh better things than the blood of Abel ;—that their consciences being set at rest, they may enjoy the full privilege of holy intercourse with their Lord.

THE LORD'S SUPPER.

"The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? For we being many are one bread, and one body for we are all partakers of that one bread."I COR. X. 16, 17.

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UR Lord, on the eve of His leaving the earth to ascend into the glory of His Father, from whence He shall come again to judge both the quick and the dead, instituted this sacrament as a commemoration of His death, until He should revisit this earth from which he had departed. On that sad and solemn night, when His spirit, it might have been supposed, would have been overwhelmed with the calamities about to overtake Him, He gathers His dis

ciples in a little company around Him, and breaks among them the bread, and pours out the wine, with the solemn injunction, "This do in remembrance of me." That whole discourse, in which He speaketh of the condition of His church in His absence; of the comforting aid of the Holy Spirit, who should dwell in the hearts of its members, of its union with the Father and with Himself, of the supply of its most varied needs, followed the giving of the bread and wine, which were to be the seal of the blessings promised unto the true followers of Christ unto the end of time.

The breaking of this bread and the pouring out of this wine is therefore an ordinance intended of Christ to be the means of great blessing unto the church in all ages, till His glorious advent again upon earth. It is to be a gladsome spiritual feast in commemoration of what the Lord hath done and hath suffered, and also a direct means of blessing unto our own souls, as at the table which He hath spread we are made partakers of the communion of the body and blood of Him who died to save us, and who rose

again that we might rise with Him unto newness of life.

We would regard it, 1st, as a commemoration; 2nd, as the communion of the body and the blood of Christ; and, 3rd, as a token of the union of believers among each other in the bonds of love. "For we being many are one bread, and one body: for we are all partakers of that one bread."

I. The Lord's Supper is, then, first, a commemorative feast. It reminds of the dying love of the Lord, when He poured forth His soul in agony, and exposed Himself to the accursed death of the cross, to the absence of the support of His Father, and to the outpouring of divine wrath, in order that He might make an offering for sin once for all, the just dying for the unjust, the representative of the guilty who had descended into their position being made in all things like unto His brethren, yet without sin. It commemorates the devotion and intensest affection of His soul to His church, and to all the members thereof, when He drank the cup to the very dregs that He might bring them back from their

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