resting-places; and if he is in the covenant he can never get out of it; because this covenant is ordered in all things and sure. So, if God has made the covenant known to you, by giving you enlargement of heart, and has enabled you to show forth his praise in your life and conversation, I would say, for your encouragement, you have a proof of your interest in the electing love of God, and that if you are once in the covenant, you are in for ever. This is a resting-place. The children of Israel were not at all times winding about through the wilderness; they had their resting places and places of refreshment. They left Marah and came to Elim, where there were twelve fountains of water and three score and ten palm trees. (Ex. xv. 27.)

If you read in 1 Ki. vi., you will see there were several restingplaces on the stairs. One of the resting-places for God's people is in the electing love of God the Father. The saints, as Jude says, were sanctified by God the Father, preserved in Jesus Christ, and called. What a mercy to have these resting-places when we are dismayed, and saying with the psalmist, "Why art thou cast down, O my soul? And why art thou disquieted within me?"

Then there is a winding out of the world, and out of your own self-righteousness. You will find within, as Paul did, that you are the chief of sinners, and less than the least of all saints; but you will also find the grace of your Lord Jesus Christ abound.

Another resting-place is the justifying righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ, which clothes the sinner who has been preserved in him and called, and who is supported along the tribulated path that leads from earth to heaven. I have in my mind's eye the winding stairs I have been winding up this quarter of a century, and the distresses and persecutions I have met with. To have your name cast out as evil; and, when you have been trying to do people good, for them to try to injure you all in their power, is painful; but God will not permit them to succeed; and it is a mercy to be enabled to cast all our care upon a precious Christ, and say,

"Though painful at present, 'twill cease before long;
And then O how pleasant the conqueror's song.'

"The breadth of the house was still upward, and so increased." This increasing is in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. As you increase in that, and grow up more into him, you will grow more out of conceit with yourselves; and if you never hear my voice again, let me tell you that the more you grow out of conceit with yourselves and confidence in yourselves, the more you will be enabled to cast all your care upon Christ, who careth for you. And when enabled to lean upon him you can say, "Hitherto the Lord hath helped me."

Paul no doubt remembered the spot where the Lord met with

him, and apprehended him; yet he said he was pressing on to apprehend that for which he was apprehended of Christ Jesus. Now, are we pressing on? If we are, we shall find something to press against us. Trials without and within will bring us to feel we are in the wilderness. What a mercy, then, thatthere are these resting-places!

Then the ordinances of God's house are resting-places. Believers' Baptism and the Lord's Supper are places where the Lord often meets with his people, and looses them from the cares of the world; so that they have sweet communion with Christ, eat his flesh and drink his blood. He is the Alpha and Omega, the First and the Last. Whenever a child of God is brought to sit at the feet of Jesus at the table of the Lord, he will feel deep contrition and that godly sorrow over sin which worketh repentance that needeth not to be repented of, because it is repentance unto eternal life.

The Lord's people are all strangers and pilgrims, as their fathers were. Paul said he was in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart and be with Christ. Have you ever been brought into that place where you longed to go and yet were willing to stay all the days of your appointed time? You were willing to live or to die; but, if you had your choice, would die and go home. Read what Paul says, in 2 Cor. v. 1–4, when speaking of the blessed mansions above. Ah! You will find, friends, it is a groaning path all the way to heaven. You may have these resting-places on the winding stairs I have been speaking of; but you will still find, with Paul, there is a good deal of groaning; not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life. "For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened."

Then there is the final perseverance of the saints. And it will be going to the top of the stairs into the upper chamber to the highest by the midst, when the soul launches out of time into eternity.

I should like to have spoken a little more of the resting-places in winding upwards; but as the time is gone I must leave the subject, and hope the Lord will enable my brothers, who are expected the after-parts of this day, to speak to make up my deficiencies.

May the Lord bless his own word, for his Name's sake. Amen.

Men preparing themselves for the ministry read divinity more in other books than in the Scriptures.-Bp. Burnett.

Jeroboam made priests of the vilest of the people; and, indeed, the vilest of the people, if they were but men, were too good to make priests for Jeroboam's gods, which were but calves.

THE MINISTRY.

My dear Friend in Christ,-Deem me not an intruder at this time, since my motive for writing is to encourage you, if it be the will of God. Last December was the time I first heard you were about to bring out the "Christian's Monthly Record;" and right pleased I was to hear it; so I sent word at once to the book stationer and ordered it. But what I want to tell you is how my soul has been fed by the food that has been in its pages from time to time. How blessed, at times, I have been when reading that part named " Called of God." I thought to have written to Mr. Batchelor to inform him how happy I had felt while reading his experience, both in the Sept. and Oct. Nos. Strange to say, our very words and feelings were alike. When a little boy I went along with my brother to gather berries; and as I was reaching over the edge of a deep precipice, I got overbalanced and fell over on to the broken rocks and stones below. But it pleased God, even when I was dead in sin, to preserve me from the jaws of death; I was not killed, but I received a severe shake. My face and head were badly cut, and the marks are still visible. And when Mr. B. spoke of meeting the man on the road, and Satan telling him that he could see Cain's mark upon him, I said to myself, "That's just me;" for the enemy had often told me that the mark of Cain was on my brow, and that I should be in the end no better than he, a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth. O how pleased was I to find that there was one, whom I have never seen, assaulted, and tormented in the same manner as myself. But when I read his ministerial exercises in last month's No., O how I wept! I said to one of our members, "Had he been walking behind an old veteran and myself one Sunday night and listened to every sentence which was spoken, he could not have related them better. My opposition sprang from the same source as his did. And the very words which were spoken to him, I hope, through grace, were spoken to me. I seem led to the spot when the words dropped with power into my heart: "Go; have I not sent thee?" Ah, friend, it felt hard to be opposed; so the aged friends in prayer poured out their souls for the unworthy writer, that the Lord would stand by and support, and make his own truth a blessing from my lips to the souls of his people. And I have reason to believe he listened to their cry. But when the leader seemed distant and would scarcely speak, I knew not what to do. But for weeks the verse kept running through my mind, "The Lord at thy right hand shall strike through kings in the day of his wrath."

Still the Lord keeps me; sometimes sitting at his feet, as dear Berridge says,

"Living in a calm and cheerful mood,

And finding all things work for good
Which Jesus kindly sends."

Had I had Mr. Batchelor's address I think I should have written to him; for I felt I could not refrain, it was so sweet and precious to me. It is my prayer to God for you, that you may not wink and smile when error is making such encroachments into the churches; but, as the Holy Ghost has given you ability, you may live as a striver and contender; a striver for the true faith of the gospel and contender for the real faith delivered to the saints. If you are at the Sunday school

tea-party at Manchester, on Jan. 1st, 1881, I should like to shake your hand for your father's sake. I have hanging on my wall before me some verses printed on satin or silk, occasioned by his death. His memory is dear to me. He opened the first Particular Baptist Chapel in this part. For his text he had, "Behold, I am vile;" and, after he had uttered it and paused, as he was wont to do, he said, "Never was Job holier in his life than when he uttered these words." The Lord raise up more men like him, and grant that the garment worn by him may drop on another, who will, in the Lord's hands, be a blessing to his people. Yours in the Lord,

Love Clough, Rawtenstall, Nov. 8th, 1880.

WILLIAM WHITTAKER.

My dear Friend and Brother in the Path of Tribulation,-I feel I must write a line to you to-night; for I do feel towards you, for the truth's sake, that union which I do hope even death itself will never sever or disannul. I have felt for several days past very tried and cast down; and truly asked myself, "Can there be anything good or spiritual in me?" And what with trials without, and trials, and fears, and doubts, and miserable forebodings within, I have said, "O! Where will the scene end? My preaching is worn out, my religion is all in the flesh, and what shall I do in the swellings of Jordan?" I had no idea that you were travelling in this path when I came to you in the vestry before service this evening; but when you read the word, it led me back some 14 years, when I was in a small room in London, begging the Lord to undertake for me; and he said to me, "They shall fight against thee, but they shall not prevail against thee." Ah! Little did I then know of who those monsters "they" were; but I have lived to learn that they are not only sinners, as you said to-night, but they are sins; no, my friend, they are not sinners who can harm us so much as sin in us. O those thick, high, walls of guilt that my sins have reared between God and my soul! Blessed be his holy name for ever breaking through them.

Your message to-night, my friend, was for me; and I dare not keep silent. May Israel's Triune God be your rearward, and may he bless you. I feel if you were here we could weep and could rejoice together. But for the present, “Adieu.” Yours in love,

To Mr. Newton.

Tunbridge Wells, Sept. 9th, 1880.

J. HOUSE.

ANOTHER VISIT TO A UNION-HOUSE.

Dear Sir,-In reading the "Record" of this month I feel I should like to drop you my thanks, and tell you what I have been the eye-witness of in the Tunbridge Union.

Some time since I went with a friend to visit the poor old people in the union. My friend read Isa. xl. to them, and at intervals I spoke to them on the goodness of God to his people. As we were talking, a lady of the Church of England came in. When she saw me sitting there, hearing I was a Dissenter, she said, "O, I will go up stairs." As we sat there, 1 saw an old lady sitting quite alone in one corner. I went towards her, and found her with her Bible opened. I said, “Well, old lady, do you like reading your Bible?" "O yes, ma'am," she replied. "I bless God for

it; and I do like that chapter you have just read. I do love God's shalls and wills. But I do not like that lady, because she wants me to work out my salvation; and I know better than that." I found I had got one of God's dear saints there. I had a few sweet moments with her, and promised I would go again. She was so pleased, and often asked after me; but as I could not go very soon, as I was so far from the union, when I went again I found she went out of the house, and the dear Lord took her home suddenly. I went to take her the "Standard" to read; but as I found her gone, I asked to be shown the ward in which Mrs. Ritson was. I found her in the greatest of soul distress. She wanted to know whether the Lord had pardoned her sins. When I spoke to her, she asked me who sent me. I said, "No one; only I thought you would like to read the Gospel Standard."" "O, yes," she replied, "I love Mr. Gadsby; I love all God's dear saints." I sat by her for some few minutes, and left her, promising to take the "Standards" to her when I had read them myself. When I went again, as I entered the ward, "O, my dear friend," she exclaimed, "I thought you would come and bring me the Gospel, if the Lord had not taken you home. I have been so looking for you. I am so happy! The dear Lord has pardoned my sins; and I am so happy! And I am telling all around me.' I said, "What a blessing that is!" I can tell you I rejoiced with her.

And

When I went the last time, she told me that you now send her the Gospel. Close by her is another bed, in which is another dear old saint, well known to the deacons of Hanover Chapel and myself too; and so I purpose to take the Gospel to her and the other inmates to read.

I do feel it a pleasure to visit those dear old saints shut up there, and no one to converse with. I have found, since I have been there to visit, that there are several of God's dear saints who are obliged to end their days there; and I have thanked the Lord for placing them there. I can assure you it does my soul good to go and see them. Tunbridge Wells, Dec, 2, 1880.

M. E.

ANECDOTE OF THE LATE MR. GUNNER AND OTHERS.

My dear Friend,-Mr. Thomas Gunner, late of London, was once engaged to preach for my late father in Brighton; and in the afternoon of that day, which was Wednesday, he was walking on the Chain Pier, when he met with your father and the late Mr. Vinall, sen. Your father accosted him thus: "What, Thomas, I hear thou art going to preach tonight, and I and Mr. Vinall are coming to hear thee to see what thou art made of." Well, Mr. Gunner came home and told my father, and said, "I can't preach to-night as Mr. Gadsby and Mr. Vinall are coming." But my father insisted on his preaching; and he had to do so. After he had read and prayed, he took his text, 1 Pet. i. 24; "For all flesh is grass." Your father and mine and Mr. Vinall sat before him. He Looked steadfastly at them, and said, "Then, Mr. Gadsby, you are only a bit of grass; neither are you, Mr. Vinall, nor you, Mr. Sharp; neither am I! Then what need has one bit of grass to be afraid of another bit of grass?" At this they all smiled, which immediately removed all his fears at their presence; and he went on and preached a good discourse I am, my dear Friend, Yours truly, COR. SHARP.

136, Elm Grove, Brighton, Dec. 3, 1880.