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THE HUNGER OF THE SOUL.

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and organic nature, requires this divine food or nutriment to sustain it, and in this highest, vastest want gets no supply, what else can you need to account for the unrest, and the otherwise inexplicable frustration of your ex

the soul, that it has run itself down to the starvation point of universal disgust. Life is cheap. It seems a very dull and mean thing to live-as to live a prodigal and swineherd's life it certainly is. Sometimes, too, your disgust turns upon your own character and feel-perience? And yet how many of you, goaded ing; your ambition, your pride, your very thoughts, and you ache for the mortification that comes upon you. My ambition-how low it creeps. My pride-what have I or am I to be proud of? My very thoughts are all trailing in the dust, and the dust is dry,-O God, is it this to be a man?

I might speak also of your perpetual irritations, your fits of anger, your animosities, your jealousies, your gloomy hypochondriacal fears. These all at bottom are the disturbances of hunger in the soul. How certainly is the child irritable when it is hungry. Even the placidity of infancy vanishes when the body is ravening for food. So it is with man. He is irritable, flies into fits of passion, loses self-government, simply because the placid state of satisfaction is wanting in his higher nature. He is out of rest, because of his immortal hunger. Three-quarters of the ill nature of the world is caused by the fact, that the soul without God is empty, and so out of rest. We charge it, more often than justice requires, to some fault of temperament; but there is no temperament that would not be quieted and evened by the fulness of God.

Now, the Spirit of God will sometimes shew you, in an unwonted manner, the secret of these troubles, for He is the interpreter of the soul's hunger. He comes to it, whispering inwardly the awful secret of its pains, "without God, and without hope in the world." He reminds the prodigal of his bad history. He bids the swineherd look up from his sensual objects and works, and remember his home and his Father; tells him of a great supper prepared, and that all things are now ready, and bids him come. Conscious of the deep poverty he is in, conscious of that immortal being whose deep wants have been so long denied, wants that can be satisfied only by the essential, eternal participation of the fulness of God, he hears a gentle voice of love saying, "I am the bread of life, I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If any man eat of this bread he shall live." Are there none of you to whom this voice is calling now?

I will not pursue these illustrations further. Would that all my hearers could but open their minds to the lesson they teach. I know almost no subject or truth that will explain so many things in the uneasy demonstrations of mankind; or that, to any thoughtful person living without God, will resolve so many mysteries concerning himself. Granting simply the fact that God is the want of the soul, or created intelligence, what can it be separated from God, but an element of uneasiness and bitter disturbance? If the soul, as a vital

by this torment all your lives, do not understand it? You go after this or that objective, circumstantial good, thrust on, as in some kind of madness, by the terrible impulsion of your hungry immortality; confessing all the time that you fail, even when in form you succeed, and showing by your demonstrations that your objects, whether gained or lost, have no relation to your want; but your understandings are holden from any true discovery of your sin. It is as if you were under some dispossession, even as the Saviour intimates in His parable. He looks upon the prodigal described as one that has lost his reckoning, or his reason, and when He discovers the secret of his misery, speaks of him as just then having come to himself. Could you come thus to yourselves, how quickly would you cease from your husks and return to your Father! How absurd the folly, then, of any attempt to satisfy or quiet your hunger by any inferior, merely external good!

Oh, ye prodigals, young and old, prodigals of all names and degrees; ye that have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, and have fallen away! ye that have always lived in the minding of earthly things; how clear is it here that no swine's food, no husks of money, pleasure, show, ambition, can feed you; that you have a divine part which none or all of these dry carobs of sin can feed, which nothing can supply and satisfy but God himself?

And what should be a discovery more welcome than this? In what are you more ennobled than in the fact that you are related thus inherently to God? having a nature so high, wants so deep and vast, that only He can feed them, and not even He by any bestowment which does not include the bestowment of Himself. Would you willingly exterminate this want of your being, and so be rid eternally of this hunger? That would be to cease from being a man, and to become a worm, and even that worm, remembering what it was, would be a worm gnawing itself with eternal regrets. No, this torment that you feel is the torment of your greatness. It compliments you more, even by its cravings and its shameful humiliations, than all the most subtle flatteries and the highest applauses. Nay, there is nothing in which God himself exalts you more than by His own expostulation, when he says "Wherefore do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labour for that which satisfieth not? hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye that which is good. Incline your ear, and come unto me; hear, and your soul shall live." Why should we humble ourselves to so many things that are ashes

and call them bread; doubling our bodily pleasures in vices that take hold on hell; chasing after gains with cancerous appetite; torturing our invention to find some opiate of society, applause, or show, that will quiet and content our unrest. All in vain. Oh, ye starving minds, hearken for one hour to this, and turn yourselves to it as your misery points you-God, God, God alone is the true food. Ask it thus of God to give you the food that is convenient for you, and He gives you Himself. And that is bread, bread of life, bread of eternity. Take it for your true supply, and you hunger no more.

THE POOR ENRICHING THE RICH.

BY THE REV. W. C. BOARDMAN.

IN one of the populous and beautiful towns on the banks of "La Belle Rivière," there dwelt, and, for aught I know, dwells now a just judge, honourable in life as well as in title; and also a poor lone African woman, long since gone to her crown and her throne in the kingdom above. She was queenly in the power and beauty of her spiritual progress, though poor as poverty could make her in this world's goods here upon earth, but she is now, doubtless, queenly in position and external adorning as well as in heart, transformed and transfigured in the presence of the glorious Saviour in heaven, whom she loved so dearly and trusted so fully upon earth.

The judge was rich, and highly esteemed. He dwelt in a mansion, not so fine as to repel, not so splendid as to make him the envy of the foolish, large enough to be the social centre of the town, and plain enough to make every one feel it a home, and his heart was in keeping with his house, large and open.

The poor African woman lived in a cabin on an alley, all alone, without chick or child, kith or kin.

Her own hands ministered amply to her own wants while she had health, and at home or abroad at work by the day, she often earned that which found its way to India, or Africa perhaps, in the spread of the gospel. Her home, though poor and small, was always neat and tidy. She belonged to the church of which the judge was an officer, and often sat down with him at the table of the Lord, in the house of the Lord, as she will again, O how joyously at the feast of the Bridegroom, in the palace of the King; but it so happened that they had never had free conversation together about the things of the kingdom. He respected her. She venerated him. At last she received a severe injury, from which she never recovered, and for many weary months before her death was dependent and helpless, alone and bedrid.

During this time the judge's ample table

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and abundant wardrobe had contributed its full share to the comforts of the poor woman. Never a day but she was remembered. But for a long time, for one reason and another, he put off from time to time a personal visit, which yet he fully purposed in his heart to make her. Until at last, one day, as he thought of the cheeriness of his own pleasant home, the thought of the contrast between this and the loneliness and desolation of the poor woman's cabin, came into his mind, and while it heightened his gratitude for the goodness of God to him, it filled him with sadness and sympathy for her.

"Who can tell but I may cheer her a little, and perhaps by a little timely sympathy save her from repining at her hard lot? Possibly, too, I may be able to throw some light upon the rugged pathway along which she is going to the kingdom?"

The judge loved to do good; it was a great luxury to him. So, taking a well-filled basket, and making sure that purse as well as scrip was stored with convenient small change, he sallied forth to visit the poor woman.

As the door opened, he was struck with the air of neatness in the cabin. If she was bedrid, some kind hand had supplied the place of hers. Everything was in order, swept and garnished, neat as a pin. "Not so desolate after all," thought he.

But again, as the judge looked around, and contrasted the social joys of his own ample mansion, where the voice of children and of music, as well as the presence of books and friends made all cheerful and happy, with the cheerless solitude of the poor woman alone here from morning till night and from night till morning, only as one or another called, out of kindness, to keep her from suffering, his heart filled again with sadness and sympathy.

Seating himself on the stool at the side of the poor woman's cot, he began speaking to her in words of condolence :

"It must be hard for you, Nancy, to be shut up here alone so many days and weeks?"

"Oh, no, thank God, massa judge, the good Lord keeps me from feelin' bad. I'se happy now as ever I was in all my days."

"But, Nancy, lying here from morning till night, and from night till morning all alone, and racked with pain, dependent upon others for everything, do you not get tired and down-hearted, and think your lot a hard one to bear ?"

"Well, I'se 'pendent on others, dat's sure, 'deed I is, an' I was allers used to have something to give to de poor, an' to de missionary, too, an' to de minister, but den I'se no poorer dan my good Lord was when he was here in de worl', and I’se nebber suffer half so much yet as he suffer for me on de cross. I'se berry happy when I tink of dese tings."

"But, Nancy, you are all alone here?" 'Yes, massa, I'se all alone, dat's true, but

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AN ANCIENT HYMN.

den Jesus is here, too, all de time. I'm nebber alone, no how, and He's good company." "But, Nancy, how do you feel when you think about death? What if you should die here all alone some night?”

"Oh, massa judge! I 'spect to. I 'spect nothing else but jes to go off all alone here some night as you say, or some day. But it's all one, night or day, to poor Nancy; and den, massa, I 'spec I'll not go all alone, arter all, for Jesus says, in de blessed Book, I'll come an' take you to myself, dat where I am, dare you may be also; an' I believe Him. I'se not afraid to die alone."

"But, Nancy, sometimes when I think of dying, I am filled with trouble. I think how bad I am, what a sinner, and how unfit for heaven, and I think now what if I should die suddenly, just as I am, what would become of me? Are you not afraid to die, and go into the presence of a holy God?"

"O no, massa, 'deed I'se not." Why not, Nancy?"

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"Oh, massa, I was 'fraid, berry much. When I was fust injer, I see I mus' die, an' I thought how can such a sinner as I is ebber go into such a holy place as de new Jerusalem is? An' I was miseble, oh, I was miseble, deed,

sure!

But den, by an' by, after a while, I jis thought I mus' trus' myself to de blessed Jesus to make me ready for de kingdom jis as I did to forgib all my sins. An' so I foun' res' for my poor soul in Jesus, an' sen dat time I feel somehow, all better; I know now He will make me all ready, pure an' white, for de new Jerusalem above. An' now I love to think about_de_time when I shall come to 'pear befo' the Father's throne, wid Him in glory, all starry, spangly white."

For a moment the judge sat in silence, admiring the power of grace. Not yet himself deeply affected by the light reflected from this star in disguise. A little pressure more was required another chafing question-to bring out the ray destined to pierce his own soul. "Well, Nancy, one thing more let me ask you; do you never complain ?"

"Complain! Oh, now, massa judge, complain, do you say, massa? Why, massa? Who should such a one as I is complain ob? The good Lor? He knows bes what's bes for poor Nancy! His will be done!"

Nancy said this in tones of the deepest sincerity. And a little more. There was just a shade of wonder at the question-as much as to say, "What! you an officer in the church, and a man of education, a judge, and yet think that a poor creature like me might complain of the dealings of a merciful God and Saviour like mine?"

The arrow took effect. The judge bowed his head in silence a moment, and then rose and bade Nancy good-by, without the word of consolation and prayer, which he fully purposed when he went into the cabin.

All the way home he kept saying to himself,

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"Well, I never yet said 'His will be done' in that way. I never felt it. Alone, poor, helpless, bedrid, dependent, miserable in body, and yet happy as an angel. Ah! there is a power there I never felt. But I must feel it, and, God helping me, I will. Not afraid to die. Trusting Jesus to purify her from all sin, and present her spotless before God. Waiting joyously his summons. Oh, blessed faith! Ĭ must know more of this, and I will.”

Two weeks, night and day, the arrow rankled, rankled, rankled. His pain increased. Sleep forsook him, and his family became alarmed. He said nothing; but often groaned in spirit and sighed deeply. Sometimes the tears were seen to steal down his manly cheeks. All wondered, and all waited to hear what had come over the strong mind and manly heart of the judge.

At last, one day, while he was bowed before God, he felt in his heart, "Thy will be done." The storm-tossed sea of his soul was suddenly calmed, and peace filled his heart-peace as a river. Now he, too, could trust Jesus to make for him his pathway on earth, and fit him for heaven, and take him to it whenever and from whatever place it might please Him.

It was the beginning of a new life for him, and, as it has proved, the beginning of blessed things for his own family and church and town, and for the cause of Christ generally. Consistent and steadfast before, he has been a burning and a shining light, letting his light shine far and near ever since.

He went in the fulness of wealth and education, and influence and honour, to the poor, lone, lorn African woman, to do her good, if he might, with either counsel or food, or clothing or money. This was the full purpose and prayer of his heart; and yet, while he gave nothing to her, he received from her what all his wealth could not purchase or all his wisdom devise.

She, poor body, had nothing to give, nor so much as even dreamed of giving aught to anybody. And yet, without a thought of it, she did give to the rich and honourable judge what was worth more to him than the wealth and honours of all the world.

And what does this illustrate to us? What but the power of spirituality? What but the power which poured upon the few illiterate fishermen of Galilee in the Pentecostal baptism, fitting them for the reformation of the world, almost in a single generation? What but the very power now needed to transform the world, and introduce the golden age of complete gospel triumph?

AN ANCIENT HYMN.

THE following is a portion of a hymn by an Abbot of Clugni, France, dating prior to the maturity of Romanism. It would almost

seem to have been the germ of "O Mother ment. They go in company to the house of Dear, Jerusalem :"

To thee, O dear, dear country,

Mine eyes their vigils keep; For very love, beholding

Thy happy name, they weep; The mention of thy glory

Is unction to the breast, And medicine in sickness, And love, and life, and rest.

O one, O only mansion,

O Paradise of joy!

Where tears are ever banished,
And joys have no alloy;
Beside thy living waters

All plants are, great and smallThe cedar of the forest,

The hyssop on the wall.

Thy ageless walls are loaded
With amethyst unpriced,
The saints built up its fabric,

And the corner-stone is Christ.
Thou hast no shore, fair ocean,
Thou hast no time, bright day;
Dear fountain of refreshment
To pilgrims far away;
Upon the Rock of Ages
They raise thy holy tower;
Thine is the victor's laurel,

And thine the golden dower.

They stand, those halls of Zion,
Conjubilant with song,
And bright with many an angel
And many a martyr throng;
The Prince is ever with them,
The light is aye serene,
The pastures of the blessed

Are decked in glorious sheen. There is the throne of David,

And there, from toil released, The shout of them that triumph, The song of them that feast; And they beneath their Leader, Who conquer'd in the fight, For ever and for ever,

Are clad in robes of white.

THE PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANS. BY LYMAN COLEMAN.

THEIR MARRIAGE RELATIONS.

THE primitive Christians observed with great care the rule of the apostle forbidding unequal marriages with unbelievers. Tertullian declares such marriages to be an offence inconsistent with the Christian profession, the punishment of which should be excommunication. Cyprian, Augustine, Ambrose, and Jerome are almost equally severe against such marriages. They were also frequently the subject of censure by councils, under different penalties of suspension or excommunication.

But the marriage relation between believers was honoured as the means of mutual edification and happiness. "How intimate," exclaims Tertullian, "the union between believers! their hopes, their aspirations, their desires all the same. They are one in faith and in the service of their Lord, as they are also in flesh and in heart. In mutual concord they read the Scriptures, and fast and pray together, aiding, sustaining each other by mutual instruction and encourage

the Lord, they sit together at His table. In persecution and in want they bear their mutual burdens, and participate in each other's joys. They live together in mutual confidence and in the enjoyment of each other's society. In the freedom of mutual confidence they administer to the sick, relieve the needy, distribute their alms, and each freely engages in all his religious duties without concealment from the other. Unitedly they offer their prayers to God and sing His praise, knowing no rivalry but in these acts of devotion. In such scenes of domestic bliss, Christ rejoices and adds His peace. To two so united He grants His presence; and where He is, no evil can abide."

Such scenes of domestic enjoyment were the result only of Christian union and fellowship, unknown to pagan families; neither could such purity, peace, and joy be expected to result from the union of believers with unbelievers. "Who that is yet a pagan would accompany his wife from street to street in search of the brethren in the houses of strangers, and in the humblest abodes of the poor? Who, without jealousy, could allow her to frequent the Lord's Supper, a mystery to him unknown, and an object of suspicion? Who would allow her to enter secretly into the prison to kiss the martyr's chains? Or where would a brother from a foreign city, or a stranger, find entertainment? If anything is to be given in charity, the granary, store, and cellar of the house are closed." "What," he exclaims in the same connexion, “what shall her husband sing to her, or she to her husband? Would she wish to hear anything from the theatre or the tavern? What mention is there of God, what invocation of Christ? Where is the nourishment for faith by repeating portions of Scripture in conversation? Where the refreshment of the spirit; where the Divine blessing?"

DEVOTIONAL EXERCISES.

These early Christians were examples of devout piety in their families. There, at the domestic altar, they fed the sacred flame of devotion, which burned in their bosom with a triumphant, deathless flame. There they formed and maintained the spirit of a pure, deep, and earnest piety. Every master of a family fulfilled, within the walls of his own house, the office of private pastor, keeping up in it a regular course of reading, prayer, and private instruction to all the members of his household. Thus every private house was, in the words of Chrysostom, a church to itself.

The influence of pious mothers was also particularly remarkable over their children. Gregory of Nazianzen ascribed his conversion to the piety of his mother Nonna. His brother Cæsarius, by the same means, was enabled to maintain an exemplary life of piety in the court of the emperor. Their sister

WOMAN'S PLACE IN A REVIVAL.

Gorgonia also religiously walked in the steps of her mother, and was instrumental in the conversion of her husband, and training her children and her nephews in the ways of piety. Theodoret ascribed his conversion, under God, to his pious mother; and Basil the Great, to his grandmother; Emmilia, to his sister Macrina. Augustine and Chrysostom, also the greatest lights of the ancient Church, were indebted to their pious mothers for those instructions that brought them to the knowledge of the truth as it is in Jesus.

The several members of a Christian family were accustomed to rise very early in the morning and address their thoughts to God by silent ejaculations, by calling to mind familiar passages of Scripture, and by secret prayer. Clement of Alexandria, A.D. 188, was accustomed, whenever he awoke, to call to mind the words of Christ, and often anticipated the dawning of the day in these devout exercises. "One must arise," says Basil the Great, "before the twilight of the morning to greet with prayer the coming day." "Let the sun at his rising find us with the Word of God in hand." "Let the day begin with prayer." "Soon as the day returns, and before leaving his chamber, the Christian should address his prayer to his Saviour, and, before resuming his daily labour, begin the work of righteousness." "Let the child be accustomed early in the morning to offer prayer and praise to God; and at evening again, when the day is past and gone, let him end his labour by bringing his evening offering to the Lord."

After their private devotions, the family met for united prayer, which was uniformly accompanied with the reading of the Scriptures. The recital of such doctrinal and practical sentiments as might best fortify them against the prevailing scandals and heresies of the times, constituted also, as it would seem, part of their devotional exercises. In the family, as in all their devotions, the primitive Christians delighted to sing their sacred songs.

At the table they reverently sought the blessing of God. Several of these examples of prayer before meals are given at length in the Fathers. Here also they rehearsed some portions of Scripture and sang praise to God, —a custom which Clement of Alexandria and Chrysostom earnestly recommend. The meal being ended, they concluded with prayer, giving thanks for the blessings received, and supplicating a continuance of the Divine mercy. "As the body requires daily sustenance," says Chrysostom, so the soul needs to be refreshed with spiritual food, that it may be strengthened for its warfare against the flesh." The day was closed by devotions, renewed in much the same manner as in the morning. Such was the pious care with which these Christians ordered their households in the fear of the Lord. Chrysostom made it the first duty of the master of the house "to seek

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so to speak and so to act that the spiritual. good of the whole household might be promoted; and of the mistress of the family, while she oversees her domestic affairs, especially to see that all act in the fear of God and with reference to the kingdom of heaven." There is extant a representation of one of these sacred scenes of domestic worship in the families of the primitive Christians, a view of which may fitly conclude our remarks on this subject. It is a large sarcophagus,__which Münter, with the approbation also of Dorner, refers to the middle of the second century, on which is exhibited the religious worship of a Christian family. On one side of this sarcophagus are three women standing around a younger female, who is playing on a lyre; on the right side stand four men with apparent rolls of music in hand, from which they are singing. This interesting monument indicates not only the existence at that early period of a collection of sacred music, but the use of that delightful portion of religious worship, sacred psalmody, in the devotions of the family.

WOMAN'S PLACE IN A REVIVAL.

WE are apt to overlook some of the most powerful agencies in nature and in Christ's kingdom, just because they make no noise. So in the revival now taking place in Ireland, and throughout the kingdom generally, while young men, and experienced Christians, and devoted ministers, have been, by force of circumstances, thrust into the front ranks, as the captains, and generals of the host, the real effective power is in the body of the army, the undistinguished mass. Thanks to our gracious God, there has been very little necessity for leaders in this time of refreshing, because the praying strength of our churches has fallen into the ranks without much "respect of persons." One grand feature of the awakening is the pious devotion of Christian women. They throng the places of prayer. They weep, and sigh, and pray over the dead in sin, and bend and worship at the humbling cross. Pastors can testify, like the writer of this article, that their most efficient coadjutors have been the devout Marys, and Hannahs, the Lydias, and Dorcases of their flock. How often have they come, with woman's great loving heart all on fire with zeal for Christ and for precious souls, claiming a place for them in their minister's attentions. So far as the writer's experience goes, it proves that most of those who came to him seeking counsel, and of those to whom he went to tell of Jesus and salvation, were first brought to his notice by the quiet agency of devoted females, who besought him, with tears in their eyes, to seek their poor lost sheep. Then, too, the singular tact and delicacy of their sex has been beautifully sanctified for

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