I. The late Bishop Gregg. By the Rev. II. The Gospel the Message of Peace to Ireland. By the Rev. W. Fitzpatrick III. How the Gospel became a Message of Peace in Doon. By the Rev. W. Fitz- IV. The Dawn of the Gospel in Western Kerry. By the Rev. W. Fitzpatrick 113, 140 V. What the Church of England Owes to the Church of Ireland. By the Rev. VI. VII. What does the Church of Ireland Owe to the Church of England? By VIII. The Squaring of the Account. By IX. The Missionary Character of the Ancient Church of Ireland. By the Bishop of Ossory 281 Notes Critical and Expository 23, 46, 70, 95, 116, 143, 167, 190, 214, 237, 261, 283. III. Life Illustrations of Bible Truths 23, 47, 70, 95, 117, 143, 167, 191, 215, 238, 262, 283. VI. The Olive Branch; or, Pages for the An Easter Song. (C. F. Alexander) "Can Nothing be Done ?" By the Editor Learn to Trust. (Rev. G. Everard) Little Things. (Rev. H. Martyn Hart) What Robert Raikes Felt and Did. By the Who would have thought it? (E. C.) Your Watch Every Night." (Rev. Wooden Button, The. (E. B.) ... ... Robert Raikes ... 122 The Right Rev. John Gregg, D.D. Grasmere Church Christmas Fare for the Birds 266 275 CONTRIBUTORS TO THIS VOLUME. WORDS OF MINISTRY IN THE HOME. "Him with whom we have to do." A BIBLE MOTTO FOR 1880. BY THE LATE FRANCES RIDLEY HAVERGAL. "Him with whom we have to do."-Heb. iv. 13. following paper was placed in the Editor's hands by his dear Friend very shortly before her translation to her Eternal Home. He suggested its suitability as a Watchword or Bible Motto for the coming New Year, and asked her to add a few words bearing directly on the flight of time, in order that he might so use it in one of the magazines which it is his privilege to edit. The manuscript was returned to her for this purpose only a week or two before the Master's Call reached her. The lines were not added; but the solemnity of almost "Last Words" attaches to this Watchword for the New Year. As a simple, comprehensive, and sympathetic summary of Gospel truth, full of the heart-poetry which so remarkably characterized all her prose writings, these pages-a voice from "Within the Palace Gates"-will point many an anxious one to "Jesus only," and stimulate many a faithful worker in the Gospel field to follow her as she followed Christ-the Saviour and King, "with whom we have to do." HERE are wonderful depths of comfort in these words. I cannot fathom them for you. I only want to guide you to look where the deep places are, asking the Holy Spirit to put a long sounding line into your hand, that you VOL. IX.-NO. I. may prove for yourself how great is the depth. These words seem to meet every sort of need of comfort. If it is perplexity, or oppressive puzzle what to do, when we cannot see through things, or if it is being unable to explain yourself to others, and trials or complications arising out of B 2 this, just fall back upon "Him with whom you have to do," to whose eyes all things are naked and opened. He is your Guidewhy need you puzzle? He is your Shieldwhy need you try so hard or wish so much to explain and vindicate yourself? If it is sense of sin which does not let you be comfortable, turn at once to "Him with whom you have to do." Remember, it is not with Satan that you have to do. nor with your accusing conscience, but with Jesus. He will deal with all the rest; you only have to deal with Him. And He is your Great High Priest. He has made full Atonement for you; for the very sins that are weighing on you now. The blood of that Atonement, His own precious blood, cleanseth us from all sin. Cleanseth whom? People that have not sinned? People that don't want to be cleansed ? Thank God for the word, "cleanseth us "us who have sinned, and who want to be cleansed. And you have to do with Him who shed it for your cleansing, who His own self bare your sins in His own body on the tree. If it is temptation that will not let you rest, come straight away out of the very thick of it; it may be with the fiery darts sticking in you. Come with all the haunting thoughts that you hate, just as you are, to "Him with whom you have to do." You would not or could not tell the temptations to any one else; but then you have not got to do with any one else in the matter, but only with Jesus. And He "suffered, being tempted." The very fact that you are distressed by the temptation proves that it is temptation, and that you have a singular claim on the sympathy of our tempted Lord, a claim which He most tenderly acknowledges. But use it instantly; don't creep, but flee unto Him to hide you from the assaults which you are too weak to meet. If it is bodily weakness, sickness, or pain, how very sweet it is to know that we have to do with Jesus, who is touched with the feeling of our infirmities. (The word is the same that is elsewhere translated sickness, St. John xi. 2-4.) Don't you sometimes find it very hard to make even your doctor understand what the pain is like? Words don't seem to convey it. And after you have explained the trying and wearying sensation as best you can, you are convinced those who have not felt it do not understand it. Now, think of Jesus not merely entering into the fact, but into the feeling of what you are going through. "Touched with the feeling"how deep that goes! When we turn away to Him in our wordless weariness of pain which only He understands, we find out that we have to do with Him in quite a different sense to how we have to do with any one else. We could not do without Him, and thank God we shall never have to do without Him. Why enumerate other shadows which this same soft light can enter and dispel? They may be cast by any imaginable or unimaginable shape of trouble or need, but the same light rises for them all, if we will only turn towards the brightness of its rising. For Jesus is He "with whom we have to do" in everything. Nothing can be outside of this, unless we wilfully decline to have to do with Him in it, or unbelievingly choose to have to do with "lords many." And we are answerable only to Him in everything; for this is included in having to do with Him. To our own Master we stand or fall; and that latter alternative is instantly put out of the question, the Apostle adding, "Yea, he shall be holden up, for God is able to make him stand," i.e., he who is his "own Master's servant." To Him only we have to give account, if from Him we take our orders. We have to do with Him directly: so directly that it is difficult at first to grasp the directness. There is absolutely no |