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And in the record of men's lives, there
'Tis found. In God's great love and care
For man's salvation sweet and rare :
The voice comes to us everywhere:
Never despair! Never despair.

The Go-between.

E. S. H.

ou have dangerous work here, my friend," said a gentleman to a workman who was engaged in cutting out a portion of a steep embankment.

"Rather, sir," replied the labourer quietly. "I think of it every morning before I come to work when I am looking ahead for the day."

"And not afterwards ?" questioned the gentleman with a smile.

"Not arterwards," returned the other (whom we shall call Jim), with a nod. "You see, it would not do to be jobbing away in a sort of dread, like, or expecting trouble, when the work requires one's attention. I know it's all right.”

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The gentleman was a Christian, and he paused for a moment while he reflected on the meaning of the words he had heard. "How can one have a heart to do anything while a secret dread is oppressing him ?" he thought. 'Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.' Is this a contradiction? No, the salvation is your own, the 'fear' must be the dread of offending a Holy God while engaged in His service; not of sudden destruction or sure judgment." He did not express his thoughts aloud, however, but spoke again after a time.

"What do you know is all right, my man?"

"I know where I am going to, sir, if anything should happen; and that's what all in the world don't know, and it is a grand secret to have."

"I understand you," replied his questioner; "you mean you are sure of heaven; but, my friend, you are a sinner." Jim looked fully up into the face of his companion, and

a smile of singular intelligence broke over his sunburnt, rugged features.

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Ah, sir, can it be as you don't know there is a gobetween ?"

It was simple faith, and yet true philosophy. The poor unlearned labourer knew he was a sinner meriting God's wrath, but trusted in another, who had met all claims against him by enduring the punishment due to sin, and dying, "the just for the unjust," upon the cross.

It is this principle of a go-between, or, in other words, of a mediator, which makes the plan of salvation such a mighty conception, worthy the great mind of God, and yet, as told to us, a simple story which a child can receive and understand. It is the strong point of the gospel, or good news to man, for instead of fanaticism it is, as we have said, sound philosophy, which "cannot be gainsaid or resisted."

The same principle rules in nature as in grace. God governs by fixed laws, which are never infringed or set aside save in rare cases, as by a miracle. The same necessity for something to stand as a shield between us and impending danger, strong enough to bear its full brunt without being destroyed, is apparent everywhere. For example:

When there is a strife of the elements, and the storm rages without, you could not endure its fury if exposed to it for some time; but when enclosed in well-built walls, round which the wild wind howls in vain, you sleep securely. The ship tossed on the bosom of the ocean has no chance of escape unless her timbers are strong enough to resist the surging billows. Only something fire-proof can remain unharmed amid the action of the devouring flames.

God gave to mankind a law; man disobeyed and broke it, and so must die under its curse. God's justice demanded full satisfaction; He was merciful, but He was also strictly just. His Son came into the world to stand in the sinners' place. He came between the poor fallen guilty one and justice. He fulfilled the law and "made it honourable," yet died under its curse as an evil-doer. He met the full

tide of wrath, and could say, "All Thy waves and Thy billows have gone over Me;" the fire of God's wrath consumed Him, as it did the burnt-offering in the Jewish tabernacle, and yet He was not destroyed. He passed

through the gates of death, and yet it was not possible He could be holden of it; God did not "suffer His Holy One to see corruption." He burst its bands; He ascended triumphant o'er the grave. "He died for our sins, and rose again for our justification." In His release the believer's full discharge may be read. If He who took our place is free, then we, believing it, receiving it, are free. Still, God does not save people against their will; nay, they are "made willing in the day of His power." If any of you who read this are lost, it will not be because there was no door of escape opened to you, or no remedy provided, but because you deliberately turned away from it, and rejected the means of safety which your Creator had placed within your reach.

A terrible gulf separates the unholy sinner from the Holy God, but this gulf is bridged across in Christ. Job earnestly desired "a days-man who could lay his hands upon both;" but, with a clearer light than prophetic vision, even the full blaze of gospel liberty, we can see One stooping from His throne of glory above to touch the poor leper, saying, "I will; be thou clean."

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Dear readers, accept the Mediator; God looks with complacency upon Him: may He become "all your salvation and all your desire." If you know Him as your go-between, as the poor labourer did, you will also know Him as your Advocate and High Priest. Then you will be able to make the language of this beautiful hymn your own:

"O sin, thou art vanquished,
Thy long reign is o'er;
Though still thou dost vex us,
We dread thee no more.

Oh, sing hallelujah! be joyful and sing;

Who now can condemn us?-Christ Jesus is King!"

E. H.

Looking Down-Looking up.

THE WOMAN WHO WAS BOWED TOGETHER.

HE accounts of the miracles of the Lord Jesus Christ which we read in the gospel narrative, were surely not written only as records of His

power or His love, but have been handed down to us for our comfort and teaching. They were not to be as a glorious exhibition raised far above us, which we can look at and admire and wonder, but which has nothing at all to do with us. They were recorded by the Spirit of the Lord, who "knoweth our frame, who remembereth that we are dust," who knoweth what is in man, and what is the heart's need of each one, and who knoweth how to speak a "word in season to him that is weary," and, as a wise and skilful physician, to apply the various treatment that each constitution requires. So we may comfort ourselves now and again by the recollection of the different miracles of our Lord, and see how now one, and now another, comes home to our sense of need, bringing the teaching and help which shall send us on our way stronger for having considered this or that wonderful work of Christ.

was bowed

Let us pause for a few moments to notice one of these, recorded only by St. Luke.1 Many who came to Jesus to be healed were afflicted with painful or deadly disease; but many upon whom His power was exercised were troubled by some bitter physical defect or infirmity, some "thorn in the flesh," which took the joy out of their lives, without any prospect of shortening the time of trial. Such a case we have before us in this poor woman, who " together, and could in no wise lift up herself." We may learn something from the time and place at which this miracle was performed. It was on the Sabbath day, and in the synagogue, where the people had assembled for the public worship of God. As in the case of the man with the withered hand,2 we find this poor woman's infirmity 2 Mark iii. 1-5.

1 Luke xiii. 10–17.

did not prevent her from going to the sanctuary. And here is a tacit reproof to many who make the slightest illness or hindrance an excuse for absenting themselves from God's house, the indisposition of the body being made a cover for the indisposition of the mind towards good things; they have no heart for them, and therefore they make no effort to overpass the obstacle. Both these poor people carried away a blessing from having been in contact with Jesus; and so will every waiting soul that pleads the fulfilment of God's promise, "Delight thyself also in the Lord; and He shall give thee the desires of thine heart."

The enemies of Jesus were always seeking occasion against Him; and here the ruler of the synagogue answered with indignation, in his zeal for the outward observance of the Sabbath, reproving the poor woman whose crippled condition had attracted the attention of the compassionate Great Physician; but he in his turn was reproved by the Lord of the Sabbath, and called a hypocrite for his want of discrimination. The wants of the brute creation were attended to by their masters without exciting remark; that being the case, "ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan hath bound, lo, these eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath day?" A blessed thing it was for that poor woman that her infirmity had not prevented her from honouring the Sabbath! And a blessed thing it is for any soul when the bonds wherewith it is bound are loosed by the hand of the Lord.

"Bound of Satan," "oppressed of the devil," is not this written down of many now? Are there not many yet "bound in affliction and iron," bowed down by reason of sin or the crushing power of a bad habit, till, like this poor woman, they can in no wise lift up themselves? There is a great deal of oppression in the world, the strong oppressing the weak, hard hearts turning a deaf ear to the cry of the sorrowful; but the worst oppression of all is the oppression of the devil. There are a great many in the world who set themselves to redress wrongs, who make it the business

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