your love for no one needs it, in order to enjoy heaven, nor in order to bear the eternal weight of glory well. But this is not true of all your fellow-Christians on earth. Some of them need both sympathy and help, in order to be faithful unto death; and all of them deserve affectionate notice, in order to be useful in life. And, what am I—or who are you—that we should care nothing about our brethren? If those we stand aloof from have faults,—so have we and if God were to treat us for our offences against himself, as we treat them for their offences against us, how should we like it -what would be the consequence?

Besides; are there none in your neighbourhood, very low in life-very straitened in circumstances--very much exposed to temptation, just because of heavy trials; but who really have "the root of the matter" in them, notwithstanding all these things? And, are

you ashamed or afraid to notice and own them, as Christians? True; they may not do much credit to Christianity, whilst they hardly know how to "make the ends meet in life. But if you look down on them-if you withhold from them all countenance and counsel,-if they may sink or swim for any thing you care,一 who risks the credit of Christianity most?

throne.

Do, ask yourself often, how you could meet in heaven, without shame, some whom, notwithstanding all their faults, you expect and wish to meet there ? True; they will not upbraid you when they meet you before the The neglected will not say-You used to pass me even at the sacrament, without condescending to speak or look to me. Those who came out of great tribulation," will not say, -"I was sick, and ye visited me not; hungry, and ye gave me no meat; thirsty, and ye gave me no drink; naked, and ye clothed me not."

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This will never be repeated, after Christ has said it from the Judgment-seat: but, should it even be pardoned by Him in your case, how could you ever forgive yourself, when you see the poor of the flock at his right hand? Why, their very silence and cordiality will then be more humiliating to you (although not at all intended to be so) than the most cutting reproofs.

Sympathy with poor and afflicted Christians is, remember, as much a leading as it is a lovely feature of heavenly character. It is the very brightest feature of the social character of the Angels of God. We know more about their sympathy with the penitent, the suffering, and the dying, than of their nature or their history. I have sometimes come, in thought, to "the innumerable company of Angels," saying to myself, without any difficulty, until I saw them in the visions of John, "Are they not all

ministering spirits to the heirs of salvation?" Whilst I thought of them only as a whole, I was not much humbled by their ministry. But when I began to observe them, one by one, in the glass of the Apocalypse, I have been compelled to exclaim,-What, all ministering spirits to the heirs of salvation? That Angel

-"having the Seal of the Living God?"

Yes; he has it to seal His servants on earth.

What, those four Angels "having the four

winds of the earth?"

Yes;

"that the winds

should not blow to hurt " the trees in the garden of God! But that Angel, "clothed with a cloud, and a rainbow around his head, and his face as it were the sun," is he too a ministering spirit to men? Yes; and well pleased to hold in his hand "a little book!" But that Angel, "having the key of the Bottomless Pit, and a great Chain, in his hand," is he too a ministering spirit to man? Yes; he shall

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VARIETIES, FROM MODESTY.

bind Satan, and shut him up for a thousand years, that he may "not deceive the nations.”

Truly, they are all ministering spirits! Yes; and any of them would have gloried to carry Lazarus to heaven. All of them rejoiced when you repented: and, is there any heir of salvation, you are ashamed to own, or unwilling to aid? Woman! "know thyself;" thy duty· thy destiny.