considerate. a strange cxE E ing came. there soos the mind - itself appear that the the gree believe = thoug the = w of once ruish never much g the y, to Divine is spie full when 'led.* man's com ition in been a you can, scious of it Christ in off in the current!-unconscious of the perilous situation in which I then moved, and unconcerned at what I saw of the sudden departure of those around me, me, swallowed up in the vortex ! Dread Power! awful even in Thy mercies! Do I now stand secure on the edge, upheld by a strength not my own, no longer within the reach of the tide, and beholding the solemn prospect of thousands still ingulphed? Can I call to mind the past danger and present deliverance, unmoved with pity over the unthinking throng, and untouched with gratitude to Thee the sole author of every mercy? I feel (blessed be the grace that inspires it!) the rising hymn of thankfulness in my heart, while the tear drops from my eye; Lord, how is it that Thou hast manifested Thyself unto me, and not unto the world? -The reader who condescends to interest himself in the history of a poor traveller to Zion, must be content to admit of these occasional interruptions by the way. You may, perhaps, my brother, consider every thing of this kind, but as the unnecessary parenthesis of the tale. But they are not so to the writer. The life of a Pilgrim, and of Zion's Pilgrim particularly, furnishes but a comfortless view in the retrospect. It is like treading over large tracts of waste, thorny, and unimproved ground. Every little spot therefore, which can be looked back upon with delight, is like the sweet herbage, and the refreshing stream, here and there only to be found on the barren heath; and which are beyond all calculation, precious to the traveller. If the reader cannot enter into a full participation with the writer, in their enjoyment, he hopes he will at least suffer them to remain, as so many episodes in the history. It is possible, from an unison of hearts, some fellow-traveller on the road to Zion may find in them an harmony of sound corresponding to his own song of praise and to him they will be not uninteresting. I never One reflection, I think, cannot fail to strike the gracious mind with force, in the review of a long period of unawakened nature, when once brought out of it; and that is, the distinguishing properties of preserving grace. knew, until grace taught it me, how much I owed, and was continually accumulating the debt, during the season of my unregeneracy, to this one principle. But now under Divine teaching, I have learnt somewhat of this spiritual arithmetic, and can enter into the full apprehension of what the Apostle means, when he says, preserved in Jesus Christ and called.* Do you ask what that is? Every man's personal experience becomes the truest commentator. But for the grace of preservation in Jesus Christ, there never could have been a calling to Jesus Christ. Calculate, if you can, how long a space you lived, unconscious of your state, without God and without Christ in the world. And had you been cut off in the * Jude i. 1. awful state of an unawakened, unregenerated Is this view of the subject wholly un-. Isaiah xxvii. 3. |