moment in the entire career of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego. How little had the king imagined the lofty position in which he was placing the objects of his rage and fury! Every eye was turned from the great image of gold, to gaze, in astonishment, upon the three captives. What could it mean? "Three men bound!" "Four men loose!" Could it be real? Was the furnace real? Alas! "the most mighty men in the king's army" had proved it to be real. And, had Nebuchadnezzar's image been cast into it, it would have proved its reality also. There was no material for the sceptic or the infidel to work upon. It was a real furnace, and a real flame, and the "three men" were "bound in their coats, their hosen, and their hats, and their other garments.' All was reality.

But there was a deeper reality: God was there. This changed every thing: it "changed the king's word” changed the furnace into a place of high and holy fellowship-changed Nebuchadnezzar's bondsmen into God's free men.

God was there! There, in His power, to write contempt upon all man's opposition; there, in His deep and tender sympathy with His tried and faithful servants; there, in His matchless grace, to set the captives free, and to lead the hearts of His Nazarites into that deep fellowship with Himself for which they so ardently thirsted.

And, my beloved reader, is it not worth passing through a fiery furnace to enjoy a little more of the presence of Christ, and the sympathy of His loving heart? Are not fetters, with Christ, better than jewels without Him? Is not a furnace where He is, better than a palace where He is not? Nature says, "No!" Faith says,

"Yes!"

It is well to bear in mind, that this is not the day of Christ's power; but it is the day of His sympathy. When passing through the deep waters of affliction, the heart may, at times, feel disposed to ask, "Why does not the. Lord display His power, and deliver me?" The answer is, This is not the day of His power. He could avoid that sickness-He could remove that difficulty - He could take off that pressure-He could prevent that. catastrophe-He could preserve that beloved and fondly

cherished object from the cold grasp of death. But, instead of putting forth His power to deliver, He allows things to run their course, and pours His own sweet sympathy into the oppressed and riven heart, in such a way as to elicit the acknowledgment, that we would not, for worlds, have missed the trial, because of the abundance of the consolation.

Such, my reader, is the manner of our Jesus, just now. By and by, He will display His power; He will come forth as the Rider on the white horse; He will unsheath His sword; He will make bare His arm; He will avenge His people, and right their wrongs for ever. But now, His sword is sheathed, His arm covered. This is the time for making known the deep love of His heart, not the power of His arm, nor the sharpness of His sword. Are you satisfied to have it so? Is Christ's sympathy enough for your heart, even amid the keenest sorrow, and the most intense affliction? The restless heart, the impatient spirit, the unmortified will, would lead one to long for escape from the trial, the difficulty, or the pressure; but this would never do. It would involve incalculable loss. We must pass from form to form in the school; but the Master accompanies us, and the light of His countenance, and the tender sympathy of His heart, sustain us under the most severe exercises.

And, then, see what glory redounds to the name of the Lord, when His people are enabled, by His grace, to pass, triumphantly, through a trial! Read Daniel iii. 26-28, and say where you could find richer or rarer fruits of a faithful discipleship. The king and all his nobles, who, just before, had been wholly engrossed with the bewitching music and the false worship, are now occupied with the amazing fact, that the fire, which had slain the mighty men, had taken no effect whatever upon the worshippers of the true God, save to consume their fetters and let them walk free, in company with the Son of God. "Then

Nebuchadnezzar came near to the mouth of the burning fiery furnace, and spake and said, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, YE SERVANTS OF THE MOST HIGH GOD, come forth, and come hither. Then Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, came forth of the midst of the fire.

And the princes, governors, and captains, and the king's counsellors, being gathered together, saw these men, upon whose bodies the fire had no power, nor was an hair of their head singed, neither were their coats changed, nor the smell of fire had passed on them."

Here, then, was a noble testimony-such a testimony as would never have been rendered, had the Lord, by a mere act of power, preserved His servants from being cast into the furnace. Nebuchadnezzar was furnished with a striking proof that his furnace was no more to be dreaded than his image was to be worshipped by "the servants of the most high God." In a word, the enemy was confounded; God was glorified; and His dear servants brought forth unscathed from "the burning fiery furnace. Precious fruits, these, of a faithful Nazariteship.

And, observe, further, the honour put upon our Nazarites. "Then Nebuchadnezzar spake and said, Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego." Their names are intimately associated with the God of Israel. This was a high honour. They had identified themselves with the true God when it was a matter of life and death to do so; and, therefore, the true God identified Himself with them, and led them forth into a large and wealthy place. He set their feet upon a rock, and lifted their heads up above their enemies round about them. How true it is, that, "them that honour me I will honour!" And it is equally true, that, "they that despise me shall be lightly esteemed" (1 Sam. ii. 30).

My beloved reader, have you found settled, divine peace for your guilty conscience, in the perfected atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ? Have you simply taken God at His word? Have you set to your seal that God is true? If so, you are a Child of God; your sins are all forgiven, and you are accepted as righteous in Christ; heaven, with all its untold glories, is before you; you are as sure of being in the glory as Christ Himself, inasmuch as you are united to Him.

Thus, everything is settled for you, for time and eternity, according to the very utmost desire of your heart. Your need is met-your guilt removed-your peace

established-your title sure. You have nought to do for yourself. All is divinely finished.

What remains? Just this: LIVE FOR CHRIST! You are left here, for "a little while," to occupy for Him, and wait for His appearing. Oh! seek to be faithful to your blessed Master. Be not discouraged by the fragmentary state of everything around you. Let the case of Daniel and his honoured companions encourage your heart to seek after an elevated course here below. It is your privilege to enjoy as much of companionship with the blessed Lord Jesus, as if you were cast amid the palmy days of apostolic testimony.

May the Holy Ghost enable the writer and the reader of these lines to drink into the spirit-walk in the footsteps-manifest the graces-and wait for the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ! C. H. M.

FRAGMENTS.

1. THE KEYS.-The key has, from of old, been the symbol of authority (Is. xx. 22) and power (Job xii. 14; Rev. iii. 7). In this sense, a mountain-pass, or a strait of the sea, is sometimes, even in modern language, called the key of a kingdom. Possess it, and the whole that lies within is yours. There is harmony of ideas, too, in applying it to a house; he that has the key of a house is the master. But there seems no congruity, no sense, in applying it to the human body. In it the head has all the directive power; and in that spiritual body, of which Christ is the Head, it is so also.

2. A creature, as such, ought to keep its first estate, as assigned to it by God. No creature, because a spirit, had the right to leave its first estate (Jude 6) any more than had Adam to leave his. When the Creator sets what He has created in a given sphere, that is its estate. But the Son of God had the right and title to leave any sphere, for He is God. Yet when (Phil. ii.) He left the divine glory on high, it was in the perfect character of one, taking a new sphere, as entirely subserving the glory and will of God and the Father. His having the right to leave the divine glory on high, to become seed of the woman, proved that He was God; and the object with which He left it, and His whole way afterwards proclaimed the same.

No. IX.

THE FEAR OF DEATH.

"WANT of subjection to God"-is, in every creature in whom it is found, Sin. I intentionally say, want of subjection, or the absence of subjection (i. e., non-subjection, which is negative); and I do not say in-subjection: because, to many minds, in-subjection would seem something positive. But the absence of subjection is sin, without its being needful to prove the positive presence of any activity of rebellion, or any act of rebellion whatever.

It is written concerning man, "The wages of sin is death." We know from Scripture that to mana death has two parts: there is, 1st, the death of the body, when the mortal life ceases to animate it; and there is, 2ndly, hereafter, the second death. Moral death (as men speak) is sin indwelling. To touch a certain tree in Eden was the expression of man's independence toward God. I can think with awe and dread of the touching it, without sin or moral death; but when the will to touch it was once formed, there was sin; and when Eve had touched it, there was moral death. The judgment of this sin was death of the body, and after that the judgment and second death, of the whole race who might descend from Adam and Eve.

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Why do men fear death? I cannot answer this question in full here - a few words must suffice. An honest infidel (if such a thing can exist) told me that "death was as a black curtain across his path, and was ever there

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a That "By sin came death;" that "The wages of sin is death," etc., was said of man, who had been made a living soul, with power to recognise God as the Source and Giver of all good, is clear. Animals and vegetables are not upon the same footing as man as to death; God has not put them upon the same grade in creation as He placed man.