new creation in grace. a sinner from hell."

It is all God's work from first to last to save Very likely," replied the man, “but I suppose he can pray for it." "No, nor that either," I said; "you can't pray till you are born again; you may say words, but you cannot pray; the babe must be born before it can cry." Then do you mean to tell me I am to leave off my prayers?" asked the man. "Just as you like," I answered. "If you think there is any merit in your prayers the sooner you leave them off the better, as far as that goes. The prayer of the unconverted is like the bow I get from the poor of the parish; it is a mark of respect, and a token of superiority, and as such it finds its reward; as such, it is an acknowledgment of God from his creatures, and on a par with the cry of the raven, and roar of the wolf, which God recognizes in his own way, but this is not prayer. True prayer must be dropped into the soul by God, and never comes but from a renewed heart.' "Then," said the man, "what is the meaning of these words, Ask, and it shall be given you?''' "Christ spake these words to his disciples, not to the unconverted," I replied; "and if you should ever be made a disciple you will find He says them to you." Well," rejoined the sick man, in a taunting tone, "if people are not to be saved for trying or praying, will you just tell us how they are to be saved?" "It is God's work from first to last," I replied, "He loves his people-chooses them-dies for them in the Person of his Son-renews them by the Holy Ghostcuts them down in their feelings-roots up all their fancied religion— reveals a precious Christ to their heart-keeps them to the end-and lands them in glory." "And that's your way," said the man. "Well, I would rather have my own religion than that." "Yes," I replied, "and you will keep it too, unless God begin a work in you. Nothing to pay is the marrow of the gospel; but proud man won't have it so; he wants to pay something towards his salvation by his tryings and his prayers; but when God the Spirit enters the soul, He shows the sinner he is lost and ruined, and has nothing to pay. He brings sin to sight -he shows him what God is-what His law requires, and this terrifies -alarms; but there is hope of a tree if it be cut down ;' and a soul brought here by God shall be made to see something more in nothing to pay, for that Jesus has paid all, done all, and left the sinner nothing to pay." "Well, I'll try for all that," said the man doggedly. "I call your way cruel. ""You're not the first that has said so," I replied; “ but let us compare the two ways, and let us just see which is cruel. You believe you were born a sinner?" A surly sort of a grunt I took for yes, and proceeded. "Well, now, I come to you and say you are a sinner, but you must repent, believe, pray, love God, keep His law, and then He will change your heart, and take you to heaven. Or, suppose I come to you and say, you are a sinner -dead in trespasses and sin, but God can raise you to lifegive you a new heart sprinkle the blood of Jesus upon your conscience-pardon your sin, and take you to glory; and, if you are loved and chosen of God, all this must and shall be done for you. Now which of those ways has most mercy in it for a poor sinner?" "Both cruel alike," replied the man, bitterly; "and the best thing for me to

do, by your account, is to make up my mind to be damned." Well," said I, "God only knows the end from the beginning; and unless you are born again you must perish; for nothing can enter the kingdom of heaven that defileth, worketh abomination, or maketh a lie.' You are a sinner by nature and practice, and as such you cannot dwell with God." "I know that as well as you," he answered; "but do you mean to say Christ Jesus does not save sinners?" "Christ Jesus came to do the will of God," I replied; "He says, 'I came down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of Him that sent me ; and this is the Father's will which hath sent me, that of all which He hath given me, I should lose nothing.' The work of Jesus was to save his people from their sins. All sinners are not Christ's people, or they would be saved from their sins; but the sinners whom Jesus saves are loved of God, and given llim by God, and He does the will of God in saving them; and then the Spirit makes them sensible of their state as sinners, and this brings them to cry to God for mercy and pardon out of a broken bleeding heart. But now (continued I, as I rose to go) that if God's design in afflicting your poor body were to reveal all this to your soul, and so prove you to be one of those precious sinners loved by God, and given to Christ before all worlds; what, if you should be made to see all your tryings and prayers were only filthy rags -fuel fit for burning; what if God were to cut you down in your feelings and hopes, and tear away all your rotten props, and then display a bleeding, dying Christ to your wondering eyes, and say to you,

'This heart I bought with blood,

This heart it shall be mine,'

and then make you happier than your tongue could tell in the enjoy. ment of a free salvation?" I waited for a response; there was none, except the answer in my own soul that it was precious truth, whether he ever were made to feel it or not. Just as I had my hand on the lock of the door to depart, he looked over his shoulder, and said, “You may leave us one of your tracts if you like." "With pleasure," I replied," and perhaps another day I may look in."

"How

After a few days I called again. "Well, Reid," said I, "how have you been since I saw you last?" "Bad," was his only reply. have you felt in your mind?" "I have my own thoughts," he answered gruffly, but I don't choose to be questioned." "To your own Master you stand or fall," said I; "but you seem very ill-time flies-eternity is at hand-you must soon appear before God, and what is to become of your never-dying soul?" "Damned," he answered sternly. "May God fasten that upon your heart as a nail in a sure place," I said; "for so sure as He does, He will draw out the nail, and drop in its stead the blood of the Lamb." The man looked gloomy. "Well," said he, " I have thought of all you said to me, and it seems to me to mean this :-One man may try all he can, and if he is not chosen he cannot be saved; and another man may not try at all, and yet if he is chosen he shall be saved." "Just so," said I, 66 you are quite right. I would only add this to what you have said, All the trying that comes from sinful man will go for nothing, certainly; but those who are chosen of God will be taught by God to try rightly,

for Jesus says, 'All that the Father hath given me shall come to me, and him that cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out.' When God begins with a sinner, a sinner will begin with God, and never before." I saw Reid was greatly vexed I did not disapprove of his statement. "Well," he replied angrily, "I call that cruel. A man to do all he can, and get nothing-another never move a peg and get everything; as if I'd believe that." "It is quite impossible to believe it savingly," I replied, "unless God reveal it to you." Reid looked as if he did not hear me, but was pursuing his own train of thought. "And now," said he, "how can God be just in punishing sinners that can't help it?" "Let God answer that,"* I replied; and taking up his Testament that lay on the table, I opened at the 9th of Romans, and read from verse 13 to 20-the very words he almost literally uttered. "Thou wilt say then with me, why doth he yet find fault, for who hath resisted his will? Nay, but O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it why hast thou made me thus?" The piercing eyes of Reid seemed to peer into the page, as if questioning whether I had read aright, or supplied the text for my own turn. "Now," said I, handing him the open book, "the Holy Ghost leaves it where you and I must, whether we like it or not." "And yet," said he, glancing at the text, as he laid the book on the table, "It's unreasonable. Make all of the same lump-choose some, and damn the rest." "Yes," replied I," most unreasonable; for the Bible says, 'The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them, for they are spiritually discerned.' Man's reason, like all his other powers, is fallen and corrupt, and so he is incapable of judging the things of God; he puts bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter; darkness for light, and light for darkness. Nor is this the only truth beyond and contrary to man's reason; there are many more quite as unreasonable, but none hit so hard, or come so home as this. It pushes proud man into a corner he cannot get out of; it stops all boasting; it cuts down all human effort; it says you are in or out, and it puts all the power in God alone. Hence fallen man hates this doctrine, and the devil, who

Here is where religionists in general stumble, and plunge headlong into a labyrinth of confusion and disorder. They attempt to make plain what God has determined shall remain a mystery, and which he has reserved to himself the time and the mode of explaining. In the language quoted by our correspondent, from the 9th of Romans, the apostle has certainly not endeavoured to answer the question, but to silence the objector by contrast, showing the presumption of a puny man, the mere creature of a day, to reply against God, the great Ancient of days! "Who art thou (said he) that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say unto him that formed it why hast thou made me thus ?" &c. And if the apostle Paul attempted not an answer, how much less should those who have but the tiniest glimmering of that light in the expanse of which he trod! No, brethren, however human intellect, with all its lofty attainments, may endeavour to solve divine problems, it behoves the recipients of that faith of which all the Lord's children are made partakers, to stand in and walk by the same; for by virtue of this faith they can believe (though not comprehend now) that Jehovah, as a God of truth, justice, and equity, will establish his own character, and vindicate his own truth, with a dignity and conclusiveness that neither men nor devils shall be able either to resist or disprove.-ED.

lost heaven because he had no interest in it, hates it with a deadly hate, and stirs up the wrath of sinners against it." "Did you ever hate it, then?" asked Reid, with somewhat of softened inquisitiveness.* "When dead in sin, I never troubled about it," I answered. "When living in a formal state of profession, I believed it to mean the Jews, chosen by God as a nation. When a little serious about my soul, I supposed people were chosen for good works God foresaw they would do; but when brought to this point, nothing to pay, I began to see salvation must be all of grace, and that my polluted hands could take no part in the work. At length, by the application of this Scripture, "Jacob have I loved, and Esau have I hated," the Lord slew my enmity-brought me as a willing captive to bow to his truth, and not very long after gave me a precious experience that I had an interest in his electing love." Well, now," said Reid, as if gathering strength by silence, "Is there not a great deal in the Bible that looks as if we could do something?" "No," I replied, "God is of one mind, and who can turn Him?' There is much in the Scriptures that even God's people can neither explain or understand, but there is nothing that, rightly understood. contradicts this truth-God first in everything. Much that in the Old Testament seems to favour your thought was addressed to the Jews as a nation, whom God placed in the midst of an idolatrous world to keep up the knowledge and worship of the one true God, and He promised if they would outwardly honour Him He would honour them; but God's chosen people among the Jews were saved by grace-free favour alone;" and, as I spoke, I marked in his Bible the 17th chapter of the 2nd Book of Kings, and the 54th of Isaiah. "Well, now," said Reid, "if all the trying in the Old Testament belongs to the Jews, what do you make of the trying in the New?" "Why," I replied," the trying in the New Testament is the proof and evidence that God has been first. the tender blade out of the ground tells you the sower has gone before." "Well," said Reid, thoughtfully, "trying can't hurt anybody." "What good will it do you?" I asked, " since the Bible tells us our righteousnesses are only filthy rags?" He made no answer, "Reid," I said, "that viper will be crushed if ever Jesus is revealed to your soul; and instead of any hope that your tryings will help your salvation, you will cry out, Iam vile, and feel your best deeds would damn you, leave alone your worst." Well," said Reid, "I have been a sinner-God knows I have;" and he threw his head against the high back of his chair, and rolled it slowly from side to side; "but you say that goes for nothing too, unless I am chosen." Quite true," I replied; "1 am not afraid of God's truth, but if ever you are made to feel your sins, and love Jesus, these will be sweet signs that you are chosen. No man can come to me (said Jesus) except the Father draw him;' so if you are drawn it is because God has been beforehand with you."

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Just as

About ten days from this visit I saw Reid again. He received me

*Ah! here it is where the hardness of the heart begins to give way, when it is dis.covered, that one formerly in the same state of hardness and rebellion has found mercy. This attracts-this (under God) catches the poor rebel's car, and causes him to listen with an interest to which he was previously a stranger. Hence the value of experience in a preacher or a teacher-ED.

gloomily. "Are you any better?" I asked.

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"No," he replied; worse every way worse-body and soul." "And what do you think about your soul?" "Think?" said he, with a look of rugged anguish, "Why there's a load here that is crushing me-killing me;" and he struck his breast vehemently as he spoke. "Well," said I, "there is hope of a tree if it be cut down." No," answered he; "there is no hope for me I am dead-quite dead." "Dead people don't feel," I rejoined. No, nor I don't feel," said he, quickly. "When a man has death and hell staring him in the face, and nothing but sin to look at, 'tis no wonder he should feel; but I'm hardened." "Do you pray?" I asked. "No," he replied; "I can't. I groan sometimes, but it is'nt prayer." Now, that very day before I had seen him these words were confirmed by his next-door neighbour, who told me for more than a week she and her husband could get no sleep, becanse Reid would sit up all night praying and groaning. Reid's wife also subsequently testified to the same; as often he would arouse her and his children in the middle of the night, and say, "I see the flames of hell—I smell the fire of the pit. Oh, my burden! my burden! where shall I lay it? I am lost! I am damned! Let us all get up and pray ;" and his timid wife and terrified children, amidst darkness and cold, would have to fall on their knees at his command, while hour after hour he groaned out bitter cries to God for mercy. "Well, now, Reid," said I, “what if God should be teaching this first solemn lesson, nothing to pay "Oh," he replied hastily, "I am not going to deceive myself with that,” good as it is." "I neither mean to deceive you or persuade you," I answered; "for if lifting up my finger would show you your interest in Christ, and give you peace, I would not do it. That is the Holy Ghost's work, and all human persuasion is like water spilt upon the ground. I can only say, if those feelings you describe are from God, they will end to your unspeakable joy; if not, they will expire in darkness." I added a few words upon the fulness and freeness of God's great salvation-the completeness of Christ's finished work-and the blessedness that all the blood-bought family should come assuredly to taste the sweets of it here in grace, and hereafter in glory.

In about three weeks from this time I saw Reid again; but how can words describe the change that had taken place in him? On my entering, he looked at me with solemn emotion, and said, "I have seen the Lord; my sins are pardoned; my burden is gone." I stood amazed, as though I had never believed the extent of all I had ever said to him. He then entered into the detail of the Lord's gracious discovery of Himself to his soul, and I soon found our office was changed; he was now the teacher--I was the learner. The Lord seemed to have ravished his heart with love, and melted every doctrine into rich unctuous experience, while tears of self-loathing fell on a free pardon.

At about an interval of ten days I saw Reid again. It was a solemn season. He said, “You never told me of half the bliss and joy I feel. Did you ever feel as I do? Did any one out of heaven ever enjoy a precious Christ as I do? Was ever a rebel sinner favoured as I am? I can neither eat, drink, or sleep-I am as afraid of my love as if it was a bird that a wink would drive away. I am filled with the spirit; I am drunk with this new wine. My poor wife thinks me mad, and well