XV

"And he said unto him, Thy prayers and thine alms are come up for a memorial before God."1 What a blessed thing to have memorials before God! How blessed to have something before Him which may put Him in mind of us! We often give keepsakes to our friends, that when they look on them they may remember us. It cheers our hearts in absence and separation to think that this can be. It comforts our sad souls, to think that our friends are reminded of us. How much more should it do so to think that God is put in mind of us, that He remembers us! High as He sits above us, throned above the heavens, infinitely great and infinitely glorious, yet such poor worms as we are not forgotten! While He guides the stars in their orbits, and speeds the comets on their shining way, He does not forget one single heart that "hopes in His mercy." "I am poor and needy, yet the Lord thinketh upon me.' Our memorials are all before Him!

In the words cited above we have two things laid down, by which God will remember us. The first is prayer. There is no true prayer thrown away; there is no true prayer forgotten.

It is a wonderful thought how far a prayer can go. Shoot up an arrow into the sky; it will seem to mount very high, but it will soon fall back to the

1 Acts x. 4.

2 Ps. xl. 17.

earth; its own weight will be sufficient to draw it down. Uncage a lark and let it fly into the air, let it mount and sing till it is almost out of sight; yet it cannot always rise; the little warbler will be soon baffled and beaten back by the winds, or it will come to an atmosphere which it cannot breathe, and so will sink down with weary wing to the earth again. The eagle may soar skywards; it may mount on its strong pinions, and tower far above the snow mountains; but its daring ascent will soon find its limit, and as certainly as the little lark, it will return back to its nest in the rock. But send up a prayer! send up a true prayer, and nothing will, nothing can, draw it back again. It will rise above the hills, above the clouds, above the stars, and pierce even to the very throne of God. The man that offered it remains below; he is smiting on his breast like the poor publican, or in a prison like the chained Apostle; but his prayer is rising high and rapid on its way; and neither the stars in their courses, nor the wandering winds, nor the prince of the power of the air, can prevent it from reaching the heaven of its destination. Is this the case of all prayers? Yes, undoubtedly, of all true prayers.-Not of those which are formal and lifeless; not of lip prayers, however beautiful; not of all liturgical prayers, however sublime; not of all litanies, however solemn ; but of all prayers that are true, and humble, and earnest, and offered up in the name of Jesus, with faith in His most blessed intercession. Pause, then, and consider the value of prayer.

You may

sow your corn seed, but worms may destroy it, or moisture may waste and injure it, and all your expectations may be disappointed, but let your seed be prayer, and let heaven be your field; sow there that precious grain, and there shall be no disappointment. God receives it, God guards it,

God breathes upon it, and in due time it will return to your bosom again, with increase of thirty, or sixty, or even an hundred-fold.

KENNAWAY.

XVI

The Christian's joy with regard to "things present" is this, that he has precisely that allotment which comes proportioned by a Father's wisdom, and accompanied by the blessing of a Father's love: and this to the grateful heart of a true child of God is better, infinitely better, than all the surfeiting abundance of him who could cry, "Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry."

The Apostle, however, in the text (1 Cor. iii. 21— 23) does not limit the Christian's possession to "life and things present," but he declares that "death and things to come" are yours.

This is indeed a striking peculiarity of the believer's lot.

The man of the world may say, Things past have been mine, things present are mine; but we defy him to add-none but the Christian can add-the

1 Luke xii. 19.

triumphant conclusion, "Things to come shall be mine." How blessed a prerogative of every real follower of God. How marked the superiority of the Christian. Are you through Christ a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ? and do you ever ask, What will the coming times bring with them? How much of moral, how much of physical evil, how much of spiritual evil, lies brooding, dark, and lowering, beneath their wings? I know not, I cannot know, what will happen; but of this I am assured, with a certainty which nothing can destroy; that He in whom I trust is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end; that He can and will control the last acts of His providence, as surely and as mercifully as He has already done the first acts of His grace; and that He, even He, has declared that "things to come" are mine, arranged for my happiness, sanctified to my service, blessed to my present and eternal welfare. Why then should I despond? Why should I even perplex myself? "Let the potsherds strive with the potsherds of the earth;" "let the dead bury their dead." I will rest calmly and securely in the promises, and in the power of my almighty Saviour, for "all power is given unto Him in heaven and in earth;" and what He has said, He can, and therefore He will, assuredly bring to pass; and overrule the mightiest events which can ever happen in the world, for the benefit even of me, the poorest and most insignificant of His children. Things past 3 Matt. xxviii. 19.

1 Isa. xlv. 9.

1

1

2 Luke ix. 60.

have not injured me, things present do not injure me, things to come cannot injure me; this is the cool and dispassionate conviction of my soul. How unspeakably great are the privileges, how strong therefore should be the confidence of the Christian!

Are any among you, however, disposed to add, It is true, for I believe my Redeemer's promises, things present and things to come, however threatening and disastrous, are, and by the wonderful workings of His providence and grace shall be, my own; but there is yet one enemy I dare not face, there is one hour for which my faithless heart still quakes that hour is the hour which shall for ever call me hence,—that enemy is death. Be of good courage, brethren; this constant infirmity of our nature has not been forgotten in promised privileges. It might have been sufficient to have included it in the "all things" which are ours; it might have contented our hearts to know and to feel that if "things to come" be ours, death must necessarily be one, and therefore needed no separate enumeration; but, "He who came" expressly "to destroy him that had the power of death, and deliver them who, through fear of death, were all their lifetime subject to bondage,"1 has not failed to speak, even to our very weakness and our fears, upon this deeply interesting point. He tells us distinctly, by the mouth of this holy Apostle, that even death" is ours; ours not indeed to escape from (that would be a faithless and a coward wish),

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1 Heb. xi. 14, 15.