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subduing into inexpressible tenderness every feeling of the heart ;-these impressions teach the soul to thirst after his presence as its chiefest joy. They also purify the soul. We see our own worthlessness in the light of his perfection,— we are abased before him. We deeply feel our unfitness to be loved by him, while we exquisitely perceive his power to attract our love. We adore him, and ardently long for communion with him; but we veil our guilty heads, and lowly at his feet, implore him to bestow on us that new heart, those pure affections, which may fit us for his presence. How sensible do we then become to the presence of evil! How do we resist the admission of a sinful thought! How earnestly do we implore him not to take his Holy Spirit from us! How do we groan to be delivered from that which would separate us from him! O how true it is that our hearts are purified, and only purified, by faith in Christ!'

II.

My whole soul is changed, and all things are changed to me. Nature,-the condition of man,-time,-futurity, all appear under a new aspect. In nature I see, wherever I turn my eyes, a manifestation of the power, or wisdom, or beauty, or tenderness of the divine mind, and now know what that aching void in my soul proceeded from, which formerly saddened and embittered the pleasure I received from all its glory. That void is now filled by the faith of his presence, who created all I gaze upon. In tracing his works, I have communion with him. When my soul intensely feels the beauty of any part of his creation, it is, in a measure, of one mind with him in whose image it was originally formed. O how elevating, how rejoicing to the heart, is this communion! I cannot see a flower with its soft pencilling, or a light summer cloud, without my soul being led to

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him, who in them manifests the tenderness and softness of his character. The wide expanse of heaven, with all its stars, -its worlds,-manifests attributes, in the contemplation of which my whole powers of soul are deeply, and intensely, and joyfully engaged, and yet seem but on the verge of their fulness. What is man without the knowledge of God? What I was,-a being separated from the source of happiness to all his powers, and to all his affections; feeling the unsatisfying unfitness, the vanity, of whatever else he looks to for that happiness, yet ignorant where to turn. I see this separation from God stamped on almost all the pursuits of man. What a weary, what an unsuccessful pursuit after happiness, does all I hear, or all I read, of the busy world, now place before me! What a turning away from the true source of that which they still are panting after! What neglect of all that is of any value! Time, so awfully important, so rapid in

its flight, how disregarded !-murdered! Futurity seems unveiled, and faith sees Him from whose face the heavens and the earth flee away, and the dead, small and great, stand before God, and the books are opened; and all that passes between that moment and this day, seems of importance, only as it is employed in preparation to meet with God. And where is this preparation? Who is making any? One here, one there, but how tremendous the proportion of those on whom that awful meeting comes unawares !'

III.

How weak is the principle of faith still in my soul! I have no happiness but in God. Yet, after all I have known of the wretchedness and disappointment which ever repaid me for trusting to any earthly promise of enjoyment, still I leave the fountain of living waters,'

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and seek to prepare for myself 'broken
cisterns, that can hold no water.'
precious is the knowledge of Christ to
such a soul as mine! When I have thus
been unwatchful and unbelieving, and
have turned away from seeking to abide
in Christ, and his Spirit has been griev-
ed, and I no longer feel the love of God
shed abroad in my heart, still my know-
ledge of Christ as the propitiation for
sin, reproves my soul for its ingratitude,
-makes it tremble at the certainty that
God abhors sin, and will assuredly pu-
nish it, brings the remembrance of his
love, whom I thus choose to forsake,-
till convinced, and terrified, and soften-
ed, I again return to him, and am en-
abled to believe that his blood cleanseth
from all sin; and, trusting the eternal
pardon of my guilt to that alone, I mourn
for, and abhor, that for which he whom
my soul adores and loves suffered shame,
the horror of being forsaken of God, and
the
agony of the cross. O for an in-

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