tion, and shine radiant with the beauty of holiness, but some will eclipse the others by reason of a glory that excelleth. And so with the possession and the enjoyment of all the things that God has laid up for those that love him, and "who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honour and immortality, eternal life.” It must be so. It cannot be otherwise. We can only receive and enjoy heavenly blessedness and glory according to our capacity, and our ability to take them in, and these will depend on our preparation for heaven, and our meetness to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light. Just as the same music is a very different thing to different individuals, and that in proportion to the acuteness and correctness of their ear, and their proficiency in the theory and the practice of music, so the symphonies of heaven, and "the melodious songs of the blest," will be the more thrillingly delightful, and the more ravishingly glorious, in proportion as our hearts are attuned to their music; and our place in the choir of the temple above will depend on the progress we have made in learning the notes of the new song here. The same picture is a different thing to different individuals. The artist views it in a different light from that in which it is seen by the ordinary observer, and its beauties thrill him with a pleasure which those who have not the artist's eye can never know. The same scenery is a different thing to different men. Some men are such matter of fact individuals, and have so little poetry in their composition, and are so devoid of all sympathy with the beautiful, that they never penetrate beyond the outer rind of things, and they can gaze with apathy and indifference upon the most lovely scenes and objects—

"A primrose by the river's brim, a yellow primrose is to them,
And it is nothing more."

Others kindle with enthusiasm at the sight of the beautiful, whether in nature or in art, and in proportion as they appreciate it, they delight in and enjoy it. It is the same on a higher plane of things. A man's life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses, either on earth or in heaven, or whether they are the things that are seen and temporal, or those that are unseen and eternal. It depends more, upon what a man is, than upon what he has, whether his happiness shall be great or little. What a man takes out of anything depends very much on what he brings to it. What he gets depends on what he gives. This holds especially true of spiritual realities. It is not the babe in Christ that experiences most of heaven in this world; neither will it be the babe in Christ that will enjoy

most of heaven in the world to come. The heaven of the penitent thief must be something very different, at least in the degree of blessedness enjoyed, and the glory with which he is invested, from the heaven of Paul or John: and the heaven of those who have lived in unwavering faith, and unreserved obedience, and witnessed a good confession, and loved not their own lives unto the death, is a different heaven from that of the wavering, doubting, and inconsistent Christian who was always stumbling and falling, and wandering out of the way, and, at the best, only following the Saviour afar off. The sinner saved at the eleventh hour, is not placed on the same level with the man who, for many years, has lived a life of faith on the Son of God. Heaven is a prepared place for a prepared people. A man's heaven is in exact accordance with his state of preparation for it, and a man is only prepared for it in proportion as God's ideal has been realized in him, and to the extent in which he has made an approximation towards the fulness of the stature of the perfect man in Christ Jesus. As we have reason to believe that there will be different degrees of glory and blessedness among the redeemed, we have also reason for coming to the conclusion that their spiritual condition at the end of probation will fix their state in eternity, and decide the place they are to occupy in heaven, and the rank they are to hold among the blood-bought and the blood-washed throng. I do not mean to affirm that there will be no progress in heaven. I believe the very opposite of that: but I also believe that, just as the moral condition of men at the last Judgment will decide whether they are to be on the right hand or the left of the Judge, and issue in each one going "to his own place," so the attainments of the believer, and the progress he has made in the divine life, during probation, will determine the rank he is to occupy in the church of the firstborn, and the degree of glory he is to possess, and the measure of bliss he is to enjoy, and all the progress of eternity will not materially alter it. Every one knows that it is a great disadvantage to a man if his education has been neglected in his youth. This is especially felt by those who set themselves to study in their riper years, without having been well grounded in elementary education in their boyhood. It is a disadvantage that can never be fully got over, study as they may. It is true, some men have done wonders in the way of acquiring learning, and have gained a well merited reputation for scholarship in spite of these drawbacks; but even they have felt that they were placed at a great disadvantage when competing with others who had been more highly favoured in youth, though their inferiors in natural abilities: and they have been painfully

conscious that the same earnest application and devotion to study would have been productive of far greater results if they had had a good ground-work and a fair education to start from, and that it was impossible for them fully to recover the ground that had been lost. Now, if we are to believe that our period of probation and the use we make of our privileges and the talents committed to our care are destined to exert at least as great an influence upon our condition in eternity as our boyhood and youth exert upon our maturer years, are we not fully warranted to believe that our present moral and spiritual condition will fix our future state, and that the progress we have made in "putting on Christ" will determine the glory and the fulness of our heaven? If so, then the prize of our high calling is not something outside of us, but something to be realised in us. It is God's ideal of what man ought to be. God has invited us to fellowship with him, and in the resources of the Godhead we have "a never failing treasury, filled with boundless stores of grace;" but that we may fully avail ourselves of it and receive all that God can give, it is necessary for us to attain to what God would have us to be, and to be conformed to the image of his Son. It is this to which he has called us. It is for this we have been redeemed, and regenerated, and pardoned, and elected. This is the prize of our high calling in Christ Jesus. This is the prize that is held out to us, and to which we are invited to aspire, even conformity to the image and likeness of him who is the brightness of the Father's glory, and the express image of his person. "God hath not called us unto uncleanness, but unto holiness." God's will is our sanctification and our deliverance from everything that would mar his image or cause us to fall short of the divine ideal, or of "perfecting holiness in the fear of God." He is desirous of freeing us from everything that would chain our spirits down to earth, or withdraw our affections from him and fix them on other and inferior things, everything that would blunt our spiritual perceptions, or dwarf our powers, or weaken our susceptibilities for receiving, and lessen our capabilities of enjoying, the wealth of his love and the riches of his grace. He urges us to put on Christ, by cherishing his spirit and imitating his example, because in Christ we have what man was designed to be, and the more fully we bear the image of the Saviour here, the more fully we will enter into his joy hereafter. But why confine our thoughts to a heaven beyond the grave? It has been said, "Heaven lies about us in our infancy." May it not at least, with equal truth, be said that heaven lies about the believer, even on earth and in time? Has not God blessed

us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ? Even on earth the believer has foretastes of heaven, and earnests of the inheritance, and glimpses of the glory that is to be revealed.

And why are such experiences so rare? Why are they the exception and not the rule? Just because of the low spiritual condition of believers. God can only give them as we are able to receive them, and he can only bless us with all the fulness of the blessings of the Gospel of peace to the extent in which we are in a condition for being so blest, and that is in proportion as we come up to the Divine ideal. Ye see your calling, brethren." God calls you "to work out your own salvation with fear and trembling." He has called you to glory and virtue, and desires you to be partakers of the divine nature, and attain to what he designed man to be. "One in a certain place testified, saying, What is man, that thou art mindful of him? Or the son of man, that thou visitest him? Thou madest him a little lower than (Elohim) Divinity: thou crownedst him with glory and honour, and didst set him over the works of thy hands: thou hast put all things in subjection under his feet. For in that he put all in subjection under him, he left nothing that is not put under him. But now we see not yet all things put under him. But we see Jesus "—yes, we see Jesus crowned with glory and honour-Jesus, the model man, the beau ideal of humanity. In him, we see what God would have us to be. He has left us an example that we may follow in his footsteps. From the loftiest summit of the mount of moral rectitude, where he stands radiant in the pure sunshine of perfection, he beckons us onward and upward. He "Follow me." Let us live "looking unto Jesus." Let us go on unto perfection." Let the aspiring spirit of the noble Paul be ours: and let us echo the sentiments he expressed when, in writing to the Philippians, he said, “Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect, but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus."

says

unto us,

E. J. B.-K.

"HUSH, poor weeping one! Here is a Life-battle right nobly done. Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord; blessed are the valiant that have lived in the Lord. Amen, saith the Spirit-Amen."-Carlyle on Cromwell, Death-Bed Scene.

PELAGIUS AND PELAGIANISM.

PLANTS, animals, and human beings, are greatly influenced by the character of the country in which they are found. The wheat of America may be distinguished from the wheat of this country. The peoples in Asia may be distinguished from those in Africa. The temperature, the soil, and the configuration of a district seem to stamp, with certain peculiarities, the plants, and animals, and human beings of that district. And yet wheat is wheat, a sheep is a sheep, and man is man, all the world over.

Christian men are greatly influenced by their surroundings, by the laws and customs of their own nation, by the systems of philosophy, or systems of religion that may have prevailed, or may be prevailing, within their borders. And yet faith is faith, love is love, and the grand old Gospel is the grand old Gospel all the world over.

In turning up the early pages of ecclesiastical history, we find abundant evidence to prove the working of these laws. We find that the same Gospel was received by all converts, but into different moulds; and according to the peculiarities of these moulds, such were the idiosyncrasies of these Christians. The Jewish converts could be distinguished from the Gentile converts. Gentile converts, on the other hand, had their own peculiar views of the doctrines of Christianity, according as they had been influenced by certain schools of philosophy :-Epicureanism, Stoicism, Gnosticism, Manicheanism, or Neo-Platonism. These, and other isms, helped to give colour and hue to the Gentile Christians.

The mixing up of the seeds of Gospel truth with the seeds of these diverse schools of philosophy was not unproductive of certain fruit. For a greater or less period, according to the circumstances of the time, the germination and growth of these seeds may have been undetected, but ultimately the fruit was visible, either in protracted controversies with respect to the mysteries of Free Will, Original Sin, &c., or in the building up of some well defined theological system. Somewhat after this manner did Augustinianism and Pelagianism come into existence. The seeds, the germs, were sown, and were developing for generations previous; but in connection with these two great men, Augustine and Pelagius, and their followers, they fructified into elaborately formed creeds. business in the present contribution is with "Pelagius and Pelagianism."

Our