dying little ones, and look about to see what the Word says with relation to the case. O do not grudge the freedom the Lord has used with you, in pitching upon a precious thing for Himself, and taking it away. Both of you have offered your all to the Lord; and though, when it comes to the pinch, the heart is ready to misgive; yet in calm blood I am sure you will stand to the bargain, and check yourselves for any semblance of repenting. The next time you see your child, you will see him shining white in glory, having been washed in the blood of the Lamb, who was an infant, a child, a boy, a youth, as well as a grown man; because He became a Saviour of infants and little children, as well as of persons come at age.

LITTLE CELLS OF FELICITY.

JEREMY TAYLOR.

REMOVE thy thoughts back to those days in which thy child was not born, and you now but as you were then, and there is no difference, but that you had a son born: and if you reckon that (birth) for evil, you are unthankful for the blessing; if it be good, it is better that you had the blessing for awhile than not at all. If we have great reason to complain of the calamities and evils of our life, then we have the less reason to grieve that those whom we loved have so small a portion of evil assigned to them. And it is no small advantage which our children dying young receive: for their condition of a blessed immortality is rendered to

them secure, by being snatched from the dangers of an evil choice, and carried to their little cells of felicity, where they can weep no more. And this the wisest of the Gentiles understood well, when they forbade any offerings or libations to be made for dead infants, as was usual for their other dead; as believing they were entered into a secure possession; to which they were admitted with no other condition, but that they passed into it through the way of mortality, and for a few months wore an uneasy garment: and let weeping parents say, if they do not think that the evils their little babes have suffered are sufficient. If they be, why are they troubled that they were taken from those many and greater, which in succeeding years are great enough to try all the reason and religion which art and nature and the grace of God have produced in us, to strengthen us for such sad contentions? -And possibly we may doubt concerning men and women; but we cannot suspect that to infants death can be such an evil, but that it brings to them much more good than it takes from them in this life.

THE GRAVE A WARDROBE.

MATTHEW HENRY.

BLESSED be God for the covenant of grace with me and mine, it is well ordered in all things and sure. O that I could learn to comfort others with the same comforts with which, I trust, I am comforted of my God! This comes near, but O Lord I submit ! I am

much refreshed with 2 Kings iv. 26. "Is it well with thee? is it well with thy husband? is it well with the child? and she answered, It is well." Although I part with so dear a child, yet I have no reason to say otherwise but that it is well with us, and well with the child, for all is well that God doeth; He performeth the thing that He appointed for me, and His appointment of this providence is in pursuance of His appointment of me to glory, to make me meet for it.

After the funeral he thus writes: "I have been this day doing a work that I never did, burying a child. A sad day's work; but my good friend Mr. Lawrence preached very seasonably and excellently in the afternoon, from Psalm xxxix. 9. 'I was dumb, I opened not my mouth; because Thou didst it.' My friends testified their kindness by their presence. Here is now

a pretty little garment laid up in the wardrobe of the grave, to be worn again at the resurrection: Blessed beGod for this hope!"

THE BLOOM FALLING INTO CHRIST'S LAP.

SAMUEL RUTHERFORD.

In a letter, dated St. Andrews, October, 1640, on the death of a friend's child, Rutherford, one of Scotland's most valiant witness-bearers thus tenderly writes :-If our Lord hath taken away your child, your lease of him is expired; and seeing Christ would want him no longer, it is your part to hold your peace, and worship and adore the sovereignty and liberty that the Potter

hath over the clay and pieces of clay-nothings, that He gave life unto. And what is man, to call and summon the Almighty to his lower court down here? For He giveth account of none of His doings. And if you will take a loan of a child, and give him back again to our Lord, smiling as His borrowed goods be returned to Him, believe he is not gone away, but sent before; and that the change of the country should make you think, he is not lost to you who is found to Christ; and that he is now before you, and that the dead in Christ shall be raised again. A going-down star is not annihilated, but shall appear again. If he hath cast his bloom and flower, the bloom is fallen in heaven in Christ's lap; and as he was lent a while to time, so is he given now to eternity, which will take yourself; and the difference of your shipping and his to heaven and Christ's shore, the land of life, is only in some few years, which weareth every day shorter; and some short and soonreckoned summers will give you a meeting with him. But what with him? Nay, with better company: with the Chief and Leader of the heavenly troops, that are riding on white horses, that are triumphing in glory.

EARTHLY COMFORTS A LOAN-NOT A GIFT. REV. JOHN NEWTON.

WE often complain of our losses, but the expression is rather improper. Strictly speaking, we can lose nothing, because we have no real property in anything. Our earthly comforts are lent us, and when recalled, we ought to return and resign them with thankfulness

to Him who has let them remain so long in our hands. That is a sweet, instructive, and important passage in the 12th chapter of Hebrews, verses 5-11. It is so plain that it needs no comment; so full, that a comment would but weaken it. May the Lord inscribe it upon your heart! "Ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of Him; for whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son, whom He receiveth. If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not? But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons. Furthermore, we have had

fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live? For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure; but He for our profit, that we might be partakers of His holiness. Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby."

CHRIST BLESSING LITTLE CHILDREN.
REV. DR. JOHN BROWN, EDINBURGH.

LET us consider that most delightful incident recorded by three of the evangelists. "They brought young children to Jesus that he should touch them, and his