A Goodly Heritage

The death-bed of Bruce, the famous Scotch divine, is a striking illustration of this part of my subject. Old Fleming describes it in the following words. "His sight failed him, whereupon he called for his Bible; but finding his sight gone he said, 'Cast up to me the eighth chapter of Romans and set my finger on these words, I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, etc., shall be able to separate me from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Now', said he, 'is my finger upon them?' when they told him it was, he said, 'Now God be with you, my children: I have breakfasted with you, and shall sup with my Lord Jesus Christ this night', and so gave up the Ghost" - Fleming's Fulfilment of Prophecy, 1680.

 The loss of any man's soul is the heaviest loss which he can suffer. I feel unable to set forth this point as I ought. No living man can show the full extent of the loss of the soul. No one can paint that loss in its true colors. No we shall never understand it until we have passed through the valley of the shadow of death, and wake up in the eternal world! Never until then shall we know the value of an immortal soul. I might say that nothing in the present life can make up for the loss of the soul. You may have all the riches of the world—all the gold of Australia and of California, all the honors which your country can bestow upon you. You may be the owner of half a continent. You may be one whom kings delight to honor, and nations gaze upon with admiration. But all this time, if you are losing your soul, you are a poor man in the sight of God. Your honors are but for a few years. Your riches must be left at last. Naked you came we into the world, and naked must you go out. No 

Every one of us has an undying soul. I am not ashamed to begin my paper with these words. I dare say that they sound strange and foolish to some readers. I dare say that some will exclaim, "Who knows not such things as these? Who ever thinks of doubting that we have souls?" But I cannot forget that the world is just now fixing its attention on material things to a most extravagant extent. We live in an age of progress—an age of steam-engines and machinery, of locomotion and invention. We live in an age when the multitude are increasingly absorbed in earthly things—in railways, and docks, and mines, and commerce, and trade, and banks, and shops, and cotton, and corn, and iron, and gold. We live in an age when there is a false glare on the things of time, and a great mist over the things of eternity. In an age like this it is the bounden duty of the ministers of Christ to fall back upon first principles. Necessity is laid upon us. Woe is unto us, if we do not press home on men

A true woman's thought I For so far as a woman is sincere to the nature God has given her, her aspiration is not so much that the world should ring with her fame, or society quote her as a leader of fashion, but that she should bless, and be blessed in blessing. It is not that she should not wish for power, but that she should wish for a noble, not an ignoble power. It is not that she should not wish to queen it in this world, but that she should wish to queen it, not by ostentation of dress or life, nor by eclipsing others, but by manifestation of love, by nobility of gentle service, by unconscious revelation in her life and conscious maintenance in others by her influence, of all things true and pure, of stainless honour in life, of chivalrous aspiration in the soul. At home or in the wider sphere of social action her truest fame is this, that the world should call her blessed. The music of that thought sounds through every line of the virgin's psalm. And there is no sadder

The  universal prevalence of sickness. I need not dwell long on this point. To elaborate the proof of it would only be multiplying truisms, and heaping up common-places which all allow. Sickness is everywhere. In Europe, in Asia, in Africa, in America; in hot countries and in cold, in civilized nations and in savage tribes,–men, women, and children sicken and die. Sickness is among all classes. Grace does not lift a believer above the reach of it. Riches will not buy exemption from it. Rank cannot prevent its assaults. Kings and their subjects, masters and servants, rich men and poor, learned and unlearned, teachers and scholars, doctors and patients, ministers and hearers, all alike go down before this great foe. "The rich man’s wealth is his strong city." (Prov. 18:11.) The Englishman’s house is called his castle; but there are no doors and bars which can keep out disease and death. Sickness is of every sort and description. From the crown of our head to the sole

No man could have been better qualified to give advice to sufferers for righteousness' sake, than John Bunyan: and this work is exclusively devoted to that object. Shut up in a noisome jail, under the iron hand of persecution, for nearly thirteen years, in the constant fear of being hanged as a malefactor, for refusing conformity to the national liturgy, he well knew what sufferings were, and equally well did he know the sources of consolation. It was wisely ordered by Divine Providence, that before the king pardoned him, he had a legal return under the hand and seal of the sheriff of Bedfordshire, certifying the reasons of this frightful imprisonment. This is entered in the minutes of the Privy Council on the 8th and 15th of May, 1672; and it proves that he was thus cruelly punished for "being at conventicles for nonconformity" and for no other cause. In this "Advice" we find his opinion on the origin of persecution—the instruments—the motives—its cruelty—with

Delivered on Sabbath Morning, December 23rd, 1855, by the REV. C.H. SPURGEON At New Park Street Chapel, Southwark. "But thou, Beth-lehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting."-  Mic 5:2 THIS is the season of the year when, whether we wish it or not, we are compelled to think of the birth of Christ. I hold it to be one of the greatest absurdities under heaven to think that there is any religion in keeping Christmas-day. There are no probabilities whatever that our Saviour Jesus Christ was born on that day, and the observance of it is purely of Popish origin; doubtless those who are Catholics have a right to hallow it, but I do not see how consistent Protestants can account it in the least sacred. However, I wish there were ten or a dozen Christmas-days in the year; for there is work enough in the world, and a littl