A Goodly Heritage

 THE MOTHER OF THE ERSKINES; Or, a Providential Deliverance from the Grave. A MOST remarkable deliverance from the grave was experienced by the mother of the celebrated Ralph and Ebenezer Erskine. Strange though it may appear, it could be said she died and was buried before her renowned sons were born. She wore on her finger at the time of her death a rich gold ring, which, from some domestic cause or other, was much valued by the family. After the body was laid in the coffin an attempt was made to remove the ring, but the hand and the finger were so much swollen, that it was found impossible. It was proposed to cut off the finger, but as the husband’s feelings revolted at the idea, she was buried with the ring on her finger. The sexton, who was aware of the fact, formed a resolution to possess himself of the ring, and therefore, on the night of her burial, he opened the grave and coffin. Having no scruples about cutting off the finger of a dead woman, he provided himself with a sharp

2 Corinthians 4:16-18 E. Hurndall Paul's troubles were exceedingly heavy. So the troubles of many believers have been and are. The sufferings of saints often seem severer than those of sinners. For them the furnace is made seven times hotter. But Paul with his heavy sorrows speaks of them as light, and speaks of them as they really seemed to him to be under the conditions to which he refers. No affliction could well be heavier than his, and yet it was light. So is the believer's - I.  WHEN HE CONSIDERS DURING HOW SMALL A PORTION OF HIS LIFE IT HAS TO BE BORNE. It is but "for a moment." Not so long as a second contrasted with a thousand years. Eternity makes time short. Our troubles are like Pharaoh's horsemen - they cannot pass the Red Sea of death. In this  flash  of our existence we may weep, but in the ever-continuing life of heaven we shall rejoice. "There shall I bathe my weary soul In seas of heavenly rest, And not a wave of trouble roll Across my peace

  There was but one way in which man could learn God, and that was by God becoming man. "The Word became flesh." We learn Divine truth in the ministry, the life, of God's Son. The truth as to God's character we read in the deeds of Immanuel, so gentle, yet so grand and God-like. The truth as to God's purposes of love we learn from Christ's sacrifice, from Christ's cross. The truth concerning our salvation we know when we witness Christ's victory over sin and death. It is the complete picture which portrays the complete original; he who would acquaint himself with the whole truth of God, as far as God is related to man, must take into his mind the perfect and glorious representation offered in the gospel. There is no other way in which the truth can be grasped and held by the finite, created nature. Know him who  is  the Truth; and then, then only, do you know the truth itself. J R Thomson

  THE IMPRESSIVENESS AND ATTRACTIVENESS OF SPIRITUAL BEAUTY. There are, indeed, unspiritual natures for whom it has no interest and no charm. But it is dear to Christ, who delights in it as the reflection of his own excellence. The King desires and greatly delights in the beauty of his spiritual spouse, the Church; to him she is beautiful and comely, fair as the moon, and clear as the sun. And all who share the mind of Christ take pleasure in that which delights him. The purity and unity, the Christ-like compassion and self-sacrifice of God's people, have exercised an attractive power over natures spiritual, awakened, and sensitive. By his living Church the Lord has drawn multitudes unto himself. And thus the beauty of the Church, reflecting the beauty of Christ, is the means of winning souls to the fellowship of immortal love. - Thomson

  The Psalms form the most wonderful expression of human feelings that was ever penned. Those who know the Psalms only slightly do not understand this. But those who are wise enough to know them well, to learn them by heart and use them, know that there is not any state of feeling, not any condition in life, for which that wonderful book does not furnish the most exact and well-fitted expressions that can be conceived or desired. With joy and thankfulness the Psalms run over; they abound in expressions of faith, and trust, and cheerful confidence in the mercy and goodness of God. Of penitential sorrow and distress for sins, of humble confession and repentance, they are so full that they almost seem to contain nothing else. For peaceful times, for anxious times, for times of affliction and grief, for reliance on God in the morning or in the evening, awake or asleep, at midnight or at midday, in solitude or in society,—none know so well as those who know the Psalms, or some of them, by h

  True religion is no mere mystic passive dream of devotion—a gazing in rapt reverence on the mystery of godliness, and no more. It is a system also of high comprehensive delicate law, which demands daily determined obedience. It is a doing and a being. The righteousness of Christ is excelling; it signifies infinitely more than civil law, social courtesy, or ecclesiastical discipline. It means a noble heart governing daily life in its most delicate relations and situations. It is no “rule of thumb,” but of finer discriminations than the most exquisite instruments of science. Let me not mistakenly spend life in arguing down and arguing away the lofty laws of Christ. Let me not labour to accommodate them to my weakness. Let me daily pray for the grace that will bring me up to the height of the law, and not attempt to bring down the law to my frailty.2 [Note: W. L. Watkinson.]

  Continual remembrance of God encourages the growth of the spirit. Man does not ripen naturally—that is, according to the course of his earthly nature—for eternity. He is the child of spiritual culture. By spiritual toil and effort only, by patience, by pain, by tears, can this crown of a good old age be won. It comes at the end of a good life-course, a course that has been aspiring and tending to God. It is the fruit of a continual renewing, the strengthening and unfolding of the inner man, which is not born of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of “the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever,” and “which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” And that nature needs close and constant culture; the weeds in its fields need to be cut down, and their very roots torn up, no matter what sensitive fibres may be lacerated in the process; while the seeds of the Kingdom, the germs which the good Sower has planted, have to be nurtured with many toils and tears, if in our old age we ar

 Return unto they rest, O my soul! Let the sweet cadence of this “word of Jesus” steal on thee amid the disquietudes of earth. Sheltered in Him, thou art safe for time, safe for eternity! There may be, and will be, temporary tossings, fears, and misgivings, – manifestations of inward corruption; but these will only be like the surface heavings of the ocean, while underneath there is a deep, settled calm. “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace” (lit. peace, peace) “whose mind is stayed on Thee.” In the world it is care on care, trouble on trouble, sin on sin; but every wave that breaks on the believer’s soul seems sweetly to murmur, “Peace, peace!” And if the foretaste of this rest be precious, what must be the glorious consummation? Awakening in the morning of immortality, with the unquiet dream of earth over – faith lost in sight, and hope in fruition; – no more any bias to sin – no more latent principles of evil – nothing to disturb the spirit’s deep, everlasting tranquility – the trem

  Divine grace” (says Leighton, on  1 Peter 1:7 ), “even in the heart of weak and sinful man, is an invincible thing. Drown it in the waters of adversity, it rises more beautiful, as not being drowned indeed, but only washed: throw it into the furnace of fiery trials, it comes out purer, and loses nothing but the dross which our corrupt nature mixes with it.” It belongeth then, by very necessity of nature, to the child of God that he grow—grow, so to speak, in bulk of spiritual life, grow in strength of all spiritual faculties, grow in largeness of spiritual result. Where there is no growth, there is no life. The path of the just is as the shining light, which shineth more and more.1 [Note: J. Hamilton, Faith in God,

Thomas Dale, M. A. This is the language of experience, and that of no common character. The psalmist desires that all who might be partakers of his trial might be sharers in his deliverance. He tells us — I.  OF HIS EXPERIENCE. Paul, as David, speaks of having "tasted of the heavenly gift." The word is most emphatic, for the sense of taste includes most of the others — sight and smell and touch. And certainly it is so in spiritual things. There are among those who are called Christians three distinct classes. There are, first, those who hear without seeing; there are those who both hear and see, without tasting; and there are those in whom all three combine — to whom "faith cometh by hearing," in whom faith groweth by seeing, in whom faith is perfected and consummated by tasting. II.  THE INVITATION. Those who have had the experience of the psalmist cannot but desire it for others. III.  THE BLESSING. Such a man is blessed, even in the trust itself; and the blessing