Only persevere; only continue instant in prayer; the devil will not easily give up possession of a single soul; he will not easily let go his hold; he clings as long as he can to every soul whom he has once mastered; hence we need very earnest and very persevering prayer to move God to shew forth His power, and to cast out the strong man armed, to save a soul from death.

JOHN HENRY PARKER, OXFORD AND LONDON.

HOW TO KEEP EASTER.

How shall we keep Easter? Why, keep it as Christian men, as men risen with Christ, as men whose affections are set on things above, as men "buried with Christ by Baptism unto death," and by Him quickened to newness of life, called to holiness of life, called from the sins, the pleasures, the pomps and vanities of this wicked world to serve the living God, that we may have a joyful resurrection at the last great day.

In some Christian countries when friends meet at Easter time, they say to each other, “Christ is risen." This is their Easter salutation: and how beautiful it is! how well it shews the one great thought, the one most blessed truth that should at that time especially take possession of our souls, that should be first and uppermost in our minds. If we did but say to ourselves, "Christ is risen," and think of His triumphant victory over death and hell, of all the bright and glorious hopes which we have of escaping through Christ the lake of fire, the terrors of everlasting

death, we should enter Easter in a right spirit and make it a season profitable to our souls. It is indeed a time for religious joy, for religious gladness of heart, for religious thankfulness. Only consider how the truth of our Saviour's resurrection brightens all our earthly life. Only consider how dark, how desolate, how full of despair and gloom even our earthly life would have been, if this our Blessed Lord had not died for our sins, and had not risen for our justification. What would have been our prospect? what should we have had to look forward to? There would have been nothing before us but the certainty of hell. Hell alone would have been before us, whatsoever we might be, however we might live. Every day, every hour of our life we should have felt ourselves drawing so many paces nearer hell, no escape, no hope of escape, no place of refuge, no other doom. The best of us and the worst of us would have had but one prospect. We should have been sure that after a few months and years, after this hurrying span of life, after a short pilgrimage in the world, we should be cast into outer darkness, should be suffering the torments of the lost, should be made to dwell with the devils everlastingly, should hear the gates of hell close

against us for ever.

Our wives, our husbands, our children, our brethren, our friends, all, with ourselves, must have had this doom, if Christ Jesus our Saviour had not suffered upon the Cross, and had not risen again from the dead. "If Christ be not risen. . . ye are yet in your

sins."

Thus even our hours of joy would have been blighted, overshadowed, darkened by the continual recollection of the tremendous doom so soon about to be endured. The bride in her closet, the mother with her new-born child, must have said of themselves and of their beloved ones in the very hour of their greatest joy, "soon must we be all in hell!" Thus the cup of joy must have been continually dashed out of our hands.

Or if we had been in any distress, where then could we have found light in a dark place? Hope, we know, enables men to go through present pains. But where should we have found hope? Our sorrows would have multiplied and increased beyond measure, by the fearful prospect of being so soon launched into the greater sorrows of everlasting death. If, for instance, we had a sickness unto death, some disease that was past all cure, we should

not have been able to have cheered ourselves in hours of suffering and bodily distress, by the hope of being freed from suffering before long, and of finding rest for our soul in Paradise, when it had left the painful tabernacle of flesh. Or if we had to gaze upon the dying form of wife, of husband, of mother, of child, what bitter, bitter thoughts must have crushed our souls, when we foresaw their speedy departure to endless pangs.

And when at last death came to them, with what anguish, with what agony must we have gazed on the face of the dead, thinking of the torment that had already seized upon the soul of him we loved.

But now, my friend, my brother in Christ Jesus, now that Christ is risen from the dead and become the first-fruits of them that slept, all is changed, all is brightened, all is full of hope and light to them that have been baptized into Christ, and walk faithfully under His Cross. That black prospect, that certainty of everlasting destruction from the presence of God is past. We have hope, we have the offer, we have the promise of being saved from hell, of being received up into heaven, of passing into the very joys of the kingdom of God; yea,