it in us? I think in the following order :-He works in the judgment. I think religion that is real and vital, has to do with the intellect, as well as with the passions. God works salvation in the understanding of the man. Man sees the suitability of Christ; sees the vengeance of divine justice satisfied; believes God is just as well as merciful. God worketh salvation in the judgment and in the intellect. It may be a work of many years. This is a work going on in the affections. God takes possession of the heart, through the understanding. Man is shown his own helplessness, and sinful state; glimpses of the suitability and glory of Christ as the Saviour dawns upon the affections; that which the soul sees so precious, the heart begins to love. That which is so precious a robe, and adorns the wearer, the understanding admires, the heart loves, and the soul desires to be robed therewith.

Now, my friends, has God worked salvation in your hearts? Is it precious to you? Is the God of grace precious? Yes, brethren, He is precious. At times, to me, salvation is more precious than gold, more so than life itself, more precious than the blood that flows in my veins, more precious than existence on earth. This salvation is wrought in the understanding, the poor sinner sees the suitability, he is brought to love and admire the Gospel plan of salvation.

The Lord also works in our experience. By an inwrought experience, the soul is taught to value the plan of salvation. The judgment is illuminated through the affections, the heart embraces and seeks to know more of this glorious work; this mighty plan by which the soul is saved and made meet to be for ever with the Lord of life and glory.

By the help of the Lord, I now come to the admonition, "Work out your own salvation."

Once when Rowland Hill was going to preach at Moorfields Tabernacle, a man persuaded his friend, who was a Quaker, to go and hear Rowland Hill. The man had some difficulty in persuading his friend to go, but he went. As soon as the preacher took his text, the Quaker whispered, "I don't like that much." "Never mind," said the man, "he will soon leave it." So he did, for the good man had a strange manner of rambling. Now you will not say this of me, if you do not like works; but I do like works. I am not about to set the dead to work, that would be hard indeed, fruitless labour. If we bear out the admonition, the living are to work, whom my God hath raised from death unto life; a life spiritual, a glorifying life, to the living in Jerusalem. To work; the admonition is part of my text, "Work out your own salvation." God works in you, you work it out. God has very graciously given you some apprehension of the suitability, some enjoyment of the wondrous plan of mercy; as the Lord works in you, "To will and to do of his good pleasure," you

work out what the Lord works in.

Now, observe, God thus exhorts us to work; to work grace in our heart, though we are supposing that grace is there, and then we are admonished to work it out. There are in certain stones some beautiful grains, but the common eye does not see them. The lapidary sets to work on the stone; by his operations he brings out to view these veins; you see them now beautifully on the surface of the stone. The lapidary did not put those veins there; if nature had not placed them there, the man could not work them out. So God must first put grace into the poor sinner's soul, and create in him a new life, and bless him with gracious

influence. God first gives, He gives graciously, and very mercifully, very fully, that which is suitable for the soul to possess, He is a very bountiful giver; and what he gives is very bountifully given. Now, saith God, "work out" what I work in. Oh, "let your light shine before men, crucify the flesh," put off the old man, put on the new, and "glorify God in your body and your spirit, which are God's." I love work from

a good principle, if we work by God's rule, we are in good hands. God never exhorts the dead to work, while the living He does. Work out, then, what God works in you. If Christ works in your heart, poor sinner, it is your business to work it out; works are the evidences, the fruits, the blessed manifestations of the life of God in the soul.

I would say, friends, work it out in the world, in all your commercial transactions; this is a Christian fruit. Try to do business among men as in the sight of God. Let your religion go with you in the market, on the Exchange, in the shop go with you, and work out in blessed evidences of the blessed effects of being made partakers of salvation of God. I would further say, let your Christian fruits be seen in your family, you who are fathers. If you have servants, let your religion be seen with them.

A friend said when he was a young man in service, living with what was thought a religious family, but, said he, "if they had any religion, they took care to keep it to themselves," for he never saw any of it. This, dear friends, must not be, there must be evidence of God's work in you, if you possess His work. In your family, yes, in your domestic life, there must be the family altar, children ought to hear your prayers, your example should be before them, to admonish them. You cannot trust to your well-doing, but let your light be seen, parents, in your families, before your servants, behind your counters, if you have religion in your hearts, God works salvation in you, and it is for you to work it out in your domestic circumstances.

I would say to the churches of the living God, you who are members of the visible church of Christ; do you show at your church meetings a crooked, frowning, sour, wrathful spirit? if so, you are wrong. Work out your own salvation; at your church meetings, show, in various forms, your true Christian character; show your gratitude for communion with the people of God and your love to your blessed Saviour.

I would not live better before men than I would in secret, still, I should like to work out the blessed evidences of grace in my heart, before the

gaze of others, that by that which God has worked in me, He may be honoured, and that I may be no stumbling-block in the way of religion. I have thus travelled through some of the things belonging to salvation. Perhaps you can gather up some of the thoughts. Remember, God is the author of salvation, He works salvation in you, it is, therefore, your own salvation, God is yours, Christ is yours, the Cross is yours, the throne is yours, every blessing is yours, the robe is yours, the fulness of Christ's heart is yours; all is yours; ye are Christ's, and Christ is God's.

The Lord grant His blessing, that His salvation may be so wrought within us, that we may in our daily-life, in our business matters, in our family circle, in the church of our God, work out what God has been pleased to work in; work out in true Christian liberality, showing our sympathy with the churches of our God, according as God hath blessed us. I add no more. AMEN.

Lights and Shadows of a Pastor's Life.

BEING A DOZEN CHAPTERS IN THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A LIVING MINISTER.

CHAPTER I.-PARENTS AND PARENTAGE.

"He found them in a desert land."

BEGIN with these, not only because their memory is dear to me, but because their lives and histories afford some striking manifestations of the love and care of God for His children, alike in Providence and in grace, and I hope and pray that the few incidents that I am about to relate in this chapter, in reference to their sad and changeful sojourn upon earth, may be owned of God for strengthening the weaklings and comforting the mourners in His tried family, that, though being dead, they may yet speak for Him whose changeless love and providential care followed them all their journey through.

My mother was born at Dartford, and my father at a little village not many miles distant from Dartford; father in the year 1774, mother in 1782. To read and write was all the education they received. Schools at that time were few and far between; and, as a rule, children in the humble sphere of life in which they were born, received no education at all, but, as soon as they could earn a few shillings, were sent to service to do so, In religious matters they were complete heathens; till father was twenty-five years of age and mother eighteen, they had never read a chapter in the Bible, nor entered a chapel; in fact, in or near the villages where they were brought up, there were no dissenting chapels; and though they had been to church, they seemed neither mentally nor spiritually the better for it. The clergy of those times were different from what many of them are now. Then, they were almost to a man sportsmen and foxhunters; and many times have I heard my father say that he has seen funerals and weddings waiting at the churchdoors, sometimes for hours, for the parson to return from the chase; at other times he has seen him just ready to start for the hunt, as a funeral or a wedding party were coming up, then stop and perform the burial or marriage service in his hunting dress, mount his horse, and ride off.* Like priests, like people; if such were the parsons, it is not difficult to guess what must have been the religious condition of the population. But where God has a son on whom He intends to bestow salvation, or to endow with His Spirit (Luke

* On one occasion a gentleman, whom father knew, was crossing Shooter's Hill late at night in a hackney coach, when he was stopped by a highwayman, who, presenting a pistol, demanded his money or his life. Great indeed was his surprise to recognise in the voice of the highwayman the voice of the clergyman, or curate of the parish where he lived, and to whose ministrations he was in the habit of listening every Sunday! Accosting him by name, he said, "Why, Williams, is it you?" Finding he was known, the curate fell upon his knees, and entreated him not to name the matter, or it would be his ruin. This the gentleman promised and passed on. It is but just to add that the curate's income was £40 per annum, out of which he had to support himself, his wife, and ELEVEN CHILDREN, while the rector, who lived in a distant part of the country and seldom came to the parish, received a thousand a year.

xix. 9; Gal. iv. 6), however unfavourable the circumstances in which he is placed, whether like Zaccheus in a sycamore-tree, or as Bartimeus under a hedge, or going to the well to draw water (John iv.), the Lord will find a means to get at him and to bring him out of Nature's darkness into His marvellous light; wherever Providence has placed him, there grace will find him.

Father had now reached his twenty-fifth year, and was, as yet, without God, without Christ, and without hope in the world.

One Sunday he started early for Woolwich to see a friend, and was prevailed upon by him to accompany him to chapel. It was the first time he had ever entered one. In the afternoon, he went with him again, though strongly dissuaded from going by some persons, because Mr. Squirrel, who was to preach in the afternoon, was "only a blacksmith, and what could he know about preaching? "* But in the hand of the despised blacksmith, the word was as a fire and a hammer (Jeremiah xxiii. 29) breaking his rocky heart to pieces. The text was Acts ix. 22, "Proving that this is very Christ." Father left the chapel deeply convinced of sin, and of the fact that of that Saviour of whom he had heard so much, he knew nothing.

On returning to his native village, with a distressed and burdened conscience, there was not one person to whom he could speak on spiritual things. He spent his days and nights in weeping and supplicating for pardon. He absented himself from his former companions and amusements; he could no longer join their card parties nor village festivals. It was not long before this change was observed by the young people of the village, but of its source and nature they were ignorant. Vainly did they seek to find out where and how he spent his evenings. One evening mother, then a girl of eighteen, saw him kneeling down to pray. He discovered her presence, and prayed very earnestly for her; that prayer was the means of her conversion. His prayer was blest of God to the convincing her of her sin. She left that place a changed character. Not long after this they were married.

Two years after they were baptized at Dartford, in the river Darent, and joined the Baptist Church subsequently formed at Eynsford, under the ministry of Mr. Rogers.

Some four years after this they were removed, in the Providence of God, to Woolwich, where father obtained employment in the dockyard, which he kept for many years.

But he had not been long engaged in his new employment, when he was taken ill with the typhus fever, and was laid up with it for six months. One part of the time, for about a fortnight, he appeared to be quite unconscious, and never spoke once during the fortnight. The doctor who visited him, told my mother, on one occasion, that he could not survive twenty-four hours. Two other medical men who were called in confirmed this opinion. In her overwhelming sorrow, mother knelt down by his bedside, and cried, "O Lord, spare my husband." Opening his eyes, and fastening them upon her, father said, "He will, my dear." They were the first words he had spoken for fourteen days, and he never uttered another sentence for nearly a fortnight afterwards. But mother rose from her knees, grateful, calm,

* The preacher of the morning was Mr. F., minister of the place.

convinced that his life would be spared; that though they were her husband's words, they were the Lord's promise; and so it proved; gradually he recovered, and ultimately resumed his work.

But during this prolonged period of affliction, the Lord appeared for them in a most remarkable manner. As mother had at the time three or four children, and had nothing to depend upon but father's weekly income; when that was gone, all was gone. Reduced at last to the utmost verge of destitution, without a loaf in the cupboard, or the money to buy one, her little ones crying for bread, which she had not the means to procure, and her husband apparently at the point of death, she went to bed sad and supperless. But He who feedeth the ravens when they cry, was not unmindful of her need, and the need of her little ones. Soon after she fell asleep, she had the following remarkable dream. She dreamt that she was standing beneath a large tree, that a large blackbird was hopping about at her feet, and another in the tree above. That the bird on the ground said to its mate in the tree, "Throw out the young." Upon this, the bird in the tree, threw down at her feet a bible, which fell open at these words, "Call upon me in the day of trouble, I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me." The bird then proceeded to throw out one by one, five small birds, but the fifth had but one wing. On waking, this dream was forcibly impressed on her mind, though unable to divine its meaning. Relating the dream to a neighbour, and asking her if she could see any meaning in it, she replied, "I think it seems to imply that there is some money coming to you, but that you will not get the whole of it, as the last bird wanted a wing."

In the course of the morning, mother received a letter from her sister, who resided some few miles distant, asking her to come over, as she had something for her. She went immediately. On seeing her, her sister said, “Oh, I've got some money for you, brought to me for you in a most singular way. Yesterday three ladies came to the door in a hackney coach, and on seeing me, said, 'Oh, you are not the person we want, but you are very much like her, have you a sister in such and such circumstances?' describing exactly the circumstances in which mother was situated, with three or four children, in great distress, and husband ill. 'Yes,' was the answer. 'Then give her this sum of money, and when that is gone we will send her some more;' we never saw her, she is a perfect stranger to us, and we are strangers to her, but for three consecutive nights we each had a dream of such a person being in such circumstances, and felt it impressed upon us to relieve her, but knew not who she was, nor where she lived; but this morning being in the Borough, we felt our minds strongly impressed to take a hackney coach and try to find her. We did. The coach was standing in the Borough, with the horse's head turned towards Kent street; we told the driver to drive down Kent street, and not to stop till we told him to; we continued, right down the Kent road, through Deptford Broadway, with each of our minds perfectly satisfied that we were in the right direction. We still continued up Blackheath hill, across the heath till we reached this house, when we felt our minds strongly impressed that we must stop and enquire here. We did, and as soon as we saw you, you reminded us forcibly of the person whom we saw in our dreams, though we were convinced that you were not the person; the rest