which all would begin to serve and reach
out after the unsaved; what self-denials and boldness we would
behold! How all the earthly things, the childish things, the
playthings of the dust, would lose their attractiveness. Then
heaven's glory would break upon us. But such a message is not
promised to us. It is nowhere said that it will take place. No angel
will come to announce the time when "this same Jesus" comes to call
us home. The fact is God has told us in His Word, that His ever
blessed Son will come and that He will come suddenly. He may come
_to-day_. He may call us home before another morning comes. And if
we believe it we shall walk in expectation and in separation. The
Lord graciously revive the blessed Hope in our hearts and through it
make us holy in our lives, zealous for the Gospel, untiring in
service and loving towards all the Saints.

The Wondrous Cross.

WHO can tell out the story of the cross! There was a time when we
thought we knew much of it; but oh! the depths, the wonderful depths
of the cross and the work accomplished there, which constantly break
in upon the heart, as one meditates on the cross. One who knew the
cross, whose eyes were filled with all its glory, because He beheld
Him, who hung on the cross, in highest glory has told us "But God
forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus
Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the
world." Crucified unto the world. Dead to the world and to sin are
the blessed effects of the cross.

Some time ago while remembering the Lord on the Lord's Day we sang a
familiar hymn:

When we survey the wondrous cross
On which the Lord of glory died,
Our richest gain we count but loss,
And pour contempt on all our pride.

How true!--contempt must be poured on all our pride when one
beholds that sight, the cross on which the Lord of glory died. But
is it so, "and pour contempt on all our pride?"

And when we sang the second verse its truth came home still more to
the conscience:

Forbid it, Lord, that we should boast,
Save in the death of Christ, our God;
All the vain things that charm us most,
We'd sacrifice them to His blood.

How true! If such a one died to deliver us out of this present evil
age then the vain things that charm us most, not the sinful things,
must be relinquished. But is it really so--all the vain things that
charm us most--we'd sacrifice them to His b