the mean altar of my heart.' I
feel the inward witness, 'Ye are clean through the word which I have
spoken unto you.' O God, I accept Thee as my Sanctifier, my Sovereign,
to govern and direct.--I have many mercies to record, among which
health is not the least; but of higher value than that, are the favour
and the peace of God. Lately I have experienced solid happiness in
Christ, sweet access to the throne, and delight in the ways of God.
In visiting the poor, and also in acting in the capacity of
prayer-leader, I have had some doubts whether I was in the path of
duty. I laid the matter before God, willing to work for Him, or to
be laid aside for Him. On opening my bible, just before I retired to
rest, my attention was arrested by these words, 'They shall not labour
in vain, nor bring forth for trouble; for they are the seed of the
blessed of the Lord, and their offspring with them. And it shall come
to pass, that before they call, I will answer; and whiles they are
yet speaking, I will hear.' Blessed promises! They appeared very
applicable.--By the midnight mail, my husband was unexpectedly called
from home, on very precarious business. May he be preserved from
everything injurious to his soul, however unfavourable to his health.
A day of much excitement, scarcely time for reflection; but in private
it was sweet to pour out my soul before God. I am desirous to know how
my husband proceeds with the business he has in hand. To know that
the Lord keeps him, and gives him health, would be a cause of
thanksgiving. He is in Thy hands, Thou Preserver of men, save him
fully. For some weeks past, I have been reckoning myself 'dead indeed
unto sin;' but the last few days my children have been very noisy;
I have thus been under the necessity of speaking loud, and sometimes
felt a little hasty in reproving them. This has awakened doubts of the
reality of my experience. Unfold to me, O Lord, Thy truth, for to the
test of Thy word, would I subject my life and practice."
VII.
TEMPLE SERVICE.
"HOLINESS BECOMETH THINE HOUSE, O LORD, FOR EVER."--Ps, xciii. 5.
"Be ye clean that bear the vessels of the Lord." The command applied
not only to the priest, who served at the altar, but to the Levite,
to whom the charge of the sacred vessels was especially committed. The
inference is, that the humblest officer in the Church of Christ ought
to possess, above every other, this essential qualification, holiness.
Purity is the se
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