rd asserts that you are guilty, and that
you cannot stand in the judgment before God, make answer: "It is so, it
is so." Practically and deeply acknowledge the doctrine of human guilt
and corruption. Let it no longer be a theory in the head, but a humbling
salutary consciousness in the heart. And when the divine Word affirms
that God so loved the world that he gave his Only-Begotten Son to redeem
it, make a quick and joyful response: "It is so, it is so." Instead of
changing the truth of God into a lie, as the guilty world have been doing
for six thousand years, change it into a blessed consciousness of the
soul. Believe_ what you know; and then what you know will be the wisdom
of God to your salvation.

[Footnote 1: "There are no profane words in the (Iowa) Indian language:
no light or profane way of speaking of the 'Great Spirit.'"--FOREIGN
MISSIONARY: May, 1863, p. 337.]

[Footnote 2: PLUTARCH: Numa, 8; AUGUSTINE: De Civitate, iv. 31.]

[Footnote 3: It should be noticed that Cornelius was not prepared for
another life, by the moral virtue which he had practised before meeting
with Peter, but by his penitence for sin and faith in Jesus Christ, whom
Peter preached to him as the Saviour from sin (Acts x. 43). Good works
can no more prepare a pagan for eternity than they can a nominal
Christian. Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius could no more be justified
by their personal character, than Saul of Tarsus could be. First, because
the virtue is imperfect, at the best: and, secondly, it does not begin at
the beginning of existence upon earth, and continue unintermittently to
the end of it. A sense of _sin_ is a far more hopeful indication, in the
instance of a heathen, than a sense of virtue. The utter absence of
humility and sorrow in the "Meditations" of the philosophic Emperor, and
the omnipresence in them of pride and self-satisfaction, place him out of
all relations to the Divine _mercy_. In trying to judge of the final
condition of a pagan outside of revelation, we must ask the question: Was
he penitent? rather than the question: Was he virtuous?]

THE NECESSITY OF DIVINE INFLUENCES.

LUKE xi. 13.--"If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto
your children; how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy
Spirit to them that ask him?"

The reality, and necessity, of the operation of the Holy Spirit upon the
human heart, is a doctrine very frequently taught in the Scriptures. Our
Lord, i