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of it. What would they not give, if that thought should never visit them? What a relief to them it would be, if God would leave them to themselves, and not torment them by these accusing, frightful thoughts? Therefore, they say unto God, Depart from us; for we desire not the knowledge of thy ways." (2.) The wicked desire to be separated from God, because his presence is felt as a check to their inclinations. When the young man would fain "rejoice in his youth, and his heart would cheer him in the days of his youth" when he would fain break out into all the enjoyments which his ardent spirit longs to tastehe finds God, like the angel beside Balaam, standing right against his path, with a drawn sword in his hand. Every unrenewed man-be he young or oldfeels the presence of God a check upon his inclinations; he feels it, just as a band of children met for some foolish prank, feel the presence of their teacher, | or of any other older and more sober-minded person, who views their project with disapproval. God seems to them like a jailor, watching their every movement, and apparently anxious to prevent them for a single instant from tasting the sweets of liberty. If they were but away from God, or if God were but away from them-what freedom would they have, what pleasure they would enjoy! They would roam at will among all the flowery gardens that attract them; the pleasures of the convivial party-the charms of youthful society-or whatever be the fascinating object-they would then enjoy to their heart's content! There would be no breaking in upon their happiness by such gloomy and irksome duties as those which dull religion imposes-no need for suspending the pleasures of the week by the arrival of the Sabbath -no need for laying aside the pleasant newspaper, or the exciting novel, to read the Bible, and engage in prayer. Oh, would not these be happy days, when the heart, loosed as it were from a thousand cumbrous clogs and weights, would glow with all its native gladness, and expand in all its native buoyancy? What hinders the enjoyment of such bright visions, but the presence of God? While He is at hand, they cannot be enjoyed-" therefore say they unto God, Depart from us, for we desire not the knowledge of thy ways."

We are far from saying, that these feelings are deliberately cherished or expressed by all ungodly men. Not many would have the boldness to express them, even though they were conscious of holding them;and perhaps not many would allow themselves to think that it was at all possible for them to feel thus toward God. But for all that, the leaven of the feeling works widely and fatally among men. The whole history of the world proclaims that men do not love to retain God in their knowledge. Ever since the fall, the same feeling that led Adam to hide among the trees of the garden, has led sinful men to steal away from God; and were it not for another feeling that comes in and checks it-that tells men that in spite of the rebuke which God's presence administers to their sins, and in spite of the check which God's presence imposes on their inclinations, still, God MUST be feared, MUST be sought, MUST be obeyedwere it not for this salutary check, the ungodly world would present one unbroken phase of atheism, and the open language of men to God would be-Depart from us, for we desire not the knowledge of thy ways.

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II. Let us now view a state of separation from God in the other light. Having viewed it as the wish of the ungodly, we proceed to regard it as their curse.

Our first illustration shall be drawn from a wellknown scene in Old Testament history. The host of Israel has encamped among the mountains of Gilboa, while in their neighbourhood, and visible from the eminences, the mighty armies of the Philistines are gathered together. The royal leader of the host of Israel is no weak or timid man; on the contrary, he is as remarkable for personal courage as he is eminent for bodily stature and strength. But what can have happened to him? Why does he tremble so, when he looks on the host of his enemies? Why does he disguise himself, and repair to Eudor, and consult with a woman with a familiar spirit? Hear . from his own lips the sad explanation:-"I am sore distressed, for the Philistines make war against me, and God is departed from me, and answereth me no more, neither by prophets, nor by dreams." This is the explanation-he was in trouble, and God was departed from him; and God's ears were as deaf to all his cries and appeals as if no sound of distress, no wail of despair, came from him at all! This shows that a time of trouble is the time for proving how great a calamity it is to be separated from God! When you are placed, dear reader, in the midst of heartstirring distress-when Death is rapidly approaching to steal away the child of your affections, or when dismal Famine prevails around you, or the Pestilence is walking in darkness, and bringing his horrors close to your dwelling-or when the pangs of death seize hold upon yourself, and you are about to be engulphed in the untried and bottomless waters-when an instinct that nothing can stifle tells you that GOD only can help you,-oh, what can exceed the anguish of the thought that you have wished to be separated from God, except only the still more bitter anguish of the conviction, that God has granted your wish and departed from you! Or, take another supposition. If you were to be thrown by some unexpected occurrence into company with a lawless gang-if you were to be cast by shipwreck on some lonely island, peopled only by ruffians of the wildest and most desperate character-if every mortal of them were to treat you with unmitigated cruelty-if you were made the victim of the most heartless oppression-if not so much as one single individual could be found among them who would take your part, or treat you with the slightest pity-oh, would not then your de solate heart turn instinctively to Heaven, and cherish the happy thought that there was an Eye there that saw all your miseries, and an Arm there that would redress all your wrongs? But what if it should be, that long before you knew what such treatment was, the desire of your heart had been that God would depart from you-and what if now you were doomed to reap the fulfilment of that wish, and, in addition to all your other miseries, to feel that God, too, was "turned to be your enemy"? And is there any thing in the scene which we have now pictured that differs very much from what we may very well believe shall be realized, with tenfold greater horrors, in hell! Ah, truly, we do not need to picture hell as a place of fire and brimstone-though it may be that too; we have but to picture it as a place where no influence from Heaven mollifies the fierce passions of its inmates-where cruelty, malignity, and injustice rage and raven as they please—we have but to fancy any one cast into that fearful pandemonium, and when he would look to Heaven for protection, and cry, "Where is the God of Justice?"-to remember that his cries cannot reach to Heaven, and the God

of Justice cannot help him, seeing that, in answer to his own desire, he is now eternally separated from God,

we have but to conceive this, and how dismal is the hell which is the result! But there are other things that may go to convince the wicked of their awful infatuation, when they desire God to depart from them. Every kind of disease or disorder is accompanied with pain, whether it be disease of body, or disorder of mind. Whether or not the wicked may be distressed with diseased bodies in the eternal world, we cannot so surely tell; but we know full well, that they shall be afflicted with the awful curse of disordered souls. Souls preyed on by raging pas sions, more rapacious than vultures or tigers-the abode of discontent, and weariness, and remorse, and anger, and shame-thirsting for happiness that can never be reached, and for a satisfying portion that can never be enjoyed-and all this the eternal and unchangeable result of the state of things which they wished for, when they desired that God would depart from them! For it is souls emptied of God-eternally separated from all fellowship with Him who is Light and Love-that we see, when we look on creatures in this awful state. How dreadful their misery! Yet, by no possibility can we avoid the conviction, that that must be the unchangeable lot of those who, in fulfilment of their own wish, are separated from God. No softening influence of Divine grace can ever visit them; no beam of holy love can ever fall on them; no sun can ever shine in their firmament; no rainbow span their sky; their home is more dismal than the grave-for God is departed from them!

These are but brief glances at a subject, which admits of much more copious treatment-nay, almost demands it. It is not a few sentences or illustrations that can be charged with all the depth of meaning involved in separation from God. But may we hope, that something has been said to expose and arrest the impiety and madness that have secretly wished to be separated from the Holy One, and that a desire has been kindled after the blessed provision of the gospel for bringing those nigh that were far off? Dear reader, what do you purpose to do? Allow your heart's natural alienation to prevail, till the irreversible separation takes place? Surely not that! Will you not henceforth watch and dread that tendency of your hearts, as the most fatal and terrible tendency of your fallen nature? Will you not throw yourself on Jesus Christ, "the way, and the truth, and the life?" Will you not plead for the Holy Spirit, to overcome the ungodly bias, and give your whole heart a heavenward direction? Only think what God will be to you if Christ brings you near. A sun and shield, to give grace and glory;-an infinite portion, to delight and satisfy ;--an ocean of grace and excellence for you to explore and enjoy; a Sun of Righteousness-a Fountain of living waters-a faithful Friend--a tender Father--a gracious God!

rate ascendency in our own Church of Scotland, and up to a pretty recent period, is too well known and affecting to think of. When the writer of this paper went to a former rural charge, some fifteen years ago, he found a few godly Seceders and one Independent, whose account of the state of things in the parish church which drove one and all of them from the Establishment was truly touching. "Too long," said the Independent, "did I shrink from sealing ordinances, knowing my deficiencies; but at length I ventured to wait upon my minister-not to be admitted, but to be put under instruction. On entering his room with fear and trembling, I was startled by the cruel kindness of his salutation. They were the first words he had ever addressed to me-and the last. 'Come away, Mary, you've always been a wellliving girl-there's a token to you.' With this I was smilingly bowed out of the room, without being asked either to sit down or to come back. How I allowed myself to take the token, I cannot tell, but to use it was out of the question; in my state it would have been awful. Half giddy, I walked away, and went on till I came to a quiet spot, when I sat down by a dyke-side and grat." From that hour she resolved never again to enter the parish church. Where else to go she knew not; but hearing there was a gospel minister in a small Independent chapel some five or six miles from her own house, she went thither one day, and getting what was savingly blessed to her soul, she never afterwards went any where else. By the time we became acquainted with her, she had been for years confined to the house; but never did we visit this lily among thorns, now transplanted to a more genial clime, without bringing away enough to repay us for the trouble.

Such is Moderatism still, in those parts of the country which the spirit of revival has never invaded. Wherever this has come, even Moderatism has changed its language, improved in its tone, and displays at least a mechanical activity. But the spirit of Moderatism may extend to quarters where its presence is wholly unsuspected, and deemed impossible. Nor let the Free Church flatter itself that the soil of an unendowed communion has no affinity for such a plant, and that no specimens of it are at present to be found, drawing nourishment from its fatness. The true parent of Moderatism is an unconverted ministry; and who shall say that any church, endowed or unendowed, is proof against the entrance of such? If there be any such ministers amongst us, their work must, of necessity, be all mechanical. However earnest they may seem to be, it is impossible they should make it their object, either in the pulpit or out of it, to convert souls. No man can live for the purpose of communicating instrumentally a life which himself does not possess. In dealing, therefore, with young communicants, such ministers will certainly aim at a lower object than conversion. There will be among such many degrees of fidelity and painstaking in this department of ministerial duty, according as the desire to act conscientiously in their work may be strong or weak. But conversion, as such, will not be what is sought in the applicants, and will not be the direct scope of ministerial dealings with them. It cannot be.

We have been induced to pen these remarks from a fear-we honestly acknowledge it-lest there should be found creeping over our ministerial work, and particularly our dealings with young communicants, a mechanical spirit which, if it should become

chronic, would indicate something more than a spirit of incipient Moderatism. But leaving what we have said to make its own impression, we proceed to lay before our readers what we have thought might prove seasonable at the present time on the treatment of applicants for church membership.

1. Let ministers weigh well what a purchase upon their souls their relation to young communicants naturally gives them. Such purchase they have upon no other class, nor even upon this class at any other stage of their religious history. Applicants for church membership know that the custody of the "keys" is committed to ministers and the officebearers associated with them,-that their's it is to open and to shut, to bind and to loose" in "the kingdom of heaven" upon earth. This circumstance cannot but invest the minister with an influence over such applicants which it is his duty, and should be his aim, to turn to the best account. This influence he will do well to strengthen and to regulate by explaining, both in his pulpit ministrations and in his private dealings, the responsibility of ministers for the admission of members to sealing ordinances. He should cause it to be known and felt, that such admission is neither a matter of course nor a matter of favour, but dependent on the judgment that is formed in the sight of God on the preparedness of the applicant to be set down amongst the visible followers of the Lamb. This, instead of weakening, will greatly strengthen a minister's influence with such as seek at his hand admission to ordinances; especially if it be so expressed as to make it evident, that it weighs deeply upon the spirit, and causes anxiety lest slight work in such a business should lull the half awakened, and arrest rather than quicken their progress. Ministers thus addressing themselves to the work of dealing with applicants for membership, will find them ready to fall in with any reasonable methods they may take with them-with the meetings they appoint, the exercises they prescribe, the strain of inquiry and instruction they may see fit to prosecute. And when to this we add, that in the vast majority of cases, the applicants will be of an age at which the capacity of instruction and the susceptibility of religious impressions are by universal acknowledgment the greatest-the age between childhood and manhood-we have said enough to show that in this department of his work a minister's power for good is immense; that a "price is put into his hands to get" souls to his Master; and that the problem, How to turn this price and power to the best account? is worthy of his highest wisdom to solve, and of all his energies to carry into effect.

2. If now it be asked, what methods are best and have proved most successful, the answer, to be of any use, must be general, indicative of principles to be observed and objects to be aimed at, rather than specific details to be slavishly followed.

On the one hand, no method which does not embrace private dealings with each applicant individually ought to satisfy the conscience of any minister. Supposing him to aim at reaching the souls of those he deals with, he will feel after every meeting that he has not got close enough, and that even if he has, he has no way of finding it out, if he confine himself to social meetings with them; nor will they be induced to open their minds to him in presence even of one other individual. Not till he is in contact with them alone-soul with soul-can either he get tho

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roughly at their case, or they be induced to lay it open to him.* On the other hand, no individual dealings, however frequent and faithful they may be, can supply the place of a class of instruction. Even in those cases where impression rather than instrues tion is needed, the advantage of a class is consider. able. The social principle which it brings into play is scarcely less powerful for impression than the Socratic method peculiar to it is for instruction. But there are few cases in which instruction is not needed, and even in those few, the truth must still be brought up to recollection in as much of systematic form and vivid expression as possible, if solid and lasting impression would be produced. And is it probable that ministers will have time or inclition to meet as often as would be necessary for this purpose with each of their young communicants individually, or, if they do, that by such a succession of individual dealings the truth will open out in the same regular form, and admit of the same varied illustration, and come home with the same vivid effect, as by the systematic exercises of a class of instruction formed expressly for the purpose?

Both methods then must be combined. And if it be asked, in what way this may be most advantageously done, the following hints will, it is hoped, be indulgently received by those who are perhaps more able to give than needing to receive them.

3. To open a class for young communicants, and reserve all private dealings with them till its conclusion, a few days before the communion, seems so unnatural, that, did the writer not know it to be the 'practice of some of his brethren, he would not waste a word upon it. The very first private interview will bring out things which such ministers will regret they did not know ere the class commenced. It is in many cases unkind to young communicants not to give them an opportunity, at the very outset, of mentioning to their minister in private such circumstances in their history as they may wish to communicate. Some, for example, will have to tell of the unfavourable circumstances in which they have passed the most of their days, by way of explaining the backwardness in spiritual things which will be found about them. So much do some feel this, that they almost shrink from appearing in a class with others whom they conclude must be every way in advance of them. A short private interview with such persons, allowing them to unburden themselves on this subject, with some words of encouragement and prayer, would not only reassure them, but help their minister to the right way of treating them in the class. Without adverting to other cases, suffice it to say that it must be most desirable-we had almost said indispensable-that the spiritual condition of every member of a communicants' class should be known to their minister before it begin, in so far as one private interview can disclose it. At the conclusion of the class it will, of course, be necessary that he see each of them in private again, that he may have an opportunity of discovering whether any and what benefit has been reaped from the classhow far their minds have opened, their impressions been deepened, and their wishes for admission affected, by the exercises they have gone through; to enable him also to state his final views of their case, and give his decision as to their admission accordingly.

We have availed ourselves here of some remarks which we ventured to make in another of these papers on "The Church's Work," No. IV, The Pastor and bis People, Soul with Soul,"