as a piece of animated dust. And to keep his children ever humble, He bids them look upon the rock whence they were hewn, and to the hole of the pit whence they were digged. Isa. li. 1.

To those who fear the Lord, and who strive to please Him, this "remembrance," on the part of their heavenly Father, is most soothing and consolatory. They feel assured thereby, that He who thus intimately "knows their frame,” and has so "long remembered" whereof they were made, will pity, will comfort and sustain them, in all the difficulties and dangerous paths of their earthly pilgrimage. A parent ever looks upon his child with the knowledge and the remembrance of its once infant helplessness. The child carries not this knowledge about with him; but the parent never can divest himself of the remembrance, nor cease to be actuated by the pity, which that recollection awakens. The pity of the Lord is based on the same ground: "He knoweth our frame, He remembereth that we are dust:" and therefore He will neither exact, nor expect, more from us than we are able to perform. Had we constructed a living being out of the ground, who, when he came to act for himself, should prove disobedient and ungrateful, we should be disposed to call his origin to remembrance, and say, What could we expect from a pillar of dust! And such is man to the Most High God-a pillar of dust! The Lord remembers this. In dealing with all the children of Adam, He does not förget their feeble origin. Even when He chastises us for our sins, His heart pities us under every stroke; "for He knoweth our frame, He remembereth that we are dust." It is writ

ten, "The Lord doeth not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men." We read that "His soul was grieved for the misery of Israel," when they cried to Him in the soreness of their strait, and in the bitterness of their repentance. Judges x. 16. "In all their afflictions," we rejoice to be informed that "He was afflicted:" and the angel of His presence saved them: in His love and in His pity He redeemed them, and He bare them and carried them all the days of old. Isa. lxiii. 9. The heavenly Parent never forgot that they were dust.

Earthly parents may not at all times act with unvarying consideration. They may at one time exact too much, and at another expect too little, from their children. They may not make adequate allowance for their different dispositions, or their peculiar infirmities. The sensitive feelings of one child they may not understand; and the individual circumstances of another they may altogether overlook, or not suf ficiently remember. But it is not so with our heavenly Father. "He knoweth our frame." He possesses a thorough understanding of our whole nature-its failings and its feelings-its wants and its dispositions-its tendencies and its propensities-its strength and its weakness. In calling us. to the performance of duty, in exhorting us to follow after good, and in warning us against approaches to evil, throughout our whole pilgrimage from earth to heaven, “He remembereth that we are dust." His ancient people were comforted and encouraged by this humbling, yet remarkable topic: "Fear not, thou worm Jacob." Isa. xli. 14. "But

now thus saith the Lord that created thee, oh Jacob, and He

that formed thee, oh Israel, fear not." Isa. xliii. 1.

mindful of their original nothingness.

God was

Many are the proofs and instances recorded in Scripture that the "Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy." James v. 11. When Jesus was come near and beheld the city of Jerusalem," he wept over it" at the thought of its destruction. Luke xix. 41. So full of pity was His tender heart, that it was ever alive to human suffering, and continually touched with a feeling for our infirmities. Again we read that, when Jesus saw Mary "weeping, and the Jews also weeping which came with her, He groaned in the spirit and was troubled, and said, Where have ye laid him? They said unto Him, Lord, come and see. Jesus wept. Then said the Jews, behold how He loved Him." John xi. 36.

When our blessed Lord was passing through His bitter agony in Gethsemane, His pity was not absorbed by His own sufferings. He "knew the frame" of His slumbering disciples. He remembered that they were "dust" and from that remembrance His pity made for them that only apology which could at all extenuate their conduct : "The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak." Matt. xxvi. 41.

Let us fervently thank God through Christ Jesus for His paternal pity. Let us praise Him for His continual remembrance of our lowly origin. Let us ever bear that origin in remembrance ourselves to keep us truly humble; and let a sense of our nothingness before Him, cause us constantly to draw closer to the Lord. The exhibition of His pity as that of a Father, teaches us at once our duty and our privilege. It is our duty to fear Him as children, and it is our

privilege to love Him as a father. It is our duty never to distrust His pity, and it is our privilege to believe that His pity is inexhaustible. It is our duty to glorify His pity by imitating it in our conduct towards our fellow men, and it is our privilege to rejoice in that pity as embracing all who fear Him, equally with ourselves, and ourselves equally with them.

Blessed is the life of the believer-joyful is his dutyand glorious is his privilege! He is called to live with God as a child with a father. He is commanded to cast all his care upon that Father's wisdom, and all his sins upon His pardoning love. And he is privileged to know assuredly that God as his Father in Christ Jesus, pitieth and careth for him. 1 Pet. v. 7. Is this, dear Reader, the blessed life you are now leading? Is this the joyful duty you are daily discharging? Is this the glorious privilege you are hourly enjoying? In Christ Jesus you are welcome to enter on them all with thanksgiving at this very moment. "The Spirit and the bride say, come. And let him that heareth And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely." Rev. xxii. 17.

say, come.

XIII.

Everlasting Benefits.

EXHIBITING THE LENGTH OF GOD'S LOVE, IN CONTRAST WITH

THE BREVITY OF HUMAN EXISTENCE.

As for man, his days are as grass: as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more. But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear Him, and His righteousness unto children's children; to such as keep His covenant, and to those that remember His commandments to do them.-Verses 15-18.

AMID the many changes of the world, and the passing away of its generations, how desirable, how necessary, how delightful, is it to possess enduring realities, and to look forward to the enjoyment of everlasting happiness! Such is the substantial possession, and the gladdening prospect, of the true believer. He, alone, of all the children of men, can afford both to hold the world at its real value, and to let it go as of no value. He alone can calmly and joyfully contemplate the rapid flight of time and the nearness of eternity. He alone can "take joyfully the spoiling of his goods" by oppressors; the spoiling of his health by sickness; the spoiling of his strength by age; the despoiling of his life by death; knowing, in himself, that he has in heaven, and in God, "a a better and an enduring substance." The man of