on a time you had some anxiety about character. You wished that you had greater strength of principle, and that your moral standing were more respectable. You envied the virtuous energy of those friends who can resist temptation and combat successfully the evil influences around them. You have even wished that you could wake up some morning and find yourself a Christian; and you have sometimes hoped that this happiness might at length befal you. But there is, as yet, no sign of it. Startling providences have passed over you, but they have not frightened you out of your evil habits; and, from time to time, amiable and engaging friends have gained ascendancy over you, but they have not been able to allure you into the paths of piety. And now you are discouraged. You know that some vicious habit is getting a firmer and more fearful hold of you, and if you durst own it to yourself, you have now no hope of a lofty or virtuous future. You feel abject, and spiritless, and self-disgusted, and have nearly made up your mind to saunter slip-shod down the road to ruin.

You do not remember your Elder Brother, for he had left those regions before you were born. But this comes to tell you that he lives and wishes you well. In the far country whither he has gone, he knows how you are, and is much concerned at your present condition. And he feels for you none the less that in all that land he is himself the richest and the mightiest. And to show that, amidst all his glory, he is not ashamed to be called your brother, he has sent you a noble gift, a ship freighted with some of his choicest

acquisitions, and bringing everything good for a man like you.

And be not vexed nor angry when I tell you that that ship of heaven is THE BIBLE. If, instead of touching at every land and coming to every doorif only a few Bibles arrived now and then readymade and direct from heaven, and each addressed to some particular person-and if none besides were allowed to handle their contents or appropriate their treasures, how justly might the world envy that favoured few! But having purchased gifts for men whilst here amongst us, and being highly exalted where he is gone, the Saviour, in his kindness, sends this heaven-laden book, this celestial argosie, to all his brethren here below, and each alike is welcome to its costly freight. Despise it not! There is nothing dazzling in its exterior. It is plain and unpretending. No rainbow lights its margin, nor do phosphorescent letters come and go on its azure pages. But the wealth of the Indian carack is neither its timbers nor its rigging; it hides its treasure in the hold. The wonder of the Bible is neither its binding nor its type -nay, not even (though these are wonderful) its language and its style. It makes God glorious, and the reader blessed by the wealth it carries and the truths it tells.

To recite at full the letter would take too long. A brother's heart yearns in it all; but what a holy, and what an exalted brother! He informs you that all power is given him in heaven and earth, and that from his Father he has received such ample authority that

all throughout these dominions life and death are in his hands. He says, that he is grieved to know your wretched position, but he bids you not lose heart; for if you only take advantage of what he has sent you, there will be an end of your misery. And he adds that, freely and lovingly as he forwards these gifts, they cost him much; they have cost him labour and sorrow, groans and anguish, tears and blood. He begs that you will take frankly what is given kindly, and assures you that nothing will gladden him more than to hail you to his home and instal you in his kingdom. And lest there be any matter which you do not rightly understand, and on which you would like fuller information, or more help till then, there is a very wise and much-loved friend of his, who is willing to come and abide with you until he and you shall meet again.

But begging you to read the letter at your leisure, let us step for a few minutes on board. Let us glance at some of those costly gifts which the Saviour purchased long ago, and which, in this Book of Heaven, he sends to our Island-Planet, and to the several abodes of us sinners who inhabit it.

And, first of all, look at this fine GOLD. Amongst material substances, the one most prized is gold. Not only is it very beautiful, but it is the means of procuring each rare commodity. Hence, we call him a rich man who abounds in it, and him a poor man who has got none of it. And in the spiritual domain, the equivalent of gold is goodness. By holy beings, and by God himself, the thing most prized is not money but moral worth; not gold, but goodness. And when

God first ushered on existence his new creature, Man, he gave him a portion of heaven's capital to begin with: he gave him holy tastes and dispositions, a pure and pious mind. But man soon lost it. He suffered himself to be defrauded of his original righteousness; and on that dismal day, he who rose the heir of immortality, lay down a bankrupt and a pauper. All was lost; and though he tried to replace it by a glittering counterfeit, the substitute had not one atom of what is essential to genuine goodness. It entirely lacked THE LOVE OF GOD; and no sooner had Jehovah applied the touchstone, than in grief and displeasure he exclaimed, "How is the gold become dim!-how is the most fine gold changed!" And yet that gold was essential-nothing could compensate for it. No merit, then no reward; no righteousness, no heaven. And man had lost the only thing which entitled him to the favour of God-the only thing which guaranteed a glorious immortality. It was then that his case was undertaken by a Kinsman-Redeemer. To a holy humanity he superadded the wisdom and strength of Deity; and divinely authorized, he took the field-the surety and representative of ruined man. In his heart he hid the holy law, and in his sublime fulfilmen: of it, he magnified that law and made it honourable. And betwixt the precious blood he shed, as an expiation for sin, and the spotless obedience which he offered on behalf of his people, he wrought out a redundant and everlasting righteousness. It was tested, and was found to be without one particle of alloy. It was put into the balance, but the sin has never yet

been found which could outweigh the merits of Immanuel. The righteousness of Christ, as the sinner's representative, is the most golden thing in all the Gospel; and it is because of its conveying and revealing that righteousness, that the gospel is the power of God, and the wisdom of God unto salvation.* Be counselled to buy this fine gold, and you will be rich.† Accept, poor sinner, this righteousness of the Saviour, and you will be justified freely by a gracious God, through the redemption that is in Christ. God will be well pleased with you because you are well pleased with his beloved Son; and will count you righteous for the sake of that righteousness which the Saviour wrought out, and which the Gospel reveals, and which, thankfully receiving, you present to a righteous God as your plea for pardon and your passport to the kingdom of heaven.

This is the glory of the Gospel. IT REVEALS A RIGHTEOUSNESS. And, just as the man whose affairs are all entangled would be thankful for money sufficient to discharge his debts, and set him on a footing with his honest neighbours; so the man who knows himself a debtor to Divine justice would be unspeakably thankful for that possession, whatever it may be, which would cancel all his liabilities, and place him on a level with those happy beings who have never sinned at all. This possession is an adequate righteousness; and if the reader be anxious to enjoy God's favour, he will hail the gospel, for it reveals that righteousness.

*Rom. i. 16, 17.

+ Rev. iii. 18.

Rom. iii. 20-26.