RECONCILIATION. Some years ago, an unhappy dispute arose between two good men; they were ministers of the church of England; one of them lived at Fulham, the other at Cambridge. Friends of both endeavoured to set them at one again. They failed to harmonize the difference. At length the wise and devout Cecil— Richard Cecil-was induced to visit each of them in the name of a "peace-maker." On his return, a friend called, in anxiety to know the result of his kind attempt. Mr. C. informed him that he had not succeeded; and that the breach seemed to be even wider than before. While lamenting the issue of Mr. Cecil's visit, the friend observed a few lines on the table which Mr. C. had just written, and obtained a sight of them. They read thus: : "How rare that toil a prosperous issue finds, The gentleman received permission to take away the lines. He transcribed them and sent a copy to each of the disputing brethren. They read, they thought, they felt, and hastened to each other. They met and confessed to each other. Their former affection was revived; they lived in brotherly love, and now they are together before the throne of the "Prince of Peace," where discord can never enter, and where brethren dwell in endless union. IMMORTALITY OF LEARNING. We see then how far the monuments of wit and learning are more durable than the monuments of power, or of the hands. For have not the verses of Homer continued twenty-five hundred years, or more, without the loss of a syllable or letter; during which time, infinite palaces, temples, castles, cities, have been decayed, and demolished? It is not possible to have the true pictures or statues of Cyrus, Alexander, Cæsar; no, nor of the kings or great personages of much later years; for the originals cannot last, and the copies cannot but lose of their life and truth. But the images of men's wits and knowledges remain in books, exempted from the wrong of time, and capable of perpetual renovation. Neither are they fitly to be called images, because they generate still, and cast their seeds in the minds of others, provoking and causing infinite actions and opinions in succeeding ages; so that, if the invention of the ship was thought so noble, which carrieth riches and commodities from place to place, and consociateth the most remote regions in participation of their fruits; how much more are letters to be magnified, which, as ships, pass through the vast seas of time, and make ages so distant to participate of the wisdom, illuminations, and inventions, the one of the other?-Lord Bacon. CHRISTIAN UNITY. By all accounts there are few mountains drenched in more copious dew than Hermon. That dew is Hermon's "life." It waters every living plant, from the soft bunches of hyssop and the little cushions of scented thyme, up to the oak, with his rugged arms and his stiff leaves of evergreen-from the lily in the valley to the lichen on the rocky height. It waters and refreshes them all. It has no effect on the dust, the pebbles, and the lifeless herbs; but wherever there is life it gives that life more abundantly—so abundantly that no one grudges the other's share. The lowly hyssop does not envy the lofty oak, and what fills the rose-cup is not robbed from the tiny moss. When that dew distils, all rejoice together, and the more cause one has for rejoicing, the more cause have all. Where the magazine of supply is heaven, there is no room for envy; for however much is given there is always more to give. The dew coming down on Hermon is an emblem of the Holy Spirit descending on a church. Wherever he comes down there are freshness, life, and beauty. Every living thing revives, and the more one gets the better it is for all. But there were more hills than Hermon: Zion lay farther south, and so stood in more need of the distilling dew. And Zion also got it. The dew of Hermon descended on the mountains of Zion, and there it produced the self-same effects. Zion was revived and refreshed as Hermon had been. Zion and Hermon were far asunder; but they were brethren, and the Lord commanded the same blessing on them both; nor did Hermon lose by what Zion got. And when the Psalmist saw this, he said, “Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity! As the dew of Hermon that descended upon the mountains of Zion: for there the Lord commanded the blessing, even life for evermore." They were both sacred mountains, both within the confines of the holy land; but they were not the same. Their forms were different, and different productions grew on each. But Hermon did not quarrel with Zion; nor did the vines and olives of Zion grudge that the oaks and pasture of Hermon were enriched with God's full flood as well as themselves. It were even thus, if believing brethren would dwell in unity. There is enough in the residue of the Spirit to enrich and revive them all. If unity be the gift of the Spirit, let those believers who long for unity beware of grieving the Holy Spirit of God. He is grieved by carnal contention: he is grieved by those works of the flesh, "hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings:" he is grieved when we offend one of Christ's little ones he is grieved when we seek the things of our own party more than the things of Jesus Christ: and he is grieved when we pray for unity, and do not cultivate a kind and fraternal spirit. In order to attain this spirit, let us think how the Saviour feels towards all the members of his body. The church of Christ looks very different contemplated from the same point of view from which the Son of God surveyed it, when beneath the cross with yearning heart he prayed for it, or viewed by the sectarian from the lonely pinnacle of his frosty partisanship. If we have the mind of Christ, why do we not feel toward his bloodbought church as he himself feels towards it? Why is it not all precious to us, when his precious blood is on it all? Each redeemed and regenerate man is dear to the Saviour: can we not find room in our hearts for all? If they be not all exactly to our liking, let us remember that Christ bears with them. If they belong to a denomination which we cannot approve, let us remember that the stiffest sectary will change his denomination the day he joins the church of the first-born above; and that even we ourselves may see some things differently then. And if we cannot love them as they are, let us love them as they are yet to be. The most shining saint on earth is not so holy nor so beautiful as the least attractive christian will become the moment his corruption puts on incorruption. Heaven is the abode of unity, and when the spirit of unity comes into a soul or into a church, it cometh from above. The Comforter brings it down. Discord is of the earth, or from beneath. The divisions of christians show that there is still much carnality amongst them. The more carnal a christian is, the more sectarian will he be; and the more spiritual he is, the more loving, and forbearing, and self-renouncing are you sure to find him. And it is with christian communities as with individual christians. When the tide is out, you may have noticed, as you rambled among the rocks, little pools with little fishes in them. To the shrimp in such a pool his foot-depth of salt water is all the ocean for the time being. He has no dealings with his neighbour shrimp in the adjacent pool, though it may be only a few inches of sand that divide them. But when the rising ocean begins to lip over the margin of his lurking-place, one pool joins another, their various tenants meet, and bye and bye, in place of their little patch of standing water, they have the ocean's boundless fields to roam in. When the tide is outwhen religion is low-the faithful are to be found insulated, here a few and there a few, in the little standing pools that stud the beach, having no dealings with their neighbours of the adjoining pools, calling them Samaritans, and fancying that their own little communion includes all that are precious in God's sight. They forget for a time that there is a vast and expansive ocean rising-every ripple, every reflux, brings it nearer—a mightier communion, even the communion of saints, which is to engulph all minor considerations, and to enable the fishes of all pools, the christians, the Christ-lovers of all denominations, to come together. When, like a flood, the Spirit flows into the churches, church will join to church, and saint will join to saint, and all will rejoice to find that if their little pools have perished, it is not by the scorching summer's drought, nor the casting in of earthly rubbish, but by the influx of that boundless sea whose glad waters touch eternity, and in whose ample depths the saints in heaven as well as the saints on earth have room enough to range. Yes, our churches are the standing pools along the beach, with just enough of their peculiar element to keep the few inmates living during this ebb-tide period of the church's history. But they form a very little fellowship-the largest is but little-yet there is steadily flowing in a tide of universal life and love, which, as it lips in over the margin of the little pool, will stir its inhabitants with an unwonted vivacity, and then let them loose in the large range of the Spirit's own communion. Happy church! farthest down upon the strand! nearest the rising ocean's edge! Happy church! whose sectarianism shall first be swept away in this inundation of love and joy! whose communion shall first break forth into that purest and holiest, and yet most comprehensive of all communions-the communion of the Holy Ghost! Would to God that church were our's! WESLEYAN MISSIONARY MEETING. A missionary meeting was held on Monday evening, 2nd of November, at the New Wesleyan Chapel, Jewin Street, London, which the writer had the pleasure of attending. It was a delightful meeting. What gave peculiar interest to it, was the appearance, on the platform, of a converted Chippewa Indian, and three young negroes from Sierra Leone. These living witnesses of the power of divine truth, and the blessed results of missionary labours, could not but excite deep feeling. Their simple eloquence was beautiful. William Allen, one of the young negroes, neat and respectable in his appearance, with an amiable and intelligent countenance, addressed the audience. His simple tale was short, expressed in some such words as these -"I thank you for your kindness in sending missionaries. Had not we heard the gospel, I should have been sold as a slave. The gospel has raised us, and made us happy. Hundreds of my dear countrymen, as well as myself, love the Saviour." A A |