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the hallowed and inspired epistles of the great Apostle, and he longed to meet and be associated with him above. When such thoughts and desires occupy the mind and literally absorb the highest aspirations of the heart," the bitterness of death is passed."

In 1830 Mr. Driver's emaciated frame suffered another shock, and paralysis having seized the opposite side, reduced him to a state of utter helplessness. But in the most trying moments he was wonderfully sustained and comforted. "I have now," said he, "some blessed visits of heavenly joy beaming upon my soul, which I hope will continue until I arrive at the vision of God." To a friend, who asked about his spiritual state, he replied, very emphatically, "I am going right on towards heaven."

In that sweet and delightful frame of mind the venerable William Driver continued until June 16, 1831, when he found his longsought rest with God and glorified saints in heaven: "And to

die is gain."

"Captain and Saviour of the host
Of Christian chivalry,

We bless Thee for our comrade true,
Now summoned up to Thee.

"We bless Thee for his every step

In faithful following Thee;

And for his good fight, fought so well,
And crowned with victory.

"We thank Thee that the way-worn sleeps
The sleep in Jesus blest:

The purified and ransomed soul

Hath entered into rest.

"We bless Thee that his humble love
Hath met with such regard :

We bless Thee for his blessedness,
And for his rich reward."

HOME.

THERE is a spot which rises to the eye of the social being covered with a holy charm. The heart gives it ner remembrances, and affections, and hopes. Childhood "goes in and out" with its simple confidence, and age clings to it with the last fibre it yet preserves unbroken. He who has none for whom he cares, unloving and unloved, may have a roof; but it is only the lurking place of repulsive selfishness. No voice blesses him while he lives, no tear falls for him when he dies. His abode is, but the den where he eats, and the lair on which he sleeps. It awakens no tenderness in his bosom, it echoes with no joy, it warms with no love, it opens with no welcome. We turn from it away: it strikes a chill and terror into us, to mark where the monster dwells who belies under the form of our nature all its sweetest charities and all its purest virtues.

We speak of home, beneath whose influence all the soul expands-home, the seat of earth's strongest attachments, the hold of man's tenderest ties ! It is the centre of the mind, the nest of the heart. It is the scene of the truest present bliss. Within that enclosure some flowers of Eden yet blow. There still gather around us some primeval associations of innocence and joy. Who is indifferent and irresponsive to this chord? Who can forget his home?

29

CHURCH-LIFE.

[THE crisis through which our Denomination has recently passed in Liverpool-necessitating the planting of ourselves in a new locality, and having there to reconstruct our spiritual organisation, as well as raise a new edifice wherein to assemble for fellowship and worshipled me to give a fresh consideration to various questions relating to the Life and Work of a Christian Church. The results of my reconsideration of these subjects were brought forward-though not in consecutive or logical order-from time to time in my ministrations. This was done with a desire to promote an intelligent piety among the people to whom I stood in the relation of pastor and teacher, and to enable them to give to questioners a satisfactory reason for our forms of worship and service. I was also moved to the undertaking by the hope that in this way the end of my ministry-usefulnesswould be best attained. To build up a true Church of Jesus Christ, to animate it with a right spirit, and incite it to do its proper work; in other words, to qualify and induce it to fulfil its appointed mission in the world, is to be useful in the highest form, on the largest scale, and in the most permanent manner.

With the same object I venture to introduce into the pages of the Magazine, from time to time, passages from the sermons thus prepared and preached. The particular circumstances under which they had their origin will not, I believe, detract from, but rather add to, their interest; while to the members of our churches who may favour them with a perusal I would respectfully address the words of the Apostle, "Consider what I say, and the Lord give you understanding in all things."]

J. HUDSTON.

I.—THE DEDICATION OF THE HOUSE OF GOD.

Sunday Morning, July 23, 1871.*

Text Ezra vi., 16-18.

First, I call your attention to the act here described as performed by "the children of Israel, the priests, and the Levites, and the rest of the children of the captivity"—they kept the dedication of the house of God.

This act consisted of two parts:

(1.) The first part of the act was the formal separation of the building from common uses-this was done probably by solemn proclamation, and by the observance of symbolic rites.

(2.) The second part of the act was the actual surrender of the building to the sacred uses for which it had been erected. This real appropriation is the proper sense of the word dedicate. The act commenced with its separation from profane, secular, or common purposes and uses, and was completed by its actual occupation for religious or sacred uses- that is, when they offered the sacrifices, and set the priests in their divisions, and the Levites in their courses,

This was the first Sunday Service in St. Domingo Chapel, Liverpool.

for the service of God, as that service was written or enjoined in the book of Moses.

But some may perhaps ask, What is all this to us Christians? Are not holy times, and holy places, abolished under Christ? Did He not tell the woman of Samaria that the hour had come when neither in Mount Gerizim, nor yet at Jerusalem, they should worship the Father? And are not His words as thus spoken the death-knell of all local and ceremonial worship? We unhesitatingly answer, No, to these inquiries. As Christians we have a holy name-the name of our Saviour; a holy book-the Bible; a holy time-the Lord's-day; and a holy place-the house of God.

The Jews at the time of Christ had perverted the laws of God by their glosses, and become in the main a race of mere formalists and hypocrites; and, thinking God was such a one as themselves, they had lost the spirit in an exaggerated attention to the letter, and substituted the form of godliness for the power. They paid tithe of mint, and anise, and cummin, but omitted to practise the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith. Our Lord came to teach them a more excellent way, the way of truth. In doing this, however, He did not destroy the law and the prophets, He fulfilled them. He brought out and enforced their truest and highest mean ing. The Jews were not reproved by Him for keeping the commandments of God, but for making them of non-effect-that is, perverting or superseding them-by their traditions. Their error was

not in paying tithe of mint and anise, but in neglecting judgment and mercy while they were punctilious about tithe payments. "Those things ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone." Hence, while He told the woman of Samaria that no longer either at Jerusalem or in Mount Gerizim should the Father be exclusively worshipped, He did not say the worship of God in a public, formal way was about to cease on the earth. He simply affirmed that under Himself it should take a higher, truer character, and be acceptable wherever offered. The true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship Him. God is a Spirit, and they that worship Him appropriately and with acceptance, must worship Him in spirit and in truth.

So far from Christ's teaching at Jacob's well forbidding us building edifices and setting them apart for Christian instruction and devotion, they are rather our warrant for doing this in any place where their existence may.be needed.

This house in which we are assembled then we dedicate to God. We have built it for Him, to bear His name, and be appropriated to His service. Henceforth it will be distinctively and pre-eminently, The House of God. From the present it becomes a sacred, a consecrated 'edifice.* We speak not this superstitiously; we use the words in a true, intelligent, and Christian sense. It is not a building for profane or sinful uses; it is not a building for mere secular purposes. It is a house of prayer, not of merchandise. We shall meet in it for reli

"1772, Feb, 28.-I opened the new preaching house in Poplar; one might say consecrated it; for the English law (notwithstanding the vulgar error) does not require, nay, does not allow, any other consecration of churches than by performing public service therein."-John Wesley.

gious fellowship and Christian edification, not to buy and sell and get gain. From its rostrum will be heard the proclamation of the Gospel, or the exposition of the truth as in Jesus, not the political harangue, or the scientific lecture. No sound of bacchanalian revelry, nor strains of martial or amatory music, will ever resound within its walls. Occasionally, it may be, we may come together under its roof to feast on the inspiration of the great masters of sacred harmony, and gain by the exercise some faint conception of the occupation and bliss of heaven; but from Sunday to Sunday the voices of the congregation will blend with those of the choir in the melodious utterances of psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, while all, we trust, will sing with grace in their hearts to the Lord. In this house of God, too, the family of God will find a home, and here in happy intercourse, our hope is, will exemplify all the graces and virtues of God's children.

As the Jews, then, dedicated the house which they had built at Jerusalem by the offering of their flocks and herds in sacrifice, and by attending to all the order of service as prescribed in the Book of Moses, we dedicate this house by observing in it from this day all the institutions and ordinances of the Christian religion. We commence, to be perpetuated in it as long as the edifice lasts,

(1.) A Service of Song;

(2.) A Service of Prayer;

(3.) A Service of Instruction; and

(4.) A Service of Beneficence.

While we worship God in direct acts of adoration and thanks. giving, and call upon His name for the mercy and help we need ; while we teach the ignorant, and seek to reclaim those that are out of the way; while we proclaim the Gospel to the perishing, and tell the penitent of One who is able to save to the uttermost, and who will in no wise cast out any that come to Him, we shall not forget the claims of the sick and the poor, but be ready, according to our means, to feed the hungry and clothe the naked; remembering the maxim of our Divine Master, "It is more blessed to give than receive "; and the admonition of the Apostle, " As we have opportunity let us do good unto all men, especially unto them who are of the household of faith"; and again, "By Him let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name; but to do good and to communicate forget not; for with such sacrifices God is well pleased."

Secondly. I ask you to consider the emotion of gladness with which this act of dedication was performed: "And the children of Israel kept the dedication of this house of God with joy."

It would not be difficult to account for the joy which filled the hearts of the people while keeping the dedication of the house of God.

(1.) The cause of it is to be found partly in their past history. This was the second temple that they were dedicating to God. The firstSolomon's Temple-had been desecrated and destroyed by an invading foe, while they themselves had been conquered and carried away into a strange land. During their captivity they could not forget their fatherland, though they were surrounded with scenes of

magnificence and splendour, and that spot in it to which their hearts turned most fondly was where the house of their God once stood: "By the rivers of Babylon there we sat down, yea we wept when we remembered Zion.' They wept, for they knew that Zion was a desolation that holy and beautiful house lay in ruins. But now the Lord has turned again the captivity of Zion. They have regained their freedom, they are at home again, they have rebuilt the sanctuary, its service is about to be resumed, and hence their changed feelings; their mouth is filled with laughter and their tongue with singing.

(2.) Further, it had been good for them to be afflicted. The discipline had been severe, but salutary as well. In their prosperity God had been forgotton, His service neglected, or attended too defectively-yea, worse, wickedly; so that their holy things were an abomination to God. Their national or political fall was the result their prophets said, punishment-of their moral and religious fall. They had forsaken God, and so God had withdrawn His protection from them. Hence their country's invasion, and their personal exile. In their affliction, however, they humbled themselves, and sought their God-for they saw that God was their rock, and the high God their redeemer. God heard their prayer, and delivered them out of the horrible pit of expatriation and slavery; and they thankfully recognised His interposition: so that the return to their country was a return to their God.. "They asked the way to Zion with their faces thitherward, saying, Come let us join ourselves to the Lord in a perpetual covenant which shall not be forgotten."

(3.) Their joy was the joy of devout gratitude, as well as the joy of fervent patriotism, and so also it was the joy of spiritual gratification. They were brought into such a state of mind that they found their highest delight in fellowship with God, and the service of His sanctuary. The sentiments of the sixty-third and sixtyfourth Psalms were now the sentiments of their hearts. Their souls longed for the courts of the Lord; their heart and flesh cried out for the living God: and so they kept the dedication of His house, in which they hoped to see His power and glory with joy.

And now turning to ourselves. house of God kept by us with joy? and right for the occasion ?

Is not the dedication of this
And is not the emotion proper

First, as to the fact. We do to-day serve the Lord with gladness. Our minds and hearts are jubilant. We have sunshine within, and could not be sad if we would. Family or business perplexities and cares are brushed aside; we will give no heed to them; for the Lord to-day puts joy and gladness into our hearts more than when corn and wine increase.

Second, as to the cause of the fact. Well, that is manifold, as it was with the Jews at their dedication.

Strangers and guests will bear with me if for a moment I speak of what will most interest the immediate members of the family. Our position to-day, contrasted with recent events in our past history, gives us joy. A few years ago all things seemed to make against us. We were wasted and brought low, and bad as was the present, the future wore a more dreary aspect. Stout hearts amongst us began to fail through fear and despondency. Some friends de

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