for or unserved; but there are seasons when He is not present to the mind, long periods when our thoughts of Him are unreal and fitful; and in many cases there is seldom, if ever, that clear view, and vivid perception, and enduring apprehension of the Lord Jesus, which are demanded alike by the consideration of the depths of misery from which he has rescued us, and the height of glory to which he has advanced us. Is not forgetfulness of the Saviour, His grace and love, one of those wounds wherewith He is wounded in the house of his friends?

We may notice one other form of this forgetfulness of divine things. In addition to those ordinary influences of the means of grace upon the soul which the believer experiences, there are some occasions of special blessing. Some striking or alarming providence of God brings us, as it were, into His immediate presence; under the preaching of the Word, or in the prayerful study of it, the mysteries of spiritual truth are opened to the mind; or, on some occasion of agonizing pleading, God meets the soul, and reveals Himself wondrously to it; it is a time of bright light, of quickened affections, of holy aspirations, of heavenly communion with God. In the moment of such ecstacy we feel how good it is to be here, and imagine that we shall go forth with the holy influence of such a season abidingly with us. It is a new era in our spiritual life. We can never be again engrossed, as in times past, with the vanities of time; we can never sink down again to the low level of our former course. Yet the memory here again betrays its trust. Fallen and impaired, like the rest of our nature, it neglects to keep up any vivid remembrance of the blessed things with which it was once so strongly impressed. Forgetfulness of the heights which we have reached lowers the tone of our spiritual life; coldness creeps over the soul; and it is well if we escape the state of backsliding Israel, when she "went after her lovers, and forgot me, saith the Lord."

This forgetfulness of God cannot be confined to any one period of life; it meets us everywhere. As we look back upon the sins of our youth, this rises up as one of the most overwhelming. Amidst the buoyant spirits of our early days, and the cheerfulness of home, and the freshness of our first affections, where was God? What place did He occupy in our minds and in our hearts? The season of health, and strength, and joyousness is one which, in most cases, excludes serious and impressive and profitable thoughts of God; so that the warning of Holy Scripture seems to have in view this very tendency when it says, "Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth." as years pass on, and manhood succeeds to youth, other objects engross the thoughts to the exclusion of God. The cares and anxieties attendant upon the start in life, the turmoil of business, the ceaseless hurry of engagements, the engrossing and en

But

snaring contact with the world,-these present no atmosphere favourable to the cultivation of habitual converse with God. As compared with the former period, circumstances are altered; but the difficulty is not removed; and forgetfulness of God is the characteristic of early and of riper manhood. Nor, if we follow on our search into advanced life, do we find it otherwise. Grey hairs and decreasing strength would seem to give a sufficiently solemn warning to prepare to meet God; but it is remarkable how entirely indifference and insensibility to divine things mark an old age which succeeds a manhood of worldliness and a youth of thoughtlessness. The child is said to be the father of the man; and so the man, in the last stage of life, falls back upon the scenes and employments of his early years, and, finding no trace of God there, has nothing in such a retrospect to rouse and quicken the deadness of his heart and the languor of his imagination in respect to that which is divine and spiritual. Thus does forgetfulness of God accompany the worldly man through every period of his earthly life; and, in the case of the believer, the danger is equally present, and forms a main element in the severe conflict of his inner life.

But, though sin has introduced this infirmity into our fallen nature, God has not left us without a remedy. The evil may, through grace, be counteracted and overcome; and in order to this, the following suggestions are offered to the earnest Christian.

1. Realize the danger. This is the first essential point. Understand that the memory has a tendency to betray its trust, and neglect its duty in that which relates to God. There are many circumstances in our ordinary life which never pass away. Let a man be exposed to shipwreck, or to a railway accident, the horrors of the scene, the terror and consternation of all around, the shrieks of the wounded, the convulsive throes and maimed forms of the dying, would be ever before him. There are many scenes of domestic interest which never lose their freshness. But it is otherwise in our spiritual life; and we should know it and feel it. Many an Israelite probably thought that he never could forget the passage through the Red Sea, or the terrors of Mount Sinai; but they did forget them, and in their forgetfulness rebelled against God, notwithstanding these exhibitions of His power and majesty. And so we think that the strong impression and deep conviction is to abide with us, that it is stamped indelibly upon our minds to be an everenduring stimulus to action, a consolation under trial, a source of strength in weakness. Or we think, perhaps, that though gone for a while, it is only hidden in some secret place of memory's storehouse, and when needed will be produced again. But we are mistaken; and when we sit down to recall the past dealings with God, memory retains little beyond the bare fact;

all the lesser yet perhaps more striking and instructive peculiarities of the dispensation are lost.

this

upon

of

2. With this danger realized, we next observe the need of much diligence and pains to counteract it. The natural faculty of memory differs greatly in its power in different individuals; but when weak, either generally or in any particular respect, we have recourse to certain means and helps for assisting and strengthening it. A careful and systematic classification of events, or the aid of a Memoria Technica, or a well-arranged common-place book, will go far to supply the deficiencies of memory. Men will think no pains too great which will enable them thus to master the events of history or the facts of science. But when we pass from the subjects of human learning to the record of God's dealings with the church and our own souls, all such efforts on our part are deemed useless and superfluous. The men of this generation prove themselves, in this as in other respects, wiser than the children of light. In order to counteract our natural forgetfulness of divine things, we must be more careful as to the way in which we read or hear God's word. "Understandest thou what thou readest?" and "Take heed how ye hear," are two precepts bearing upon this point. We must read or hear, not with a view to the mere act, but for the purpose remembering what is brought before us. The apostle enforces the Hebrew Christians when he says, "Therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time we should let them slip," -run out as leaking vessels. (Margin.) We must be careful, too, in carrying out into corresponding action any impressions which have been made upon our minds, so as to fix them in the character by habits resulting from them. And we must note any dealings of God with us in providence or in grace which seem calculated to bring us nearer to Himself, in patient dependence or in grateful love. Our heavenly Father condescends to say that a book of remembrance is written before Him for them that fear the Lord, and that think upon His name; whereby He implies the pains, if we may so speak, taken to prevent the possibility of the smallest circumstance being forgotten which affects their eternal welfare. We may well employ a book of remembrance to assist our treacherous memories in preserving the record of God's dealings with our souls. God, too, provided for His Jewish church, in order to produce and preserve a spirit of humility and contrition amongst them, that there should be a remembrance made of sin every year. In like manner, we might hope to find a remedy against forgetfulness of God in appointing certain solemn seasons of retirement for the purpose of bringing clearly before our minds a full and comprehensive view of those particular mani

festations of God's grace and goodness which make up the sum of our spiritual experience.

3. In the use of these and like helps, it is necessarily implied that the soul will be seeking by earnest prayer the effectual aid of the Holy Spirit; but this point must be specially insisted upon. We have viewed this forgetfulness of God as an inseparable consequence of our fallen nature, and one which no amount of outward and sensible evidence or impression can of itself obviate, as the case of the Israelites fully proves. A similar, and even stronger, proof is presented in the case of the apostles. They had enjoyed unrestrained intercourse with our blessed Lord for several years; there must have been something in the look, and voice, and tone, and character of Jesus eminently calculated to command and to impress. His conversation, His teaching, His expositions, never could be forgotten. Yet the mere moral and physical effects of this teaching would be counteracted by the weak and treacherous nature of human memory; and hence our Lord promises a direct and specific operation of the Holy Spirit to remedy this infirmity: "The Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you." It was by this divine aid that the disciples remembered the saying of Jesus respecting the resurrection of His body, and the figurative entry into Jerusalem of Sion's King, sitting on an ass's colt.* The same divine aid qualified them to prepare the narrative of our Lord's life and actions. Many a fact in that history had doubtless been forgotten and unrecorded but for this suggesting and reminding influence of the Holy Spirit. The gifts and operations of the Holy Spirit are still essentially the same; and he that would understand aright God's word and dispensations, and lay them up in his memory, and have them ever rising up with freshness and power to instruct and comfort, must look to the Holy Spirit for His operation in this particular respect. Thus it was He brought about the conversion of Peter, by causing him to remember the words of his Lord; and, in the remembrance of them, the tears of penitence began to flow. And so with us. There is many a

lesson of God's past dealings with us hidden in the depths of our experience which the Holy Spirit alone can give life and force to; and there is many a warning, an exhortation, and promise of the Word, working from time to time upon our hearts which, without the Holy Spirit's aid, will soon be forgotten and unimproved. We are passing, it may be, through dispensations so solemn that we think their sacred influence must abide with us for ever; but they will vanish as a dream when one awaketh, unless the Holy Spirit rivet them upon the tablet of our memory. With such infirmities we need caution * John ii. 22; xii. 16.

and diligence, and much watchfulness over ourselves. But our very infirmities are the subject-matter of the Holy Spirit's operation. His strength, like the Redeemer's, is made perfect in weakness. He can overcome our natural tendency to forgetfulness of God, can renew and refresh our minds and memories day by day, till we enter upon that state where God's presence and glory will be ever with us, and to forget Him, even for a moment, will be an impossibility. W. C.

BASHAN; AND THE CITIES OF MOAB.*

USES of far deeper value and moment than were formerly contemplated, are now subserved by the researches of travellers in Scripture Lands. Until quite recently it was thought enough if they were employed to confirm the accuracy, or to explain the allusions of an inspired writer: the interpreter's concern with them was ended when he could bring forward the place, or the custom alluded to in an obscure passage, and when he thus enabled us to read this intelligently and confidently, with a clear perception of the spiritual lessons that might be educed from it. And so extensive have these researches been, and so diligently have they been thus made use of, that, in fact, very few pages of the Holy Volume have been left unexplained by this kind of illustration.

With great diligence have they been gathered, and most profitably have they been so employed. Still this use of them only enabled us to look on the sacred delineations at a distance. We saw clearly, and perhaps vividly, the occurrences related in the Bible: the import of the sacred narrative was unfolded, and it grew life-like, and became familiar, as we gazed on it. Still it stood before us only as a picture, and it lay in remote distance. So far as living intercourse with the objects and beings brought forward in scripture was concerned, it seemed that we must necessarily stand apart from the scenes which it unfolded. And now, indeed, some of our recent biblical interpreters have told us that just so it was intended that we should look on the inspired delineations. According to these teachers, such delineations are only pictures, or pictorial embodiments of thought: historical ideas, or theological conceptions, are depicted in these Eastern forms: they were not, nor were they ever intended to be recognized as actual events and living men whom we have been looking on. This has been affirmed; and

*Scripture Lands in connection with their History, &c. By G. S. Drew; M.A., Incumbent of St. Barnabas, South Kennington. Smith, Elder, and Co. 1860. Five Years in Damascus. By Rev. J. L. Porter. Murray. 1855