Justice, thou hast no righteous ire! For him who overcomes. "The hidden manna," heavenly cheer, To him who overcomes. The "Rod of Iron," in the hand, For him who overcomes. The raiment white, the written name, Ye saints, and overcome. Their names before the hosts confess'd, Before the Majesty above, Their wrongs in God's own light redress'd, These are the gifts of wond'rous love To those who overcome. To be a pillar in the place Where God Himself delights to dwell, And there for ever praise that Grace, Whose depth and height none knows so well As he who overcomes. To sit with Christ upon His Throne, Ye saints, and overcome, THE GOOD SAMARITAN. LUKE X. 25-37. WHAT a picture does the parable of the good Samaritan present of the gracious way of the Son of God with poor sinners! His love in the gospel is perfect. It is perfect, as the expression of the divine love; but in its varied multiform beauty and perfection, we may treat and regard it as the pattern or model of love of one's neighbour also. The good Samaritan loved the poor way-laid man as Himself. He spent on him His sympathies and His property-the treasures of His heart and of His hand. He rendered him all kinds of service. As it were, He changed places or conditions with him. And all this was an unwearied unrepentant love; for He provided for the future, as well as for the present. He did as much for him, one may say, as He could have done for Himself. He enlisted others to bestow their care and their substance on him, but all this, not at their cost, but at His. What was wanting, beloved? Nothing. The necessity, deep as it was, had it been His own could not have been more thoroughly met and answered. The parable, however, suggests another thought. There are two ways in which I, a poor sinner, may have to do with this good Samaritan. I may be a debtor to Him, or an imitator of Him. The lawyer who came with his question to Christ never thought of assuming the first of these attitudes. His thoughts were entirely on the law, and what he himself could do. The Saviour, in answer to that, can suggest nothing less than perfection, or the imitation. of Himself. Had he approached the Lord with a broken heart, he would have been otherwise answered-in some way that would have preached to him the grace, and not the example of the good Samaritan. But let us, beloved, take our place with the poor way-laid traveller, before we ever think of taking our place with his generous Benefactor. We will be debtors to Jesus, before we think of becoming imitators of Jesus. And, sure I am, the more simply by faith we assume the first of these relationships to Him, the more really, and largely, and graciously, shall we act in the power of the second. It is only by the constrainings of the love of Christ to ourselves, that we can act in concert or sympathy with that love to others. The lawyer would have to find that he must become the way-laid man before he could become, in any true evangelic sense, the companion or imitator of the good Samaritan who befriended him. And, it is strange in the ear of the moralist to say it, but so it is, the blessed God is more honoured by my consenting to be a debtor to Him, than by all my efforts to be an imitator of Him. And that imitation at best, will ever be found, and confessed to be, but partial. May we all know, more richly than we do, the precious power and presence of the Spirit, to give Jesus and Heaven more authority with our hearts! HYMN. "Where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them."-MATT. Xviii. 20. AROUND Thee, gracious Lord, we meet, 'Tis good to sit at Thy dear feet, And think upon thy love: Speak to our hearts, and make us feel Head of thy Church! we worship Thee, Our souls from every care divest, With heart-felt thanks Thy flesh we eat, We drink by faith Thy precious blood, Now, by the Holy Ghost, reveal Thy glories, O Immanuel, Shew us Thou'rt "God with us:" Thy gifts and grace to each impart, And may our eyes uplifted be, "Till in the clouds Thyself we see, Our precious Saviour-God! When all who love Thee then shall reign, Apart from sin and every pain, With Thee our risen Lord. DAVID AT THE ASCENT OF OLIVET. 2 SAM. XV. A CAREFUL reader of Scripture easily distinguishes two characters of suffering as belonging to the Lord Jesus; one in which he suffers as a righteous man from the hand of unrighteousness," But now ye seek to kill me, a man that hath told you the truth; this did not Abraham:" and the other, the sufferings which He had directly from the hand of His Father at the cross,— "The cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it?" Peter puts these two characters in close connexion, when he says, "who, when He was reviled, reviled not again; when He suffered, He threatened not:" * * * who "His ownself bare our sins in His own body on the tree" (1 Pet. ii. 23, 24). Joseph exhibits more prominently the sufferings of Christ among His unbelieving brethren. Joseph was eminently righteous: hence the jealousy, the malice, the typical death which he underwent at their handsall with the meekness of a lamb. But David, in the scene before us, seems more to resemble Christ, as the sin-bearer, but with this weighty difference,-that David, at the ascent of Olivet, is there for his own sin; whereas the Lord was there for the sins of His people. Let us review some of the circumstances which preceded this solemn scene. It had been said to David, by Nathan (2 Sam. xii. 10), "The sword shall never depart from thine house;" and no doubt, when the conspiracy of Absalom broke out, we must in this way account for David's haste to escape,-" Arise, and let C |