spirit she attended to the things which were spoken. No mere words could have such power over her; no bare outpourings of speech, however eloquent, could fix her thus with entranced gaze, and close-held breath, and heart and soul and spirit on the utmost stretch of anxiety. They were not words she heard but truths. There were thoughts within her mind, which, like one benighted in some uncertain forest-gloom, had called and called, but as yet had heard no echoing voice. But now she hears one. In her imperfect worship of God she may have faintly heard from Him, "seek ye my face," and her heart's desire may have made answer, "thy face, Lord, will I seek ;” yet she could not with "open face behold the glory of God." But as she now listens, the veil is drawn away from her heart, the uncertainty passes from her eyes; that little sanctuary to her is all illumined with glory; it becomes for the time an unearthly Peniel, in faith she sees God face to face there. The finger of the there-present Lord has unsealed her ear and unlocked her heart, and she drinks in now those tidings for which her soul had so long been hearkening. The hope now set before her, clear and full of glory, was that which, dim and undefined, she had long felt hovering around her; the something which

she wanted but could not find-the something without which she could not be at peace!

Pause we for a moment. Let us look back! How much of life has past with us! When we aforetime fondly dreamed of life, and dealt with it as a dream, what promises did it make! what phantom happiness did it evoke before us! The dream perhaps is broken, and we look round as when one awaketh. The mist of the vision is past; the gaudy and confused kaleidoscopic colors have shifted with life's turnings, and we see things as they are. The world in its cold realities hems us around. We have attained life's true philosophy-to look at things as they are; we see them as they are, we know them as they are; and as they are we deal with them. It was a very questionable and loop-holed satisfaction they afforded us, when they were invested with all their visionary and tinsel glitter, but now, now they are dark and disappoint us. And it is well. It needed so to be. We were to learn that this is not our rest-experience has taught us, we cannot find it here. Having realities around us with which we have to cope, we have learnt that we want realities within us—real dependance and real religion, and true piety and tried trust, and that experienced faith which is the victory that overcometh the world. These may

be the requisites we have long been and are still seeking, but have not found: undefined they may have been hovering about us: Christ Jesus may have been heard of by the hearing of the ear, but more than this we need before we can be at peace-"Christ in us the hope of glory."

Return we to that holy spot by the rippling waters. Lydia not only hearkens, but she attends to the things spoken by Paul. Her mind is rivetted to

them; her attention is all awakened; her heart was not only opened to receive them, but like treasuretruths it shut them in, and kept them, and guarded them. She heard strange things that day. The sound of them did not cease with the speaker's words; their echo lingered still, and in her holy musings she seemed to hear the name of Jesus. As she returned back to Philippi's walls she desired to hear afresh of Jesus, and when she reached her home, she constrained the men of God to enter too, that she might hear more of those truths which fell upon her eager thirsting soul, like rain upon the desert's breast. And what is the end of

her hearing? She and her household are baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.

This is no fancied picture. It is no mere imaginative coloring. It is more or less the experience of every heart which has been opened to hear. The

same name may have been preached to it full oft— the same words may have been spoken to it aforetime-but they have fallen softly and coldly on it, like the feathered snow which the whistling blast drifts onward as fastly as it falls. The same name is again preached; the same words again spoken; and, like the penetrating vernal rain, they have sunk deep, and made to burst forth all the beauty and energy of a new life. That heart now receives "the engrafted word;" it becomes the depository of that "incorruptible seed which liveth and abideth for ever." Its interest is awakened. Its spiritual faculties are all on the intensest exercise. It pulses now, not only to the momentary vibrations of time, but echoes to the solemn stroke of eternity.

I have known more than one who has listened to the same preacher for years, and who has been at one time, perhaps, a little moved, and at another somewhat warmed to fitful charity and well-doing; but to the root of whose heart, for all those years, the axe has never struck. These have long listened; and the preacher's words, fervent and faithful, have only been unto them "as a very lovely song of one that hath a pleasant voice, and can play well on an instrument." And I have known subsequently, that to these very persons,

at a season best known to God, the word preached has been with power. Like a two-edged sword, it has laid open and made bare all the thoughts and intents of their hearts. They have felt themselves in the hands of the living God. They have felt his presence so powerfully upon them that they could not escape it. They have gone from the house of God, but that presence has followed them. They have withdrawn in solitude to their chambers-but it was there. To the close-curtained couch of sleep-but it was there. To the busy scenes of the week-day world-but it was there. Like the barbed arrow in the stricken hart, that cutting word and that dread presence have followed them, till over-awed with fear and humbled with conviction, they have fallen penitently on their knees before God, exclaiming— "What wilt thou have me to do." The truth is, their hearts which were long sealed, the Lord has at length opened. They are in earnest now. They have known Christ's gospel to be to them the power of God unto salvation. That name, which is above every name, lingers on their remembrance. Henceforward they see life's ordinary matters in a new light-all subordinate to higher and holier things; and one thing above all they desire:"that they may apprehend that for which also they are apprehended of Christ Jesus."