is not an Israelite indeed " because he has great trials; in fact he cannot escape great trials; for though he is protected from personal violence by the law of our land, yet his superior piety will raise him a host of enemies, and subject him to great annoyance. "Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise. But as then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit, even so it is now." Gal. iv. 28, 29. The greater a man's piety, the greater, in all probability, will be the temptations of his adversary the devil, and certainly the greater will be his anguish in seeing the folly and wickedness of man in rebelling against God-in neglecting the great salvation -in doing despite to the Spirit of Grace, and in rushing headlong to eternal fire. These trials " an Israelite indeed" has to endure, in addition to all the cares and troubles of life. But notwithstanding his trials, he has great spiritual enjoyments. He has the full assurance of the pardon of his sins, and he is delivered completely from all inclination to sin. He is filled with peace and joy through believing, and he abounds in hope by the power of the Holy Ghost. He holds communion with saints, and has fellowship with God and his Son Jesus Christ. He has the Spirit of God dwelling in him, "as a well of water springing up unto eternal life." He has a claim to all the promises of the Divine word, and a sure title to eternal glory. Hence with Habakuk he can say, "Although the fig-tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labour of the olive shall fail, and the trees shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls; yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation. The Lord God is my strength, and he will make my feet like hinds' feet, and make me to walk upon my high places."Hab. iii. 17, to the end. With David, the "Israelite indeed can say, "The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want: he maketh me to sit down in green pastures; he leadeth me beside the still waters: he restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for thou art with me: thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever." And with Paul he can boldly say, "We know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens."-2 Cor. v. i.

**

How unspeakably great, and good, and happy, is "an Israelite indeed!" Who does not desire to be such a character? Well might David say, and Paul repeat his saying, "Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit is no guile!"

The imperfect sketch we have given of the character of “ an Israelite indeed," shows how happy we should be, and how happy the world at large would be, if all men were "Israelites indeed;" then righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost, would fill every heart, dwell in every family, and bless every land. Men would then take up and prolong the angels' song, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will to men." Reader, art thou“ an Israelite indeed?" If not, remember, let others be what they may, it is thy duty, thy interest, and thy privilege to become one. Cease not, then, until Christ can say of thee as he said of Nathanael of old, "Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile !"

THE COLLIER CONVERTED.

He was a perfect adept in sin-a child of Satan, apparently ripe for the burnings. As the sow delights to wallow in the mire, so he delighted to revel in filthy abominations. His heart was hard as the flinty rock; his neck was too stiff for any human power to bend; he gloried in resisting the strivings of the Spirit until he was literally compelled to yield. Once he attended Zion Chapel, Longton, and under the ministration of the Rev. Mr. Batty, the convictions of the Spirit upon his mind were so powerful that, in order to prevent himself from crying aloud for mercy, he filled his mouth with a pocket handkerchief. He was determined not to yield; he would not humble himself to be saved. From this time he never entered a sanctuary of God for more than five years. During this period, however, the Holy Spirit did not entirely forsake him; he was often the subject of compunctions of conscience, though he did all he could to avoid them.

When the Teachers of the Sabbath-schools have visited his house to inquire after the absence of his children, he has often been known to hide himself, for fear they should say something to him that would trouble his mind. This obstinate sinner, however, was not too powerful for the grace of God to conquer; he was not too proud for God to humble, nor too hardened for God to melt into tenderness. It is true that divine calls were often given him, but he as often refused them. Once he was at work sinking a pit, when a heavy pit bucket fell a distance of seventy yards, and merely grazed his hat, without doing him any further injury; twice have companions who were working by his side been killed, while he has remained unhurt: yet these things moved him not; he thought not of laying them to heart, but considered them as mere matters of chance. But the time came when God used a more afflicting means to reclaim this rebel to himself. He took from his fond embrace a beloved child who had been made wise unto salvation, through the instrumentality of Sabbath-school instruction. This child, in his affliction, rejoiced in the prospect of happiness, and spoke with pleasure of the joys upon which he was about to enter. His sinful father was pleased at the sight, and, as he says, his heart leaped for joy, and many were the tears of gratitude which he shed to see his boy in such a state, although he himself was as ignorant as a brute beast concerning spiritual matters. This child, but a very short time previously to his departure, by his earnest solicitations, induced his father to pledge himself, on his knees, at the side of his dying bed, that, by the grace of Jesus Christ, he would reform his course of life, and begin to live for heaven. Time passed on-his son died, and was carried to his long home-and he, as usual, went to labour for the bread which perishes. The Spirit renewed his strivings while he was at work in the bowels of the earth, and being softened by the bereavement he had sustained, he encouraged them until they became so powerful that he could no longer proceed; he laid down his pick, and retired to a distant part of the pit, with a bosom ready to burst with grief; there he prostrated himself on the earth before God, and poured out the sorrows of his soul to heaven: there the Lord heard his prayers, and whispered to his troubled conscience, "Thy sins are all forgiven thee: go in peace, and sin no more." He arose and returned to his

labour, singing and praising God, and speaking of his marvellous love. He told the feelings of his mind, and the act in which he had been secretly engaged, to a fellow-labourer who was then in a backsliding state, who for some time thought him to be jesting, but afterwards finding what had been said to be no jest but a reality, he was brought to serious reflection, and since then has returned like a lost sheep to the Shepherd and Bishop of his soul. These two colliers are now going hand in hand to Immanuel's land, and striving together for the faith once delivered to the saints. Truly

"God moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform."

He can save to the uttermost all them that come unto him by Christ: he can elevate the most degraded-reform the most abandoned-cleanse the most polluted-sanctify the most unholy, and bring the vilest profligate to himself through the death of his Son.

Longton.

E. PALMER.

PARALLEL BETWEEN MOSES AND CHRIST.

"For Moses truly said unto the fathers, A Prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, LIKE UNTO ME; him shall ye hear in all things, whatsoever he shall say unto you."-Acts iii. 22.

As the Apostle Peter has applied this passage to our Lord, it will be unnecessary to examine the arguments by which some writers would apply the prediction of Moses to the long line of prophets that came after him. It is sufficient for us to know, even when taken collectively, they were not like unto him in so many points as Jesus of Nazareth. Jortin gives the following parallel:

The resemblance between Moses and Christ is so great and striking, it is impossible to consider it fairly and carefully, without seeing and acknowledging that he must be foretold, where he is so well described.

1st, and which is the principal of all, Moses was a lawgiver, and the mediator of a covenant between God and man: so was Christ. Here the resemblance is the more considerable, because no other prophet beside them executed this high office.

The other prophets were only interpreters and enforcers of the law, and in this respect were greatly inferior to Moses. The Messias could not be like to Moses, in a strict sense, unless he were a legislator. He must give a law to man, consequently a more excellent law and a better covenant than the first; for if the first had been perfect, (as the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews argues), there could have been no room for a second.

2.-Other prophets had revelations in dreams and visions, but Moses talked with God, face to face. So Christ spake that which he had seen with the Father. Numbers xii. 6, 7, 8

All the prophets of the Old Testament saw visions and dreamed dreams; all the prophets of the New were in the same state. St. Peter had a vision; St. John saw visions; St. Paul had visions and dreams. But Christ neither saw visions nor dreamed a dream, but had an inti

mate and immediate communication with the Father; he was in the Father's bosom, and he, and no one else, had seen the Father. Moses and Christ are the only two in all the sacred history who had this communication with God.

3.-Moses in his infancy was wonderfully preserved from the cruelty of a tyrant-so was Christ.

4.-Moses fled from his country to escape the hands of the king-so did Christ, when his parents carried him into Egypt. Afterwards" The Lord said to Moses, on Midian, Go, return into Egypt; for all the men are dead which sought thy life.” Exodus iv. 19. So the angel of the Lord said to Joseph, in almost the same words, "Arise, and take the young child, and go into the land of Israel, for they are dead which sought the young child's life," (Matt. ii. 20), pointing him out, as it were, for that prophet which should arise like unto Moses.

5.-Moses refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction-Christ had all the kingdoms of the world offered him by Satan, and rejected them; and when the people would have made him a king he hid himself, choosing rather to suffer affliction. 6.-"Moses," says St. Stephen, "was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was mighty in words and in deeds;" and Josephus says that he was a very forward and accomplished youth, and had wisdom and knowledge beyond his years, which is taken from Jewish tradition, and which of itself is highly probable. St. Luke observes of Christ, that "he increased (betimes) in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man;" and his discourses in the temple with the doctors, when he was twelve years old, were a proof of it. The difference was, that Moses acquired his knowledge by human instruction, and Christ by a divine afflatus.

7.-Moses delivered his people from cruel oppression and heavy bondage-so did Christ from the worst tyranny of sin and Satan.

8.-Moses contended with the magicians, and had the advantage over them so manifestly, that they could no longer withstand him, but were forced to acknowledge the divine power by which it was assisted-Christ ejected evil spirits, and received the same acknowledgments from them. 9.-Moses assured the people whom he conducted, that if they would be obedient, they should enter into the happy land of promise-which land was usually understood, by the wiser Jews, to be an emblem, and a figure of that eternal and celestial kingdom to which Christ first opened

an entrance.

10.-Moses reformed the nation corrupted with Egyptian superstition and idolatry-Christ restored true religion.

11.-Moses wrought a variety of miracles—so did Christ; and in this the parallel is remarkable, since beside Christ "there arose not a prophet in Israel like unto Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face, in all the signs and wonders which the Lord sent him to do."

12.-Moses was not only a lawgiver, a prophet, and a worker of miracles, but a king and a priest. He is called a king, Deut. xxxiii. 5; and he had indeed, though not the pomp, and the crown, and the sceptre, yet the authority of a king, and was the supreme magistrate; and the office of priest he often exercised. In all these offices the resemblance between Moses and Christ was singular. In the interpretation of Deut. xxxiii. 5, I prefer the sense of Grotius and Selden to Le Clerc's. The parallel between Moses and Christ requires it, and no objection can be

made to it. The apostolical constitutions also, if their judgment be of any weight, call Moses "high priest and king." vi. 3.

13.-Moses married an Ethiopian woman, at which his relations were much offended; and in this he was a type of Christ, who espoused the Church of the Gentiles, whom the Jews were very unwilling to admit to the same favours and privileges with themselves. But I should not choose to lay a great stress upon this typical similitude, though it be ingenious.

14.-Moses fasted in the desert forty days and forty nights before he gave the law; so did Elias, the restorer of the law-and so did Christ before he entered upon his ministry.

15.-Moses fed the people miraculously in the wilderness-so did Christ with bread and with doctrine; and the manna which descended from heaven, and the loaves which Christ multiplied, were proper images of the spiritual food which the Saviour of the world bestowed upon his disciples. John vi. 31, &c.

16.-Moses led the people through the sea-Christ walked upon it, and enabled Peter to do so.

17.-Moses commanded the sea to retire and give way- -Christ com

manded the winds and waves to be still.

18.-Moses brought darkness over the land-the sun withdrew its light at Christ's crucifixion. And as the darkness which was spread over Egypt was followed by the destruction of the firstborn, and of Pharaoh and his host-so the darkness at Christ's death was the forerunner of the destruction of the Jews, when, in the metaphorical and prophetical style, and according to Christ's express prediction, "The sun was darkened, and the moon refused to give her light, and the stars fell from heaven," the ecclesiastical and civil state of the Jews was overturned, and the rulers of both were destroyed.

19. The face of Moses shone when he descended from the mountain -the same happened to Christ at his transfiguration on the mountain. Moses and Elias appeared then with him, to show that the law and prophets bare witness of him; and the divine voice said, "This is my beloved Son, hear ye him;" alluding, most evidently, to the prediction of Moses, "unto him shall ye hearken."

20.-Moses cleansed one leper-Christ many.

21.-Moses foretold the calamities which would befal the nation for their disobedience-so did Christ.

22.-Moses chose and appointed seventy elders to be over the people -Christ chose such a number of disciples.

23.—The spirit which was in Moses was conferred, in some degree, on the seventy elders; they prophesied-and Christ conferred miraculous powers on his seventy disciples.

24.-Moses sent twelve men to spy out the land which was to be conquered-Christ sent his apostles into the world to subdue it by a more glorious and miraculous conquest.

25.-Moses was victorious over powerful kings and great nations-so was Christ, by the effects of his religion, and by the fall of those who persecuted the church.

26.-Moses conquered Amalek by lifting and holding up both his hands all the day-Christ overcame his and our enemies when his hands were fastened to the cross. This resemblance has been observed by some of the ancient Christians, and ridiculed by some of the moderns, but without sufficient reason, I think.