[6TH SUNDAY.

"I was in the Spirit on the Lord's-day."-REV. I. 10.

AT the close of the Lord's-day, let us examine ourselves by this text; "Have we been in the Spirit to-day?" It is the Lord's-day, a day set apart and devoted to the Lord; have we kept it as such? What humbling views of ourselves have we obtained; what elevating views of Christ; what new sense of the vanity and emptiness of things below, and of the excellence and value of things above? If we have spent the day in the holy duties of prayer, reading the Scriptures, attending the public means of grace-and especially if we have given some part of it to selfexamination, such will be the result. We shall find our repentance for sin deepened, our faith in Jesus increased, our love to God quickened, our hope of glory brightened, and our souls strengthened for further service.

Another Lord's-day has nearly passed; will the light and comfort received to-day shed a sanctifying and strengthening influence over the ensuing week? Shall we bear away from it such a glimpse of heaven as will deaden our love of the world, and hallow our intercourse with our fellow-creatures, quicken us on our way, urge us to good works, and excite us to endeavours to bring others to be our joy and crown of rejoicing in the day of Christ? Oh! it was for such purposes as these that the blessed Sabbath was given to us. It was not that we should spend it in ease and indolence, but in holy diligence, and in earnest prayer, in humble contrition for the past, in resolutions for the future, formed in dependance on Divine grace, and in meditation on an unseen world.

And we may expect to receive on this blessed day a large portion of the Holy Spirit:

"It is our Pentecost, on which
The Holy Ghost doth fall."

In the use of the means that Divine teacher, guide, and comforter will be found to descend plenteously upon his people, and greatly to enrich them with all spiritual blessings in Christ Jesus.

"May I, throughout this day of thine,
Be in thy Spirit, Lord;

Spirit of humble fear divine,
That trembles at thy Word;

"Spirit of faith, my heart to raise,
And fix on things above;
Spirit of sacrifice and praise,
Of holiness and love."

"Nearer, my God, to Thee,—
Nearer to Thee!

E'en though it be a cross
That raiseth me,

Still all my song shall be,
Nearer, my God, to Thee—

Nearer to Thee.

"Though like a wanderer,

The sun gone down,

Darkness comes over me,
My rest a stone;

Yet in my dreams I'd be
Nearer, my God, to Thee,-
Nearer to Thee.

"There let my way appear

Steps unto heaven;

All that Thou sendest me

In mercy given;

Angels to beckon me

Nearer, my God, to Thee,-
Nearer to Thee.

"And when on joyful wing,
Cleaving the sky;

Sun, moon, and stars forgot,
Upward I fly;

Still all my song shall be,

Nearer, my God, to Thee,Nearer to Thee.

[7TH SUNDAY.

"And in the midst of the candlesticks one like unto the Son of man and He laid his right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not."-REV. i. 13, 17. WE are told in the last verse of this chapter that the candlesticks which the apostle saw are the seven Churches which then existed in Asia. In the midst of those Churches he saw one like unto the Son of man; a glorious form, the description of which he gives, and which he knew to be the Son of man, his own glorified Master and Head. At sight of this glorified body of his Lord's the disciple fell down as dead; but Jesus laid his right hand upon him, and said, "Fear not!" Let us meditate on this beautiful revelation of our Saviour's divinity and humanity, of his majesty and tenderness, of his greatness and condescension, of his power and love; remembering what we read in a former verse, that the disciple to whom it was revealed was then a