Yesterday was a happy day; I had much of His presence, which is better than life, and was enabled more to taste the sweetness of His love than I usually do. I was helped to preach on Tuesday, and I have reason to think that through the tender mercy of God the sermon was made a blessing. The people who called on me appeared thriving in the ways of God, and the testimony about the sick was encouraging. The Lord was gracious in bringing to my ears the account of one of Mr. Noel's congregation, who came to John-street while St. John's was shut up, and was converted, and I also heard of another of whom, if I had ever heard before, I had forgotten. How condescending of the Lord thus to stoop to my littleness, and to have compassion on my weaknesses.

I trust that you have enjoyed much of the Divine presence yesterday, and since we parted. Without some sense of His love enjoyed in the soul what is life?-even spiritual life? Although it be poor living the living on my frames, it is also poor to be without them.

"I dare avouch to all that know God, that the saints know not the length and largeness of that sweet earnest, and the sweet green sheaves before the harvest, that might be had on this side the water, if we would take more pains; and that we all go to heaven with less earnest, and lighter purses, and fewer sheaves of the hoped-for summer, than otherwise we might do if we took more pains to win further in upon Christ in this pilgrimage of our absence from Him."-(Rutherford's Letters, page 135.)

I am glad to hear so favourable an account of the dear family at T. Your dear father and mother are passing through a trying valley, but it is but a very narrow one, and Jesus is with them. Give my tender love to them-to all. May all needful grace be communicated to them in this hour of need.

Your's,

J. H. EVANS.

ever.

TO MISS C. S

Hampstead, May 17, 1841.

MY BELOVED YOUNG SISTER IN THE HOPE OF THE Gospel of JESUS CHRIST,-I have long wished to write to you to assure you of my tender sympathy and my poor prayers, that your soul may be sustained, comforted, and filled with the love of Jesus as your Saviour, and of God as your portion, and that for It would be a great joy to me were you near to me, that I might often see you; and were you a little better, so as to be able to undertake the journey, would advise your making the attempt,-i. e., were it prudent to do so. But I leave this, as one unable to give right advice, in the hands and heart of Him who loves you infinitely more every moment than all who love you best can ever love you through all time and eternity. Dear young sister, your yoke is put betimes on your neck. But a tender hand put it on and keeps it on, and with a tender heart will mitigate any roughness there may be in it. You have a direct promise to encourage you, Lam. iii. 27, and a promise-keeping God to fulfil it. May you be led to form large expectations of spiritual blessing connected with it, and may you be found an unwearied petitioner at the throne of grace for its abundant fulfilment, watching thereunto, and waiting and hoping "with all perseverance." Oh, what pains a gracious Father takes with us, and how small the apparent result! Yet, blessed be His name, there is a result. The crop seems small, yet there is some ingathering, and the Divine Husbandman thinks much of even that blessing. No thanks to us that there is any, but much cause for shame that there should be no more.

The seed is good, but the soil is bad and stony, and the climate unfavourable. It would be a strange sight if a farmer were to watch his seed as it grew, day by day, hour by hour. But Jesus does this night as well as day, and waters it every moment. How precious must we be in His sight, and so we are, and no views of our own worthlessness should obscure our perception of it. He tells us so again and again. Lam. iv. 2; Jer. xv. 19. Their persons are so precious, that he who touches them touches the apple of

Jehovah's eye. Their faith is precious, their tears are precious, their repentance precious, their deaths are precious, their very dust is precious. Their prayers are as incense presented by Jesus Himself. Rev. viii. 3. Are they not precious, then? Does not that Jesus say, "Thou hast loved them as thou hast loved me?" Dear young sister and fellow-traveller in a land of briars and thorns, we shall ere long pass through this narrow vale-this vale of tears; a daily sense of the love of God, the blessed assurance at least, should much of sensible enjoyment be denied us, is an indispensable requisite for our journey. To be searching for our roll when we have our hill to climb, or our descent into the valley to experience, is not well timed. I trust that through God's rich grace your faith is continually helping you to say many a time through each day, “Abba, Abba." It is a sweet and pleasant word. It has no harsh letters in it. It comes in well at all seasons, on all occasions. It is the language of heaven, but is no less suited for earth.

Farewell, farewell; my time bids me close. May your spirit be deeply sanctified, your patience perfected, your will subdued. May the love of Christ pervade your whole heart, prays with all sincerity a poor sinner-how poor God only knows, but His eternally-indebted child and unworthy servant, and your faithful and sincere pastor and friend,

J. H. EVANS.

TO HIS DAUGHTER IN INDIA.

Hampstead, May 31, 1841.

MY MOST PRECIOUS AND BELOVED C——,—It is but a shabby bit of paper is your first thought. I acknowledge that it is not a wide and copious Cambridge sheet, and I also acknowledge that it is far smaller than my love to you seems to demand, and the desires of my heart seem to require; yet is it as large as my poor Monday head can supply. The size of my paper is the measure of my ability, not of my fond and untiring love and fervent affection. In the first place, my beloved child, I am well and happy. I do not know when my health has been better, and I do not often enjoy more real peace of mind than I am

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now, through God's mercy, in the possession of. I think that I see more in God than I once seemed to see, more substance in things possessed and hoped for, more in Christ. I hope that I can say sin appears more hateful, and salvation more precious, and a throne of grace a more prized and valued spot. All happiness consists in this. Oh, what a mere shell is the possession of religion without it! And yet how frequently one has gone on, for a time at least, with little of its possession. Without constant, real intercourse with God, God in Christ, faith droops, and assurance of faith of necessity droops with it, and then, of course, sensible consolation makes to itself wings and flees away. Remember this, my beloved child. Let never a day pass without some real interchanges between God and your own soul, real, downright visits, and substantial communion with God, and holy fellowship, as a child with a father. It is your privilege; it is more, it is essential to the real health of the soul. Your most precious mother found for years a feast in reading, in our mornings, Owen. I think that you have him on Communion, as well as the cxxxth Psalm. Perhaps you may follow her steps, and read it with your beloved husband. Scott is one whom I dearly value and esteem, but I want more of Christ than he gives me. Unless Christ take His own place in my heart, everything droops. In the next place, I am sitting at this moment in my little study. Your dear mother's picture, J's, your's, F's, with one of myself, are behind me. Your two pictures are on each side of the chimney-piece; the window is open at my right; the old garden is before me in all its beauty; the birds are sweetly singing, and all seems full of the goodness of that Being who has bestowed all upon one so unworthy.

You must forgive, my dearly beloved C――, my concluding. Such is the state of my poor head that had I been writing to any one else I would have closed long ago. Yesterday was a most heavy day, and I very much feel it to-day. But with most warm and fervent love to you, ever believe me,

Your most attached father,

J. H. EVANS.

TO HIS SON.-ON HIS ORDINATION.

Leamington, August 21, 1841. MY VERY DEAR J. -You are now on the point of taking by far the most solemnly important step of your life,—a step that necessarily influences every successive step of your after journey,—a step that with an equal necessity determines, to a certain degree, the movements of many immortal beings like yourself through this fleeting period of existence, and through all the countless ages of an endless eternity. As you are, to a very great extent they will be; as the prophet, as the priest, so will be the people. A bad tradesman may sell good merchandise, a bad farmer may sow good wheat, but an undecided minister must be the means of leading souls to the region of hopeless misery. I write not this, my beloved J, to discourage you, but as your father, your friend, your best and truest earthly friend, I lay the solemn consideration before you. A few fleeting years will soon pass away, and the hand that inscribes and the heart that indites this will be among the things that were. I well know the affection which you bear towards me, and fully believe that you are equally assured of mine towards yourself. The most unreserved confidence will, I trust, ever exist between us on all points. But on this point, above all others, to have any sort of reserve, would be not only inexcusable, it would be base indeed.

A minister of Jesus Christ must not only be a preacher of righteousness, he must be an example to the people of God, in holiness, in fidelity, in self-denial, in weanedness from the world, in zeal for God's glory, in concern for the souls of men. So far as he exhibits this in his character and conduct, he is a powerful comment upon the truths which he preaches; so far as he fails here, he mars them, he weakens the saint, hardens the sinner, and prepares the seat for the scorner. It well becomes, then, my beloved child seriously and solemnly, and as under the All-seeing eye, to examine himself on this very point. It is so very easy a thing to pass muster before others, who can only judge by a few external movements and the outward conversation, that it becomes