denial, and above all, their spirit of prayer. Reperuse seriously, as is in the light of the last day, this beautiful passage of the Apostle; and immediately in the narrow space of this single verse, you shall admire the many precious instructions the Holy Spirit would here give us, besides those which the pious bishop of Constantinoble has remarked. How many words and almost chapters would have been necessary to say so much under another form! You will again learn there, for example, the sobriety of this young and ardent Timothy:-he had wished, like St. Paul, to "keep his body under;" he drank only waterhe abstained entirely from wine. You will there see in the third place, with what tender and paternal delicacy the Apostle reproved him, either for his imprudence, or for an austerity which he carried too far. You will there see again, with what wisdom the Lord authorizes and invites by these words, the men of God to take the necessary care of their health, at the same time however, that he has thought best to diminish it by sickness. You will there see, in the fifth place, with what prophetic foresight this word placed in the mouth of an apostle, condemns in advance, the human traditions which, in future days were to forbid the faithful, the use of wine as an impurity. You will there see in the sixth place, with what tender solicitude, what sympathy, what paternal vigilance, the Apostle Paul, in the midst of his high functions, and despite the "care of all the churches from Jerusalem to Illyrium, and of those from Illyrium even to Spain," which came upon him, was still not unmindful of the personal circumstances of his beloved disciple, of his health, of the infirmities of his stomach, of his frequent maladies and of his imprudent habits of daily regimen. You will there learn again, an historical fact which will cast for you a useful light upon the nature of the miraculous gifts. In spite of the interest of St. Paul for the ailments of his disciple, it was not possible for him to restore Timothy, even for him who had so often healed the sick, and even raised the dead; because the apostles, (and we learn it too by this verse, as by the sickness of Epaphroditus,) Philip. ii, 27, had not received the continual gift of miraculous power, any more than that of theopneusty; and that this virtue must be renewed to them for every special occasion.

But if all these lessons of the apostle are important, and if we receive them all thus in one single verse, and in the manner most calculated to affect us; oh! how beautiful they become, and how penetrating they are, for a simple and christian heart, as soon as it is assured that this is not merely the word of a good man; that it is not even that of an apostle merely; but that it is the voice of its God, who will teach it in so affecting a manner, sobriety, fraternal affection, tender interest for the health of

others, the usefulness of afflictions and of infirmities for the most zealous servants of God; and who, to give us all these precious lessons, deigns to address us by the mouth of a simple creature! For, the Lord is good; he has placed his tender compassions above all his works; the heavens are his throne, and the earth is his footstool; he counts the stars; he heals the broken-hearted, and he treasures our tears in his phials."

OF THE

ECCLESIASTICAL BOARDS

OF THE

PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

BY

REV. THOMAS SMYTH, D. D.,

Pastor of the Second Presbyterian Church,

Charleston, S. C.

Published in the Baltimore Literary and Religious Magazine,