THE HIGHER CHRISTIAN LIFE.

PART III.

Progress and Power.

Soul! then know thy full salvation,
Rise o'er sin and fear and care;
Joy to find in every station

Something still to do or bear.
Think what Spirit dwells within thee;

Think what Father's smiles are thine;
Think that Jesus died to win thee,-
Child of heaven! canst thou repine?

Haste thee on from grace to glory,

Arm'd by faith and wing'd with prayer,
Heaven's eternal day before thee,

God's own hand shall guide thee there.
Soon shall close thy earthly mission,
Soon shall pass thy pilgrim days,
Hope shall change to glad fruition,

Faith to sight, and prayer to praise.

PART III.

CHAPTER I.

STAGES OF PROGRESS.

STARTING POINTS NOT STOPPING PLACES.

"I Do not like this idea of a definite point to be gained. I have no faith in any stopping place in the Christian course this side of heaven."

The tone of this remark had a shade of impatience and contempt, accompanied by just the slightest curl of the lip and all the emphasis of a conclusion.

The young man who made it had, the day beforeit was now Monday morning-been trying the newfledged wings of his recent licensure, and was just returning in the train to the halls of theological lore, to make a new sermon or mend the old one, against the time of the next invitation from an overworked pastor needing respite, or a vacant church seeking supply.

The gentleman to whom it was made was one of some dozen years' experience as a minister of the gospel, seated by his side in the train. The two had providentially met a few moments before in the depot, and been introduced by a mutual friend. Seated together, and

whirling along toward B, they beat about for a while in desultory conversation upon various things general or personal, but soon settled upon the topic of the higher walks of the Christian life. Some turn in their talk had called out this remark.

"No," added the young gentleman deliberately, with a peculiar emphasis of a deep downward inflection on the word hate. "No, I hate the idea of a certain fixed point to be gained—a resting place—the all in all to be aimed at or expected by the Christian.”

His travelling companion, in the softened tone of a mellowed experience of the love of Christ, and of a developed patience with the foibles of mortals like himself, suggested that perhaps his friend had yoked together a right idea with a wrong one, and was condemning the innocent with the guilty, simply from having himself unwittingly placed it in bad company. "You are certainly right in rejecting the idea of any stopping place for the Christian this side of heaven; but are you sure that a definite point in experience is a stopping place?"

"We are rushing along in the train at the rate of twenty miles an hour towards A, and I have no thought of stopping until it is reached; but we have just now passed the very definite point B, in our journey, and have been doubly advertised of the fact by the railway whistle as we were halting, and the clear voice of the conductor calling out B, in the longdrawn manner to be heard over all the din of voices and clatter of feet, and also by the name B, in large letters, upon the front of the depot. And in a few mo

ments again, we shall come to C—, another very definite point-both on our checks and on the bills, known and read of all journeyers by rail. And yet beyond the moment spent in wooding and watering, and stretching our limbs are they in any proper sense stopping places -much less the all in all aimed at and expected by journeyers to A? Are they not mere stages in the journey-new and nearer starting points for home? You do not believe in conversion, perhaps?"

"O yes, indeed I do; and teach it too. I believe in it, and urge it with all my might upon everybody as a distinct experience, the privilege and necessity of all, known by signs before and signs following, clear and easily distinguishable.

دو

"Well, is the new birth a final stopping place?"

"Oh, no, indeed! Too many, it is to be feared, think they have gained all-when once they have gained clear evidence that they have been born again-until they are afterwards reluctantly taught better, but it is only the starting point of the Christian race."

"Well, may there not be another period as well, the new starting point of a higher progress, just as distinctly marked as conversion itself, and the second no more a stopping place than the first?"

The young man was interested-not convinced-and eager and more eager as they rushed on toward the moment and place of separation, to have his companion unfold his ideas of the unfolding Christian life.

Willing rather to put his young friend upon the permanent track of a higher happiness and of a nobler