140 THE LOVE OF GOD. Oh! ye that feel your sin, Come, come, to Jesus now, Old and young together bow, Oh! WHAT A GLORIOUS THING, ALL, then, to Jesus now, Jesus is here; THE LOVE OF GOD. THE following lines are said to have been written by a maniac on the walls of his cell : Could we with ink the ocean fill; Were the whole earth of parchment made ; Were every spire of grass a quill, And every man a scribe by trade To write the love of God above Nor would the scroll contain the whole, TEMPTED BY DEGREES. JOHN NEWTON says, Satan seldom comes to Christians with great temptations, or with a temptation to commit a great sin. You bring a green log and a candle together, and they are very safe neighbours; but bring a few shavings and set them alight, and then bring a few small sticks and let them take fire, and the log be in the midst of them, and you will soon get rid of your log. And so it is with little sins. You will be startled with the idea of committing a great sin, and so the devil brings you a little temptation, and leaves you to indulge yourself. "There is no harm in this;" "no great peril in that;" and so by these little chips we are first easily lighted up, and at last the green log is burned. "Watch and pray that ye enter not into temptation." THE JUVENILE REPORTER. THE Reporter has so many good things on his heart this month, that were he to tell all, he would need a whole "Messenger" to himself. Sometimes, when days are dark, and his spirits low, he is glad he is growing old and getting nearer rest and home; but at other times he feels it so good to work for God, and to see others working too, that he wishes he were young and strong again—able to labour on for days and years to come. Before he says any more, the Reporter wishes to ask all his friends to pray earnestly to the Lord to preserve and bless the missionaries in China, and put a speedy end to the threatened war. No doubt our God, who often makes "the wrath of man to praise him," will at some future day bring good out of all this evil; but war in itself is at all times a sad calamity. He is glad to say that before very long a missionary 142 THE JUVENILE REPorter. will go out from our church to India. Millions in that vast land are still in heathen darkness, bowing down to dumb idols, ignorant of the Lord of life. We want to help a little in the good work of sending the Gospel to them; and, therefore, it has been arranged to send out Mr. Kelly—who lately finished his studies at our own college in London—and as it is lonely for one to be working in a heathen land by himself, he will labour in connection with the devoted missionaries of the Free Church of Scotland. The missionaries in Caffraria tell us of the death of a Caffre convert there, a good man and true, who has been a member of the Church of Christ for nearly thirty years. His last words were :- "There is no darkness. It is pleasant with me. It is pleasant." Of this good man the missionary says, "Oh, what a loss to those who remain! Of what faithfulness, ardent affection, and zeal, according to knowledge, we are all deprived!" The Reporter would wish for nothing greater than to live as good a life, and die as blessed a death, as this poor Caffre did. When speaking of Africa, the Reporter cannot help referring to a very horrible affair of which he has just heard. When he was a younger man, he used to lecture on Missions to some of his young friends in schools and churches, and show them coloured diagrams of the women-soldiers of the King of Dahomey, Some of his friends would, perhaps, scarcely know the poor old Reporter now, but they cannot have forgotten the pictures of the wild Amazon, and the fierce New Zealander. Well, this cruel King of Dahomey is making arrangements for a horrible offering. He proposes to sacrifice to the manes (spirits or ghosts) of his late father, about two thousand human victims, and to fill a hole with human blood, capable of floating a canoe! These victims are not to be taken from the king's own territories, but from other places. It seems that Abbeokuta has been singled out as the place to be invaded first with his hordes of wild Amazons. In that favoured territory there are many Christians, and, therefore, the Reporter asks all his friends to pray to THE JUVENILE REPORTER. 143 God most earnestly, that the means about to be taken by our own Government to stop this wholesale butchery may be successful. The Reporter is almost afraid to write any more, for he is expecting every moment to hear the knock of his old friend the printer at the door, saying, "Do stop, sir, we can't hold another line." But he would like to tell his young friends, even in a few words, about some visits he lately paid to the meetings in London of that good man Richard Weaver. This man, a few years ago, was one of the wildest of all the colliers in Lancashire. But God has tamed him; taught and saved him; and now he leaves his poor wife and children at home, and goes about beseeching sinners to be reconciled to God. Homely and humble as ever, Richard Weaver may be seen in the highways and byeways, wherever he can get people to listen-and they come in crowds-telling sinners of the love of Jesus. "Oh, I don't come to argue and debate with you," he says; "I will debate with no man, for that will do no good; but I come to tell you that Jesus loves working-men, Jesus loves working-women. I have come to London because I love working-men; and now I'll preach to you, if you carry me from this place to my grave. I must warn you, you are all sinners, but the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin. If it can save me, it can save you; for I do not hesitate to declare that I was the vilest sinner out of hell; but Christ has pardoned me, and I tell you that now is the day of salvation. This moment "Glory be to God on high, The Reporter hopes that Old Allan Gray, who has been at Richard Weaver's meetings, will kindly favour us with 2 chapter on Richard Weaver next month. The Lord preserve for many days to come, that good devoted collier! The Reporter will not soon forget a pleasant visit he lately 144 SABBATH LESSONS. paid to friends in Woolwich. God is saving souls there. He is taking the weak things of the world to confound the things that are mighty. It was very pleasant to meet with so goodly a company-from fifty to sixty-of boys and youths, all rejoicing in the love of Jesus; some of them suffering for his sake, and all striving, through evil report and through good report, to adorn his doctrine, and bring sinners to his feet. He was with them in the Sabbath-school of the Royal Arsenal; out on the Common at the open-air meeting; and also in the Temperance Hall, where evening services were held, in which some of those youths took part. It was good to be there; and many felt it so before they went away. Not a few warm hearts were ready to say, "The Lord hath done great things for us, whereof we are glad." It is when the Reporter comes away from such meetings as these that he begins to wish he were young again ; but then he remembers that "even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men may utterly fail: but they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run and not be weary, and they shall walk and not faint." Oct. 7 Paul apprehend. 32.-Matt. 5. 11, 12, Acts 21. 26-40 ed. |