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20 THE EABNEST CHBISTIAN.but, " If ye love me, keep my commandments."Tenderness andstrength shonld be blended as in thecharacter of Christ, Paul, JohnEoiox and Martin Luther. "The disciplewhom Jesus loved," was certainlya very affectionate and tender-heartedman, but it is a mistaketo regard him as a weak and aneffeminate man, destitute of strongconvictions. Witness his fiery zealto " call down fire from heaven"upon a certain. viUage that rejectedthe truth.The Bible model for our imitation,is a man of intense moral convictions,bright thoughts, burningemotions, who can love the sinnerwith divine compassion, but hatethe sin with intense and supremehatred. God's •wrath against evil,bums to the lowest heU, but hislove for a lost world is,'' Higher than the highest heaveu;Beeper than the deepest sea."We should abhor evil even in personswho are ever so highly exaltedin society, church, state, literatureand art. Purple and fine linen andthe incense of popular adulation,should not blind our moral sense,nor abate the intensity of our convictionsagainst evil.Before we join the " maddenedcrowd " in praise of the most popularnoveUst and the most popularactress of to-day, let us pause andconsider, that both of them are openand shameless sinners .against theseventh commandment.We all need this intensity of morial convictions to anchor us to trnthand right, amid the almost resistlessdrift of error and wrong. We needit to produce convictions upon othersin gospel services. And it is forthe church to touch and quicken thetorpid conscience of the world, withthe sanctions of divine truth andthe power of the Holy Ghost.• » « • - - ——I will Usten to any one's convictions; but pray keep your doubts toyourself; I have plenty of my own.JOYFULNESS AND USEFUL­NESS.Above all things, see to it thatyonr souls are happy in the Lord.Other things may press npon you;the Lord's work even may have urgentclaims upon your attention ;but I deliberately repeat, it is ofsupreme paramount importance thatyou should seek to make this themost important 'business of yonrlife. This has been, my firm andsettled conviction for the last fiveand thirty days. For the first fouryears after my conversion I knewnot its vast importance; but now,after much experience, I especiaUycommend this point to the notice ofmy younger brothers and sisters inChrist. The secret of aU true,effectual service is joy in God, a^dhaving experimental acqaintance andfellowship •with God himself. Butin what way shall we attain to tbissettled happiness of sonl ? Howshall we leara tp enjoy God ? howobtain such all-sufficient, soul-satisfyingportion of bim that shall enableus to let go the things of this world,as vain and worthless in comparison?I answer, this, happiness is to beobtained through the study of theHoly Scriptures. God has thereinrevealed himself unto us in the faceof Jesns Christ; In the Scriptures,by the power of the Holy Ghost, hemakes himself known unto oursouls. Remember, it ia not a Godof our own thoughts or our ovmimaginations that we need to beacquainted •with; bnt the God of theBible, our Father, who has given theblessed Jesus to die for ns. Himshould we seek intimately to know,according to the revelation he hasmade of himself in his own preciousword.— George Muller.«-»-lv^—The trouble •with our praying isnot so much that we do not prayenough or have not faith enough, astbat we all want to be on God'sways and means committee.