True faith always gathers strength by trials, as healthy bodies do by exercise; and when the Lord has sufficiently proved the waiting soul, He will honor faith and humble perseverance, and abundantly answer every believing and earnest prayer.

CHRISTIAN FAMILY ALTAR.

E. E. H.

At the base of all society, and of all character also, in the sphere of nature, is the family. Here emotions are first awakened and called into exercisc. Here the will first begins to move. Here the intellect dawns. Here the germs of social life commence development. Home, so far as nature goes, is the place where men and women receive that moulding influence, which never disappears until they fall asleep in their graves; and which in its consequences may be said to reach far beyond the grave. Father and mother, the old fire-side with its sweet humanities, or its harsh forgetfulness of love and goodness, exert a power which nothing can entirely drive away. It is always lingering in the soul, awakening regrets or the sweet memories of a peaceful, prayerful childhood, which grow holier and tenderer as age comes on, like the landscape glimmering with a chaster coloring beneath the coming dewy twilight.

Here then, at the very foundation of our whole social being, the sanctifying power of grace must be present. It must make of twain one at the nuptial altar; and in the home circle, where the germs of character are to unfold, it must diffuse the precious incense of worship. The altar, where prayer and supplication and thanksgiving shall daily go up to God; where the dear offerings of home-love may be made sweet to a heavenly Father through the one great offering of His Son; where parents and children may be made to feel the fuller influence of the Holy Child Jesus as the central glory of the whole household; the altar, we repeat, must be the prominent characteristic of every dwelling of Israel.

As in the beautiful engraving prefixed to the January number, and which has suggested the theme of this article-near the blazing hearth, surrounded by all those things familiar, which write themselves on the "red-leaved tables" of the heart-which bind us with golden links of love to the whole past of our lives wherever we are-which look down upon us in darkness with the light of angelfaces-which ever "creep into the study of our imagination apparelled in most precious habit," here, the husband and the wifethe Father and Mother, and the sweet pledges of parental love, the children God-given to our care, must gather at the altar and send heavenward with home accord the incense of prayer and praise.

68

The Endless Rest-The Origin of Salvation

It is thus that grace comes home to the most intimate interests of of life. It is thus that the sanctuary is made to hold within its compass the whole household. It is thus that the mystery of baptismal grace continually apprehends us. All, from the Father and Mother to the golden-haired girl and even to the sweet bud promise in its mother's arms, (an Eden in which it is unfolding,) come to feel and know in the end that their only comfort is in belonging to their faithful Saviour.

Let the fire burn brightly in the grate; let the dreamy sunlight pour through the curtained windows; let the hyacinths blossom in vases on the mantel; let the paintings breath refinement from the walls; let the library with opened doors invite to thoughtful meditation; but above all, let the hallowing presence of the family altar bring all these things as offerings to the blessed cross of the Holy One. "Praise Him all creatures here below."

These frequent, these continuous altar oblations have a charming power over the whole of family discipline. They call back to holier aspirations the care-worn spirit; they kindle love and confidence in the children; they make a mother's voice sweet as the tones of heaven; they spread over the household grace and charity, and call out pure and ennobling thoughts, as the purpling sky of evening calls out the twinkling stars.

His rest will THE ENDLESS REST.-Jesus now allows us to rest in his bosom. The very rest He will soon bring us to rest in his Father's house. A rest from sorrow. be glorious. A rest from sin. A rest from suffering. A rest from conflict. A rest from toil. that Jesus enjoys himself. We shall not only rest with him, we shall rest like him. How many of earth's weary ones are resting in his glorious presence now? It will be undisturbed rest. Here the rest of the body is disturbed by dreams, and sometimes by alarms; but there are no troublesome dreams or alarming occurrences ever there.

1

ORIGIN OF SALVATION.-Mercy, rich mercy, is the origin of my salvation. Nothing else could originate it. God acts here as He acts nowhere else; and I feel myself bound to Him by a loftier principle, than any which binds an archangel in heaven. If sin is the greatest evil, salvation is the greatest of all God's wonderful For me mercy operates for me—a sinner, a wanachievements. derer from God, whom justice not only, but all God's other goodness would properly have left to the eternal wages of sin-rich mercy intervenes, and originates the salvation of God.

The Guardian.

VOL. XV.--- MARCH 1864.--- No. 3.

THE WRATH OF THE LAMB.

BY THE EDITOR.

We have shown in a former article, how opposition to Jesus Christ leads to sure ruin-and this a ruin which they bring on themselves apart from anything that Christ has done toward them in the way of just judgment. But there are two sides to the full judgment with which the ungodly meet. It is not only said that "he who falls upon this stone shall be broken," but also "upon whomsoever this stone shall fall, it will grind him to powder."

Sinners, in opposing Christ, fall upon Him and are ruined; but in due time Christ will fall upon them and dreadful will be the consequences! For, on whomsoever this stone shall fall, it will grind him to powder. He is not only a stone lying passive, upon which fools stumble and fall; but He is also a stone cut loose in the mountain, rolling down in fearful power, destroying all opposition in its course, and filling the whole earth with its greatness.

It will grind them to powder! It is a fearful expression, and is awfully significant of coming wrath. No destruction could be more complete than grinding to powder. "There is an allusion here, doubtless," says a commentator, "to the custom of stoning as a punishment among the Jews. A scaffold was erected, twice the height of the man to be stoned. Standing on its edge he was violently struck off by one of the witnesses; if he died by the blow and the fall, nothing farther was done; if not, a heavy stone was thrown down on him, which at once killed him." So the sinner, when judged and condemned, will be cast down, and there already suffering by the wounds of his fall, and the stings of an accusing and condemning conscience, the "wrath of God" will fall upon him.

This passage teaches the positive judging and condemning

wrath of God, is to fall in with Christ. Out of Christ, God is to us a consuming fire. "This is the stone," exclaims Peter when he was preaching Christ to his bloody crucifyers; "This is the stone which was set at naught of you builders, which has become the head of the corner. Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved."

That those who reject the Saviour's great salvation can not escape the wrath of God, is not only declared in the Word of God, but by the consciousness of man in all ages. The spirit of man when it turns in deep earnestness upon its wants, calls for a Mediator. Job, in the patriarchal ages, felt this want. Almost despairingly he asks, "How should man be just with God? If he will contend with him"-that is in His own strength-"he cannot answer Him one of a thousand. If I justify myself my own mouth shall condemn me. If I say, I will forget my complaint, I will leave off my heaviness, and comfort myself; I am afraid of all my sorrows; I know that thou wilt not hold me innocent. If I wash myself with snow-water, and make my hands never so clean; yet shalt thou plunge me into the ditch, and mine own clothes shall abhor me." Now were we to ask Job wherein consists his trouble? Why is he afraid to meet his Maker? He answers by stating two difficulties. "For He is not a man as I am, that I should answer Him, and we should come together in judgment. Neither is there any daysman betwixt us, that might lay His hand upon us both. Let him take His rod away from me, and let not His fear terrify me: then would I speak, and not fear Him; but it is not so with me!"

This needs no comment. It shows not only that the deepest wants of our nature, when challenged on this subject, cry out earnestly for a Mediator, but for just one like the Godman who "can lay his hand upon us both"-one upon God and the other upon the sinner's guilty head; and thus, forming a medium in which divinity and humanity come peaceably together. Be astonished, ye heavens! Oh the depth both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!

In the worship of all the nations, who walk in the light of nature, this want of a mediator is seen. They have not only their incarnations to bring down the presence and glory of their deities obscured, that they may with more confidence be approached, but they have their priests and their offerings. This shows that there is in them a secret dread of approaching in their own name into the presence of the object of their worship. That so many presumptuous sinners are content without a Mediator, and that many are even willing to rush into the presence of God without one, only shows how little they have reflected on the nature of a holy God, and the condition of their own hearts.

But the Law presents an impassable barrier to the sinner's hopes out of Christ. "Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them." If you are guilty of one offence-and who is not-the gates of heaven are