If we can make this with ourselves: I was in times past dead in trespasses and sins, I walked after the prince that ruleth in the air, and after the spirit that worketh in the children of disobedience; but God, who is rich in mercy, through his great love, wherewith he loved me, even when I was dead, hath quickened me in Christ. I was fierce, heady, proud, high minded, but God hath made me like a child that is newly weaned. I loved pleasures more than God; I followed greedily the joys of this present world; I esteemed him that erected a stage or theater more than Solomon which built a temple to the Lord; the harp, viol, timbrel, and pipe, men singers and women singers were at my feast; it was my felicity to see my children dance before me; I said of every kind of vanity, O how sweet art thou unto my soul! All which things are now crucified to me, and I to them; now I hate the pride of life, and the pomp of this world; now I take as great delight in the way of thy testimonies, O Lord, as in all riches; now I find more joy of heart in my Lord and Savior, than the worldly minded man when “his possessions do much abound;” now I taste nothing sweet but the bread which came down from heaven, to give life unto the world; now my eyes see nothing but Jesus rising from the dead; now my ears refuse all kinds of melody, to hear the song of them that have gotten the victory of the beast and of his image, and of his mark, and of the number of his name, that stand on the sea of glass, “having the harps of God, and singing the song of Moses the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, Great and marvelous are thy works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are thy ways, O King of saints.” Surely, if the Spirit have been thus effectual in the sacred work of our regeneration with newness of life, if we endeavor thus to form ourselves anew, then we may say boldly with the blessed apostle, in the tenth to the Hebrews: We are not of them that withdraw ourselves to perdition, but which follow faith to the salvation of the soul.…
The Lord of his infinite mercy give us hearts plentifully fraught with the treasure of this blessed assurance of faith unto the end.—From Hooker.
All men have a rational soul and moral perfectibility; it is these qualities which make the poorest peasant sacred and valued by me. Moral perfectibility is our destiny, and here are opened up to the historian a boundless field and a rich harvest.—Forster.
READINGS IN ART.
II.—THE PAINTERS AND PAINTINGS OF NORTHERN EUROPE.
This paper is abridged from “German, Flemish and Dutch Paintings,” by H. J. Wilmot Buxton, M.A., and Edward J. Poynter, R.A.