“Oh! how I wish,” said Emma, “I could love this kind Heavenly Father more than I have ever yet done; and hate sin more and more every day!——I am afraid, dear grandmamma, I tire you with my questions; but I have just one more to ask to‐night, and then I shall go to bed. You often speak of it being our duty to ‘fear God.’ Now, how should we fear a God that you have just been telling me to love?”
|What it is to “fear” God in Adoption.| “I do not wonder, my child, at your question. But there are two kinds of fear; the wicked ‘fear’ God as an awful Judge; they fear Him—that is, they are afraid of Him, and tremble to think of His hatred of sin, and His judgment day. But the children of God ‘fear’ their Heavenly Father in another sense; they ‘fear’ to offend Him. It is because they love Him so very much, that they are afraid of doing anything that would displease Him. The wicked man’s fear is what the Bible calls ‘the fear that hath torment.’ The other is the fear, and reverence, and godly awe of ‘perfect love.’
“Good‐night, then, my dear,” said the kind old lady, kissing her little scholar. “I love you much as an earthly parent; but your Heavenly Father loves you more. When you go down on your knees to pray to Him to‐night, think of that sweet verse in Jer. iii. 4, ‘My Father! thou art the guide of my youth!’
“You will not know all the wonders of the subject I have been speaking about to‐night till the gracious Heavenly Father who adopts you opens to you the gates of His own palace in glory, and when, taking you by the hand, and shewing you all the unsearchable riches which Jesus has purchased for you, He will say, ‘My child! thou art ever with me; and all that I have IS THINE!’”
FOURTH NIGHT.
“I fear I weary you, grandmamma,” said little Emma, as she opened the room‐door on the following Sabbath, and resumed her accustomed seat by the good old lady’s side—“I fear I weary you, coming so often to hear your nice explanations of Bible doctrines; but you have already enabled me to understand a great deal I never knew before, and have made my Sabbath evenings so happy!”
“I assure you, you have made me happy too, my dear child,” said Mrs Allan, wiping the tear that was rolling down her withered cheek. “I can truly say, I have no greater joy than to talk to you about these glorious truths. I will soon be in that silent place,” continued she, pointing, as she was closing her shutters for the night, to the churchyard, on which the moon was then shining; “but it makes me happy to think, that when you can hear my voice no more, you will remember, with joy, the Sabbath evenings we have spent together. Happy, dear Emma, will it be,” her face brightening as she spoke, “if we meet to speak of these blessed truths in the better Sabbath in heaven!”
Emma was about to reply, when her grandmother took her by the hand, and said, with a kindly smile, “Well, dearest, and what would you have me talk to you about to‐night?”
“You are the proper judge,” replied her little scholar, “as to what will best follow after the two beautiful doctrines you have last explained to me, of Justification and Adoption. The other day I came to a difficult word in a book, which, |Of Regeneration.| if it would not be out of place, I should like to know something about. The word was Regeneration, and”——
“Stay, my dear,” interrupted her grandmother; “that is the very subject I was thinking of. You could not have named a better; and if you will give me all your attention, I shall try to open up this great doctrine to you as simply as I can.