not oné stone has been left upon another; but there remains to us an imperishable record of a work of healing which was performed there by one who was greater than the greatest angel that ever visited that sacred spot.

Jesus Christ found on one occasion a great multitude of diseased people in the porches of Bethesda, "blind, halt, withered, waiting for the moving of the water;" and among them was a man who had had an infirmity thirty and eight years. "When Jesus saw him lie, and knew that he had been a long time in that case, he saith unto him, Wilt thou be made whole? The impotent man answered him, Sir, I have no man, when the water is troubled, to put me into the pool; but while I am coming, another steppeth down before me. Jesus saith unto him, Rise, take up thy bed, and walk. And immediately the man was made whole, and took up his bed and walked." Jesus at once withdrew from the scene of this great work, but afterwards finding the healed man in the temple, whither he had probably gone to give thanks for his recovery, said to him, “Behold, thou art whole: sin no more, lest a worse thing come upon thee."

This narrative teaches many lessons. The power and compassion of Christ shine here as they do in all his miracles. This man had been eight-and-thirty years in the condition in which Christ found him, and yet one word from his lips makes him perfectly whole. The "infirmity" of the man may not have been caused by any particular sin of his own; but when Jesus saith, "Go, and sin no more, lest a worse thing come upon thee," he reminded him and reminds us that sin is the real fountain of all human suffering, and warned him and warns us that sin repeated after Divine chastisement and deliverance, will be followed sooner or later, in this world or in the next, by something worse than anything which has yet been experienced.

But the special lesson to which I ask the attention of the readers of this magazine is this-the duty of immediately availing themselves of the opportunity of spiritual healing and salvation which is offered to them. The moment the water was troubled, this afflicted cripple bent his way towards it. Not a moment was lost in his endeavour to avail himself of its healing virtue. The moment Christ said to him, "Rise up and walk," he arose and walked. Even so is it our duty at once, the moment we are called, to come to Christ that we may be saved.

Sometimes a lesson the very opposite of this is drawn from the narrative. "I must wait till the pool is stirred," we hear men say. "I can do nothing now— -the angel of God

must come down and trouble the waters then I shall be healed." This is an entire misapprehension of what the passage teaches. What was the man waiting for? Till the water should possess a healing property or power. What are we waiting for? Have we to wait till the gospel shall possess a healing virtue? Till the fountain filled with the Saviour's blood shall possess cleansing power? It has this already. There is nothing for us to wait for.

The water into which we have to go is already "troubled," always "troubled;" that is, always in a state which will secure the healing of those who enter it.

Go to one of our great hospitals, and you will see a hundred patients waiting-but waiting for what? For their turn to see the physician, for an opportunity of access to him. Let that come and they wait no longer. Our spiritual Physician is always accessible. We have not to wait one hour to be received by him. Crowds from every land may rush into his presence at once with their myriad sins and diseases, he can heal them all. The man at the pool of Bethesda, let it never be forgotten, waited only till the water was endowed with a healing property. The gospel possesses this property already. It is not intermittent in its power to heal, as was the pool of Bethesda. It possesses it not on particular occasions, but on all occasions. And the lesson which the narrative of Christ's mighty work at Bethesda really teaches is, that the moment the gospel comes to a man, the moment Christ calls him, that moment, without any waiting, is the time for rising and seeking the Saviour.

This is not the only Scripture which men pervert into an apology for deferring to do what it is their duty to do at

once.

I have read the following account of a conversation between a clergyman and a man of business :

"It is true," said the merchant, "I am not satisfied with my present condition. I am not of a settled mind in religion, as you express it. Still I am not utterly hopeless. I may yet enter the vineyard, even at the eleventh hour."

"Ah! your allusion is to the Saviour's parable of the labourers who wrought one hour at the end of the day. But you have overlooked the fact that these men accepted the first offer."

"Is that so?"

Certainly. They said to the lord of the vineyard, 'No man hath hired us.' They welcomed his first offer immediately."

"True; I had not thought of that before. on the cross, even while dying, was saved."

But the thief

"Yes; but is it likely that even he had ever rejected an offer of salvation as preached by Christ and his apostles ? He had been a robber by profession. In the resorts and haunts to which he had been accustomed, the gospel may never have been preached. Is there not some reason to believe that he too accepted the first offer?"

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'Why, you seem desirous to quench my last spark of

hope."

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Why should I not? such hope is an illusion. You have really no promise of acceptance at some future time. Now is the accepted time! Begin now.”

"How shall I begin?"

"Just as the poor leper did when he met Jesus by the way, and committed his body to the Great Physician in order to be healed. So commit your soul to him as a present Saviour. Then serve him from love: the next, even the most common duty of life that you have to perform, do it as service unto him. Will you accept the first offer? Your eyes are open to see your peril. Beware of delaybeware."

"You are right. May God help me. I fear I have been living in a kind of dreamy delusion on this subject."

Returning to the pool of Bethesda, we observe a grand difference between the work of healing which was performed there and that which the gospel effects. When the water was stirred, that is, was made healing, only one man each time could obtain the benefit. There is no such limitation in the healing power of the fountain which has been opened for us. The promise is not that "whosoever first," but that "whosoever" shall enter it shall be healed. If we could imagine the gospel pool, so to speak, to be subject to some such limitation as was the pool of Bethesda, should we not find multitudes waiting in anxious excitement, and striving each one to be the first to enter? The chance of being the first would sustain hope. The fear of not being the first would stimulate effort. With how much more of eagerness and thankfulness should the crowds of the spiritually diseased and dying hasten to the Saviour, seeing he is able and willing to save all that come!

But some will plead their sin as their apology. They do not feel their need of him, and this they make their excuse for not coming to him. It was so with Daniel Wilson (afterwards Bishop of Calcutta) when he was a young man. He was brought up in the fear of God. But, according to his own testimony given in later life, he chose the ways of the world and proceeded "from the lesser sins of bad books, bad words, and bad desires, to grosser atrocities." He could talk and dispute about religious doctrines, but he loved his sins, and could not bear to part with them. "I had a false idea of the gospel," he says, "and from this distorted view, dogmatically pronounced it out of my power to do anything; and so hushing my conscience with having done all I could, I remained very quietly the willing slave of sin and Satan." He likewise became sceptical in his views, scoffed at prayer, and lived without it.

On the 9th of March, 1796, the young men in the warehouse in which Daniel Wilson was, were discussing religious topics, as they were much accustomed to do. Young Wilson denied the responsibility of mankind on the supposition of all things being determined by an absolute Divine purpose, and insisted on the folly of human exertion.

One of the young men remarked that if God had appointed the end, he had also appointed the means. Wilson said that he had none of those feelings towards God which he required and approved. "Well, then," rejoined the other," pray for the feelings." In relating the circumstances afterwards, Mr Wilson said: "I carried it off with a joke; but the words at the first made an impression on my mind, and thinking that I would still say that I had done all I could, when I retired at night I began to pray for the feelings. I was not long before the Lord in some measure answered my prayers, and I grew very uneasy about my state."

This was the beginning of the great change which issued in a character so full of lustre, and in a life so full of usefulness. The "uneasiness" of the young man led him to immediate action. "There was none of that delay so common and so hurtful to the growth of conviction in the soul." On the third day after he was thus led to reflection, we find him conferring with his old schoolmaster, Mr. Eyre, on the things that belonged to his peace. But for a time all was confusion. His eyes were opened, but he saw nothing clearly.

The conflict in his soul was protracted and severe. Two months after his first awaking he wrote to his mother: "The sum total of my present situation is, that I am the most miserable, vile, and wretched creature that ever lived; and all I can do is to look unto Jesus as my only helper, and ery unto him for mercy; and but for that blessed word uttermost, my case would be hopeless."

In deep melancholy, if not in agony of soul, Daniel Wilson would often leave the warehouse and go into the cellar, there to pour out his heart before God. "On these occasions," he wrote at the time to his mother, "I feel such an abhorrence of myself, and find sin the cause of such anguish to my soul, that often and often at night have I besought the Lord that if he would not have mercy on my soul hereafter, and deliver me from the guilt and condemnation of my sins, at least to deliver me from the power of them, and not let sin make me wretched and miserable in this world as well as in the next."

What he now needed was to have his eye drawn away from himself and fixed on Christ. And this after a time

was happily done. To a friend he wrote, "Look more, my dear friend, to Jesus. There is nothing like looking only, looking simply, looking perseveringly to him." And this endeavour to assist another in his difficulties was useful to himself. "The Lord so shines upon my soul," he could write soon after, "that I cannot but love him, and desire no longer to live to myself but to him."

Let no one plead then, "I do not feel my sins; I have none of the feelings which God approves." This may pre vent his coming to Christ. But let him know that it is his sin not to feel. It is in fact the adding of sin to sin. The child who disobeys his father, and then pleads as an apology for not confessing his sin that he is insensible to it, is regarded as having reached the lowest point in the scale of sin. Even so with sinners in their relation to God. Christ offers pardon and healing to each of them, and says, "Wilt thou be made whole?" as he did to the man at the pool of Bethesda. Instead of disguising from themselves their true condition, or seeking excuses for continuing in sin, let them leap for joy that health and life are within their reach, and let them say with humble and contrite hearts, "Be it unto us, O Saviour, even as thou wilt."