Little Emma was one Sabbath evening alone in the room with her grandmamma. Good old Mrs Allan (for that was her grandmother’s name) was seated in her arm‐chair, beside a blazing winter fire. A small table was before her, with a Bible and a pair of spectacles lying upon it.

Emma came jumping up upon her grandmamma’s knee, and kissed her, and said—

“Dear grandmamma, there is much in that large Bible I do not understand; I should like so much to know all it tells about. When I was at church this forenoon, I heard Mr R., our clergyman, speak to the people about what he called ‘doctrines;’ and when he was telling about them, there were many things the people liked to hear which were too difficult for me. Do you think you could tell me about them in very simple words, and make them plain to me? I will promise to be very attentive to all that you say.”

“I shall be truly happy,” said the other, looking with a kindly smile on her little grandchild, “to do what you ask me. And if you will come to me for a few minutes every Sabbath night, I will try to explain these Bible doctrines to you as simply as I can.”

So saying, she put aside her spectacles, and drawing her chair closer by the fire, with her arm round little Emma’s neck, began as follows:—

FIRST NIGHT.

|Of the Being of God.| “There was a time, my dear child, far, far back in eternity, when no one lived but the Great God, when no angel waved his wing, and no star glittered in the sky.

“This ever‐living God did not need angels or worlds to make Him happy. He was quite glorious without them.

“This great Being was one God; but there were three persons in the Godhead—God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost. Of these, there was none higher or greater than the other; they were all equal in power and in glory.

|Of the Creation of all things.| “This Great God resolved on making angels and worlds; and He just said, ‘I wish them to be,’ and they were all made by the word of His power. And it was not a few that He made, but a very great many. He made large armies of angels; and such a number of stars and worlds, that they cannot be counted.

|Of our World.| “Among these crowded worlds which you see in the dark sky at night, there was a very little one—so little, as scarcely to be seen or noticed amid those around it.

“This little star was called ‘the Earth;’ and God loved it very much, and the Three Persons in the Godhead resolved to do something very wonderful with regard to it. God put a happy and holy creature into it, called Man; and He made him after His own image, and placed him in a beautiful garden.

|Of the Covenant of Works.| “While there, God entered with man into what is called a Covenant of Works.”

“What does a covenant mean?” inquired Emma.

“I shall tell you, my child,” said her grandmamma. “It is an agreement, or bargain, between two people. In the garden of Eden, the two parties were God and Adam; their covenant or agreement was this;—God said to Adam, ‘If you do what I ask you, you shall live and be happy. If you disobey me, you must “surely die.”’

|Of the Fall.| “God told him not to eat of the fruit of one of the trees in the garden; but though Adam had all the rest of the trees in Eden to eat of, he forgot God’s command, and took of the forbidden one; and he was driven out of his happy home, and became a lost and ruined creature.”

“How sad for poor Adam,” said Emma, “to be banished from his beautiful garden!”

“Yes,” said the other; “and sadder still to be banished from his God, with nothing before him but certain death!”

“But how was it, grandmamma,” inquired Emma, “that Adam did not die all at once? How did he continue to live after God had said that, if he disobeyed Him, he should ‘surely die’?”

“I was just going to explain this to you, my dear,” said Mrs Allan. “Our first parents could not have lived for one moment after their ‘Fall,’ if it had not been for another and more glorious covenant the Bible tells us of.”

“And what was the name of that covenant?” inquired Emma, eagerly.

“It was called the Covenant of Grace,” replied her grandmother. “I shall try, my dear child,” continued she, patting her grandchild on the head, “to make this very great and glorious subject as simple as I can to you; and after you hear me, you will, perhaps, be able to explain it to others.”

Little Emma was again very attentive, and her grandmamma proceeded:

|Of the Parties in the Covenant of Grace.| “I want to see, before I begin, if my little scholar remembers what I have just been telling her,—who the two parties were in the Covenant of Works?”

“God and Adam,” replied Emma.

“Yes, dear, you are right. And in this new covenant or agreement I am going to speak about, there were two parties also. Do you think you could tell me who they were?”

“Was it God and Adam again?” inquired the little girl.

“No, my child,” said the old lady. “Man, having broken the first covenant, could no longer enter into terms with God. There was some one who came in the place of guilty man. Can you tell me who this was?”

“It was the Lord Jesus Christ,” said Emma.

“Quite correct,” replied her grandmother. “God was angry with man, and could no longer speak with him. But Jesus said, ‘I will come in the room of those lost sinners, and speak to God for them.’ So God and Jesus made a covenant together. It was as if Jesus said to God, ‘O my Father, if Thou wilt pardon these poor sinners, I will leave my glorious throne, and come down to the earth, and die for them, and wash their guilty souls in my precious blood.’ And then God promised, and said, ‘I will pardon them! They deserve nothing but wrath; but, for the sake of what Thou art to do and suffer, as their Redeemer, I will shew them “Grace.”’ Hence this new covenant between God and Jesus was called ‘the Covenant of Grace.’”

“I should like to hear more,” said Emma, “about this glorious Being who loved man so much as to die for him. Why is He called by the name of Redeemer?”

|Of the Person of the Redeemer.| “Jesus is called ‘Redeemer,’ because He ‘buys back’ the lost souls of men. No one but God, in our nature, could do this. If the highest angel in heaven had tried to save us, he could not. Jesus Christ was both God and man. He had lived from all eternity ‘with God, and was God.’ He took upon Him our nature, and was born a little babe in the stable of Bethlehem. How sweet for little children to think that Jesus was once himself a little child!”

|Of the Humiliation of Christ.| “How wonderful!” said Emma, “for the great God of heaven to come down to dwell with man on the earth—to be called the ‘Man of Sorrows’—to be poor and hated, and have ‘nowhere to lay His head,’ till He laid it on the Cross, and there died a cruel death!”

“Wonderful indeed,” replied her grandmamma. “Can you tell me, my dear child, what became of Jesus after He died?”

|Of His Resurrection and Exaltation.| “Yes,” answered Emma; “I think He was laid in a grave in the middle of a garden in Jerusalem. A stone was put at the mouth of it, and soldiers were made to watch it. But after lying dead three days, He rolled away the stone, and came forth alive.”

“You are right, my child,” said Mrs Allan. “By this, God the Father shewed that He had accepted the work of His dear Son—that the wages of sin were all paid, and that His holy law was satisfied and honoured. After remaining forty days on the earth, Jesus went up among rejoicing angels to heaven.”

“And where is the Lord Jesus now?” inquired Emma.

|Of the Intercession of Christ.| “He who once was ‘despised and rejected of men,’” said her grandmother, “is seated on a very glorious throne in the skies, where blessed spirits without number adore Him. But He has not forgotten poor sinners on earth. He is engaged in praying to God for them; and whatever He asks on their behalf, His Father is ready to give; for Him He ‘heareth always.’”

|Of the Second Coming of Christ.| “And is there not a day of awful glory drawing near,” said Emma, “when Jesus shall appear in the clouds of the sky, seated on a ‘great white throne’? How dreadful to be found, on that great day, on the left hand of the Judge! Will there be no chance of His being merciful to these miserable wicked, and of making another ‘covenant of grace’ with them?”

“No, no; impossible, my child!” replied her grandmother. “God’s holiness, and righteousness, and justice, and truth, could not admit of mercy then. Jesus is now seated on a throne of Grace, and entreats sinners to come to Him and be saved. But when once seated on His throne of Judgment, the time of grace is at an end. Those who there seek Him for the first time will never find Him. God has said, ‘Then shall they call on me, but I will not answer.’”

“I should like you,” said Emma, “to tell me what you mean by ‘seeking Jesus.’ I fear I may never yet have sought Him in earnest.”

“I shall be happy, my dear child, to explain this and many other things to you; but as it would take me too long to‐night, I shall wait till next Sabbath, when, if God spare me, I will speak to you about some more of these solemn truths. I am old, and must soon stand before that great throne; but I have long sought and found Jesus the Saviour, and I am not afraid to meet Jesus the Judge!”

The little child knelt down on her grandmother’s lap, to offer up her evening prayer. The aged Christian entreated earnestly that Jesus would early give her an interest in His “covenant of grace,” that she might be found at last on His right hand, at the great day, an heir of glory!

SECOND NIGHT.

Sabbath evening again returned; and when the shutters were closed, and fresh wood had been piled on the fire, little Emma climbed on her grandmamma’s knee, and asked her to explain some more “Scripture doctrines.”

“I shall do so with pleasure, my child,” said Mrs Allan; “and I must ask you to give me to‐night your close attention, as I am going to speak to you about some very important and precious truths.”

Emma thanked her for her great kindness, in being at so much pains to instruct her; and her grandmamma thus began:—

|Of Justification.| “You will remember, my dear, that the Bible tells us we are all condemned by nature—in a lost and ruined state. In order to make us understand what this state is, it represents,—

|The Judge.| “God as a great Judge, ‘of purer eyes than to behold iniquity,’ and who cannot look upon sin.

|The Prisoner.| “It represents the sinner as standing at His bar, called to answer for his many thousand transgressions.

|The Witnesses.| “And, as in a court of earthly justice witnesses are brought in to condemn the prisoner, so Satan accuses the sinner—his own heart accuses him—God’s Law, which he has broken, accuses him.”

“And what more?” said Emma.

|The Sentence.| “These all,” said her grandmother, “pronounce the sinner ‘guilty’—the Holy Judge passes upon him a sentence of condemnation. Oh! how dreadful to think, that, if ‘out of Christ,’ we are at this moment in a condemned state! We have not to wait till a day of judgment to have the sentence pronounced upon us. The Bible tells us we are ‘condemned already,’ and that ‘the wrath of God abideth upon us.’ We are, as it were, shut up in a condemned cell; the kindness and clemency of our Judge alone delaying the execution of the awful sentence!”

“But is there no hope,” said little Emma, “for the poor sinner? Must he die in that state of condemnation and misery?”

|God’s Method of Mercy.| “No, dear child,” replied her grandmamma. “God is willing, for Christ’s sake, to ‘justify’ us.”

“But what do you mean by that word?” said Emma.

“Listen to me,” said the other, “and I will endeavour to explain. I have already told you that the sinner, standing in the court‐room of justice, with the chains of condemnation fastened round him, cannot answer a word for himself; his ‘mouth is stopped,’ and he has become ‘guilty before God.’

|The Advocate.| “But, in the midst of that court‐room, there is one who stands up to ‘answer’ for him!—it is the ‘Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.’

“God the Judge asks, ‘Sinner! can you say anything to justify yourself?’ The sinner says, ‘Enter not into judgment with thy servant, O God! for in Thy sight no flesh living can be justified.’

|The Grounds of Pardon.| “God is about to execute the awful sentence; but Jesus, his advocate, stands up, and says, ‘I have suffered, “the Just for the unjust;” I have obeyed the law the sinner should have obeyed; I have been “made sin for him;” I have paid with my own blood the price of his redemption!’

|The Acquittal.| “The Great Judge says, ‘It is enough! Take the chains of condemnation off him. I pronounce him, for the sake of what Jesus has done and suffered, “not guilty!” Let him go out of the court‐room a “justified man;” for “there is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus.”’”

“Do you mean to say, grandmamma,” said Emma, “that God thus graciously pardons all the iniquities of the sinner for the sake of Jesus?”

|Two parts of Justification.| |1. Forgiveness of Sin.| “Yes, my child; it is an amazing thought. But, on account of what the Lord Jesus Christ has done, in pouring out His precious blood, this great and holy Judge looks upon the sinner as if he had never sinned at all! He is, in the eye of law, ‘justified’—considered ‘just.’ Jesus is said to be ‘wounded for his transgressions, and bruised for his iniquities.’ Like the scape‐goat under the Jewish law, God ‘has laid upon Christ the iniquities of us all.’ These He has carried away into a land of forgetfulness, where they can never more be found!”

“This is a wonderful doctrine indeed!” said little Emma, “and”——

“Stay, my child,” interrupted her grandmamma, “I have not yet told you the most wondrous part of it:—

|2. Acceptance as Righteous in God’s sight.| “In justifying sinners, God does more than merely pardon them. He not only reckons the sinner as ‘not guilty,’ but, for Jesus’ sake, He counts him as positively righteous. All the righteousness of Christ—His obedience, and patience, and love, and resignation, and forgiveness of injuries, and all the holy things of His holy life,—are put down to the sinner’s account; and a holy God actually counts as if they had all been done by the sinner himself. This is what is called Christ’s imputed righteousness.”

“Surely,” said Emma, “this explains the meaning of that verse I was reading to you this morning in Isaiah—‘He hath clothed me with the garments of salvation; He hath covered me with a robe of righteousness’?”

“Yes; you are right, my dear. The holy life, and virtues, and obedience of Jesus, are spoken of as a bright shining robe or garment, in which the poor sinner clothes himself. By nature, in his condemned state, he is black with sin; and his language is, ‘O Lord, look not on me, because I am black;’ but when he puts this imputed garment on, he can say, ‘O Lord, look upon me, for I am all bright and shining with a Saviour’s righteousness!’”

“How kind is God,” exclaimed Emma, “to do all this for vile sinners!”

|Justification all of Grace.| “Yes, my child; well may justification be called ‘an act of God’s free grace;’ for man has no part in it. He deserves nothing at God’s hand but wrath, and vengeance, and condemnation. He might have been sent away trembling from His bar, crying out, ‘It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God!’ His justification proceeds from free sovereign mercy; and through all eternity his confession will be, ‘By the grace of God, I am what I am.’”

“I fear I may be wearying you,” said Emma; “but I have just one other question to ask you about this glorious doctrine—how can I be justified, and get the great God thus to pardon and accept ME?”

|Received by Faith.| “That is a very proper question,” replied her grandmamma, “and I am happy to think I can give you a simple and easy answer. You are justified ‘by faith;’ by believing that God is able and willing to receive you—that Jesus has shed His precious blood for you—that He died for you on earth, and now lives and pleads for you in heaven. ‘He that believeth on the Son of God hath life.’ ‘Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.’ ‘Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God.’

“This glorious subject of Justification,” continued she, “has occupied us so long, that it will be better not to speak of any other doctrine to‐night. If spared till another Sabbath evening, I shall do so. I would have you, my child, think very much about this most precious Bible truth—How a sinner is justified before God.

|The Article of a Standing and Falling Church.| “Luther, the great father of the Reformation, said, that a church could not stand for a moment without this doctrine. Like a house without a foundation, it would fall to pieces. And an older saint than Luther—the apostle Paul—had his mind so full of it, that you cannot read his writings, and understand them, without keeping this blessed doctrine constantly in view.”

“Oh how peaceful, and safe, and joyous,” exclaimed Emma, “must the justified sinner be!”

“Yes, truly,” replied her grandmother. “He has nothing to fear. On the great day of judgment, however many his enemies and accusers may be, he can look around him on all of them, and exclaim, with the great apostle, ‘Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth; who is he that condemneth?’ Here is a beautiful verse of a hymn I should like you to learn by heart,” she added, repeating twice over to little Emma the following lines:—

THIRD NIGHT.

“Are you ready now?” said little Emma, coming skipping into her grandmother’s room. “I have just finished learning my verses in Romans, and I so weary to hear about some more Scripture doctrines.”

“I am quite ready,” said her grandmamma; “but it would make me happy, before I begin, to hear you repeat whatever verses you have been committing to memory to‐night.”

So saying, Emma stood by her grandmother’s chair, and, without a mistake, repeated from the 10th to the 15th verse of the eighth chapter of Romans. The last one was this, “Ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father!”

“I am happy, my dear child,” said old Mrs Allan, “that these have been your verses to‐night, as they refer to the very subject I should like now to speak to you about.

“You remember what I explained to you last Sabbath?”

“Yes, grandmamma,” said Emma. “It was about Justification. God the Great Judge trying the sinner at His bar, and sending him away freely forgiven for the sake of Christ.”

|Of Adoption.| “You are right, my dear; and we are now going to speak about Adoption. I wonder if you know what that is.”

“Oh, no. I have often wondered what that word can mean, and I long to hear from you.”

|Difference between Justification and Adoption.| “Well, then, my child, as in Justification God acts as a Judge, so in Adoption God acts as a Father.”

“How I should like to hear about this, grandmamma! There is something terrible about the thought of a Judge; but there is nothing but love and joy in the thought of a Father!”

|Of our State by Nature.| “It is true, my dear,” said her grandmother; “but by nature none of us are in the family of God; we are called ‘children of wrath;’ ‘children of the devil;’ ‘enemies!’ God puts a very solemn and striking question about us—‘How shall I set thee among the children?’ He sees that we are such poor miserable sinners, that if He had dealt with us as we have deserved for our sins, we should have been for ever ‘children of wrath!’”

“What, then, could have made God adopt us into His family?” said little Emma.

|Difference between Man’s Adoption and God’s.| “This, my child,” replied the other, “is the thing in which God’s Adoption differs from man’s. When a man takes a little orphan child into his house, and is kind to it, and brings it up as his own, it is because of something attractive, and lovely, and engaging in the child. I knew an old gentleman who saw a lovely little boy with golden locks, and he was so struck with his beauty, he would never part with him, but brought him up as his own son. But how different is it with us and God! The Bible represents sinners as lying all filthy and vile in the open field; so vile, that none would look at them, ‘all passed them by!’ But God came, lifted them up, and said unto them, ‘Live!’ ‘I will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters.’ What, my dear Emma, would you call this act of God in Adoption?”

|Adoption all of Grace.| “Oh, I would say,” said her little hearer, “that it is the same as with Justification. It is an ‘act of God’s free grace’—that is to say, that there was nothing about us to make God love us, or be kind to us, and that it was all of His own great and wonderful kindness and mercy in Christ Jesus!”

“You are right, my darling; and do you remember the name of an aged disciple of Jesus who delighted more than all the rest to speak of God’s love? And perhaps you remember, too, what he says about this adopting love of God?”

“Oh, yes,” said Emma; “I think that will be the text Mr R. was preaching from last month:—‘Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God!’ But, dear |When Adoption takes place.| grandmamma,” continued she, “you told me last Sabbath that Justification takes place in this world, whenever the sinner believes in Jesus. It cannot surely be that this great honour of being children of God, and adopted into His family, can begin on earth?”

“Yes, dear child, it does,” said her grandmother. “Justification and Adoption are just different names for one great act. God, as I said, is represented in the one as a Judge, in the other as a Father. I don’t know if Mr R. |The Apostle John’s Testimony.| took the next verse in that beautiful chapter along with his text. If he did so, it will tell you when the believer is adopted, and can call God his Father.”

Little Emma quickly turned up her Bible, and read as follows:—“Beloved, now are we the sons of God!”

“You see, my child,” continued the old lady, “when this act of fatherly love takes place; it is ‘now;’ and if my dear little Emma loves the Lord Jesus, she can now look up to the Great God, and say, ‘He is my Father;’ and to Jesus, and say, ‘He is my Elder Brother!’”

“How kind in God,” said Emma, with the tear in her eye, “to love sinners so much, and deal with them so tenderly! I think this, too, explains my favourite story in the gospel—does it not, grandmamma?”

|Our Lord’s Parable about Adoption.| “I remember now what your favourite is,” said the other, after thinking a moment; “it is the Prodigal Son; and you are very right; there is no portion of the Bible which speaks more beautifully of God’s adopting love. You remember, at the very same moment that God forgave the Prodigal, He ordered ‘the ring to be put on his finger’ (the ring of adoption); and He calls him, ‘This, my son!’”

“Oh! I shall love to read that parable more than ever,” said Emma. “I don’t think any earthly father would have been so kind to an ungrateful son. But you often tell me that ‘God’s ways are not as man’s ways;’ and it is surely so in this.

|Evidences of Adoption.| “But how can I know, dear grandmamma, whether I am a child of God? I would feel as if I was richer and happier than the richest in the world, and greater than earthly kings or queens, if I could be sure that the Great God was my Father, and that I was His child.”

“That is a very natural question, my dear, and I shall do what I can to answer you. Let me ask you another question. What are your feelings towards your earthly parents?”

|Love of God.| “I love them,” said Emma, “very much; I try to do what they bid me, and I am always unhappy when I do anything that vexes or hurts them.”

|Hatred of Sin.| “It is the very same, my dear,” said her grandmother, “with the children of God. If you are really a child of God, you will love Him, and try to do all His will, and be unhappy whenever you sin against Him or displease Him.”

“I will tell you another thing, grandmamma,” interrupted the little girl; “I am never happy when I am far away from my father, or when my father is far away from me. Sometimes he has to go away for many days to a distance, and I so weary for his coming back. I think and speak of him all the day long; and once I remember, when I was a week away at aunt Fanny’s, I so longed to get back again to be with him.”

|Filial Nearness.| “Well, dear child, you have just given another mark by which you may know if you are a child of God. Do you love your Heavenly Father’s presence? Do you love prayer, |Prayer.| which brings you always near Him? and are you always unhappy when you forget prayer, which drives you away from God; or commit sin, which drives God away from you?”

“Oh, yes, dear grandmamma, I think I can say I am; but then, I often sin, and I fear”——

“Stop, my dear child,” said the old lady. “Remember, it is a great cause of grief to the true child of God, that the power of sin is so strong in his heart, and that the devil is so often tempting him.”

“But,” exclaimed Emma, “does not the Bible say, ‘We cannot sin, because we are born of God’?”

|How the Child of God “cannot sin.”| “Yes, my child, you are correct; but I must tell you the real meaning of that verse, so that you may not be cast down by supposing it asks what you cannot give. That verse means, that God’s children cannot go on in a course of sin. They cannot love sin, and continue in sin; but it does not mean that their lives are so perfectly holy that they never can know what it is to have a bad heart and wicked thought. Alas! this never can be, till the adopted children of God get safe into their Father’s house in heaven!”

“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.

“Do you remember what I told you about Justification?—What God does to the sinner when He justifies and adopts him?”

|Difference between Justification,| “He changes his state,” replied Emma. “He brings him from a state of wrath to a state of grace,—from a state of condemnation to a state of pardon.”

“You have given me just the answer I wanted,” said her grandmother—“that it is a change of state or condition. In Justification, from being a rebel, the sinner is pardoned by |Adoption,| his Sovereign. In Adoption, from being a prodigal, he is received back into his Father’s lost home. Now, dear,” continued she, “did I say that in these there is produced also any change in character?”

“I don’t think so,” replied Emma.

“You are right; and you will instantly see how well it is that I should speak to |And Regeneration.| you about Regeneration to‐night, which is the very word which tells about this great change of character or mind, which is as necessary to salvation, as the great change of state and condition of which I have already spoken. What is your own idea, my dear child, as to the meaning of Regeneration?”

“Indeed, grandmamma,” replied Emma, “it is such a long and difficult word, that I am ashamed to tell, though I have often heard it mentioned in Mr R——’s sermon, I never understood it aright.”

“You should never be ashamed, my dear, to ask those older than yourself to explain Bible difficulties to you. Many grow up to be big people, in great ignorance, owing to this false shame.”

“Is it the same, grandmamma,” said Emma, “as Repentance? I think I understand that word better.”

|Bible Terms about Regeneration.| “Yes, my child, there are many words in the Bible used to denote this same great change, and which you must often hear ministers speaking about. ‘The new birth’—being ‘born again’—‘Conversion’—‘Repentance’—‘Regeneration;’ but the meaning of them all may be summed up in this,—the necessity of a new heart, produced by the Holy Spirit, who turns the old heart from the service of sin to the service of God.”

|Necessity of Regeneration.| “But must every one have this entire change of heart before he can be saved?”

“Yes, dearest, it is a doctrine many don’t like to believe, or to hear about, because they think it makes the way to heaven too strait and narrow; but do you remember anything Jesus said about it, when He was speaking to inquiring Nicodemus?”

|What Jesus says of it.| “Oh, yes,” said Emma, “you have put me in mind of the verse now—‘Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.’”

“You are quite correct,” replied the old lady. “That same blessed Saviour never spoke an unkind word, and He would never have uttered this, unless it was a solemn truth, ‘Marvel not that I said unto you, Ye must be born again.’”

“But if the sinner,” asked Emma, “is justified in the sight of God, and God calls him ‘not guilty,’ and pardons him, and says of him there is no condemnation, what more does he require, in order to be saved?”

|A Change of State and a Change of Heart must go together.| “A great deal more,” replied her grandmother. “Let me ask you,” said she to Emma, “two questions, which may help to explain the matter to you. If a king pardoned a rebel, and if that rebel still hated his sovereign, and sought to kill him, would it be safe for the king to receive the ungrateful rebel into his palace?”

“No!” replied Emma.

“Or, if a father received back a prodigal son; but if that son continued prodigal as ever, breaking, with fresh sin, his poor old father’s heart, and corrupting his other brothers, could that father permit him to live in his house?”

“No, surely,” still replied Emma.

“Well, dearest, what would require to be done to make it safe for the king to keep company with the rebel he had pardoned; and the father to take the son to live with him in his own household?”

“If they had changed and better hearts,” said Emma.

“You have just given again the answer I wanted,” said her grandmother. “I want you to see it is the same with the sinner. God the King has pardoned the sinner‐rebel. God the Father has adopted the sinner‐prodigal; but He never could receive him into His glorious palace of heaven, unless what?”

|Change of Heart in Regeneration needed for Heaven.| “Oh, unless his heart is changed,” exclaimed Emma. “I understand it now. He must have a holy heart,—a heart to love God and hate sin. I see quite well he could not get into heaven with an unchanged heart!”

“Yes, my dear child,” said the other (happy that her little grand‐daughter was now able to see the meaning of Regeneration); “and even if the sinner could get into heaven with his sinful, unchanged, unconverted heart, could he be happy?”

|Heaven a place for holy Hearts.| “I don’t think,” said Emma, “he could; he would be miserable in that holy place, amid holy angels and a holy God. I see quite well now the truth of what Jesus says, ‘Except ye be converted, ye cannot enter in the kingdom of heaven.’

“But,” continued little Emma, getting more interested in the subject, “I should like much to know how, and when, and where we are regenerated, and get this new mind.”

|The Agent in Regeneration.| “Like every other thing in salvation,” replied the old lady, “this great change of heart and life is the work of God; and though all the glorious Trinity are engaged in producing it, it is more especially brought about by the agency of the third person in the blessed Godhead—the Holy Ghost.”

“But how do you know when it takes place?” continued Emma. “Are we aware of the time when the Holy Spirit works this great change?”

|The Method of Regeneration.| “No,” replied her grandmother. “You remember how simply and beautifully Jesus speaks of this to one who was asking about it, and wondering about it, like you. That, just as you cannot tell where the wind comes from—you hear it blowing, but cannot tell from where—‘so is every one that is born of the Spirit.’ That new birth, or change, is wrought silently in the soul. It is like the little dew‐drops that sparkle in the morning sun, which gather unseen and unnoticed during the night; or like the Temple of Jerusalem of old, which was built without any noise of ‘hammer, or axe, or any tool of iron;’—it rose without din or observation; and this is the case with every renewed heart when it becomes a ‘temple of the Holy Ghost.’”

“Then it takes a long time, grandmamma, before a sinner’s heart can be changed?”

|Various Modes of Operation.| “The Spirit of God, my child, acts how, and where, and when He pleases. He sometimes converts and renews, in a moment, as He did the thief on the cross and the jailer of Philippi, or the thousands at Pentecost. Sometimes He does it gradually (or by degrees), as in the case of Nicodemus; and sometimes, as I trust, my dear Emma, is the case with you, He sanctifies from infancy, changes the young heart, as He did in the case of Timothy, and Samuel, and Jeremiah.”

|Am I Regenerated?| “Oh! I am happy to hear you say so,” replied Emma, “for I was beginning to fear that I had never felt the Holy Spirit changing my heart, and that I must surely be yet unregenerated and unsaved. Such a thought would be very awful to me.”

“I trust, my dear child,” said her grandmother, “I have good reason to believe that God, by His grace and Spirit, has ‘turned you from darkness to light,’ and given you a heart to love Him and serve Him. I wish that many little children would have such a |Awful Importance of Regeneration.| fear as you speak of. I wish many, too, would remember that one little word MUST, and who says it, ‘Ye MUST be born again!’”

“Dear grandmamma,” said Emma, “I must pray more than I ever have done for a clean heart. I fear, till you have been explaining this to me, I have thought too much about my sins being washed in Jesus’ blood, and too little about my heart being changed and made holy by Jesus’ Spirit. I see that I need both, and will try and pray for both.”

“It is a good resolution, my dearest,” said the other; “and the Great God, for your encouragement in asking for a change of heart, gives you in His own blessed Bible both a prayer |A Prayer for it, and its Answer.| and an answer. Give me your Bible,” continued she, “and, as I feel unable to speak more to‐night, I will mark the two places to which I refer, and you can take them with you to your own room, and read them to yourself.”

The good old lady kissed her little grandchild, putting two pieces of paper at what she had so marked. Emma, saying “Good‐night,” ran up‐stairs with her Bible in her hand, and, having shut her door, read to herself, before she knelt down to her evening prayer, these two verses:—

The Prayer.—“Create in me a clean heart, O God; renew a right spirit within me” (Ps. li. 10).

The Answer.—“A new heart also will I give you, and a right spirit will I put within you; and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh” (Ezek. xxxvi. 26).

FIFTH NIGHT.

“I am now ready for you,” said old Mrs Allan, as little Emma was waiting anxiously for the time when she might again seat herself by her grandmother’s chair. “What am I to tell you about to‐night?”

“I have been thinking,” replied Emma, “if you have no more to explain about the great work in the soul of the believer, that I should like to hear more of that glorious Being to whom the sinner owes all the precious blessings you have been telling me of.”

|Of the Person, Offices, and Work of Christ.| “I shall gladly do so, my dear child. It is a delightful subject to converse upon the Person, Offices, and Work of the Lord Jesus Christ, who, though He was rich, yet for our sakes He became poor.”

“I shall hear attentively,” said Emma, “what you have to say, as there is much about the Person of Jesus I do not rightly understand. He is called |Christ the Son of God and Son of Man.| both ‘Son of God’ and ‘Son of Man.’ I often wonder how this can be.”

“This, my child,” replied her grandmother, “is the great mystery of godliness, ‘God manifest in the flesh,’—but it is a glorious mystery; and happy shall I be to speak to you upon it.

|Son of God.| “The Lord Jesus Christ is the eternal Son of God. He was ‘with God, and was God.’ Before this world, or any worlds were made, He dwelt from everlasting with the Father. He is equal with Him in power and in glory. If He had been an angel, or an archangel, He could not have saved us, for the highest archangel is only a creature—and one created being cannot atone for the sin of another. In one word, if Jesus had not been God, He could not have been the Saviour of man.”

|Son of Man.| “But is he not spoken of,” said Emma, “also as the Son of Man?”

“Yes, my dear; and I must add, if He had not been man, He could not have saved us. As our surety, it was necessary for Him to suffer and die in the nature which had sinned—and besides, you know, that as God, He could not have suffered, because the Divine nature is a spiritual one. Therefore it is that He says, ‘A body hast thou prepared Me.’”

“I think, too,” said Emma, “it is a blessed thought that our great Redeemer was a man. If He had been God only, He could not have felt for us in the way He can do as the ‘Son of Man.’”

“You are right, my dear child. This is one of the most delightful thoughts about the person of Jesus, that He is our ‘elder brother,’ and not ashamed to call us ‘brethren.’ He can say to all of us, ‘I know your sorrows,’ for He was Himself ‘the Man of Sorrows,’ and felt them all.”

|Titles of Jesus.| “Would you explain to me,” said the young inquirer, “the meaning of some more of the names of the Lord Jesus Christ?”

|Immanuel.| “He is called,” said her grandmamma, “by that beautiful word, which tells that He is both God and man, ‘Immanuel,’ which means, ‘God with us.’

|Jesus.| “Then He is called ‘Jesus,’ because He ‘saves’ His people—the word Jesus meaning ‘Saviour.’

|Messiah, Christ.| “Then He is called ‘Messiah,’ and ‘Christ,’ because He is the anointed of God—both words meaning ‘anointed.’ As kings, in ancient times, had anointing oil poured upon their heads when they were set apart to their royal office, so our blessed Saviour had the anointing oil of the Holy Spirit poured upon Him, to qualify Him for His offices as mediator.”

“The Offices of Jesus; dear grandmamma, I have often heard these spoken of. Will you kindly explain to me what they mean?”

|The Offices of Christ.| “The Lord Jesus Christ, my dear child, stands in different relations, and performs different acts with regard to the Church He has redeemed with His precious blood. I shall mention to you the three under which He is most frequently referred to.

|Prophet.| “Jesus is the Prophet of His Church. He is her great Teacher. By means of His precious Word, and the influences of His Spirit, He makes known to us His own will, and the will of God for our salvation.

|Priest.| “Jesus is the Priest of His Church. A priest, you know, in former times, offered sacrifices on the altar. Jesus is called the ‘Great High Priest of our profession.’ He was Himself both the Priest and the Victim, for ‘He gave Himself for us;’ and just as the Jewish high priest of old went into the holy of holies and sprinkled on the mercy‐seat the blood of the slain sacrifice, and prayed to God for the people, so Jesus has carried the merits of His own blood into heaven, and, as our High Priest, is there pleading our cause at God’s right hand. You remember, too, the high priest of old, after being within the vail, came out to bless the waiting people. So Jesus, our Great High Priest, will, at His second coming in glory, bless His assembled Church, saying, ‘Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.’

|King.| “Jesus also is King of His Church, the ruler in it, and ruler over it. He protects it from its enemies; and though often, like the bush which Moses saw in the wilderness, it burns with fire, He will prevent it from ever being consumed. He will continue to reign over it as King, until all enemies be put under His feet.”

“What a wonderful and complete Saviour, grandmamma!” exclaimed Emma. “Jesus is so great, and yet so compassionate! I feel as if I can adore Him as God, and yet love Him as a brother.”

“True, most true, my dear child; He is all you need—the very Saviour you do need. It is a wonderful thought, His Godhead and His Manhood! As God, angels and seraphs worshipped Him. As Man, little children smiled in His arms!”

“I love to think of Him, too,” said Emma, “as my High Priest in heaven. It does |Christ’s Intercessory Work.| not make me afraid to approach the Great God, when I have so kind a Saviour to intercede for me.”

“You are right, my dear,” said the other; “there is no thought more pleasing and delightful, than that we have in glory ‘a Prince’ that has ‘power with God,’ and must ‘prevail.’ The Apostle Paul rejoiced much in this truth. It gave him ‘boldness,’ as he calls it, to approach the throne of grace. And the Apostle John, in his vision on the Isle of Patmos, beheld Jesus as the Angel of the Covenant, with a ‘censer’ in His hand. His people on earth put all their prayers into this censer, and a fragrant cloud ascends from it before the throne.”