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no, we are one with Christ, and as the result of that Divine union there is fruit unto God.

Well, the Levites were to bear the ark of the covenant, and in that ark we see the law kept in Christ, and there was a fall of manna, the daily bread. Are you discouraged, dear young believers, because the spiritual blessing you had yesterday, and which you thought at last you had secured as your own, seems to have gone away to day? You feel discouraged and disappointed, and you are looking for something, and trying to revive the feeling of satisfaction you have lost; but you are to have your manna from day to day. You are to have Christ. Your life is to feed upon Christ, not upon externals, but upon Christ, and you are to see by faith, and walk by faith, and not by feeling at all. Yes, in the ark of the covenant there was the manna, the daily bread, and also the rod that budded the eternal priesthood; it was that same rod that began to bud from the moment the name was put upon it. Well, there is the appointment of the ark of the covenant.

And what next? There is the beginning of all service, standing before the Lord. In the Revised Version of Isa. lxiv. we have the beautiful rendering, "God worketh for him who is waiting for Him." There is the Son waiting and working for Him, and He is working for us up in that place of rest, and we are to be occupied with Him as followers of Christ, and to be satisfied with the riches of His love. And then we are to minister unto Him. It is not that we are to succeed in this or that, or the other thing, but to minister to Him, whatever it may be that we have to do. It is just, I believe, when we are most occupied with the little things that please Him that we are most in a condition to be used.

Oh, how often have I been struck with the fact that David, after he had been to the court of Saul, went back again to tend his father's sheep; it seemed such a poor employment for that great soldier—a person of high position just to look after a few sheep in the wilderness. Then his father sent him with some loaves to his elder brethren, and they were very disagreeable elder brethren. If he had not had the true servant's spirit, he would have shrunk from that. He might have said, Anybody else can do this; I shall only receive disagreeable remarks; it is not my place. But he did not act so. He went there with the loaves of bread, and gave them to the elder brethren. There is the true spirit of ministry and service; because his father

told him to do it, he went.

And in that spirit David gets the key to the whole state of Israel, and the ears to hear and the clear eye to see the whole covenant ground, and therefore comes to the camp as one to bless. He sees the power of God, the covenant God, the unchanging God. They had lost all confidence in God, and did not know how to get upon the way of life. David brought in the power of God, and knew the right of victory which belonged to Israel-he knew that the army of the Israelites, though it got into that low state, had the right to clear away the Philistines.

Brethren, it is so with us, as we learn first of all to stand before Him as those who serve in the covenant; as we learn thus to minister to Him, to minister to the weakest of His saints. "He that receiveth you receiveth Me." "Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of the least of these My brethren, ye did it unto Me." These are His words, and just as we learn that principle of ministering unto Him, do we learn to bless in His name, and know the secret of the power of God in blessing.

Well, my time has well-nigh gone. Can you trust Jesus now, dear young believers, just as these Levites chosen for service because they belonged to Aaron? So you are sanctified in Christ, because of your relationship to Him, and for no other reason. You have been sanctified in Christ for the service of God, or, as we had it just now, His workmanship in Christ, created for good works, and as we wait upon Him He will show us our service-perhaps it is to some to take the living bread to others, and to some perhaps a very humble ministry, but do it all to Him.

And then you get the experience of having Him as your reward. "I am thy reward, thy exceeding great reward." In a little while He is coming. Oh! let us wait in His presence through the day, and through the hours that are passing away so quickly. And, ah! if there is gloom and darkness in the soul, remember the words of the Psalm, "Ye servants of the Lord, which by night stand in the house of the Lord, lift up your hands in the sanctuary, and bless the Lord." You can, perhaps, say nothing; but you are in the house of the Lord. Praise ye the Lord! Stand by night in the house of the Lord and praise Him! Stand fast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord.

The meeting closed with the singing of hymn No. 45"Our Lord is now rejected,

And by the world disowned."

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The Service of God:

THE PRIVILEGES OF SERVICE.

ADDRESSES BY

S. A. BLACKWOOD, ESQ., C. B.

REV. MARCUS RAINSFORD, M.A., REV. DONALD FRASER, D.D.

Friday Morning, June 26th, 1885.

HE last day of Conference commenced with a season of silent prayer, after which hymn No. 6 was sung"Help us, O Lord, to praise !

Come with a touch of fire."

S. A. BLACKWOOD, Esq., C.B.,

then said: "Then Jesus called His disciples unto Him, and said, I have compassion on the multitude, because they continue with Me now three days, and have nothing to eat." Let us look at the passage from which I have read these words in Matthew xv. We cannot say we have been fasting, although we have been with Him three days nearly here. Nay, because we have been with Him we have not been fasting, we have been feasting. I am sure the experience of every one of us who has been at this Conference is that it has been a time of feasting, and, I gather from many, a time of humiliation and

conscious need, of hungering and thirsting after the more that is to follow.

Now shall we read a few verses? "Great multitudes came unto Him, bringing with them those that were lame, blind, dumb, maimed, and many others, and cast them down at Jesus' feet; and He healed them." The best place to be is at Jesus' feet. Oh, to be there with the consciousness of these people! They knew what they wanted-healing; they felt their need. They were brought to their right place. I believe the Holy Spirit of God has been teaching many of us our need in these days of Conference, bringing many of us lower than we were before, making us feel we are very like this multitude, and that with all our fancied fitness and strength for service we have been after all blind, lame, a poor lot of crippled servants, thinking we see, and seeing not; thinking we were serving, yet after all imperfect servants. Why, these very disciples who thought they could heal others, were blind themselves, for we find that soon after Jesus distinctly says so. It is a great thing to know our need, and to take our right place. A great many in London may think the people who come to Mildmay a very poor lot of people. It is good to be poor when you have the Almighty Lord to help you.

Then read what follows: "He healed them. Insomuch that the multitude wondered, when they saw the dumb to speak, the maimed to be whole, the lame to walk, and the blind to see and they glorified the God of Israel. Then Jesus called His disciples unto Him, and said, I have compassion on the multitude, because they continue with Me now three days, and have nothing to eat and I will not send them away fasting, lest they faint in the way." He is Jesus Christ, the same yesterday and for ever. And has He not compassion on the multitude gathered before Him? And is He willing they should be fasting when they ought to be feasting? Send them not empty away. What a beautiful picture of Jesus as He bends over this multitude to-day! He has compassion; He knows our weakness and recognises our need. Perhaps we have some of us got as far as this in the Conference, and not obtained a crumb of comfort. Well, Jesus has compassion; and if you be poor, blind, halting, fainting by the way, He has compassion upon you. It is individual compassion with every one of you in this great multitude; of the four thousand there was not one who escaped His gaze. He sees them all, and has

compassion upon them. "Give ye them to eat." "And His disciples say unto Him, Whence should we have so much bread in the wilderness, as to fill so great a multitude? And Jesus said unto them, How many loaves have ye? And they said, Seven, and a few little fishes. And He commanded the multitude to sit down on the ground. And He took the seven loaves and the fishes, and gave thanks, and brake them, and gave to His disciples, and the disciples to the multitude. And they did all eat, and were filled: and they took up of the broken meat that was left seven baskets full." Seven baskets full, and none to waste. Let us contemplate His fulness, not our emptiness; His sufficiency, not our insufficiency.

We meet this morning to think about the privileges of service, and surely one of the privileges of a servant is to have his board-"everything found," as we say. There is everything to-day in the Master's house for us. How He blesses us! What indication we have had in these past two days of Conference of His gracious compassion! He has not got to the end of it yet. No, we have only tasted a little of what He is going to do. This last day of Conference we are hungering and thirsting for more, not only to be satisfied ourselves, but to take away the fragments in order to distribute to others. Will He not satisfy all our needs? We are well off this morning. The lame, the blind, the dumb had a better, richer, sweeter feast on the hillside than those in palaces at Jerusalem. They were better off, for Jesus was with them; that is our place, every one of us. The Lord grant us to realize it, to sit at His feet, to hear His word, and be satisfied with His favour.

Prayer was presented by the Rev. C. A. Fox, and the following address was given by the

Rev. MARCUS RAINSFORD, M.A.

When God sent His servant Moses upon His business, He said thus to him, "Now therefore go, and I will be with thy mouth, and teach thee what thou shalt say." Oh, brethren, join me in asking that this may be so with this poor servant to-day!

We have been meditating upon the heavenly theme of service to God; and the privileges of that service can only be estimated as we are enabled, in the light and by the teaching of the Holy

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