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vi. 21. How, also, the fire of heaven came down upon the altar of burnt offering, which holy flame was never suffered to go out, and through this solemn emblem the favoured people of God pointed to their Shekinah, where the Divine Presence rested. This symbol appeared as between two figures or angelic representations, called cherubims; hence the fervent petition of the royal Psalmist, "O Thou that dwellest between the cherubims, shine forth." For ever blessed be His great and glorious name, He has commanded the light of His everlasting Gospel to shine on our once benighted, heathenish land. He has, moreover, shined into the hearts of many who are now in glory, and many who are yet amongst us; but it always shines in the face of Jesus Christ, so as to give us poor fallen sinners the knowledge of the glory of God, and thus make us wise unto salvation, by the teaching of His eternal Spirit in a new heart bestowed upon us. Oh, my young readers, may He shine in love and in mercy into your hearts, and thus make you meet for the inheritance of the saints in light, and then I am sure you will pity and sympathize with the poor deluded sons and daughters of eastern magicians, or European jugglers, fortune-tellers, &c., and all who profess to deal in a supernatural power of incantation or of witchcraft.-I remain, my dear Mr. Editor, your faithful friend,

THE DOCTOR. Nottingham Terrace, Regent's Park, N.W.

EDITOR'S ADDRESS TO HIS YOUNG

FRIENDS.

MY DEAR YOUNG FRIENDS,—I have now clearly served out two apprenticeships in the business of gleaning for your profit, having, by the Lord's mercy, been spared to complete the fourteenth volume of the LITTLE GLEANER. I now start afresh, as willing to serve you, and as anxious as ever to glean up such pure ears of moral and religious instruction for my dear young friends as the Lord will make a blessing to them for time and for eternity. The last year was an eventful one to me, as it closed my quarter of a century's ministerial labours in this parish, and sent me from at home and abroad so many, many proofs of affectionate gratitude for my poor attempts to spread the truth of God, that I have a neat, substantial, comfortable residence near to the scene of my labours, in which to prepare my various publications for their mission through this and some other lands, and so suited to form a home for a succession of God's servants upon this spot, that I ought to open this new year with deep humility, adoring gratitude, and earnest prayerfulness. The past is crowded with mercies that admonish me to praise, and, alas, filled up with many failings that call for humility; and I am sure the future, the unknown future, speaks aloud from its mists that mortal eyes cannot penetrate, and says, "Pray, pray, pray." I do desire

to be thankful, and to enter upon the services of a new year bending a most voluntary shoulder to my welcome yoke, and lifting up a prayerful eye to the eternal hills whence cometh my help. May the volume we now commence be the best we have

ever prepared, if spared to carry it through; and will you, my dear young friends, see to it that it shall be the most widely spread? We do sincerely thank ministers, Sunday-school teachers, children, and friends for their continued kindness in introducing and recommending, what many of them kindly call in their notes to us, "the dear little GLEANER ;" and I hope I shall still spare no pains to make this little magazine worthy of the affectionate esteem of my thousands of readers.

I must say a word to you about the GLEANER'S sister monthly publication, the SOWER. I hope that thousands of my readers will give orders for the SOWER as well as the GLEANER. The SOWER will be doubled in size, and will contain a Clifton Sermon" each month, as well as its present style of spiritual matter, and will be the same price as the GLEANER.

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My dear friends, if you could gain for the SOWER as wide a circulation as the GLEANER, it could then contain the same number of pages with the GLEANER, and I should have the privilege of preaching a sermon of truth monthly to more thousands than I now do. I am very desirous that the truth should be told to " every creature;" tis God's instrument of saving souls. I cannot

give life to the dead, but I can, as God enables me, write the truth, and you can spread it, which is the Lord's regenerating means, for souls are “born again of incorruptible seed by the word of God which liveth and abideth for ever." I am thankful that, in great measure, by means of the GLEANER and other publications, Clifton Fields Day School is still supported, Clifton Chapel Colporteur still labours on, and the Orphan Fund is kept supplied. Raising, then, a song for the past, and a supplication for the future, I cast down the first bundle of a new twelve at your door, and say—

Come, pick it up, dear friends,
Pick up the SoWER, too;

The GLEANER's ears, the SoWER's seed,

Were gathered up for you.

Then take them in, dear friends,

Bundle and seedlop, too;

The bundle's ears, the basket's seed,

Were gathered up for you.

And take them out, dear friends,

Proclaim to not a few;

"These ears of truth, this golden grain,

Were gathered up for you."

Thus help along, dear friends,

Your willing friend and true;

Who, with his gathered ears and corn,

Each month would visit you.

A SHORT ACCOUNT

OF THE

ILLNESS AND DEATH OF JOHN BENTLEY,

WHO DIED IN THE TWENTY-FOURTH YEAR OF HIS AGE.

JOHN BENTLEY was born at Leicester, and was a teacher at the Trinity Chapel Sunday-school for upwards of twelve months. From childhood he had a tender conscience, was strictly moral, and regularly attended the means of grace. In the summer of 1866, he ruptured a bloodvessel, but afterwards appeared to gain strength, and was enabled to follow his daily calling until Christmas, when hemorrhage returned and brought on consumption, of which he died.

At the commencement of his last illness no anxiety was manifested for the welfare of his immortal soul, his only desire was to recover. About three months before his death the dear Lord was pleased to give him a deep concern for his state as a sinner in the sight of a holy God, and made him feel that living and dying as he then was, he should be lost; but he feared his were not the convictions for sin the Lord's people had, or his distress would have been greater, and earnestly entreat ed the Lord to give him a deep law-work.

One night he dreamed that there was a great blackness in the garden; it increased so much that it terrified him; he asked one what it was; and he replied, "It is your sins." It so alarmed

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