EDITOR'S REPOSITORY.

Scripture Cabinet.

THE INTERCESSION OF THE HOLY SPIRIT.-" Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities; for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which can not be uttered. And He that searcheth the hearts, knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God." Romans viii, 26, 27.

Devout men have differed greatly in their explanation of the ministry of the Holy Spirit; the reason of this difference lying chiefly, perhaps, in their attempting to conceive of the mode of that ministry, which Scripture reveals as a fact, but does not attempt to explain. On one point, however, the importance of the work of the Spirit of God, there is a happy and almost universal agreement among Christians. How, indeed, should it be otherwise? With the Bible as our rule, it seems impossible to doubt that the gift of God's free Spirit is to be most earnestly desired and sought.

In early times men of God were moved by the Holy Ghost to utter truths divine, which no human wisdom could have discerned; and to foretell things future, which man had no power to foresee. And at the Christian era, when the great work of redemption had been accomplished by the death of Christ, and the risen Savior had ascended to the right hand of God, the same spirit qualified the Galileeans, his followers, to preach Christ to the world, and to write the Christian Scriptures. Timid and ignorant, they were wholly unfit to confront an unbelieving world, and be the teachers of all nations, till their Master's pledge was fulfilled by their receiving the promise of the Father. Christianity, as a remedial scheme for the world, would assuredly have perished in the bud but for the interposition of the Spirit. Nor is this holy and mighty ministry limited to inspired men. In its direct as its indirect form, it is a permanent gift to mankind. All believers are taught to ask for it and expect it, as a means of illumination, strength, purity, and joy.

Intercession is usually understood to mean interposition on behalf of another, not by him: as when in the wilderness, Moses interceded for the Israelites; or Christ, on the same night in which he was betrayed, for the apostles. In the former case it was the work of Moses alone; not of Moses and the Israelites also: in the latter case, of Christ alone; not of Christ and the apostles in conjunction. Such intercession is ascribed to the Mediator of the New Covenant, in his state of exaltation; but never to the Holy Spirit: whose work it is to prompt our prayers, not to pray for us.

In understanding by the intercession of the Spirit those intense yearnings after the blessings of the adoption, of which the Holy Spirit is the author, and believers are the conscious and voluntary subjects and exponents, we are but adopting a rule of interpretation which VOL. XVII.-28

is sustained by many other parts of Scripture, when describing the work of the Spirit in the saints. For example, the apostles were instructed not to trouble themselves with the preparation of any defense when summoned before the civil tribunals, because the Spirit of their Father would speak in them: so that, when afterward they said, "We ought to obey God rather than men," the Holy Spirit pleaded for them, by teaching them how to order their speech. Again: God sent forth the Spirit of his Son into the hearts of the primitive believers, and they cried, "Abba, Father." The cry rose from their lips and their hearts, but its cause was Divine. And, in the Epistle to the Colossians i, 29, Paul speaks of himself as preaching and teaching that he might present every man perfect, whereunto, he proceeds to say, "I strive, agonizing according to his energy which worketh in me mightily." Paul was the willing instrument, but God worked in him. Clearly, then, it is quite Scriptural to represent the strongest desires which strain the Christian's mind, and express themselves in his prayers or his groans, as enkindled by the Holy Spirit-desires wrought for him and wrought in him by the Spirit. Comparing Scripture with Scripture, we need find no difficulty in this singular phrase, "the Spirit maketh intercession for us with groanings which can not be uttered."

Far less easy of interpretation is the verse which immediately follows these words, and which reads in our Bible thus: "And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God."

The clew to the sense of this verse is to be sought in its middle clause, which refers to the mind of the believer, not of the Holy Spirit. It is the saint, not the Sanctifier, that is read by Him that searcheth the hearts. Precisely the same words as are here used occur also in the sixth verse, and are there translated, "to be spiritually-minded." It may, therefore, be rendered thus: "And he, searching the hearts, comprehendeth spiritual-mindedness, since he maketh intercession for the saints according to God."

The several clauses of the verse teem with meaning, and it is very difficult to compress their full import into any translation. The phrase, "according to God," includes more than our translators have given as its import, and seems to mean, "according to all that God, in the wonderful economy of grace, has provided for the struggling saint:" as though the apostle had said, "Words-an imperfect vehicle of thought, but far more imperfect as an exponent of feeling-fail to express your intense desires: but though your groanings can find no utterance in spoken language, yet He who inspired the ineffable desire knows your hearts, their exact condition and wants, and knows also all the riches of Divine grace."

Two qualifications for helping our infirmities are here

ascribed, in the Scripture before us, to the omniscience amiss." Neither men nor angels are qualified to direct of the Holy Spirit: our supplications. There is but one competent Guide in

1. Searching the hearts, he knows what is their actual prayer-namely, the Holy Spirit of God; and whenever

state.

2. Knowing, not only what human hearts are, but how God would make them what they should be, he is able to carry on his ministry in those hearts in exactest accordance with the whole economy of grace. He knows what our hearts are, what they should be, and by what means they are to become what they should be.

The writer was once asked to draw up a prayer for a Christian laboring under doubts and much depression, but declined to do so because he could but very imperfectly judge of the real state of that burdened mind. He thought it far better to leave it to breathe out its own sorrows and desires, than to venture on an interference between that soul and God, which might through his ignorance be inappropriate and hurtful. The complaint of that Christian was, "I know not what to pray for as I ought:" and the friend into whose ear that complaint was breathed, could not but feel how unable was a fellow-creature to help that infirmity.

We know, it is true, much more of our own spiritual state than it is possible we should know of our Christian brethren; and yet how exceedingly imperfect is our selfknowledge! How far are we from understanding what is the discipline which will best qualify us for our duties on earth, and best prepare us for paradise and judgment! To Abraham the salvation of the cities of the plain once seemed an object greatly to be desired for the manifestation of the Divine character. To Moses the permission to go over the Jordan was the subject of earnest prayer. John the Baptist fulfilled his ministry among a people who, from their youth up, had been instructed to pray to the God of their fathers; yet he found it necessary to teach his own disciples to pray. Our Lord did the same, yet afterward was compelled to rebuke the supplications which some of them offered: "Ye know not what ye ask." Paul was left to endure a trial which he prayed thrice to have removed, but which, when more enlight ened, he gloried in. In short, it is a very instructive fact, that many of the most eminent servants of God, of whom we read in the Bible, have made great mistakes in prayer. We can not now go to the great Teacher as the apostles did, and say, "Lord, teach us to pray;" but before he left the world he gave the promise of a perpetual monitor, and in the light of that promise we read such words as these, "Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit;" "Ye beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost" "The Spirit also helpeth our infirmities, for we know not what we should pray for as we ought."

And if we had a perfect knowledge of ourselves, we should not be thereby qualified to ask aright, but should require, in addition, a complete acquaintance with the means by which our education for eternity may be best promoted. A physician is but half accomplished by a knowledge of diseases. Not loss requisite to him is a knowledge of remedies. The Holy Spirit can aid our infirmities, because, searching not only our hearts but also "the deep things of God," he can make intercession for us "according to God."

The foregoing remarks elucidate the following passage, deeply interesting, because of the importance which in Scripture is assigned to prayer. "Ye have not, because ye ask not; ye ask, and do not receive, because ye ask

we grieve that Spirit, we deprive ourselves of the proffered illumination, and clouds and darkness are about the mercy-seat. Now, "the fruit of the Spirit" is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance; and, considering how far most Christians are from being thus fruitful in every good word and work, our astonishment will be, not that the multitude of our prayers is not more " effectual," but that the Holy Spirit forsakes us not utterly. The dispensations of grace are in this world, as truly as they will be in the day of judgment, according to our works. He who would pray in the Spirit, must walk in the Spirit; for "to him that hath shall be given, but from him that hath not, shall be taken away even that which he hath."

The human mind, the scene of the Holy Spirit's ministry, is dark, bewildered, corrupt. Self-love leads us to tolerate these evils in ourselves, but we do not readily tolerate them in our fellows. We are constantly turning away from those around us, by reason of qualities in them which excite dislike, perhaps disgust. All men are declaiming against the hollowness, the pettiness, the unattractiveness, or repulsiveness of human character; and, under the influence of disappointment and vexation, not unfrequently has man given utterance to the wish that he could take the wings of a dove and fly away from human nature in its worthlessness, and be at rest in communion with the fields, and the mountains, and the stars. Yet the Holy Spirit stoops to be the minister of grace in human hearts; nor on special occasions only and at distant intervals, but habitually and throughout all ages, and more so under the Christian dispensation than at any previous period. We have heard of a Moravian missionary going out to the West Indies with the intention of selling himself into slavery, that he might gain access to the enslaved negroes; and of others going to Greenland, and intending, as timber grows not there, to dig holes in the ground, and so live among the people, seeking their salvation. But how far distant are all human examples of condescension and love from "the love of the Spirit," who, stooping from the purity and glory of heaven, has deigned, age after age, to make human hearts, notwithstanding all their loathsomeness, the chosen scene of his sanctifying ministry! Let the reader think of his own heart, what it has been, what it is, in its littleness, perversity, and pollutions; let him extend the thought to a world of such hearts, and learn to admire the unexhausted and infinite love of that good Spirit, who, instead of forsaking men, still waits to bless us all; nor admire it only, but exercise a like forbearance, love, and perseverance in his efforts to seek and save that which is lost.

LET THE RIGHTEOUS SMITE ME.-"Let the righteous smite me, it shall be a kindness; and let him reprove me, it shall be an excellent oil, which shall not break head." Psalm cæli, 5.

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It is related in the "Life of Mrs. Savage," an excellent sister of the Rev. Matthew Henry, that when some respectable, pious gentlemen were one Sabbath evening assembled together, they unhappily engaged in conversation unsuitable to the day. Betty Parsons, a good old woman, overhearing them, said, "Sirs, you are making work for repentance." This short and seasonable rebuke restrained them, and turned their conversation into a better channel.

Literary Correspondence from London.

LONDON was "out of town at a period of the year formerly described in this correspondence. According to the course of nature and of fashion the British metropolis-meaning thereby, not its bricks and mortar, nor even its living population at large, but that portion of the latter which constitutes the porcelain of society in these parts as distinguished from the common earthenwareshould be now "in town." Both houses of the new Parliament are now in full session; the earlier levees and drawing-rooms have been held-this season by Prince Albert, as representing the Queen, in consequence of the interesting event which has added another princess to the royal household-and the later ones have just been announced to take place on her Majesty's return from the Isle of Wight, whither she has gone to recruit for a fortnight or three weeks; and in all matters pertaining to the court, the legislature, art, science, law, and literature, we are just now at the very hight of the London season. Yet one-half of London-that is, fashionable Londonis at this moment in the provinces; while, as a counterbalance to this, one-half of the well-to-do population of the provinces is at present in London; and both London and the provinces are, at the present writing, in the very crisis of an art-fever.

In explaining this state of affairs, metropolitan matters, of course, take precedence of provincial ones; and, equally, of course, in a literary periodical like the Ladies' Repository, those creations of art which are immediately and essentially associated with literature, take precedence of those objects of interest whose attractions are exclusively artistic. On these grounds the most spacious, the most gorgeous, and, in all the essentials to the successful prosecution of literary pursuits, the most comfortable, convenient, and best-furnished study in the world-in other words, the new Reading-Room of the British Museum Library, in which these lines are written-demands here the foremost place. Before proceeding briefly to describe it, a few words will serve to explain the enormous immigration of the provincials into the metropolis referred to above. The session of Parliament always secures a large accession to the population of London at the commencement of summer. "The sacred month" of May brings to town a vast assemblage of all the Churches of the land to participate in their anniversary festivals, the celebration of which in the structure so famous in connection with such demonstrations was described by our most brilliant essayist, Macaulay, as "the bray of Exeter Hall"-a phrase which cost him his seat in Parliament at the next election for Edinburgh. The religious anniversaries over, the great bulk of the country attendants upon them have been detained in town, and scores of thousands of others have crowded and are still crowding to the metropolis, to inspect the artistic attractions which it presents just now, but chiefly that which I have already named, and of which I proceed to give

you some details.

The Library of the British Museum contains nearly six hundred thousand bound volumes, exclusive of pamphlets, manuscripts, maps, atlases, and tracts. The extent and variety of the catalogues of its contents are at

present perfectly bewildering to the student; but a general catalogue, classifying the entire in one alphabetical series, has been, for several years past, in course of prepa. ration. The entire catalogue will occupy about five hundred folio volumes. Of the rate at which the Library increases some idea may be formed from the fact that 10,434 complete volumes were added to it in the past year; while the total number of articles added in that period, including parts of volumes, maps, music, etc., amounted to 42,639.

The old reading-rooms, which the new and gorgeous chamber just opened has superseded, were a couple of oblong, ill-lighted, ill-ventilated, dusty, and murky apartments, a short sitting in which induced, in most readers, a sickly languor and drowsiness, popularly designated by the frequenters "the Museum headache," and the general arrangements were inconvenient and uncomfortable in every respect and to the last degree. Even the entrance to them was wretchedly mean and squalid, the access being by a narrow lane in the rear of the premises, nearly half a mile from the glorious facade which the front of the Museum presents to Russel-street. All this has been reversed. The new reading-room consists of a single circular chamber, erected in the central quadrangle of the Museum, and the access to it is by the main entrance of the structure, beneath a portico the grandeur of which is not unworthy the treasures of art, science, and literature to which it forms the vestibule. In fact, the front of the Museum, by which the frequenter of the reading-room now enters, instead of sneaking in at the rear in Montague-place, presents the noblest facade in England, Sir Charles Barry and the river terrace of the new house of Parliament to the contrary notwithstanding.

The new reading room is circular, as already stated, and is lighted wholly from above by a dome one hundred and forty feet in diameter and one hundred and six feet high. The grandeur of these dimensions will be better understood by comparison. The diameter of the dome of the Pantheon at Rome is only two feet more; St. Peter's is less, being only one hundred and thirty-nine feet; and that of St. Paul's Cathedral, in our own metropolis, is twenty-eight feet less. It is constructed of brick and iron, with a copper roof. Ranged on shelves against the wall throughout the entire circumference of the chamber, and occupying three distinct galleries rising one above another from the floor to the spring of the dome, are 80,000 volumes, consisting chiefly of encyclopedias and dictionaries in all languages, biographies, topographical and geographical works, histories, serials, state publications, and other books of a character generally used for reference, to which the reader has access himself without the formality of filling a ticket and requiring the assistance of an attendant. This formality, however, must be gone through when works are required from the general library, the shelves of which, in the new arrangement, extend in linear measurement for twenty-five miles. This general library adjoins the reading-room, but is, of course, exterior to it.

The ornamentation of the reading-room is worthy of