THE GOSPEL-ITS CHARACTER, REQUIREMENTS AND BLESSINGS.

BY THE REV. NELSON HEAD,

OF THE VIRGINIA CONFERENCE.

"In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the Gospel of your salvation; in whom, also, after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory."-Eph. i, 13, 14.

What a precious treasure is the Bible! What a privilege to enjoy the free, unrestricted use of the oracles of our salvation! The Bible stands alone amidst the multiform literature of our world, as the Book of God. It is a revelation of God's personal existence and perfections. It contains an account of God's works. It furnishes a disclosure of God's plans. It is a repository of God's thoughts. It makes known to us the brightest expression, and sublimest proof, of God's love to our fallen world. Its treasures of instruction and consolation are inexhaustible. The more we study the Bible with humility and prayer, for divine teaching, the more we perceive in it to admire and to enjoy, to guide and to comfort us in our perilous pilgrimage to "the Saints' everlasting rest." The more we imbibe the spirit of the Bible, the more will the scope of faith's vision enlarge, the range of hope's expectations widen, and the image of God's eternal love be reflected from the depths of our moral and spiritual nature.

No part of the Bible should be neglected. History, prophecy, poetry-its doctrines, its ethical principles and precepts-have all a meaning, and all contain a good, and it is ours to enquire into the one, and appropriate the other. From this blessed book, it is our special duty, as "the ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God," to minister to the edification of God's Israel, and warning and invitation, to the unconverted and unsaved. Paul's letter to the Ephesians furnishes the material for discourse, meditation and profit to-day. In this Epistle Paul seems to have poured out the very fulness of his inspired mind, and loving heart. Its