for the devil's coffers shall be at our service. Let us not
lose sight of the fact that the same week the great multitude came
against the Lord's inheritance, there were more precious jewels than
could be carried away, and the place where the foe was encamped came to
be called

"THE VALLEY OF BLESSING."

POVERTY IS HARD,
BUT IT MAKES
A GOOD GRINDSTONE.

XVI. "BE PERFECT."
2 COR. XIII. 11.

Why not? What possible objection can there be to perfect Christianity?
You like perfection in other things. You like your watch to keep
"perfect time." If you are measured for a coat, you like "a perfect
fit." You like other people to be perfect in their actions, so far as
you are concerned. You wish your children to obey you; your wife to love
you without ever wavering; those who owe you money to pay up twenty
shillings to the pound; your servants to do their work according to
order; in a word, if you served God as you wish everybody to serve you,
you would be a perfect man. Is that so? Then why object to "Christian
Perfection?" You say,

"I DON'T BELIEVE IN SINLESS PERFECTION."

Well, we wish to be practical and to do you good, and so we will take
lower ground. Do you believe that it is possible for God to make you a
very much better man than you are? O yes! Then why not allow Him to
have His own way? Is this not the reason why some men are not striving
after "Perfection?" They like to be as they are. Going forward means
suffering, self-denial, a struggle,--"There are giants in the land."

Some other time we will try to encourage those who are really anxious to
possess the good land, by shewing that Joshua and Caleb were right in
saying of the sons of Anak, "They are bread for us." "The bigger they
are the more there is for us to eat;" but just now, we are anxious to
shew these non-believers in perfection, that, till they are all God is
prepared to make them, they must not say a word against our doctrine.

May you not be speaking against God's power to heal, to make whole? Is
it not a reflection on the Divine Workman, to say that he cannot restore
man to be so that He can say once more, "It is very good?" It behoves us
to speak with bated breath here, but we may venture to say that the grace
which made an Enoch, can make a nineteenth century saint, so lovely in
his character, that all men shall say, "This is God's own work, and is
like all things which come from His hand."

"BUT MANY OF THESE W