WHEN persons unbelievingly turn away from the love of divine truth and salvation, the strong-holds and towering walls of God's preserving power are at once swept away before an in-coming flood of delusion, that drowns the soul in perdition. Thus we are kept by the power of God through faith; the act of believing. 1 Pet. i, 5. Those who receive not the love of the truth, are left, unprotected, to believe strong delusion, and a lie. 2 Thess. ii, 10-12. Verse 9, of the chapter under consideration, tells us about the hardened infidelity of some. As the believers depart from them, truth is put forth in greater power; special, astonishing miracles are wrought to confirm its divinity; and here we see the lamentable fruits of skepticism in a resort to the dark and unlawful mysteries of incantation and adjuration. The seven sons of the chief priests dared, under the solemn oath of Heaven, to employ the name of God's own Son in these abominable proceedings. Heaven frowns upon them; the demon, so far from recognizing their pretended authority, causes the man in whom he dwells to spring upon them as a wild beast. “They fled out of that house naked and wounded.” Inspiration gives this narrative to show us the danger of making presumptuous experiments. Men who step out with self-confident assumption and take the work of God into their own hands, are on dangerous footing. “Cursed be he that doeth the work of the Lord deceitfully,” is the anathema written over against the record of their doing. If the sacred vessels of God are borne negligently their contents will prove the bitterest curses to the presumptuous retainers. The frown of Omnipotence will rest upon them for their daring lordliness. “Be ye clean that bear the vessels of the Lord.” The command resting upon the Lord's ambassador is, Feed the flock, with a ready mind, to your utmost ability, taking the oversight or care thereof, not as lords, but an ensample; renouncing the hidden things of shame; not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully; recommending himself to every man's conscience, not by word of mouth simply, but by manifestation of the truth, giving the light of the knowledge of the glory of God, in the face of Jesus Christ; always bearing about in his body the tokens of his dying Lord; speaking from a heart filled with living faith, looking not at those things which are seen, but to the unseen realities of eternity. He is to commend himself every where by manifestation of the truth. That which is manifest strikes upon the mind at once, and with overpowering conviction, leaving no reasonable chance for doubt. If the gospel is thus represented by its ministers, it is hid only to those who are lost beyond recovery, with their minds blinded by the god of this world, and their consciences seared as with a hot iron. F. W. MORSE.