sepulchre to this day. Revealing some things, and concealing others, is God's method of correcting evil in this world. There are many things about the powers of nature, and the thoughts and purposes of our fellow-men, and the modes of acting on human souls, which, if known by wicked men, would be turned to bad account; but God conceals such things. So long as men are wicked, it is necessary that Providence should keep them in ignorance of many things.

But there is another use which we might make of this interesting incident: we might use it to illustrate the Church's prospects of posterity. Moses saw now the beautiful scenes in which his posterity, in after ages, would live and develop the glorious principles which he had communicated to them from God. From the Pisgah of prophecy, the Church of the present day can descry the millennial glories that await the future generations. Or yet, once more, we might use it to illustrate the last privileges of the good. Here is a glorious vision in death. As the earthly Canaan was now brought under the bodily eye of Moses, the heavenly is often unfolded to the spiritual eye of the Christian in death. How enrapturing are the prospects which are often outspread to the vision of the good man in the last hour! Here is Divine fellowship: God was with Moses. So with the good man in death. "Yea, though I walk through the valley," &c.

But we intend using this incident for another, and perhaps a more practical, purpose, as a picture of life. Here we have

When, from

I. LIFE ENDING IN THE MIDST OF LABOUR. Pisgah's heights, the promised land lay outstretched before the eye of Moses, he must have felt that his work was far from completed. The tribes were to be conducted over the rolling Jordan; Jericho, with its massive defences, was to be taken; the aborigines were to be exterminated; the land divided amongst the tribes; and the theocracy fully organized. But he must die. Ah! thus it is ever with us. Men, for the most part, die in the midst of their labour; but few, if any,

in the last hour, feel that they have finished their work—done all they might have done, ought to have done, or purposed doing. The farmer leaves his field half ploughed; the artist dies with unformed figures on the canvas; the tradesman is cut down in the midst of his merchandise; the statesman is arrested with great political measures on his hand; and ministers depart with many schemes of instructive thought and plans of spiritual usefulness undeveloped. If men die thus in the midst of labour we infer-(1) That there should be cautiousness as to the work pursued. There are trades, professions, and departments, of secular action, that are very lucrative, but unrighteous. It is a sad thing to die in the midst of unholy labour. (2) Earnestness in the prosecution of their calling. Our time is short: therefore, "whatsoever our hands find to do," &c. (3) Attention to the moral influence of their labour, both on themselves and others. We should make our daily labour a means of grace: every secular act should express and strengthen those moral principles over which death has no power. All labour should have but one spirit; and that spirit the spirit of goodness-the life and happiness of the soul. Let there be one spirit, one great thought in all our labour, and then it will be everlastingly profitable to us. "For the deep, divine thought demolishes centuries and millenniums, and makes itself present through all ages."

II. HERE IS LIFE ENDING IN THE MIDST OF EARTHLY PROSPECTS. The promised land-which had often passed before the imagination of Moses, buoying up his spirit amidst the trials and vexations of the wilderness-now expanded in all the charms of reality before him; but into those lovely scenes he was not to enter. He should not tread those hills, or walk those flowery meads. The imagination spreads out to most mortals bright prospects of worldly good; presents a sphere of "good things to come;" for "man never is, but always to be blest." This is especially the case with youth. How bright and glowing is their "promised land" of vision!

Most die on some Pisgah, in the midst of prospects of earthly good they will never realize. If men die amidst prospects of good they never realize, then (1) human aspirations after the earthly should be moderated; and then (2) human aspirations after the spiritual should be supreme.

III. HERE IS LIFE ENDING IN THE MIDST OF PHYSICAL STRENGTH. "His eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated." There was yet a manly strength in his limb, and a brightness in his eye. How large a proportion of the human family die in this state! "One dieth in his full strength, being wholly at ease, and quiet." "His breasts are full of milk, and his bones are moistened with marrow." Death at any time is painful;-painful when the physical machinery has worn itself out; when the senses are deadened, the limbs palsied, and the current of life flows coldly and tardily in the veins. But far more painful is it when it comes in the midst of manly vigour and a strong zest for a prolonged existence.

Does not this view of life-ending in the midst of important labour, bright earthly prospects, and manly strength-predict a higher state of being for humanity beyond the confines of the grave? Yes! we shall live again to work out all our plans, and new ones form to be worked out anon; to enter every "promised land" of hope

Enjoy their ambrosial fruit,

And the sweet fragrance of their soul-inspiring air,

And die not till our deathless powers shall fade and faint.

Analysis of Homily the Sixtieth.

"But ye should say, Why persecute, seeing the root of the matter is found in me ?"-Job xix. 28.

JOB was a very remarkable man. In character and in circumstances he was a man of note. At one time he lived in the sunshine of prosperity; after that he passed under the eclipse of adversity. He suffered much, as his name in

dicates. When we meet him first on the field of history we find him exceedingly prosperous and respected; after this we look at him, and find his prosperity turned to adversity-his honour to contempt.

He was, nevertheless, a good man: he could appeal to his Maker, and say, "Thou knowest that I am not wicked;" and the Divine testimony proves that he was correct in his estimate of his own character. God pronounced him a "perfect and an upright" man. In all his sorrows he "retained his integrity," and cried, "The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away: blessed be the name of the Lord." "Though he should slay me, yet will I trust in him." And here, after replying to Bildad, he exclaims, in this remarkable language, "Oh that my words were now written! oh that they were printed in a book! that they were graven with an iron pen and lead in the rock for ever! for I know that my redeemer liveth." "In my flesh shall I see God," &c. "But ye should say, Why persecute we him, seeing the root of the matter is found in

me?"

SUBJECT:-True Religion.

Some critics read the passage thus: "But ye should say, Why persecute we him, seeing the root of the matter is found in me?”—i. e., What root of strife? what ground of discussion? Others render it thus: "How did we persecute, when the root of the matter was found in him!"-Why persecute we this poor man any longer, since we find, by looking into the root of this controversy, that he is innocent of the things whereof we have accused him? There is another rendering, which is as follows:- "Why do we persecute him? the substance of virtue is found in him." We adopt this reading, regarding it the most natural.

The "root of the matter" we refer, therefore, to Job's goodness-his religion-which is called a "good thing" in God's book.

I. RELIGION IS A REALITY, The word rendered matter

means a word, a thing, a subject; here the subject in dispute, which we take to be Job's religion. The term religion is sometimes employed to denote the whole system of revealed truth. Thus, when we say the religion of the Bible, the religion of Jesus, we mean the entire system of truth. At other times, religion means the influence of truth on the heart. Then we call it the religion of the Christian. In this latter sense, it is the life of God in the soul-the Divine nature communicated to man-" Christ in us"-the hope of glory.

Many views are entertained in regard to the nature of true religion, its sphere, and its principles. Some view it as a life-the divine life in man; some as knowledge, some as feelings, some as a sense of dependence; whilst others view it as a course of conduct. Religion may be truly regarded as a life-a life deriving its support from God-a life of dependence upon him. The representations given of it favour this idea. By what is it characterized? By growth, activity, feeling, hunger, thirst, &c. Religion is the highest kind of life-a life of relation to God, of communion with Jesus. Indeed, it is the only real life. The wicked man does not live. He breathes, moves, walks, and eats, but does not live. Properly speaking, "he is not." "he is not." But the good man lives; he answers the great end of being; he depends upon God as the child depends on its parent. Religion may be therefore regarded as the life divine in man: hence when he becomes religious he is "a new creature". -“ born again”—“ regenerated,” &c.

II. RELIGION IS A REALITY IN THE SOUL-in the heart. This is its centre and its home. The heart is the soil in which the spiritual seed must be sown, or it will never vegetate; religious principles must be implanted here in "the spring of life," or they could never live. Religion is, essentially, a "matter of the heart;" it has to do with the feelings and the emotions. The heart is the fountain of love-the great spring whenever the streams of affection flow. "Out of it are the issues of life." Religion must go farther than the head, the intellect, and the judgment; it must lodge itself