will receive it from God, and give God thanks. In the particular matter of trade, he does not feel himself under any obligation to consider his neighbours, from whom the stream is diverted. Is it not one of the moral axioms in the trade-world, that, "There are no friends in trade?" What would become of brute-life, if it were over nice? A dusky morality is very convenient for many purposes. "Thou makest darkness;" and the beasts have a chance. Avaricious young lions have not the most sensitive conscience; but blunt as their conscience is, they "seek their meat from God."

VII.-"The sun ariseth, they" (the night-beasts) "gather themselves together, and lay them down in their dens." Wild and dark waters once covered the whole earth; they stood above the mountains: at the rebuke of God, they fled; they went up by the mountains and down by the valleys, and subsided in their beds. So long as man is a mere creature of nature, the high principles of his divine and immortal spirit are deluged by sensual and worldly principles. But the day of his new creation dawns, when God rebukes this ascendency. The impetuous waters, "which cast up mire and dirt," retire, and the tops of the mountains are seen. In plain words, the natural man becomes subject

to law, and the spiritual man lies open to the influences of Heaven.

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So long as the appetites and passions are permitted to rule, "it is night," with the human spirit. During this night, the brutish human spirit is keenly awake and active; but the eternal manchild is fast asleep. "The Sun ariseth." God is man's Sun. When His Glory, in the Face of Jesus Christ, first breaks upon the soul, the affections of the old man" are thrown into consternation. The end of the old dynasty is come, and the beginning of the new. The Sun of the soul rises more and more, nature's restlessness abates, the old masterful passions acknowledge their new Lord and King, and meekly lay themselves down. While nature, night, and the senses, hold the empire over him, man is a stranger to himself. Like Jonah, he is fast asleep in the hull of that that which carries him.

VIII.-" Man goeth forth unto his work and to his labor, until the evening." He is wakened out of sleep, he is risen from the dead, Christ has given him life. He is man, his eternal life is begun. He goeth forth, not as originally, when man went forth from God and Paradise, to Satan, self, and desert :-now he goeth forth from his

natural, or lost estate, (properly speaking his unnatural estate,) in order to return to his first, which, as he will find, is strictly his natural estate. Man, in his true natural condition, is man as God made him. God calls man to go forth from nothing, but his anti-natural condition.

Man's work is to work his way back out of fallen life; to work in unity with Christ his Saviour, "until evening," that he may then go home, to the dear interior life and eternity. "Prepare to meet thy God." "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling." For to this end, God is working in you. The rising sun will not break up your fallow ground: it shines upon it, and shews that it is fallow, but you must break it up, and sow it with good seed, unto your eternal harvest.

Be not slothful in this business, but fervent in spirit, serving the Lord.-Here is a text much quoted by Ishmael :-Ishmael and his kind, in whom the wild nature is dominant, and the divine nature very weak. For they take for granted, that man's business is that which relates to the world and the flesh. The business, therefore, which is supremely human, is apt to be neglected by this class. On the essential vanity of all business pertaining to the mortal husk of man, they do not

dwell. If it be vanity, there is a mighty lure about it, which captivates them. Seeing that he is an eternal creature, the business of man, must be that which relates to his eternal well-being. According to the Lord Jesus, man's business is to labor for "the meat which endureth unto everlasting life," and to amass riches for himself, not in the vain world, which he is leaving, but in the eternal world, whither he is going. "Seest thou a man diligent in his business, he shall stand before kings." For he who makes it his business to acquire a divine and beautiful dominion over his lower nature, and all its vain desires, becomes a king unto God; and to eternity, this man will be an associate of all the kings of God. As many as are walking in the Sunlight of the Divine Presence, are surely diligent, and solemnly in earnest, to succeed in this great business, "serving the Lord.”

It is no light work that man has to do by eventide. Stroke by stroke of Time's pendulum is ticking off his mortal life, and bringing near the solemn twilight, which ushers in Eternal Day, or Eternal Night.-Which? "They that were ready went in with Him to the marriage: and the door was shut."

AIDS TO THOUGHT.

O LORD, Thou hast permitted me, through my follies, sins and failures, to know myself, and I am humbled, yea, I am sore displeased with myself; and behold, I turn from myself to Thee. Lord, my whole being turns to Thee. My whole being never turned from Thee. Therefore, more returns to Thee, than ever strayed from Thee. Scarcely with intention did I turn my back on Thee, but with profound and thorough intention, do I turn my face to Thee. Never could I seek the world with my whole heart; but Thee do I seek with more than my whole heart. For I know it is Thy Spirit in my heart, Which turns me to Thee. Hear, O Lord, my prayer, which goeth forth from a heart that knoweth both the bitterness of sin and Thy sweetness, that I may henceforth know Thee in myself. For it is of Thy Grace that I am out of sympathy with myself, and in sympathy with Thee. Wilt Thou not make, organize, and inspirit my eternal nature, not according to my old sympathies, but