2. Give your flesh no quarter. Indulgence will feed its strength.

3.-" Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfil the lusts of the flesh.”

The first prescription has great authority, (namely, that of the world, the flesh and the devil,) but it is positively bad. There is some truth in it, but a lie is hidden in the truth. It is quite true that the indulgence of the flesh will weaken, and, in the end, destroy it; but it is also true that the spirit which yields to the government of the flesh, will be an earthly, fleshly spirit, when the flesh is dead. The flesh does not indulge itself from itself, but from the spirit. The spirit indulges itself, by the flesh. If the spirit by nature is carnal and at enmity with God, and hence a child of wrath, at the end of a carnal life it must be confirmed in its carnality, and, therefore, be more fixedly at enmity with God, and, therefore, more utterly a child of wrath.

If the second prescription is better, it is, nevertheless, altogether inadequate. Force may suppress, but it does not convert. A living power suppressed, secretly accumulates energy.

The third prescription says nothing about either indulging or restraining the flesh; but proposes a new life, a new sphere for the spirit. Find

occupation for your spirit in a world that is above. the flesh. You have a spirit, inquire for its own kingdom, enter it, and become a citizen. Enter it again and again, walk in it, and by degrees, new tastes, and indeed a new nature, will grow in your spirit, corresponding with the new world in which you live and walk. You will find less and less difficulty, in abstaining from the lusts of the flesh. Another class of affections will be awakened in you, and a higher class, and inferior desires will abate. Your chastened spirit will be powerfully drawn to its own satisfactions, and will not only not consent to the violent solicitations of the flesh, but the flesh itself, under the calm, subduing influence of your purer spirit, will become a dignified servant in waiting upon its superior.

Good gardeners know a better way of conquering the wild thorn than by uprooting and destroying it, namely, by setting it in their garden and inoculating it with some queenly rose, by which it expends its energy not upon itself, but contributes it to that which is above itself; and, as a reward, is crowned with a glory which it could not produce.

THE NEEDED MAN, FOUND.

THE Lord sought a man, and found him. He sought a man to fill a certain post, and to do a certain work in his generation; and who should also be a spirit of inspiration and a mouth of utterance for all generations. The Lord sought such an one, and found him. "I have found David." "And the Lord said, Arise, anoint him, for this is he." Perhaps the man that is really wanted, (not the man, it may be, that we think is wanted,) is always at hand. Perhaps it is due to the infinite resources of God that the thing that is absolutely needed shall never be wanting.

II.—I will not say, how great this man was, but how great he is! God chose him for a great purpose, and he has fulfilled a great purpose. Every age has justified God's choice. Think of it, that innumerable souls in their most soul-like experience, should be associated with this one man. There was nothing arbitrary in God's choice.

He

was chosen, because he was fitted, to this distinction. The Lord said to Samuel: "Fill thy horn with oil, for I have provided Me a king." God wanted a king-man, and a king-man He found. He found David, a king indeed, not because he once reigned over a nation, but because he reigns. in all ages over the best men, and over the deepest thoughts and highest moods of the best men. He reigns even more in this century than he reigned in his own. What a thought, that a man should be qualified for such a rank as this! and that God should attest his qualification by appointing him to it! That one man should be so human, so much a man, and therefore so peculiarly related to God, as to be to millions of millions of men, equally God's mouth to them, and their mouth to God. It pertains not to one age alone, but to every age, that when men want to hear the very voice of the Lord God speaking in their hearts, and also when they want to pour out their whole souls unto God, they come to the words of David. When men are full of soul, whether it be from Divine sorrow or joy, they must needs find some full soul, who is full of God; and they turn instinctively to David. It is so: God and man agree in choosing David. And those who feel no deep want to-day of the man of God's choice, let a time of sorrow come which shall break open

and reveal to them the depths of their own being, and they also will agree with God that David is a king-man in all the deepest and most real experiences of the soul. In their shallow, lighthearted, worldly moods, they find the world enough for them; but when they enter into the solemn and silent chambers of their own spirits, and when grave thoughts, full of God and of eternity, stir in them, then, they go with appetite to the Psalms of David. They find in him, and in his words, that wonderful doubleness which must be in every thing that appeases the soul's profoundest longings. The Divine must lie under the human, the thoroughly human must clothe the Divine, in order to satisfy the cravings of the human spirit. The pleading, intercessory groanings of the Holy Spirit, in all regenerate souls, are expressed by this man's pen. The songs of the Divine Comforter, for all time, are given through this man. The very words which every child of God, in every condition, desires to speak into His ear, this man has spoken. David then is constituted a near kinsman to myriads of souls. He stands essentially related to their inner and innermost life. When they are, or are groaning to be, very near to God, then David is their chosen and beloved leader. Great, in the highest sense is the man, whom all men, by common con