them whether their love for their fellowmen goes further than giving a hasty extemporaneous alms; whether they think of their suffering brethren in secret, and in secret do what they may to relieve them; whether in order to accomplish their purposes of love they deny themselves, whether they will themselves be the conveyers as well as the givers of relief, recollecting that pure religion and undefiled, is not only to keep themselves unspotted from the world, but also to visit the widow and the fatherless in their affliction. Truly to this exercise of Christian duty, there is no inducement but the love of CHRIST and of men for His sake; there is none of the applause of the busy babbling, frivolous people of the world; none of the show which catches the eye, none of the romance, so to speak, which warms the imagination: whatever of it is begun and continued, must be begun and continued in the name of the LORD, and because we would lay up treasure with HIм in Heaven. We know, brethren, whether of this kind of treasure, we

have laid up any, or purpose, with His blessing, so to do. Let us judge ourselves.

Again, are they engaged in a quiet but earnest struggle against the natural evil propensities of their hearts, and against the daily temptations which the devil sends to fix upon these natural evil propensities? Is a constant effort made to repress sin; is the flesh crucified in them with its affections and lusts? If so, this work of faith here is also a treasure laid up in Heaven.

But we must also ask whether sin, in thought, in word, or deed, or all these ways is indulged; whether sinful tempers are allowed to over-master them, whether they are daily more and more forgetting that there is a GOD, that the LORD has died for them, that their souls are not saved, that life is running by like a flood stream, that death closes Heaven's gate against them for ever.

If so, brethren, the treasure is laid up on earth they have other things besides those which the LORD JESUS has taught

them to value, and the moth and rust of waning, failing, life and health, the thieves of care, disappointment, and accidents, are sure to seize ere long, if not already, on all they value, on all which they will then cease to value, without any certainty of being permitted to have Heavenly treasures in their stead. Let such be no longer deceived, brethren. They are not happy here, for there is a consciousness, which no insensibility can subdue, that all is not right. They have moments of vacancy when they say inwardly, “Who shall show us any good?" There are moments of fear when they say, Am I such a one, am I careless: am I likely to be lost hereafter? They are.

Now is the day of salvation. You are still alive, still able to pray for renewal of grace, still able to feed on your LORD's Body and Blood.

Bless HIM that He has hitherto spared you recollecting that He may call you this night, and will call you before long.

Go into the world, fulfil your duties, be they high or humble; do good unto

all men; be instant in prayer, be constant in reverential reception of the Heavenly food which your SAVIOUR has provided. Thus living in His faith and fear, you may so also die, and enjoy the treasure which you have laid up in a sure place for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

SERMON XIX.

CHRISTIAN HUNGER AND THIRST.

S. MATTHEW, v. 6.

Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness; for they shall be filled.

OUR Blessed LORD condescended to the infirmities of His hearers, and to ours, by drawing illustrations for His teaching from various familiar circumstances; and here in the text from the appetites of hunger and thirst. It seems as if it were His will to bear witness to the fulness of His Divine Atoning Love by showing Himself cognizant of the details of human nature in a manner proving His Personal acquaintance with them, and that as in the one great ineffable act of Atonement, so in His experience of the flesh "we have not an High Priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities." (Hebr. iv. 15.)