cut it down." Oh! receive it as the acceptable year of the Lord. Enter by Christ the Living Way; believe, repent, and then may you rejoice in that healing that leaves no sore, that cleansing fountain that leaves no stain, that life that knows no death. You will no longer flee from His presence, but walk in the light of His countenance. You will no longer crave "treasures upon earth," since for you there is laid up "treasure in heaven." You will "lay aside every weight, and the sin that doth so easily beset you, looking unto Jesus the Author and Finisher of your faith." The leprosy that clave unto you shall be cleansed and gone. Blessed will you be in the present, and blessed will you be in the future, for these are Christ's words to His faithful few: "Verily I say unto you, There is no man that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my sake and the Gospel's, but he shall receive an hundredfold now in this time, houses, and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and lands, with persecutions; and in the world to come, eternal life." But He adds, and oh! Gehazi's history enforces the warning: "Many that are first shall be last, and the last first."

' Mark x. 30, 31.

X.

CALEB.

JOSHUA, chap. xiv. ver. 12.

Now therefore give me this mountain, whereof the LORD spake in that day; for thou heardest in that day how the Anakims were there, and that the cities were great and fenced: if so be the LORD will be with me, then I shall be able to drive them out, as the LORD said."

THE character of Caleb is no ordinary one. Much is not recorded of him, but the little that is said, is enough to stamp him as a man of God, faithful in trying times. This is the witness concerning him, "he followed the Lord fully." Quietly he went on his way; he was not called to great things like Joshua; he saw that servant of God preferred before him to conduct the children of Israel; he was content to see it; he had himself a calling as high, though not so prominent, in substance the same with Joshua's, "to do his duty in that state of life to which it had pleased God to call him," and by His grace he walked worthy of that high calling in simplicity and truth.

N

With a happy spirit of disinterestedness he bore the burden and heat of the day for others, and at length humbly put in his claim for the inheritance long since made over to him by the special grant and promise of Jehovah,"Now, therefore, give me this mountain, whereof the LORD spake in that day." And, though not without sharp contest shall that inheritance be attained, he fears not the issue, looking for His aid who is Omnipotent. "If so be the LORD will be with me, then I shall be able to drive them out, as the LORD said." Caleb's record,--his claim,—and his entrance upon the inheritance alike demand our consideration. And first let us listen to

I. Caleb's Record. Accompanying his tribe the children of Judah, he goes unto Joshua in Gilgal, and there reminding him of God's testimony concerning them both in Kadesh-barnea, he owns, at the advanced age of eighty-five, God's gracious dealing with him, and lays claim to Hebron, the possession five-and-forty years ago promised him of the LORD, by the mouth of Moses.

How eventful that record! "Forty years old was I when Moses, the servant of the Lord, sent me from Kadesh-barnea, to spy out the 1 Joshua xiv. 6-12.

land; and I brought him word again as it was in mine heart. Nevertheless, my brethren that went up with me, made the heart of the people melt, but I wholly followed the LORD my God." And again, "Lo I am this day fourscore and five years old!" The history of the past comes back to him in clear and marked outline, and whilst amidst the changes of that lengthened period, his mind recurs especially to that time of trial when God's grace so mightily prevailed; yet, doubtless, thoughts would come coursing over his remembrance, of much that those years had been witnesses of, in his eventful history. He had seen a generation pass away. He had marked those murmurers who refused to believe the promise of their God shut out from the inheritance. Trials had doubtless been his, temptations many and great, sins and failings not a few. As his mind's eye looked back on the past, not to be recalled, how eventful would that record be seen to be! how much had been crowded into that period! how mighty the power of those years for good or for ill! Brethren, our days are making up a similar record for ourselves, and as eventful; will that which we are now doing, that which most interests us, that which engages

our hearts' best energies, bear to be looked back upon? At those seasons when mists of earth in some degree clear away, and we are able calmly to consider our course, does the testimony of our conscience bear us witness that our affections are "set on things above, not on things on the earth," and thus assure us that our life is "hid with Christ in God?" In Caleb's case how happy the retrospect! On that marked occasion, in which they who went up with him made the heart of the people melt by their evil report, he had been steadfast; “I," said he, "wholly followed the Lord my God." His "conscience bore him witness in the Holy Ghost;" they are no words of boasting, but the simple declaration of the truth. God had upheld him, and he owns the blessed result. Had Caleb been asked of his state his condition-in the sight of God, how readily would he have acknowledged himself, with St. Paul afterwards, to be less than the least of all saints," or with Jacob of old, as "not worthy of the least of all God's mercies;" but yet will he not refuse to declare, "By the grace of God I am what I am," "I followed the Lord fully." Herein the people of God are often misrepresented; if they acknowledge their