himself in that thing which he alloweth.” We are from time to time asked are these things sinful, the sports of the field, the convivial party, and such as these? We prefer to reply in these few words, "the time is short. Do these aid you in attaining spirituality of mind? Do they build you up in faith? Do they so occupy time as you will wish it had been occupied at a dying day? Answer these questions as before God and His Christ, and let your decision be for eternity. Deny your sinful self; "keep under the body, and bring it into subjection." Let not your affections centre here, your home is above. "Regard not your "stuff,' for all the good" of a better land is "yours." Ah! how little hold will earthly things have in that day, when the death-rattle tells that a change is nigh! Bid them loose their hold now. "If ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live;"-ye shall live with holy energy for God's service now, ye shall live the life eternal hereafter. Once more give proof of your remembrance of Lot's wife by

4. Perseverance in the way. Be not hot today and cold to-morrow. "Be not weary in well-doing; in due season we shall reap,

if we

"run with patience the race set before you?" Think not that you may cease from your efforts, or relax in your endeavours; the awful end of Lot's wife bids you beware of looking back. The current of this world is against you; the wind is contrary; you must not rest on your oars, but ply them earnestly, "toiling in rowing" till the haven be reached. Search the Scriptures; wrestle with God in prayer; "abhor that which is evil, cleave to that which is good." "Yet a little while and He that shall come, will come, and will not tarry." Little while indeed! though the hours seem long and you" wish for the day," yet what is the span that here we call our life, compared with that eternity where the measurement of years, weeks, and days, is unknown! Awake, then, and press forward," be sober and hope to the end, for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ." Look forward to your home, look upward to Jesus; but look not back, no not for a moment. Look forward to your home, -that home is prepared," a city that hath foundations, whose Builder and Maker is God." Anticipate the welcome; cheer your heart, in its sometime weariness, with the thought of that day without a night, when

"there shall be no more curse," but when awaking you shall be satisfied with His like

ness.

Look upward to Jesus,-hourly, constantly. Look up to Him; there is healing from that upward look,-safety in that upward look; looking up you shall be able to say, "In the LORD have I righteousness and strength." Looking unto Jesus you shall "lay aside every weight and the sin that doth so easily beset you;" yea, you shall "so run as to obtain ;" but

Look not back, no not for a moment. There was death in that look to her whose history we have been considering; there may be death in that "look" to you. Oh look not back, lest soon you draw back, and become at last a castaway. The wrath of God must at length descend on the barren fig-tree, still fruitless after fresh mercies vouchsafed; the word shall be verified, "then after that, thou shalt cut it down." "See that ye refuse not Him That speaketh, for if they escaped not who refused Him who spake on earth, much more shall not we escape if we turn away from Him That speaketh from Heaven." "No man having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God." Remember Lot's

'Heb. xii. 25.

wife. Let your onward path, your earnest diligence, proclaim, "We are not of them that draw back unto perdition, but of them that believe to the saving of the soul."

XVII.

SAUL.

1 SAMUEL, chap. xxviii., part of 15th verse.

"And Saul answered, I am sore distressed; for the Philistines make war against me; and God is departed from me, and answereth me no more, neither by prophets, nor by dreams."

AFFECTING indeed are these words: they open to us agony of soul deep and fearful This forms the chief ingredient of their bitterness, that they were not addressed to that God who heareth prayer, and binds up the broken-hearted; but to a form called up apparently by the power of the spirit of evil. under the guise and appearance of a departed servant of the LORD. Oh, how changed was Saul from that time, when his zeal was, in accordance with the word of JEHOVAH, directed against those that had familiar spirits."

'It may be observed that in the Apocrypha (Ecclesiasticus xlvi. 20), the opinion of Samuel's actual appearance is adopted, since it is said of this man of God, that "after death, he prophesied, and showed the king his end."

2 Exodus xxii. 18.