parents from Paradise, it had brought down the sentence, "Thou shalt die." He believed this, and, on the other hand, he believed God's way of salvation. He was a shepherd, and, as is God's usual way, it was amid visible things pressing on his attention that God revealed to him the "Woman's Seed" in the first promise, and he had the blessedness of those who "have not seen and yet have believed" (John xx. 29), and the joy of 1 Pet. i. 8.

II. Abel's faith looked to a slain Saviour.

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Abel's sacrifice was more excellent" than Cain's, in both the matter and manner of it. He brought a lamb, to show forth death, and to show Christ promised to die. No doubt he had been taught this by Adam, who retained much of intellect and knowledge, but above him had he been taught by the Holy Spirit. Cain, on the contrary, thought that his fresh flowers and rich mellow fruits looked a great deal pleasanter than the shed blood of an innocent lamb; just as many now prefer to hold up Christ's beautiful walk and character, and to exhort men to reproduce that in their lives, rather than to hold up first His shed blood, the only atonement. "Woe unto them! for they have gone in the way of Cain." It is justice satisfied that infinitely enhances love.

III. Abel's faith in the Saviour taught him right

eousness.

"By which he obtained witness that he was righteous." Because he believed God, that salvation was altogether by the Promised Seed, he was made righteous before God. Faith unites us to its object by divine appointment. Our thoughts and affections in a manner carry us to and join us to the object we dwell on, but faith, in a most real and wondrous way, unites us to Christ; and thus we get all His righteousness as ours. "God testified of his gifts." Possibly by fire. It was as if He said, “That lamb I accept instead of thee." This is the way of acceptance-union, by faith on our part, by the Spirit on God's part, to Him who for us obeyed and died.

IV. Abel's worship was delightful to God.

Abel's offering was worship or service to God. God "had respect" to him, and so also "to his offering" (Gen. iv. 5). First the person is accepted, then the service. If the person is not accepted, then all service is but as "smoke" to God.

V. Abel was loved by the Father, by Christ, by the Spirit.

"Had respect to him," was the Father's love. At Jerusalem Christ spoke of "the blood of righteous Abel." Sweet words from such lips. Oh, to be thus

remembered by Christ! Then the Holy Spirit puts him foremost in the roll of witnesses (Heb. xi. 4), and, so much was he in mind, speaks of him again in Heb. xii. 24.

Abel has left an example. He seems to say, "Come and try the Lamb-see what I have found in Him!" He took God's way, "forsaking" his "own thoughts," and his works were righteous. Never fancy you can have love, or charity, or gentleness, or any of the fruits of the Spirit, without previous grafting into Christ. He works them in us, after we have come to Christ, who died.

Abel left an impression in heaven. This new style of dress, this robe of righteousness, had never before been seen there. He was the first-fruits of the promise of the Woman's Seed. What joy to Christ! See Him holding him up, saying, "Behold My sheep!"

A voice from the other side of the flood, from the very gate of Eden, cries to us in these last days, "He being dead yet speaketh." He teaches us how to live, and how to die-the life and death of faith. Lay your hand on the head of Abel's Lamb, and live life as he did.

THE

Thoughts on Psalm lxxiii.

HERE is a remarkable coincidence of thought and similarity of feeling in two passages of Scripture which, as we place them side by side, will probably find their echo in the experience of our own souls. Who has not argued with the Psalmist in Ps. lxxiii., or expostulated with the prophet in the earlier verses of Jer. xii.?

Both are looking out on one of the great problems of life; a mystery that has often called forth the sneer of the infidel and the groan of the believer. Perhaps there are few who have not asked Jeremiah's question, "Wherefore doth the way of the wicked prosper, wherefore are all they happy that deal very treacherously?" or been brought to the humiliation of David's confession, "As for me, my feet were almost gone, my steps had well nigh slipped, for I was envious at the foolish, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked." And there is something soothing and helpful in the discovery that holy men of old have stumbled where we stumble, and found themselves enveloped in the same fogs and depressions as have often crossed our pilgrim path. It belongs to the constitution of the human mind to take comfort under all its phases of experience in the sense of brotherhood.

The Creator of man's complex being appeals to this universal craving for fellowship, when He comforts

us with the consideration, "There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man," and again, "Think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you." There was but One who dared to stand alone, and who in all the depths of His mysterious agony could truly say "of the people there was none with Me." But to return to our subject. We will follow it out as argued in Ps. lxxiii., only observing that in the two passages we have quoted, the inspired writers both disclaim for themselves, at starting, any permanent doubt or want of confidence in Him with whom they have to do; both seem to re-assure themselves as they place their feet upon the rock of His unfailing rectitude and unchanging goodness. "Righteous art Thou, O Lord!" (Jer. xii. 1-3); "Truly God is good to Israel" (Ps. lxxiii. 1). Surely it is well so to do, and we gather the lesson in passing that when thoughts are getting restless, and our finite minds wellnigh entangled in nets of their own spinning, we may chide their presumption and rest their weariness with the confiding resolve of Elihu, "I will ascribe righteousness to my Maker."

The writer of Ps. lxxiii. (whether David or Asaph is of little importance) starts, as we have said, with the declaration of God's unchangeable goodness to His own Israel, His believing and obedient people ;-the assurance of this truth, all the more firmly established in his mind because of a great conflict of soul through which he had passed. This fearful battle with himself had been induced not by any cunning sophistries or intellectual speculations which he had wilfully encouraged, but by an unavoidable out-look upon the world around him. The picture was forced upon his view, and it needed little calculation, and still less reasoning, to prove that wickedness was in the ascendency; evil men appeared to escape sorrows in life, and even in death they were quiet and untroubled (ver. 4), their pride and violence seemed to go unpunished, while their prosperity was unbounded, and their riches continually increasing (vers. 7-12). And what did. he find on the other side of the picture? Where are God's people" the generation of His children"? Slighted, afflicted, and oppressed-weeping scalding tears in lonely places, while the world rings out its laughter-so withered by its scorn that sometimes the bitter words escape from quivering lips, "How doth God know ? and is there knowledge in the Most High?" ver. 11).

The contrast is too painful, the enigma too perplexing; and for a moment faith gives way-unbelief

draws its hasty deduction, and the baffled disappointed servant of God exclaims, Then "I have cleansed my heart in vain, and washed mine hands in innocency." I thought things would have been far otherwise, and that I should have found myself on the winning side. I looked for nights of peace and days of joyousness, but "I am chastened every morning." The querulous why receives no answer, and the unsatisfied heart recoils from its own questionings. For what if the individual doubt should involve all the family of the faithful, what if "the footsteps of the flock" have all trodden a mistaken track? Can it be that thousands of God's trusting ones have grasped at a shadow, and lived and died on a delusion? (ver. 15). The troubled inquirer sums up his heart's struggle, "When I thought to know this, it was too painful for me, until I went into the sanctuary of God." And there, in the presence of the Holy One, the heavy cloud was lifted-a light from the everlasting hills fell upon the shadows of the valley; a voice spoke so distinctly that he marvelled he had not heard it before. "Lo, these are PARTS of His ways." The triumphing of the wicked is short." The oppressed ones may sorrow "for a night, but joy cometh in the morning." Wait, for "the end is not yet;" wait, for "the day shall declare it."

We might follow the Psalmist at length through the confession, the assurance, and the aspirations that follow. Shame for the past (ver. 22), conscious blessedness in the present (ver. 23), undoubted guidance for the future of time, and glory for the future of eternity (ver. 24); and then as the outraged love returns to its loyalty (ver. 25), hear how the harp that had hung upon the willows sounds forth its note of confidence and praise (ver. 26).

But we must rather hasten to gather up our own lessons. We see Job, and David, and Asaph, and Jeremiah perplexed and restless because the depth of the Infinite could not be sounded by the plummet of the finite, or the vastness of eternity measured by the reckonings of time. And yet we marvel far less that the Jewish mind should be thus stumbled, in a dispensation whose promises had much to do with things seen and temporal, than that we ourselves, following in the steps of a Redeemer, who has said, "My kingdom is not of this world" (or age)—we, who are constantly repeating the confession of the Apostle, 66 we see through a glass darkly," should so often lose heart because we live amidst unsolved problems, or call to our aid the ingenuity of man where we are afraid to trust the God of the Bible. The keynote of all instruction, in Ps. xxxvii. (similar in some respect

to the one we have been considering) is the little word "trust," as in Ps. lxxiii. we have the equally important word "wait"; or perhaps we might rather say they run parallel in both. They are words bound

up

with the very existence of our Christianity; but it must be confessed that the nineteenth century likes not either the one or the other. Let Christians beware lest they drink into the spirit of the age. The trusting, waiting child of God must rest content to be counted a "fool for Christ's sake." And yet there is no one who can rejoice more unfeignedly in all the discoveries of science, as they open out the works of Him who is perfect in knowledge, than the man who can say, "That wonder-working God is my Father." No one surely who can more calmly endure the taunt of the unbeliever, because he knows "in whom he has believed," and his faith can afford to wait for the day when men and angels shall declare, "Verily, there is a reward for the righteous; verily, there is a God that judgeth the earth.”

Christian brothers and sisters, shall we not say to many a sceptical cavilling of the present day, "Nay, but, O man! who art thou that repliest against God?"

Shall we not check the hasty pronouncings of man, where Scripture is silent, and answer the premature unveilings of impatient spirits where God drops a curtain, with His own solemn question, "Have the paths of death been opened unto thee, or hast thou seen the doors of the shadow of death?"

Shall we not say to our own weary, and often, alas! fainting hearts, in the concluding words of our psalm, "It is good for me to draw near to God. I have put my trust in the Lord God, that I may declare all Thy works"? If there are no depths in the universe which man cannot fathom, no height which mortal intelligence cannot scale, then there is no God on its throne. If there are no mysteries in our Father's dealings which His little children cannot explain, then faith loses the vantage ground from which she triumphantly asks the question, "He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also ficely give us all things?"

"Till death the weary spirit free,

Thy God hath said, 'Tis good for thee
To walk by faith, and not by sight:
Take it on trust a little while,

Soon shalt thou read the mystery right,
In the full sunshine of His smile."

C. P.

I

AM aware that among those present this morning, who have met for the purpose of uniting in prayer to God, seeking special blessings for themselves and their families, there are some who are passing through a season of great and bitter trial. On my way here I met a friend, who told me more than I before knew of what has happened. She assured me that the failure of banks, and other causes, have led to much general disaster; and she added that some who usually attend this meeting have been among the greatest sufferers.

On taking leave of her, I went on my way, saddened to think of all the exceeding distress this widespread calamity must have caused, and saddened also by the feeling, that any words I might say must sound poor and weak in comparison with the depth and extent of such suffering. I could only lift up my heart to the "God of all comfort," and ask that He would entrust me with a message to you, direct from Himself.

The words which have come into my mind you will find in Ps. iv. 7: "Thou hast put gladness in my heart, more than in the time that their corn and their wine increased."

The word "corn" is often used in Scripture as the emblem of plenty, and "wine" signifies joyous luxury. We accept these phrases as representative terms, denoting a large amount of earthly prosperity. The teaching we have here does not deprecate or disparage such prosperity; it simply says, there is something still better. To speak lightly of the loss of "corn and wine" would be not only unfeeling, but untrue to nature and experience. Wealth, rightly used, can be made to add greatly to the interest and usefulness of life. Those of us who are heads of families know well in how many ways it enables us to promote the temporal welfare of those who depend upon us. Perhaps the purest pleasure left us, in our present condition, is to be able freely to minister to the wants of others; and to have one principal avenue

closed, shutting us out from this power, is a real distress to a generous mind. In innumerable ways we cannot stay to mention, abundant means act as oil on the wheels of life, and prevent much creaking, groaning, and halting. The words I have read, however, remind us that, good as "corn and wine" are, they are not to be reckoned as God's best gifts. He holds in His treasury something of greater value; and sad as our hearts are this morning, in sympathy with disappointed and tried ones, we can yet rejoice together, that though the "corn and wine" banks have broken, scattering terrible distress, the Bank of God's "more gladness" stands firm. It has never stopped payment, and it never will.

Supposing I was here this morning, with such a message from God as this: "I have watched your great appreciation of wealth, and your deep sorrow at its loss. My word to you to-day is, that for the future you shall always have abundance of it. I command that, to you, 'corn and wine' shall never fail; as long as you live you shall have an unfailing and bountiful supply; but that is all. I have nothing else in store for you."

"That is all." Would not these words fall like a note of despair on our hearts? Have corn and wine" hitherto yielded such unmixed delight, that we can for a moment bear the thought of being shut up to these, and these alone? If that is all, whence, then, these ambitious desires? Why this craving, unsatisfied nature? Why do these hands, filled so often, return ever and again, still crying, "Give, give"? If there is no other portion for us in our Father's hand than this, then He has dealt hardly with His children. Time is short, and the fashion of this world passeth away, yet these are the bounds set to our prosperity.

Dear friends, these are the bounds which multitudes of people set to their own prosperity. God's messages to us teach us something very different. From these we learn that our temporal blessings, greatly as we prize them, are no more than the plain furnishing of the vestibule, compared with the rich treasures to be found in the inner chambers of the temple.

There is an order which God observes in the preparation of His children for His kingdom, which we should do well carefully to observe. I am not now speaking of God's great gift of redemption, which we may receive in a moment, direct from Him, and accept as a perfectly free and unmerited gift. We are now referring to the training and discipline which "ows the spiritual as truly as the natural birth, the

object of which is the development of the "perfect man in Christ Jesus." The disciples were what we term "saved men," from the time they knew and accepted Christ; but until they also knew and accepted the order in which He bestows His blessings, they made miserable mistakes, and suffered greatly from disappointment.

There is an incident recorded in the 10th chapter of Mark, which seems to me full of teaching on this subject. Two of the disciples, James and John, came to Jesus, and, without preface or apology, asked that He would reserve for them the two highest places in His kingdom-the one on the right hand, the other on the left. Those standing around, and listening to what was passing, expressed themselves greatly displeased at such presumption, as many now do, who, in commenting on this passage, exhort their hearers to beware of such unbecoming ambition. Jesus, on the contrary, expressed neither horror nor surprise. He only saw before Him two men, perhaps by nature more than commonly ambitious, and desiring great things for themselves. He did not say to them, "You must get rid of this pride and self-seeking; it is most unbecoming to you." He knew that He had Himself implanted these feelings of desire for greatness; that as the ages of eternity rolled on, they would ever be unfolding more and more of His purposes of love, even to "inheriting all things." Not for one moment does He turn them aside from the object of their desire-the coveted places of honour were preparing for some, why not for them? I certainly expect some day to see John on the right hand or the left.

The teaching of Christ did not lower their hope : it corrected their mistakes as to time and method They were thinking of some grand thoroughfare through which, with chariot and horses, they might drive to the object of their ambition. They had not considered that the lowly bye-path of humiliation and service, through which the Master was toiling on His way to glory, was the only road by which they also could obtain the accomplishment of their desires. Christ says to them, "Can you walk in this path? Can you drink of the cup I drink of?" In no way daunted by this certainty of difficulty and danger, true to their purpose, they reply, "We can." Jesus says, "Ye shall." Then turning to the ten, although they are affecting such displeasure at their more outspoken companions, He detects in them the same desire for distinction. Again, He does not reprove them; He, as before, simply corrects their thoughts as to attainment. "Whosoever shall be great among

you shall be your minister, and whosoever of you will be the chiefest, shall be servant of all."

The sum of Christ's teaching seems to be this-I wish you to be great, to be "the chiefest," but you will not attain to this in the way of "exercising authority." That time is not yet; by attempting it now, and here, you will only appear to disadvantage. It is in "ministering," in being "servants of all," that you will attain the greatness on which your hearts are set, and I am only marking out the same path for you that I do for Myself, for in my earthly life I, too, came not to be ministered to, but to minister."

Perhaps no one ever succeeded in learning this lesson so perfectly as Paul. He must have been by nature one of the most ambitious of men. In the service of evil, he was always in the foremost rank. No one could outdo him as a "persecutor," or "blasphemer;" where others were content to be angry with the followers of Jesus, he must be "exceedingly mad." From the moment he knew Christ, the object and method of his ambition changed, but the ambition itself remained in greater force than ever. The Master, to whom he surrendered, did not deceive him. He told him of service, and what great things he must suffer. Paul, like the Master, "set the joy before him," and shrank from neither; nor did he ever add to the perplexities of his life by expecting care and repose, which never came. Only just a glimpse was allowed him of future glory, but that was sufficient to turn for ever into reality, what many regard only as a sentiment, that "our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." Among the "all things" he lost for Christ, some things doubtless there were which might have hindered him in the attainment of his object. Paul says, "Let them all go. I am safer to ' attain' without them. All my desire is to win Him. 'If I may by any means attain to the out resurrection from among the dead' (margin), and be with 'the dead in Christ, who rise first,' and who as the Bride, the Lamb's wife, reign with Him for ever. Yes, I must attain to this first place."

First, first-always first, ambitious Paul !

In the light of this teaching, I return again to the subject of painful interest which occupies our thoughts this morning. I take my place at your side to-day with the more confidence, as I have "gone this way heretofore." The loss of property is only one of many ways in which it has pleased God to rebuke and chasten me. The very frail health of some of my children made the appliances' which wealth can com

11

mand appear almost as a necessity; and under existing circumstances I was strongly tempted, as I am sure many of you must be, to think that God dealt hardly with me.

As parents, drawn together by our common difficulties and responsibilities, we may speak freely to one another of our weaknesses and our sources of strength. I know it is common to us all to desire strongly whatever appears to minister to our children's advantage, the activity and energy of health asking for one kind of expenditure, and frailty and suffering for another. In our weaker love, we suppose that we cannot do better than surround our children with the best of everything we can command, and "for their sakes," as we say, rejoice in the liberty of unbounded expenditure. God, in His stronger, far-reaching love, looks down, and sees that the training He needs for them is scarcely going on at all-no service, His preparation for future rule-no drill of any kind, fitting them to be good soldiers for Christ. He looks at our feeble, irresolute hands, and faithless, wavering hearts, and knows that the necessary training will not come from us. With eternity in view, He cannot risk our dear ones, dearer still to Him, losing places in His kingdom for " messes of pottage," so He takes the discipline into His own hands. He removes the wealth, which was proving a hindrance, removes our power of choice, and compels our children into some path of service-His chosen path to glory, honour, and immortality.

I have traced the history of several families suddenly deprived of wealth. In most cases, to the children, the change has been decidedly advantageous. The necessity for exertion, and for caring for others, has acted most favourably upon their characters, developing noble faculties which had hitherto remained dormant. It is a serious thought, that as long as any of us persist in surrounding our children with a condition of things which make a life of service wellnigh impossible, we may be really not only jeopardizing their prospects of future greatness, but cutting them off from the line God has laid down for the attainment of the highest earthly happiness. All the time the apostles were grasping after premature and unseasonable honours, they were irresolute, timid, blundering men. As soon as they accepted the lives of suffering and service, appointed as their earthly portion, "they returned to Jerusalem with great joy," and became the best and most effective teachers the world has even seen.

No parent ever deliberately plans for his child an