of profitable remembrance to them? Is it such as you would wish them to follow? Are you framing it for their imitation?

Third, Another effect which this warning ought to produce is that of watchfulnesss. When the servant expects his master, but does not know at what hour he may come, he keeps himself in readiness, watching for his arrival. In such a case, it ought to be our care not to be employed in what we would not wish our Lord to find us in when he comes. No servant would like his Lord to come and find him employed in the service of his Lord's enemy; so we would not wish to be found in the service of sin.

Fourth, This warning ought to produce diligence. As no servant would wish to be overtaken by his master while in the service of an enemy, so neither would he wish his master to find him idle.

Fifth, This warning ought to produce deadness to the world. It is just, in fact, an intimation that we are soon to be done with the worldthat in a little while it will be to us as if it had not been. Here, again, we see the difference between theory and practice, for all admit the fact that the world is a perishing portion, and yet multitudes are doing far more to obtain it than to obtain the riches of eternity.

In fine, let this solemn truth announced in the text beget in all of us a prayerful preparation for the coming of our Lord. Let the words of the Apostle Peter find their response in our own bosoms: "Seeing, then, that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought we to be in all holy conversation and godliness?" His mind was so overpowered with a sense of the awful grandeur and important results of the coming of Christ at the end of the world, and of the dissolution of this material globe, that he could not give full expression to the measure of holiness which ought to characterise those who look forward to these events, but exclaimed, in the deep emotion of his soul, "What manner of persons ought we to be?" May the Lord give us grace to be looking for and hasting unto the coming of that day when he shall appear in his glory and all his holy angels with him !--AMEN.

SERMON XVIII.

VINEYARDS IN THE WILDERNESS.

BY THE REV. J. A. WALLACE, HAWICK.

[Preached at Hawick on the first Sabbath after leaving the Parish Church.]

"Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably unto her. And I will give her her vineyards from thence, and the valley of Achor for a door of hope; and she shall sing there, as in the days of her youth and as in the day when she came up out of the land of Egypt."-HOSEA ii. 14-15.

MY DEAR FRIENDS, it is now ten years since I came for the first time into this parish, having no previous acquaintance with any one of you, and bearing the character of an entire stranger. I scarcely think I ever went to the pulpit before with a heart so oppressed with anxiety, or so cast down with the difficulties that seemed then to be before me. Nevertheless, the first discourse which God sent me to deliver was marked by a memorable incident, which I learned shortly afterwards from the lips of one of the persons who heard it. It went home at once to the heart of that individual, and left an impression that has never been effaced, becoming, as I trust, the wisdom of God and the power of God unto salvation. This, therefore, I could scarcely hesitate to regard as a token for good. And when I look back on all the paths through which I have been conducted between that time and this, I see no reason to regret that my lot has been cast in the midst of you. I am rather inclined to say. that the lines have fallen to me in pleasant places, and that God has given to me in times past a goodly heritage.

What it may be for the future I do not know. Sometimes, the prospect is irradiated with streaks of light, like those that gild the horizon at the dawn of a bright morning; at other times, it is laden with heavy clouds, that cast their dark shadows on everything around, and awaken only the feeling of anxiety and fear. Nevertheless, the path of duty is before us, and that path is plain. As for all consequences, be they what they may, we must be content to leave these in the hands of God, who knoweth all things from the end to the beginning, who turneth the hearts of men as the rivers of water, and who hath promised to his people that all things shall be made to work together for their good.

Looking for His blessing, and depending on the grace of his Holy Spirit, we desire to commence our ministrations anew, and in connection with the Free Protesting Church of Scotland. It may be that on this occasion also, and in the day of our adversity, God may give testimony to the word of his own grace; and the soul, peradventure, of some individual who may have come here from a spirit of idle curiosity, and without the solemnity of feeling which the occasion demands, may be arrested and impressed, delivered from the evil and the error of his ways, and made meet to be partaker of the inheritance of the saints in light. With this view, we commence our ministrations in this place, by calling your attention to one of the most comfortable passages which the Bible contains. God grant that our hearts may be opened to understand and to receive it as one of the true sayings of God. The passage is thus written" Behold I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably unto her, and I will give her her vineyards from thence, and the valley of Achor for a door of hope; and she shall sing there, as in the days of her youth, and as in the day when she came up out of the land of Egypt."

This passage, in the first instance, has reference to the circumstances of God's ancient and peculiar people, when, by reason of their great and aggravated wickedness, they were subjected to the chastisement of His righteous judgments, though, at the same time, they were dealt with in loving kindness, and in righteousness, and in great mercies. The iniquities, indeed, which they had committed, were of a very offensive character, and were not likely to be passed by with impunity; and that for this reason, that they were the people of God, whom he had specially chosen for himself, and with whom he had entered into covenant. It might have been different, had they belonged to the heathen nations with whom they were surrounded-had they been completely alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that was in them, or had they been called to the enjoyment of no peculiar or distinctive privileges. In that case, they might have been left altogether unto themselves, abandoned to the idols of their own choice, and filled with the fruit of their own devices. But they were otherwise situated. They belonged to the family of God. They held the character and position of children. And though, instead of fulfilling the obligations under which they were lying, they had trampled on their richest mercies, violated the covenant engagement into which God had entered with them, and done despite to the Holy One of Israel, yet, on that account, they were not to be abandoned utterly to themselves. They were to be dealt with for their iniquities till, at length, they should be constrained, as by a blessed necessity, to return

unto Him from whom they had so grievously revolted; and thus, notwithstanding all their shortcomings, and their backslidings, and their provocations, this was to be the mode of the Divine procedure-"Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness." God, indeed, is resolved to enter into judgment with her, and to call her to a solemn reckoning for her bypast sins; and yet there is no apparent severity no expression of fiery or of consuming indignation. He finds it necessary, for the accomplishment of his own gracious purposes, to remove her from her former idols, and to bring her into the wilderness. But there is no expulsion as by force. He does not drive her, as it were, before him, and make her terribly afraid with the vengeance of his righteous judgments; but these are the words, "Behold, I will allure her." The expression is very striking. It indicates the attractiveness of love and of tenderness. It is the dealing, not of an implacable enemy, but of a father who is full of mercy and very pitiful. This gives a character of sweetness to the heaviest chastisements of His hand, alluring us into a blessed forgetfulness of the ruggedness of the road over which we are passing, and prompting us to kiss the very rod which is lifted up for our correction. And this is uniformly the way of the Divine procedure with His own people. Ofttimes he finds it necessary to afflict them, and they themselves may feel that his chastisements are very bitter. Yet, in all his dealings, there is so much of the allurement of one that loves them, that the oftener he sees meet to correct them, and the harder the strokes which he continues to inflict upon them, this only is the blessed result, that instead of being roused into hostility against him, or giving more emphatic expression to the passions of a murmuring and discontented spirit, they are actually impressed with a deeper sense of his loving-kindness, and are constrained all the more closely to cling to him. And this, we believe, furnishes one of the most satisfactory tests of sanctified affliction. If, when God is dealing with us in the way of chastisement, we are led to shrink from him with a feeling of instinctive aversion, entertaining hard views of the principles by which he is actuated, and discovering nothing in his character but the attributes of a powerful and implacable judge, there is great reason to fear, that ours are not the light afflictions of a moment, which are productive of the peaceable fruits of righteousness, and which are working out for us the far more exceeding and everlasting weight of glory. But if, when God is taking away our idols, and breaking down our refuges of lies, and casting darkness over the brightest of our worldly prospects, we feel a silent drawing of the spirit towards the very hand that is lifted up for our chastisement- -a kind of fascinating allurement, which prompts us to follow hard after him, though he seems to be conducting us over rugged paths, and into the waste places

of a desolate wilderness, then, in that case, we cannot but regard it as the test of sanctified affliction-the sweet and the blessed token that God is dealing with us as with children--the clear and indubitable sign that our tribulations are working out patience, and patience experience, and experience hope, even the hope which is as an anchor unto the soul, both sure and stedfast, and which entereth into that within the vail. But observe, next, whither it is that God allures his people. The passage does not say that he allures them into paths of pleasantness and of peace-into places that are stored with the richest of all earthly enjoyments-into fields that are enamelled with beautiful flowers, enlivened with rivers of living water, and rejoicing under the sunshine of an unclouded prosperity. We need no allurement to lead us into scenes like these; these are the paths into which our feet are most apt to wander. The place into which God allures his people is altogether different. "Behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness." Into the wilderness-that is, far away from the scenes of our former enjoyment, or from the cherished objects of our idolatry, or from the fascination of our brightest hopes, or from the fountains of our earthly pleasure. It requires some allurement-some constraining influence-some attractiveness of love and of tenderness-to draw us away from these, for our souls naturally cling to them. We look to them as our chief good. We expect to find in them the elements of our felicity. We are exceedingly loath to leave them. Nevertheless, they are not our portion for ever. They cannot make us permanently happy. It is necessary to the furtherance of our highest interests that we be taken away from them. And therefore it is that God allures us--that he plies us with every argument that he speaks to us with a voice of tenderness-that he constrains us to yield to the bowels of his irresistible compassions. This is necessary. For why? When he destroys our idols, and dries up the fountain of our earthly felicity, he seldom brings us all at once, or by an easy path, to the blessed enjoyment of a far richer heritage. That, no doubt, will be the ultimate result the terminating point of all his gracious procedure towards us. But the result may not be immediately realised. The final heritage may not be instantly enjoyed. On the contrary, it is the usual mode of his procedure to lead us first into the wilderness,-not only far away from outward comforts, or from cherished idols, or from bodily health, or from outward ordinances, or from the fountains whence consolation was most likely to be drawn by us; but into circumstances of difficulty, or of trial, or of sorrow-into the wilderness, where there is nothing attractive, nothing inviting-the wilderness, which may seem to ourselves to be dark, and rugged, and waste-howling, and solitary, freed from the traces of vegetation, covered with the stones of emptiness, and darkened