indeed all other means are nothing but as they take hold of that power.

And if by that power I can, and do, rise to virtue, if I gain the victory over temptation, if I attain to a true and solid peace, to an inward sufficiency, to the supreme and absorbing love of goodness and of God, then indeed are my feet set upon a rock, and a new song is put into my mouth; and it is a song of thanksgiving. Nothing on earth or in heaven, can ever be such a cause of thankfulness with me, as this.

What an interest belongs to the very strifes and trials that may lead to this? A man who makes a fortune on the burning soil of India, is thankful to that country—with all its heat and dust and languor and disease, he is thankful to it. A man who stands here at home, with energy and opportunity to repair his broken fortunes, blesses that opportunity and that energy. So do we stand in the field of the world. We may have failed to a certain extent, or we may have failed altogether, to secure the great interest of life. But still the opportunity for better efforts is given; time is lengthened out; the day and the means of grace are ours; conscience is in our hearts, and the Bible is in our hands, and prayer may be on our lips; all is not lost; the time past may be redeemed, the erring steps retrieved; our very errors may teach us; our sad experience may teach us-blessed be its sadness then!and we may rise to sanctity, to blessedness and to heaven. And if, I say again, we can and do thus succeed; if, from this often-deceiving, and ever-changing and fleeting world, we may draw and fix within us, one thing which is sure and steadfast and immovable and always abounding, one feeling that is assurance and sufficiency and victory, a happiness in wisdom, in

love and in God, which is, we know, in its very nature everlasting, which, we feel, will never desert us, will never let us be unhappy, go where on earth, go where in heaven, we will; what a prize, to bear away from a struggling life and from the battling world, is this? Who does not say, "thanks be to God?" And who that understands the great, comforting and redeeming ministration of the Gospel to this end, does not say"thanks be to God through our Lord Jesus Christ?" Yes, my brethren, through Jesus Christ, above all. We have not been left to struggle alone. One has come to us, bearing the image of God, bearing the mission of God; One, all compassion and tenderness, all truth and loveliness, has come to us and taught us, and helped us, and prayed for us, and died for us: and to him, under God, do we owe the prize. And when it is gained and borne away to heaven, then and there shall we say, "blessing and honour and glory and power, be unto Him that sitteth on the throne, and to the Lamb forever and ever!"

And in fine, my friends, that we shall bear away this prize from earth to heaven-is that to be lamented? Shall that thought check and chill all our gladness and thanksgiving?

I rejoice that I am a man--a sensitive, intellectual, social, moral being: above all, that I am a moral being. I rejoice that I have a conscience, and a knowledge of God. I rejoice that I am a being subject to a great, moral trial. I lament that I have fallen, but all the more am I thankful that I can rise. I thank God that I can spiritually sorrow and struggle, and spiritually can gain the victory. But now shall I surprise youshall I seem to say too much if I say, I thank God that I am mortal. I thank God that he has put a limit to

this earthly probation. Not with grieving but with hope, do I recognise the solemn truth that one day— what day I know not, and for that too am I thankful -that one day, appointed in God's wisdom, I shall die! -yes, that I shall die!-that I shall lay aside this body for another form of being! I would not live always. I would not always feel the burdens and barriers with which mortality has surrounded and overlaid me. Some time or other, I would part hence; some time or other I would that my friends should part hence. Oh! could we go in families! But that too, I see, would not be well. For then how bound up in our families should we be-how selfish and how reserved and exclusive! No, I take the great dispensation as it is, and I am thankful for it. All its strong bonds, all its urgent tasks, all its disciplinary trials-I accept all, and accept all with gratitude. Sweet, angel visits of peace are these also; thrilling pleasures in my sensitive frame; lofty towerings and triumphs of intellect; blessed bonds and joys of society; the glorious vision of the infinite perfection; I am thankful for them all. I am thankful that every age of life has its character, task and hope; that childhood comes forth upon the stream of life, in its frail but fairy and gay vessel-with its guardian angel by its side the banks covered with flowers, and the vermilion tints of morning upon the hills; that youth stands amidst the bright landscape, stretching its eye and its arm to the cloud-castle of honour and hope; that manhood struggles amidst the descending storm, with resignation, with courage, with an eye fixed on heaven; and that although shapes of wrath and terror are amidst the elements, the guardian angel too is there, holding its bright station in the clouds; and that when age at

last comes, life's struggle over, life's voyage completed -that light from heaven streams down upon the darkness and desolation of earth, and the good angel is by its side, and pointing upward says, "thither-thither shalt thou go"!*

The allusion here, is to that admirable series of paintings, by Mr Cole, entitled "The Stream of Life."

ON HUMAN LIFE.

VIII.

THE MORAL SIGNIFICANCE OF LIFE.

NOW A THING WAS SECRETLY BROUGHT TO ME, AND MINE EAR RECEIVED A LITTLE THEREOF. IN THOUGHTS FROM THE VISIONS OF THE NIGHT, WHEN DEEP SLEEP FALLETH ON MEN; FEAR CAME UPON ME, AND TREMBLING WHICH MADE ALL MY BONES TO SHAKE. THEN A SPIRIT PASSED BEFORE MY FACE, AND THE HAIR OF MY FLESH STOOD UP. IT STOOD STILL; BUT I COULD NOT DISCERN THE FORM THEREOF; AN IMAGE WAS BEFORE MINE EYES; THERE WAS SILENCE; AND I HEARD A VOICE.-Job iv. 12-16.

HUMAN life to many, is like the vision of Eliphaz. Dim and shadowy vails hang round its awful revelations. Teachings there are to man, in solemn and silent hours, in thoughts from the visions of the night, in vague impressions and unshaped reveries; but, on this very account, they fail to be interpreted and understood. There is much teaching; but there is also much unbelief.

There is a scepticism, indeed, about the entire moral significance of life, which I propose, in this discourse, to examine. It is a scepticism, sometimes taking the form of philosophy, sometimes of misanthrophy and scorn, and sometimes of heavy and hardbound worldliness, which denies that life has any lofty, spiritual import: which resolves all into a series of toils and trifles and vanities, or of gross and palpable pursuits and acquisitions. It is a scepticism, not