"Our Father made them all." And we may also gaze with admiration on those works of man's art which God hath given him ability to devise and execute. But we must beware of "the lust of the eye". we must guard against the too great fascinations of art, and even against the more exalted love of grandeur and beauty, as displayed in the works of creation. We must watch our hearts, lest they be beguiled from their supreme adoration of the Creator, and their devotion to His service, however unattractive that service may chance to be to our sense of the refined and beautiful.

Glory and magnificence are beautiful and alluring to our eyes. "The glory of all the kingdoms of the world" doubtless shone brightly in the Redeemer's vision as He stood on the high mountain and gazed on the beauties of His Father's creation, and the wonders which man had achieved. But Jesus turned away from the enticing spectacle, and scorned the tempting offer which would have drawn Him away from the work the Lord Jehovah had given Him to do. He would not serve Satan, even by one outward act, to be made the ruler of all the kingdoms of the earth. He knew that the world and all that it contains must pass away; and He looked for "the recompense of the reward" which, He also knew, awaited Him in "a better and an enduring city," when His appointed work was done. Therefore He despised all that the world, the flesh, and the devil could lay at His feet, and indignantly exclaimed to the tempter, "Get thee behind me, Satan, for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve." Thus did the man Christ Jesus resist "the lust of the eye;" and thus may those who believe in Him and walk in his steps likewise resist all its strongest temptations,

But stronger and more influential, perhaps, than all other temptations is "the pride of life." By “the lust of the flesh" many are drawn into perdition; by "the lust of the eye," or "the world," and all its natural and artificial attractions, many are beguiled from "the strait and narrow way," and given over to vanity and destruction; but "the pride of life" is especially the direst instigation of the devil, and his choicest weapon. It was pride-spiritual and intellectual pride that cost him a seat in heaven, and drove him forth to wreak his vengeance on God's favoured creature, man. He knew the destructive power of pride, for he had fatally proved it; and he tried its baneful influence, with only too great success, on our mother Eve. From the day of the fall, pride has been Satan's most powerful instrument for man's ruin; and it will continue to be so until every stronghold of pride shall be destroyed at the day of Christ's appearing.

What so much as pride of intellect leads men to sin against God with a high hand, and to set up their own puny reason and judgment in opposition to His revealed will? What but pride of wealth or

station causes them to despise and trample upon their fellow-creatures -their brethren for whom Christ died? What but spiritual pride induces men to keep scornfully aloof from others, and to say virtually, "Stand aside, for I am holier than thou?" And what but pride, such pride as cast Satan and his angels down from the heights of heaven, could so blind men to their own best interests as to lead them to reject God's way of salvation, and practically to assert their own sufficiency to save themselves?

It was to such sin that the devil sought to tempt the Lord Jesus. He tried his most powerful weapon on Him, and in the subtlest manner. "Cast thyself down;" prove to me and to the world that thou art the Son of God; show thy divine and self-sustaining power, and thy confidence in Him whom thou callest thy Father. It was a strong temptation. The human nature of our Lord must have burned with indignant and righteous desire to vindicate His own insulted Godhead and the power and truth of His Almighty Father by giving the required proof of His faith and His Sonship. But Jesus resisted even this temptation. He calmly replied, "It is written, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God."

This was the final stroke of victory. All phases of temptation had been tried, and had failed; and the God-man stood alone on the field of conflict, while His discomfited foe retreated "for a season," to devise another attack, and to meet with another defeat, and while, doubtless, the hosts of heaven, who had been anxiously "looking into these things," struck their harps of gold, and sang praises to Him in whose strength the Redeemer had fought and triumphed!

Thus did Jesus overcome the world, the flesh, and the devil.” Thus did He subdue "the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the enje, and the pride of life." And thus, we repeat it, thus only may those who are called by his name, and profess to follow his example, be enabled in any measure to overcome and subdue these enemies of the soul.

"There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able, but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it."

PROCRASTINATION.

"I made haste, and prolonged not the time: to keep Thy commandments.” If there be an evil habit against which we should suppose most of us would be anxious to guard ourselves, and against whose encroachments equally desirous to preserve others, it would probably be the habit of procrastination, delay, or putting off. Who that wished himself or

PROCRASTINATION.

335 his neighbour success in life would argue in favour of putting off till to-morrow what should be done to-day, or till the next month, or the next year, what should be accomplished now? The habit of procrastination, so far as this world is concerned, how many soever may be guilty of it, is one that will find few to defend it. Some there are who seem born with a kind of constitutional dread of procrastination. If so it be, it is one of the most salutary fears with which any one can enter life. Some again, seem born with a constitutional tendency to procrastinate. If so this be, it is a tendency which cannot be too early striven against by all who wish well to themselves, or to those who ought to be as dear to them as themselves.

But while, so far as the present world is concerned, though numbers are guilty of procrastination, few will be found to defend it, what are we to say as to the world to come? Though in relation to that world there are quite as few to defend procrastination as in relation to this, yet compared with this world, how many more are guilty of the habit in relation to that; yea, and are ready to plead habits the reverse of procrastinating in the one world, as an excuse for their delays and puttings off in relation to the other. If there be a confession opposed to the usual conduct of men, it surely is that of the Psalmist, "I made haste, and prolonged not the time: to keep Thy commandments." It is a goodly sight, that of one, who, while "not slothful in business," is "fervent in spirit; serving the Lord:" that of a man, who, while diligent in his worldly calling, and brooking no delay in his temporal affairs, is at the same time decided for God, and constant in paying his vows unto the Most High; and who would scorn the thought of leaving religion merely to his wife and children, household and dependants. The chief business of religion, indeed, is to make a religion even of our business. We should carry our punctuality in the management of our commercial or professional concerns with us into our more immediate transactions with our God and his Christ, instead of pleading the urgency of those affairs as an apology for procrastination in these; yea, we ought to have the same horror of not fulfilling our promises towards God, of "prolonging the time to keep His commandments," instead of "making haste" to keep them, as we should have in failing to meet a promissory note of ours in the market when it became due.

Against the habit of procrastination in things spiritual, even among those with whom no such habit obtains ground in secular matters, the progress of the ecclesiastical year, echoing the voice of the Bible, offers a perpetual protest. The Church's annual round of times and seasons, services and commemorations, is a palpable attestation to Biblical verities, so that, to use the words of Master Hooker, men by seeing what we do may learn what we believe! By this succession of

her year, the Church, no more than the succession of our lives, permits her children to continue long in one stay. We are urged on from one solemn and interesting point to another in the history of our redemption by Christ Jesus, while at each point are suggested to us questions for personal examination, as to the results of the work of the Son of God "in our bodies and spirits, which are his." "It was meet that we should make merry, and be glad," for the "tidings of great joy" brought to us at Christmas-tide, of the birth of a Saviour, "Christ the Lord;" but soon are we recalled from this pious mirth to more sober realities. By the return of Septuagesima, we are taught that our business here is not merely to "rejoice, and be glad," though we have a Saviour, and are ourselves "found in Him," who were lost; that the pleasures of religion, as they are called, are not what we should chiefly seek. We are reminded by the return of that Sunday. that the Christian life is a work, a struggle, a race, a warfare. There is that in the socialities of Christmas, after all that may be said for the sacredness of the season, which is distracting to some of us, and we scarcely get righted again till Lent comes in. And soon does it come, with its sad shadows, and serious recollections, when, with the truth that the Christian life is a work and a warfare before us, we are brought face to face with the many portions of the work we have done badly, or left undone, and the many temptations before which we have fallen in the fight, and are admonished of the necessity of repentance for the past, and, by the help of God's Holy Spirit, of amendment for

the time to come.

A day there will shortly be to us all when "the keepers of the house," these now agile limbs, "shall tremble, and the strong men," these well-nerved arms, "shall bow themselves, and those that look out at the windows," these bright and laughing eyes, "be darkened, and the grasshopper," the slightest thing we are obliged to do, "shall be a burden, and desire shall fail," all that once delighted us shall lose its charms. Then, when the tide of life sets in swiftly towards the everlasting sea, and the sands in our hour-glass are few, and the suns that will rise and set for us will be fewer; then, when our last sickness is fallen upon us, and we have gone up to that chamber whence others shall bring but a poor part of us down, when the body is racked with pain, and the mind distracted with anxiety, when the lamp goes not out by night, and the daylight is excluded in the morning, when attendants walk noiselessly, and friends sigh, and children weep, physicians shake their heads; then, O then, but one thing will give us peace or joy-this, to be able to say with the Psalmist, as we look back, "I made haste, O God, and prolonged not the time to keep thy commandments."

and

THE dictum of the author of "The Passionate Pilgrim," to the effect that

"Crabbed Age and Youth

Cannot live together,"

often stands unquestioned. I mean to discuss it now, however, and to chat for half-an-hour on the discrepancies and agreements of Age and Youth. "Crabbed Age!" Is this adjective justly applied to Age as a whole? Not, in its worst sense, universally; but, perhaps, generally in some, at least slight, degree.

As thus: Youth is apt to be romantic; Age, hereupon, snubbing:

VOL. I.-NO. IV.

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