impulse which certainly is not easily defined; but it is clear the deed is perpetrated, and that under feelings of the most intense hatred. When a wolf or hyena is wounded, its companions instantly tear it to pieces and devour it; and among domestic dogs the persecuted defenceless cur, yelping in its flight from the brutality of the idle urchins in the street, is chased and worried by every dog within hearing of its distress. There exists an instinctive repugnance to everything which cannot defend itself. The motive which permits men to attack or neglect those who are disabled is also impenetrable. But the sad spectacle is sometimes seen; and the man who is in search of protection from a horde of persecutors goes from one man to another for aid, only to be snapped at, cuffed, browbeaten, and snubbed. CAMELS Subject: A Limited Retaliation. JAMELS have a great share of intelligence; and the Arabs assert that they are so extremely sensible of injustice and ill-treatment, that when this is carried too far the inflicter will not find it easy to escape their vengeance, and that they will retain the remembrance of an injury till an opportunity offers for gratifying their revenge. Eager, however, to express their resentment, they no longer retain any rancour when once they are satisfied; and it is even sufficient for them to believe they have satisfied their vengeance. Accordingly, when an Arab has excited the rage of a camel, he throws down his garments in some place near which the animal is to pass, and disposes them in such a manner that they appear to cover a man sleeping under them. The animal recognizes the clothes, seizes them in his teeth, shakes them with violence, and tramples on them in a rage. When his anger is appeased he leaves them, and then the owner of the garments may make his appearance, and without any fear may lead and guide him as he pleases. The camel is an example to us. off in a gust of passion. let it pass on your wrath." When our rage is excited "Let not the sun go down THE Subject: The Law of Compensation. THE makers of nice astronomical instruments, when they have put the different parts of their machinery together and set it to work, find, as in the chronometer for instance, that it is subject, in its performance, to many irregularities and imperfections; that in one state of things, there is expansion, and in another state contractions among cogs, springs, and wheels, with an increase or diminution of rate. This defect the makers have sought to overcome, and, with a beautiful display of ingenuity, they have attached to the works of the instrument a contrivance which has had the effect of correcting these irregularities, by counteracting the tendency of the instrument to change its performance with the changing influences of temperature. This contrivance is called a compensation; and a chronometer that is well regulated and properly compensated, will perform its office with certainty, and preserve its rate under all the vicissitudes of heat and cold to which it may be exposed. In the clock-work of the ocean, and the machinery of the uni verse, order and regularity are maintained by a system of compensation. A celestial body, as it revolves around its sun, flies off under the influence of centrifugal force, but im mediately the forces of compensation begin to act, the planet is brought back to its elliptical path, and held in the orbit for which its mass, its motions, and its distance were ad justed. Its compensation is perfect. The principle of compensation runs through every human life. God has set one thing over against another. A man who is denied something that others possess, has, we may rest assured, a compensating advantage. SE Subject: The Doldrums of Life. EA-FARING people have, as if by common consent, divided the ocean off into regions, and characterized them according to the winds; e.g., there are the "trade wind regions," the "variables," the "horse latitudes," the "doldrums," etc. The 66 equatorial doldrums," besides being a region of calm and baffling winds, is a region noted for its rains and clouds, which make it one of the most oppressive and disagreeable places at sea. The emigrant ships from Europe for Australia have to cross it. They are often baffled in it for two or three weeks, then the children, and the passengers who are of delicate health suffer most. It is a frightful graveyard on the wayside to that golden land. In crossing the equatorial doldrums, the mariner has passed a ring of clouds that encircles the earth,—a class of influence to which we are all subject. Are we not all certain in our journey to have days of deep melancholy, when all is dismal, when our hopes are baffled, and when we make no progress and yet have no calm ? Then indeed we suffer, and depression clouds the sky of all its light. Take courage, drooping heart, and remember that thou too hast a golden land in view. Homiletical Breviaries. No. CXXXVII. Subject: SENSE OF GUILT. "And Pharaoh sent, and called for Moses and Aaron, and said unto them, I have sinned this time: the Lord is righteous, and I and my people are wicked."-EXODUS ix. 27. A Divine judgment inflicted by Moses on Pharaoh had smitten the despot's conscience with a sense of guilt; and he confesses, "I have sinned this time." The text suggests one or two remarks concerning the influence of a sense of guilt upon the spirit of man. I. Under its influence man FEELS HUMBLED. Here is the greatest monarch of the old world, a proud Egyptian, inviting two poor Jews, Moses and Aaron, into his presence. For these men and for their class he had entertained the utmost contempt, and was ready to treat them at all times with haughtiness; but now his conscience was touched with a sense of his guilt, and he falls, as it were, in prostration before them. Ay, a sense of guilt N strips man of all his self-importance, and makes the greatest emperor of the world feel as nothing, and less than nothing, in the universe. II. Under its influence man RESPECTS GODLINESS. Why did he send for Moses and Aaron, rather than for other Israelites, or for men of his own country, the sages and priests of his own land? The reason is obvious. He recognized in them those moral virtues of which his conscience approved, and pious loyalty to that God against whom he had sinned. How often do we find great men of the world, when reduced to affliction and smitten with a sense of guilt, seeking the presence of the most godly, however poor. A man smitten with a guilty conscience craves the fellowship of no one but the godly and devout. III. Under its influence man VINDICATES THE ALMIGHTY. "The Lord is righteous, and I and my people are wicked," says Pharaoh. A smitten conscience always stands up for God: it cannot help it. All the accursed fiends in the universe are bound to say," Just and right are Thy ways." Mighty as Satan may be in the universe, he will never succeed in getting one solitary conscience on his side. All consciences go with the Holy One. "Conscience, what art thou? thou tremendous power! And art within ourselves another self, A master-self that loves to domineer And treat the monarch frankly as the slave."-E. Young. No. CXXXVIII. Subject: GOD OPPRESSED. "I am weary to bear them."-ISAIAH i. 14. Wonderful expression this. It suggests the idea that the Almighty is oppressed with the weight of human sins. Can it be that the sins of men on this little planet can press as a weight upon the heart of the Infinite? There is nothing absurd in the thought. Sin is no trifling thing. It strikes against the moral order of the universe and the heart of infinite purity. The holier a man is on this earth, the more distressing sin becomes to him. Jeremiah, David, Christ Himself, broke into rivers of tears at the sight. God, being the holiest, feels sin the most. The language indicates-I. The EXQUISITE MORAL SENSIBILITY of God. God is not mere force or intellect, He is heart, He is infinite sensibility. All events and actions vibrate on His nature, He is feelingly alive to all. He has pleasure and He has pain; and the one great painful thing to Him is sin, His soul "hateth" it. His loudest language to the universe is, “Oh, do not this abominable thing which I hate." The language indicates II. The AMAZING PATIENCE of God. If He is " weary" why does He "bear" it? Why does He not quench in the midnight of eternal extinction all the authors of sin? By a volition He could put out all the hells and all the sinners in His universe. Why does He not do it? This is the answer,-"The Lord is not slack concerning His promise as some men count slackness, but is long-suffering to usward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance." The language explains III. The REMEDIAL AGENCY of God. Because sin is so odious, so abhorrent, so oppressive to His nature, and the sinner so dear, He sent "His only begotten Son" into the world, in order to "put away sin" by the sacrifice of Himself. No. CXXXIX. Subject: GOD'S VOICE TO THE DESPONDING. "And the Lord said unto Joshua, Get thee up; wherefore liest thou thus upon thy face?"-JOSHUA vii. 10. The sin of Achan, which led to the defeat of the Israelites by the men of Ai, so overwhelmed Joshua with distress as a saint and a patriarch, that he falls prostrate on the ground. Two remarks are suggested, I. Despondency SOMETIMES OVERTAKES THE GREATEST MEN. Examples: Jacob, Elijah, David, etc., etc. Joshua was a great man, a man of great abilities, high courage, and strong faith in God, and yet we here find that he is crushed and falls to the ground. The causes of despondency are numerous-remorse, disappointment, forebodings, failure, etc. All are subject to it, although some more than others. II. Despondency MUST BE STRUGGLED AGAINST. "Get thee up." First: Regrets for the past are useless. What is done cannot be undone. Let the past bury the past. "Get thee up." Secondly: There is urgent work to do. Joshua had a stupendous work before him, and every man has urgent duties to fulfil. Resolute, earnest activity is required. "Get thee up." Thirdly: Despondency exhausts strength and unfits for work. Despair unstrings the nerves |