Here we have man imploring the mercy of God. Moses prays -I. For a RIGHT ESTIMATE AS TO THE DURATION OF LIFE. "Teach us to number our days," etc. This implies (1) There is a certain judgment to be formed as to the duration of our earthly life. The prayer does not mean that we should know the hour, scene, or circumstance of our end; but that we should have a practical impression that life is temporary and preparative. (2) There is a tendency in man to neglect to form a true estimate of life. "All men think all men mortal but themselves." (3) The formation of a correct judgment is essential to practical wisdom. "That we may apply our hearts unto wisdom."* Moses prays-II. For a RESTORATION TO THE BLESSINGS OF LIFE. What are those blessings ? (1) Divine favour. "Return, O Lord, how long? and let it repent Thee concerning Thy servants." The meaning is, remove the sense of Thy displeasure, bless us with the consciousness of Thy favour. (2) True satisfaction, "O satisfy us early with Thy mercy; that we may rejoice and be glad all our days." Let the satisfaction be early. Come at once. Let it run through the whole of our life. "That we may rejoice and be glad all our days." Let the satisfaction be proportioned according to our past affliction. "Make us glad according to the days wherein Thou hast afflicted us." Let our future joys compensate for our past affliction. Moses praysIII. For a DISCOVERY OF DIVINITY IN LIFE. "That Divinity should appear (1) In His works, to men and their children. "Let Thy work appear unto Thy servants, and Thy glory unto their children." The glory of human life is to see the glory of God in all the works of His hand. That Divinity should appear (2) In the prosperity of man's own works. "Establish Thou the work of our hands upon us; yea, the work of our hands establish Thou it." No. CLIV. Subject: SOUL INSPIRATION FROM HUMAN SYMPATHY. "Whom when Paul saw, he thanked God, and took courage."-ACTS xxviii. 15. I. The sympathy of God is here manifested through the sympathy of man. Paul saw the disciples, and thanked God. II. The sympathy so manifested will inspire the soul with ennobling feelings. 1. Paul thanked God. Here is gratitude for the past and * See Homilist, Series II., vol. i., page 146. present. 2. He took courage. Here is strength for the future. III. The less may inspire and strengthen the greater. Paul, the greatest of the apostles, was helped by the sympathy of these Roman Christians. Even Christ was once strengthened from a similar source (Matt. xi. 25). W. H. Camberwell. No. CLV. Subject: THE PRESENT CONDITION AND POSITION OF THE REDEEMED. "What are these which are arrayed in white robes ? and whence came they?" etc.-REVELATION Vii. 13–17. I. The heavenly country is not the native home of the redeemed. Heaven was not the birthplace of even sinless man; and every one of the great multitude was born here, upon this earth, and here experienced that new birth (John i. 14) by which they became fit for the heavenly home. They entered that home from choice," they came." They were not asked whether they would enter this world; but were free to accept or reject the conditions by which they entered that. Their choice included a cross, “they came out of great tribulation." It included the use of means, just as a visit to a distant city includes the journey, or the visit to a foreign country includes the voyage. II. Their present character, position, and service spring from their past relation to the death of Christ. 1. Their character. They are in "white robes," the purity of the material expressing the purity of their character. This whiteness came from washing "in the blood of the Lamb.” 2. Their position springs from the same source; "therefore are they before the throne of God;" in the position occupied by the children of the king, or by those who have done service for the kingdom. They combine both; they are the sons of God" (John i. 12), and they have done service for their King and Father; they all bear the palm of victory (v. 9). 3. Their service has the same origin; "therefore," "they serve Him," etc. Here they often served under very opposite circumstances, "in hunger and thirst, in fastings often" (2 Cor. xi. 27). But there, how different (v. 16). Here they were all children of tears; but there (v. 17) God has wiped them all away. The Bible is the only book which gives us any information concerning those who have passed away from the earth. Camberwell. W. H. No. CLVI. A DOUBLE CONTRAST, AND AN ARGUMENT DRAWN THEREFROM. “For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life."-ROM. v. 10. 66 I. Contrasted conditions in the history of those who were now Christians: 1. "We were enemies." Some had answered to the description given in chapter i., others had doubtless been more virtuous heathen, or, like Paul, blameless as touching the righteousness of the Jewish law; but the description "enemies," is applied to all (Rom. viii. 7). 2. An accomplished fact, we were reconciled to God." Reconciliation may be mutual, or only one party may need to be influenced by its power. The latter is the case here; we are the only parties needing to be reconciled (see 2 Cor. v. 18). This is effected by Christ's death, as the manifestation of the love of God. II. Contrasted conditions in the history of Christ: 1. His death. Death is a time of captivity, therefore of weakness. Christ's death was surrounded by circumstances of sorrow and shame. 2. His life. The life which followed His death, when He led captivity captive, when sorrow was exchanged for the "joy set before Him," and the cross for the throne. III. The argument drawn from this double contrast. If God's Son by death could reconcile His enemies, how much more by His life will He complete and perfect their salvation, now that they are His friends. If in weakness He could accomplish the greater, how much more in strength can He insure the less, If by imprisonment in the tomb He could give us the liberty of the sons of God, how much more can and will He now sustain us in that freedom. W. H. Camberwell. SYMBOL OF PRAYER.-An eminent electrician, as the result of his experiments with the Atlantic cable, relates the following: "With a single galvanic cell, composed of a few drops of acid in a silver thimble, and a fragment of zinc, weighing a grain or two, conversation may readily, though slowly, be carried on, either through one of the cables, or through the two joined together at Newfoundland so as to form a loop." The Pulpit and its Handmaids. ORIGINAL SIMILITUDES. THE HERO.-A man must have the heroic in him before, in his writing, he can do justice to the life of a true hero. WIT.-There is all the difference in the world between a spontaneous flash of wit, going forth with conscience, and a studied witticism. The one is impious frivolity, the other is sanctified nature; the one is a rocket going up from the earth, making men stare and giggle for a moment; the other is forked lightning, coming down from heaven and filling men with awe. SPIRITUAL LABOUR.-As useful labourers in His vineyards depart, God raises others to take their place, and so the work goes on. Let us be humble. The Church, the world, and the great Master can do without us. The little work allotted to us let us do with all our might. Let us drop the seed of truth into the fields entrusted to our culture, resting assured that under the care of the great Husbandman, that seed will grow and ripen into fruit, whether we live or die, and that other men will enter the field and carry on the work. HOLINESS.-Goodness is not an impression, an act, or even a habit; it is a character, and characters are of slow growth. Goodness is not a manufacture which may be accomplished at once with an adequate amount of executive agency. It is a growth, and requires cultivation, planting, nourishing, and seasonal changes. It is not a commission that can be bought in the great army of God; it is a dignity that can only be won by long, severe, and triumphant fighting. FRIENDSHIP.-False friends forsake in adversity. When the tree is gay in summer beauty, and rich in aroma, bees will crowd around it and make music in its branches; but when the flower has fallen and the honey has been exhausted, they will pass it by, and avoid it in their aërial journeys. When your house is covered with sunshine, birds will chirp at your windows, but in the cloud and the storm their notes are not heard-such bees and birds are types of false friends. Not so with true friendship; it comes to you when your tree of prosperity has withered, when your house is shadowed by the cloud and beaten by the storm. LOVE. I have seen an oaktree, once the ornament of the forest, leafless, blanched, dead; but the ivy that had clung to it in its better days seemed to clasp it more tenaciously in its decay, as if so to cover every branch with its own beauty as to conceal the wrinkles and deformities that time had made. This is true friendship. AFFLICTIONS. - Great sufferings are often spiritually useful to the sufferer. They are storms to purify the dark atmosphere of his heart, they are bitter ingredients to make spiritually curative his cup of life. Suffer ing teaches man the evil of sin; for sin is the root of all anguish. Suffering developes the virtues -patience, forbearance, resignation. Suffering tests the character-it is fire that tries the moral metal of the soul. 66 PERVERTS. - Ecclesiastical converts, or, as Shakspeare would say, “ turn-coats," generally become bitter and intolerant towards the party they have deserted. There is no hatred like the hatred that grows out of old attachment; and in proportion to the strength of the old love will be the force and fury of the aversion. MISCHIEF. It requires no greatness to do mischief; the lowest can do this. The most contemptible characters are always the most successful in this work. INJUDICIOUS COMFORTERS.There are injudicious comforters in sorrow. There are two ways in which people who intend comforting the afflicted yet intensify their distress. One is, talking of incongruous subjects to a distressed mind. To talk as some do on the common-place subjects of Providence and Calvinian theology is only to irritate the sufferers. It is really as absurd as to strip a poor man of his garment in the cold and cutting winds of winter. The other way is, talking of suitable subjects in an unsuitable spirit. A man may talk of the right things but with a spirit unsympathetic, undevout, canting, cold, or dogmatic. Such a man's comfort is indeed vinegar on nitre. THE BODY.-The body is not. to be degraded by vile affections, but to be won and possessed in sanctification and honour; not to be crushed by violent asceticism, but to be controlled by quiet discipline; not to be desecrated as a prison, but to be honoured as a shrine. THE PHILOSOPHIC PREACHER. -A truly philosophic preacher is a rara avis. Among the pulpiteers of Christendom he 1S the one interpreter amongst the thousands." His teaching is ever marked by a variety of striking and priceless attributes. It has always freshness; he thinks for himself; he is not a channel, but a fountain. He does not ignore the thoughts of other men, nor disparage them, but uses them sometimes as vehicles through which to convey his own, and sometimes as torches to carry him further into the arcana of truth. He makes them tools by which to sink new shafts down to the hidden stratum of precious ore. What he speaks are not dogmas, but independent convictions, and therefore they are radiations of his own personal consciousness. He testifies only to what he has mentally seen, heard, and tasted. He speaks only of what he believes, and his speech is a necessity of his nature. He is comparatively regardless whether his deliverances accord or disaccord with the opinions of his auditors; truth to him is more than gold or fame. Hence there is always the freshness of the morning in his discourses. He gives what no one else ever gave in exactly the same form, tone, and relation before. Every mind is, in truth, a garden, whose soil and germs are in some respects so dissimilar to others, that if honestly cultivated it will have a bloom and aroma all its own. |