and when he was sacrificed in the mind, his own heart was sacrificed also. The voice of faith was to be obeyed rather than that of self. This is the first lesson of Christianity, "Let him deny himself." It is a lifelong warfare ; the noblest victory possible for a man to witness on the earth is to see his own selfishness conquered, slain, crucified. Entire self-surrender to God's will is one of the highest achievements a man can aim at in the present.

Thirdly: A victory revealing the trust God had placed in him.

He hesitated not for a moment to obey the divine injunction, thus showing himself worthy of God's confidence. Moral worth cannot be lessened by any process of trial or temptation. Gold becomes clearer and purer in the crucible. Evil cannot stand the test; Judas, Ananias, Sapphira, and others are sad examples of this; Abraham, Job, Daniel, and others bear the test gloriously. Be men, such that God may permit the forces of earth and hell to combine against you, without any fear of your ever denying the principles you profess, or breaking your allegiance to His throne; let your religion be strong and manly, one that will bear testing.

Fourthly: A victory which obtained fresh tokens of the divine love.

The promise is renewed

The more

vide 16-18 verses. numerous our deserts, the weaker we become, our strength is gradually exhausting; on the other hand, every fresh victory brings with it renewed strength. "But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run and not be weary; and they shall walk and not faint."

Observe-1. That a religion without sacrifice is worthless to us. We must sacrifice if we would live God-like-imitate Christ.

2. The shadow directs our attention to the reality-the Saviour's cross. "But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.' Uckfield. CYMRO.

RELIGION AN INTELLIGENT
SERVICE.

"Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind."-Rom. xiv. 5.

"RELIGION in all its forms is an intelligent service." This sentence, taken from a recently published sermon, expresses a most important truth. Misapprehending the genius of the Gospel, some have regarded it as utterly incompatible with the exercise of the higher faculties of man. While such a view of religion can only be sustained by a reference to a few isolated passages of scrip

ture divorced from the context, the broader view expressed in the above quotation is found to be in entire harmony with the whole scope of God's word. The words of Paul, "Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind," may be applied, not only to the particular ques tions of practice to which they first referred, but also to the whole range of Christian doctrine and ethics.

The possession of the Divine. favour in individual cases is not the result of

First Hereditary transmission. (Ezekiel xviii.)

Secondly: Fatalism. Whatever may be the mysteries associated with God's eternal decrees, salvation is always spoken of in scripture as the result of faith in Christ, and destruction as the result of unbelief. (John iii. 18.)

Thirdly: Formalism. (Isa. i.; Matt. xxiii, 23.) Faith is a trusting to Christ as the result of an intelligent apprehension of His character and claims. This does not necessarily imply (1) that any one who receives Christ should possess infinite knowledge of Him; nor (2) that all who receive Christ should have apprehensions of truth identical either in form or degree.

Three things, at least, are apprehended by all who receive Christ:

First: That man is a sinner. Secondly That Christ is his Saviour.

:

Thirdly: That in receiving Christ, the man begins to lead a new life.

Of these things "let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind.

F. WAGSTAFF.

is, engendered in idleness; but the moment it becomes sufficiently vice, it must quit its cradle and cease to be idle." Two of the evils connected with indolence are suggested in the text.

I. IT CREATES FALSE EXCUSES. "There is a lion without." The streets are very unlikely places for lions to resort to. Their home is the secluded glen in desolate forests and untrodden deserts. If ever they are found in streets it is by rare accident. The excuse, therefore, which the slothful man urges, is purely imaginary. "The lion in the streets" is a fiction of his own lazy brain. The slothful man is ever acting thus

First: In the secular sphere. Is he a farmer, he neglects the cultivation of his fields, because the weather is too cold or too hot, too cloudy, too dry or too wet. Is he a tradesman, he finds imaginary excuses in the condition of the market. Commodities are too high or too low. Is he an artizan, he finds difficulties in the place, the tools, or the materials. The industrious farmer finds no difficulties in the weather; the industrious tradesman no difficulties in the market; the industrious artizan no difficulties in the work marked out for him to do. The difficulties are purely imaginary-the dreams of idleness.

Secondly: In the spiritual sphere. When the unregenerate man is urged to the renunciation of his own principles and habits, and the adoption of new spirit and methods, slothfulness urges him to make imaginary excuses. Sometimes he pleads the decrees of God, sometimes the greatness of his sins, some

times the inconvenience of the season-too soon or too late. The slothful man lives in falsehood. He says there is a lion in the street, when the imperial beast is prowling the boundless forest.

II. IT CREATES UNMANLY EXCUSES. The very excuse he pleads, though imaginary, if true would be a strong reason for immediate action. "A lion in the streets!" Why, if he had a spark of manhood in him, a bit cf the stuff that makes heroes, he should rouse every power. The lives of the helpless women and children in the town are in danger when the ravenous beast treads the pavement, and humanity urges action. Laziness and cowardice are vitally associated. There is no heroism in the heart of indolence.

CONCLUSION: To true souls difficulties are a challenge, not a check to action. Difficulties are made to be conquered. It is only as difficulties are conquered that man's faculties are developed and his nature ennobled. "Difficulties," says a modern writer, "are God's errands; and when we are sent upon them we should esteem it a proof of God's confidence-as a compliment from God. The traveller who goes round the world prepares himself to pass through all latitudes, and to meet all changes. So a man must be prepared to take life as it comes; to mount the hill when the hill swells, and to go down the hill when the hill lowers; to walk the plain when it stretches before him, and to ford the river when it rolls over the plain. "I can do all things through Christ, which strengthened me."

(No. CCLXXV.)

THE INFLUENCE OF A DEPRAVED WOMAN.

"The mouth of strange women is a deep pit: he that is abhorred of the Lord shall fall therein."-Prov. xxii. 14.

SOLOMON here speaks from experience. Elsewhere he says,

66

And I find more bitter than death the woman, whose heart is snares and nets, and her hands as bands. Whoso pleaseth God shall escape from her, but the sinner shall be taken by her." We have already had occasion to refer more than once to the execrable character here referred to. There are two things in the text concerning the influence of a depraved woman.

I. IT IS DANGEROUS. a deep pit." This pit is

"It is

First: Artfully concealed. She does not leave its dark mouth yawning before the eye. In the garden of her fascinations it is concealed in a nook, encircled with lovely shrubs and sweetest flowers. The victim sees it not until his foot has slipped and he falls.

Secondly: It is morally dark. He who falls into it loses all moral light-the light of God's countenance, the light of pure love, the light of holy hope, the light of approving conscience. He is enwrapt in the gloom of sensuality and vice.

Thirdly This deep pit is terribly crowded. What millions of young men fall into it every age and are ruined. They live in the pit and are lost to their age.

II. IT IS DAMNING. "He that is abhorred of the Lord shall fall therein." "Her feet," says Solomon in another place, "go

See our remarks on chap. ii. 16-19; V. 3-12.

down to death, her steps take hold of him." Those that give themselves up to the influence of depraved women are abhorred of the Lord. "He is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity.' Solomon had fallen into this pit. "He had forsaken God, and God had for the time forsaken him.' And, oh! the agony of awakened conviction and felt abandonment. To what do the fearful words amount? To this, that in His righteous displeasure there is not a heavier curse which offended God can allow to fall upon the object of His wrath, than leaving him to be a prey to the seductive blandishments of an unprincipled woman --that if God held any one in abhorrence, this would be the severest vengeance He could take. Oh! let the youth hear that and tremble! There are few vices-if, indeed, there be any more sadly prevalent; and there are few-if, indeed, there be any more miserably destructive of soul, body, and estate. The abhorrence and the curse of God are in the haunts, whether open or secret, of profligacy and lewdness. Wish you to have proof of your being "abhorred of the Lord?" Court the company of the "strange If not, flee from the temptation, as you would from the opening mouth of hell!”(Wardlaw.)

woman.

CONCLUSION. -"Wherewithall shall a young man cleanse his ways, by taking heed thereto according to thy word." Let the Word of God, my young brother, be the "lamp to thy feet. "By the words of my lips," says the Psalmist, "have I kept thee from the paths of the destroyer." Cultivate purity in every faculty of being, in

every act of life.

Let the heart be clean and the life stainless. One hour's pollution may stain a whole life. Life is made up of littles. The pasture land of a thousand hills is but separate blades of grass. The bloom that mantles the prairies is but a combination of separate flowers.

(No. CCLXXVI.)

A TERRIBLE EVIL AND A SEVERE CURE.

"Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child; but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him."-Prov. xxii. 15.

I. Here we have a TERRIBLE EVIL. Foolishness bound in the heart. By foolishness is meant moral depravity, which in a child is something negative, and in an adult something positivea tendency and a habit of going wrong.

First: Its deprivation of goodness in its first stages. Depravity exists in the heart of a child in a negative form, and this is bad enough. The deprivation of the means of life leads to death, the deprivation of good leads to evil. So it turns out that as sure as the child grows up it develops evil in its most positive forms. Where benevolence is not rooted selfishness grows, and from its roots spring all the branches of evil that curse the universe.

Secondly: The abnormal condition of parents. A man's physical constitution, temper, and propensities, are undoubtedly modified by his moral character. The drunkard, the glutton, the debauchee, change to a great extent the constitutional powers and tendencies of his being. Whatever is constitutional he transmits to his offspring. The

tendency to drunkenness, gluttony, sensuality, is obviously transmitted. They are bound

up in the heart of the child. Thirdly: The corrupt social influence under which the child is trained. The human infant comes into a world where the social atmosphere is full of the elements and seeds of moral corruption. Thus it is that moral evil extends over the race, runs down from generation to generation, and is found bound up in the heart of the child. Here we have

II. A SEVERE CURE. << The rod of correction." The rod does not necessarily mean corporeal punishment. This is not the most painful rod, nor is it the most effective for spiritual ends. The words suggest

First: The infliction of pain. Disciplinary pain may consist in restraint of liberty, food, pleasure-may consist in the disapprobation of love. The frown of a loving father is often a severer lash than any material rod. They consist in moral conviction, working in the child a deep sense of the sinfulness of his conduct. The Great Father employs pain in the correction of evil-afflictive dispensations and the moral convictions of his spirit.

It

Secondly: The infliction of pain from a benevolent disposition. The infliction of pain, whether corporeal or moral, from caprice or revenge, is not corrective, but the reverse. deepens and strengthens the evil. The child must be chastened not for our pleasure, but for the child's profit. (Heb. x. 12.) Injudicious chastisement, ill timed, ill tempered, ill adapted to the case, and ill proportioned in measure, will effec