blessing us. Who can tell what boundless capacities of good are folded in that little infant, what germ of genius looks out through those wondering eyes? Truly

no mother knows what she has in her cradle." (2) When He restores a life which is nearly lost in death, when He lays His arresting hand on the consuming fever, His reviving hand on the wasted and pulseless frame, when from uttermost prostration He leads backtofulness of recovered strength. (3) When He quickens a soul that has been dead in sin; then, assuredly, does His Spirit come near to us; then does He come into the very closest contact with our human nature, and "visits us indeed." (4) When He awakens a slumbering church to a renewal of spiritual life and energy.

God may visit us (a) of His own spontaneous, abounding goodness; (b) as the result of our holy life, and earnest, expectant prayer. It is well for "His people" when they have the seeing eye and responsive heart which will recognise His presence and own the touch of His uplifting hand.

BRISTOL.

WILLIAM CLARKSON, B.A.

IF the hand of autumn writes any word on all the landscapes, that word is, "passing away." Yet we have an instinct, a heartache for what will "not pass away." Christ meets that, and meets it not only in Himself, but as He here says in His "words."

I.-CHRIST'S WORDS, AS A TEACHER, shall not pass away. No age can outlive them; no coming teacher supersede such utterances as, "Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you," &c., or "God is a Spirit," "The Father seeketh such to &c., worship Him." The octave of the Beatitudes gives imperishable music. The woes on sin will never be repealed, the benedictions on virtue never recalled. At the end of human history, when its last sage has uttered his richest wisdom, the verdict of humanity about Jesus will be, "Never man spake like this Man."

II-CHRIST'S WORDS, AS A COMFORTER, Will not pass away. There are words that might have suited the savage in some of his wild woes that would pass away in the progress of civilisation;

there might be conventional comfort suited to phases and forms of sorrow that depended upon But country, class, or century. Christ's consolations are for the deepest heart-wounds of our common humanity. They are for the perplexed, like Philip, the bereaved, like Martha and Mary, and the sinful, like Mary of Magdala. And such men and women are everywhere.

III-CHRIST'S WORDS, AS A KING, will never pass away. How many royal proclamations are effete; how many enactments have been repealed. Bonaparte, Cæsar, even Solon were lawmakers for a district, and for a day. Our Lord's legislation is not affected by date or by boundaries of space. In all ages, and lands, and worlds His claims are just; His commandments good; His laws binding.

'Luke i. 48.

(Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity.)

"FOR HE HATH REGARDED THE LOW ESTATE OF HIS HANDMAIDEN: FOR, BEHOLD, FROM HENCEFORTH, ALL GENERATIONS SHALL CALL ME BLESSED."

IN the Magnificat, the Virgin's heart broke out into a song of joy. Her idea of fame is that she shall be called "blessed." Some one has called it a true woman's true thought. It is certainly a true Christian's thought. Analyse it.

1.-A DESIRE FOR IMMORTALITY. Whether it is possible to be content with immortality of name and not of person, some may ask. The very desire for the former seems to be an unconscious cry for the latter. Not to be buried out of sight, out of thought, out of affection for evermore, is the instinctive longing of the human heart. Whether it be in the immortality of fame, or the truer and deeper immortality of soul, our nature cries, "Give me the glory of going on, and not to die."

estedness is the key-note of moral music, the foundation of moral strength, the lustre of moral virtue. Other aims will ever be subordinate in the Christian's heart, all other successes but failures if there be not success in this.

"All things do serve Thee, Lord, All creatures, great and small; Make use of me, of me, my God, Though meanest of them all."

III.-A DESIRE FOR USEFUL

NESS THAT SHALL BE PERMANENT

THOUGH INDIRECT. It was through her child Mary expected to be of such signal and such perennial blessing. And the truly Christian man thankfully believes that in widening circles, long after his earthly life has ended, his influence in healing and helping the world will tell. In authorship, in preaching, nay, in all good works, the hope of the earnest heart is that some reader, some hearer, some subject of his influence will be quickened to extend, and to hand down with multiplied force the truth it uttered. The vibrations for good will continue, and perchance swell into richer music long after the hand that first awakened them is powerless in the grave.

IV. A DESIRE FOR USEFULNESS IS ACHIEVED ONLY BY DIVINE INFLUENCE.

THAT

It was God

who was about to make her a world-wide and a lasting blessing. Hence there was jɔy in Him; all was traced to Him, and the desire became sanctified, the hope heightened, even to consecration. The true Christian's thought is this, that his immortality, his usefulness, his all, are from God. God has magnified him.

EDITOR.

Ephesians iv. 26, 27. (Nineteenth Sunday after Trinity.)

"BE YE ANGRY, AND SIN NOT:

LET NOT THE SUN GO DOWN UPON YOUR WRATH : NEITHER GIVE PLACE TO THE DEVIL"

LORD BACON said, "To seek to extinguish anger utterly is but a bravery of the stoics; we have better oracles, 'Be ye angry, and sin not.'" These better oracles our text gives us; and they imply that there is an anger which is not sinful. Jesus Christ "looked round about with anger," yet He was sinless. Moreover His declaration, in the Sermon on the Mount, as to the man "who is angry with his brother without a cause," being guilty of evil, implies that anger with a cause may be excusable and even commendable. There is, however, an anger that is a crime against society, an

injury to the angry man himself, and a sin against Almighty God. We are led to consider from the teaching of our text

I. THAT ANGER IS SINFUL WHEN THE EXCITEMENT IS CON

TINUED. When "the wrath," which Alford calls "irritation," Ellicott "the angered mood," is prolonged, it developes either in peevishness, sulkiness, or hot revenge. These are sinful, it may be in differing degrees, yet all distinctly sinful. Aristotle reckons there are three kinds of anger, the hasty, the bitter, the implacable; that of these three the last is worst. As of old the curfew bell enjoined that all fires should, before midnight, be extinguished, so a moral curfew bell may well peal out the inspired strain, "Let not the sun go down on your wrath.”

II. THAT ANGER IS SINFUL WHEN ITS INDULGENCE WORKS INJURY TO SELF OR ΤΟ OTHERS.

Whenever there is a giving "place

to the devil," harm is done. By evil anger room is given to the devils (a) of madness. The burning face, the quivering lip often tell of moral insanity, for reason has lost its balance under the stroke of passion. (b) Of misery. "Ashes fly back in the face of him who is furious," says an old proverb, and these ashes are the sign of wretchedness. (c) Of bitter speech. Even when Moses waxed hot he spoke unadvisedly with his lips. (d) Of slander, which is the synonym of Satan, the chief devil. (e) Of treachery, the coward's art; (f) Of spitefulness. "Thou shalt not bear any grudge," is a more than Levitical command. All such anger is sin, and needs (1) Pardon. (2) Conquest. They who are conscious of temptation may well find a lodgment in their hearts for Robert Hall's sincere, and repeated, and answered prayer, "O Lamb of God, keep me calm."

EDITOR.