IV. CHRIST'S WORD HAS BEEN PROVED TO PREVAIL IN THE VERY PRESENCE OF DEATH. When on earth, His voice was heard above the tempestuous sea and the deadly fever; and the dead daughter on her bed, and the widow's son upon the bier, and the friend and brother in the grave awoke under its power. The presence of death will not dismay the child of God any more than, or so much as, the distant thought of death. "O death where is thy sting? O grave! where is thy victory? Thanks be to God, who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ."

LESSONS.

FIRST MORNING LESSON.

"THE PLACE WHEREON THOU STANDEST IS HOLY

GROUND"
(Exod. iii. 5).

THE biography of great men is not confined to public events. It relates the incidents which are private, and describes the experiences which are spiritual and account for visible results. Thus it was with Moses; we must be with him in the wilderness in order that we may understand his conduct at the court of Pharaoh and at the head of the host of Israel.

I. TRUE SANCTITY IS CONFINED TO NO PLACE. To Moses the desert was a temple, and the acacia thorn a shrine. A spot before indistinguishable from any other in that waste, where the flocks found their pasture or the wild beast his lair, became henceforth holy in the memory of this servant of the Lord.

II. THE PRESENCE OF THE LORD AND THE REVELATION OF HIS MIND IMPART TRUE HOLINESS TO THE PLACE WHICH IS THEIR SCENE.

It needs not that princes should lavish their wealth, that architects should embody the conceptions of their genius, that priests should celebrate magnificent rites, that psalms should echo and incense float through aisle and dome, in order that a place should become consecrated and sacred to the service of the Eternal. Where God meets with any soul of man, reveals the majesty of His attributes, the righteousness of His law, the tenderness of his love, there is a holy place.

III. FROM A HOLY PLACE THERE MAY SOMETIMES BE DATED A DIVINELY CONSECRATED SERVICE. True holiness is not so much in the place as in the heart. A man's mission in the world is determined by the counsels and commands received by him in solitude

and silence. The holy ground of communion from which God's servants start imparts its holiness to the long path of its pilgrimage, to the varied scenes of his ministry. Moses could never forget the day of divine fellowship and revelation from which dated his conscious devotion, his holy service to Israel and to God. In how many great men's lives do we trace this same connection between holy communion and holy ministry! Work acceptable to God and beneficial to men would not have been achieved had not the power to perform it sprung from the holy point of contact where the Creator and the created meet.

IV. WE MAY MAKE A HOLY PLACE IF WITH ALL OUR HEARTS WE TRULY SEEK THE LORD. There is no spot which may not become the point of contact between the human spirit and the divine. In the lonely desert or the crowded city, in the peaceful home or the consecrated church, the divine presence may be realised and the divine blessing may be obtained. Earth may be filled with holy places and life with holy service.

THE CALL OF MOSES

(Exod. iii. 1-14).

WE make the best use of this narrative, which marks an epoch as well in the life of Moses as in that of Israel, when we take the past as the picture of the present. It teaches—

I. How GOD HEARS THE CRY OF HIS PEOPLE. Think of it. God's attention is drawn to the cry of a few poor slaves. “I have heard their cry." God hears prayer. Say not, "My way is hidden from God."

II. How GOD WORKS FOR THE DELIVERANCE OF HIS PEOPLE. 1. The training of Moses.

2. The symbolism of the burning bush. His people in the fire of affliction, but not consumed.

3. We are all under a yoke from which we need deliverance. III. How GOD CALLS MEN TO THE WORK OF THEIR LIVES.

1. After long preparation.

2. The spirit in which this call must be received is exemplified in Moses-intense modesty and shrinking humility, a feeling of insufficiency.

3. The help which God affords to all His true and faithful servants in accomplishing the work to which He calls them.

"AND HE LOOKED, AND BEHOLD THE BUSH BURNED WITH FIRE, AND THE BUSH WAS NOT CONSUMED

(Exod. iii. 2).

THIS sight represented the people of Israel in Egypt as despised

and afflicted, and yet not only existing but growing; and, in general, the cause and people of God in all ages. The bush burns with fire, and the bush is not consumed.

I. WHAT SENSE PERCEIVES IN REGARD TO THE CHURCH AND PEOPLE OF GOD.

1. Lowliness. They are not as a cedar, but as a poor common "bush." "God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the strong." The poor Israelitish slaves, under the mighty and tyrannical Pharaohs; the poor fishermen of Galilee, among the rulers and princes of this world. So it has ever been in the conquering and formative periods of the Church's history. How often, when the wall has to be built in troublous times, must it be recorded, "But their nobles put not their necks to the work of the Lord;" "Have any of the rulers or of the Pharisees believed on Him?”

2. Fierce opposition at work. "The bush burned with fire." How often and fiercely have the fires of persecution, of affliction, reproach, burned in the Church and among the people of God! And there are fires more searching still. Infidelity, worldliness, pride, temptations in a thousand forms, the flesh warring against the spirit. How can Christ's spirit, and faithfulness to God, live amongst it all? How long will the bush last in such devouring fire?

II. WHAT HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE PROVE IN REGARD TO THE CHURCH AND PEOPLE OF GOD. From "Cain, who was of that wicked one and slew his brother," down to the present time, the bush has been burning; still it is "not consumed." Often has its end been confidently predicted, but it has not yet come. God's people have been "eaten up as bread," mown down as grass, but ever-new harvests have sprung up: New armies have been "baptized for the dead," and have stood in rank to receive the fiery darts of the enemy. Candour, wonder, common reason, must surely turn men "aside to see this great sight, why the bush is not burned."

III. WHAT FAITH KNOWS IN REGARD TO THE CHURCH AND PEOPLE OF GOD. That God is "in the midst of the bush." That explains the past, and gives confidence and strength for the future. "God is in the midst of her; the Lord shall help her, and that right early." No strength can overcome her; for greater is He that is for her than all that are against her. Boasted enlightenment and science cannot quench or dim her light; for "the Lord God is her everlasting light." Temptations and trials cannot finally overcome her; for the Divine Intercessor prays for her that her "faith fail not." And what is true of the Church as a whole is true of her meanest member. "Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you

the kingdom." Nothing but the dross will be consumed by the fiercest fires; only the bands of your sloth and earthliness and sin will be burned in the furnace; for He stands by you who is "in the form of the Son of Man."

FIRST EVENING LESSON.

"WHY IS IT THAT THOU HAST SENT ME?”
(Exod. v. 22).

"THE night is darkest before the dawn." The circumstances which preceded the deliverance and exodus of Israel were especially distressing and oppressive.

It cannot be wondered at that the Israelites and their leaders were disheartened, and that the discouragement extended even to Moses himself. As was his wont, he took his trouble to the Lord, asking in the depth of his distress, "Why is it that Thou hast sent me?"

I. THE SENSE OF INSUFFICIENCY IS NOT WHOLLY BAD. Remembering the long bondage of Israel and the cruel despotism of the Pharaohs, we cannot be surprised that Moses sometimes felt that his was a hopeless task. Possessing the confidence neither of Israel nor of Egypt, he must have felt how inadequate were his powers for a ministry so vast and so difficult. Who of the ser

vants of the Lord has not again and again experienced the same difficulty and distress? It is well that we should know ourselves, the limitations of our powers, and the inadequacy of our

resources.

II. THE SENSE OF INSUFFICIENCY PREPARES FOR RECEIVING DIVINE AID. The mind which is confident in its own strength is little fitted for the service of God. The mind that is pervaded by a consciousness of personal ignorance and feebleness is in an attitude adapted to the reception of a divine revelation of truth and a divine impartation of strength. "To those who are of no might He increaseth strength."

III. THAT WE ARE NOT ABLE TO UNDERSTAND WHY GOD SHOULD HAVE CALLED US TO DO A CERTAIN WORK IS NO REASON WHY WE SHOULD BE UNWILLING TO OBEY HIS CALL. That was a noble utterance of one servant of the Lord, "Here am I, send me ; and that was an avowal no less becoming and just which proceeded from another of the Lord's servants, "I can do all things. through Christ who strengtheneth me." God is not restricted in the choice of His agents. If He makes use of such as seem to men unlikely, it is that the excellency of the power may be of God and not of us. When we are convinced that God has

appointed for us a certain path of service, we shall do well to follow it without concerning ourselves as to the reasons of the divine selection, and without distressing ourselves with reflections and lamentations upon our personal infirmities and our conscious insufficiency.

CHILDREN'S SERMON.

"STUBBLE INSTEAD OF STRAW"
(Exod. v. 12).

THE distinctions which people make between different kinds of work in the world are very foolish and arbitrary. The man who carves ornaments on a fine tower would be very foolish if he were to despise the man that helps to lay the foundations of it; for without the foundations where would the ornaments be? The mighty Pharaohs made a great deal of their wealth by being master-brickmakers. Nearly all the bricks made in Egypt were made by their workmen, and sold by their officers. And among those workmen were the poor Israelites. Each man had to make so many bricks as his day's work. Besides clay from the Nile, they needed straw to compact the brick, just as the plasterer uses hair. The Israelites, having offended Pharaoh, were told by him for he was a great tyrant-that they would have to go far and wide and gather stubble out of the fields, in room of getting straw put down to their hand. Well, we have all our tasks of one kind or another, and we need "straw" for the bricks we have to make. But there are masters of our own making more tyrannical than Pharaoh, who are always ordering us to use "stubble instead of straw."

People who use stubble instead of straw.

I. THOSE WHO COVET THE DISTANT RATHER THAN THE NEAR. The poor Israelites had to go over all the land seeking for stubble. "The eyes of a fool," says Solomon, "are in the ends of the earth." "Distant fowls have fine feathers," says our own proverb. "If I were only in America or Australia," says one, "how much money I should make!" "Had I lived some hundreds of years ago," says another, "what a hero I should have been, or what a splendid poem I could have written!" "Were it my lot," says another, "to live a hundred years after this, when those discoveries and inventions which are just dawning on the world will be realised, what I could and would do!" So speaks the poor brickmaker under the tyranny of his own ignorance and wilfulness and sloth. God puts the "straw of present opportunities down before our eyes, and says, " Use that." Learn