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the whole earth will do rightly; we may go on to believe that our bitter trials, and sore anxieties, and the dark mysteries of God's providence are more than world-wide purposes, are indeed the throbbings of a Father's heart. We may pray for conformity with these purposes, but the highest step of all, is when we rise into holy thankfulness at the triumph of God's will over us, when we can praise, and feel complacency in the purposes of God. Our Saviour rejoiced in spirit, and thanked God for this arrangement, because He felt the amplitude of its provision. Instead of its being narrow or restricted in its range, the principle of discrimination was the widest and noblest that can be conceived. Were it confined to those whose mental qualifications give them power to test all its evidence, to review all its arguments; if it were revealed to the wise and prudent and hidden from the babes, it must have left the overwhelming majority of those who heard it, destitute of the power and disposition to accept it. If it could only be expressed in learned phraseology, or demanded preliminary knowledge and education, or required long training, what possible hope could there be for the generation that is passing away? But it is made known to the babe; it is its own preliminary; it carries with it its own introduction. The tenderness of the Saviour's love, the grace of the Father's heart, the powers and possibilities of the truth as it is in Jesus Christ, come with clearness and force to the little child, as well as to the profound.

philosopher. The philosopher, the "wise and prudent" man may know a good deal more of the language and bearing of certain statements, but as to the foundation-work of holy spiritual life, he knows no more than, and hardly feels differently from, the little child. The wise and prudent man will clear away prejudices and explain away difficulties, but he will know no more than the child does, of the central Light, and Power, and Love. Now the babe may never become one of the wise and prudent, and therefore if the alternative were true, the babe, by the quality of his mind, would be effectually shut out of the advantages of this revelation; but it is the great work of the Holy Spirit to renew all classes of mind and teach them as little children to enter into the kingdom of heaven. The babes may never become wise and prudent and learned, but the greatest mind may and can humble itself, and become as a little child. Hence, this is the noblest and broadest offer of mercy. If God's revelation of Himself is to reach the heart of man, it is to reach it by this condition, and the Saviour acquiescing in it as the will and good pleasure of the Father, thanks God for the breadth and splendour of the provision thus made for us.

The Lord Jesus Christ praised God further for the mode in which this arrangement satisfies the yearnings of His own heart, for He proceeds to cry to the weary and toiling, " Come unto Me, all ye that labour

and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” It was His consciousness of power to reveal the Father that made Him say to the mind exhausted in its search after truth, 'Come unto Me, and I will give you rest; the rest of satisfaction; the peace of victory; repose after your long and studious cares. I will appease your desires in a way that you never conceived possible. You have been interrogating Nature, but I am more than Nature, and can not only reply to your deepest questionings about it, but give you broader, higher, fuller answers. You labour and are heavily laden with the burdens that you bear, you feel that every response which every portion of the universe gives to your painful inquiry suggests more than it actually supplies. Come unto Me, and I will give you rest. I bring close to your heart that after which all your perturbed inquiries and anxious forebodings only guessed-I make known to you the Father.' Christ felt that He had power to soothe the heart plagued with its own sinfulness. He could take the sin of the world away. He could give rest by cutting out the cancer of sin; by inspiring a divine hatred of sin, and an engrossing love to the Fountain of all goodness.

To man, hampered by circumstances, overborne by temptation, distracted by foul and evil memories, who cannot be soothed by the wisdom of the world, but may be hardened by doubts and confused by prejudice and tradition,-He cries, Come unto Me,

and I will give you rest; relinquish your will to My guidance; yield your awful, precious, wonderful soul to My grace; be subdued by My gentleness; be saved by My power, and you shall find eternal rest."

SERMON V.

HOPE IN THE LORD.

PSALM CXXXI.

Lord, my heart is not haughty, nor mine eyes lofty: neither do I exercise myself in great matters, or in things too high for me. Surely I have behaved and quieted myself, as a child that is weaned of his mother: my soul is even as a weaned child. Let Israel hope in the Lord from henceforth and for ever.

HUMILITY is the root of hope.

Hope is the blossom of meekness. The sorrows of a broken heart, the self-restraint of a meek and quiet spirit, the posture and temper of a little child; these are the forerunners and the sources of a lively hope. It is always advantageous to discover and understand a law of the Spirit of Life, in Christ Jesus. The law which links humility with hope is such a law. As these graces of the true child develop themselves in the heart of a man, he cherishes the divine, the sublime conviction, that it is God the Spirit who is working within him, "both to will and to do." It is not the common nor the worldly way of looking at these characteristics of Christian life, but it is none the less likely

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