however good, for Him; if we turn away from Him that speaketh from heaven, we cannot hope safely. It is the hope in Him that purifies us, even as He is pure. It is just as we allow His eternal Word to be our stay; His perfect righteousness to be our acceptance and the completion of our being; His wisdom to be our guide, however difficult it may seem; His promise to cheer us, however adverse our circumstances; His love to be our solace, however terrible the denunciations of our conscience; His presence to be our joy, though heart and flesh may fail, that our hope is steadfast. As soon as we trust in ourselves, in our circumstances, in our powers, in our own experience, even in our faith or love, then our hope quivers and threatens to go out in darkness. If when we are contemplating either the fulfilment of the destiny of our humanity or the finishing of the mystery of God, we put our trust in one another, in our organization, in our wealth, in our successes, in our numbers, in the power of our preachers, in the progress of our civilization, in the admirable results of our past labours, instead of putting it in the Jehovah Christ, we shall be at once exposed to vicissitude and heartlessness and despair.

:

(2) It is a diffusive hope. The hope of the old Psalmist was strong enough to quicken the hope of all around him he sang, "Let Israel hope in the Lord." A true hope has the power of infusing itself into the heart of others. Enter a chamber of sickness; the symptoms have been exaggerated by sym

pathizing friends, the sufferer says that he is dying. It seems as though the last wrench of separation must soon be undergone. The shadows of death, the pains of hell, have gotten hold of him, and there is no hope. One or two may cherish some expectation of the sufferer's recovery, but it is not based on any deep reasons, and they are unable to break the spell. But a physician, wise and strong and kind, enterș, and after a few inquiries, when he is asked whether the beloved friend can recover, says, firmly and clearly, "I hope that he will." Then in a moment the dark spell is gone. The hope that is not ashamed has shone like a sunbeam into that troubled house, and diffused itself on every side.

A Christian's hope should be so thorough and earnest, and rational and life-giving, that he should be able to say by his very look, 'I hope in the Lord, why should not you?' and should thus move like incarnate sunshine through this dark world, the messenger of peace to broken spirits, the conqueror of death to the death-doomed, the minister of joy and gladness. When we think of the poor and downtrodden, the diseased and broken-hearted men, in whose melancholy homes no word of tender love and hope has ever been spoken; when we remember the miserable un-Christ-like faces and tempers that Christian people often shew; the ungenial hopeless lament which is the common language of those who call themselves Christians; the tempestuous hail of scathing words which they use to denounce their brethren;

the godless complaints made about God's providence ; the frightful forgetfulness of His promises, that is treated as venial, and even looked upon as a sign of special holiness, we do long that a company of Christ's disciples should begin to move through the world with a new word on their lips, and with the blessed diffusive power of a mighty hope emanating from them, to bid their brethren "hope in the Lord." Believe me, my brethren, just as your own hope is strong and divine, you will scatter and diffuse it on every side; you will be the ardent proclaimers of the gospel of hope; your very life will say to all around you, "Let Israel hope in the Lord."

(3) It is a practical hope. This characteristic is to be gathered out of the words "from henceforth." It is a hope that should take its start from the actual circumstances in which we are placed. The most remarkable fact about the hope of Israel was this, that it did not give way when it became the laughing-stock of the world; and these spirit-stirring words were in fact uttered again and again by the heroes of the old Covenant amid the deserted sepulchres of their fathers and the ruin of their temple, by the rivers of Babylon and in many a dire captivity. The ground of their hope was in the character of God, not in the fortunes of war; in the promises of Jehovah, not in the circumstances of earth.

Now a hope proves its divine character and source by rising up under the heel of the oppressor, by defying the crushing power of circumstances and the

temptations of the devil, and by saying, 'Whatever may happen from henceforth hope in the Lord.'

This too is the essence of your evangelic hope, that you may begin to-day, at this very moment, to cherish it. There are many of my hearers who have never done anything but fear. You fear that God will break His promise; that you will never remain true to Him; that you may become inconsistent, or faithless; that you are not children of God. Some of you have been all your lifetime subject to bondage through fear of death. Some of you exclaim, 'I have left a house of mourning to come into the sanctuary. I must go back to sorrow and care. How is it possible for me to begin at once to hope in God? Must I not wait till the cloud is overblown? Must I not postpone my hope till the sunbeams fall again upon my path?' Believe me, my brother, if you are resting in the Lord, that is sunshine. He is right, and wise, and good. There is no credit, no value in a hope which waits for sunshine. We have the power in God's promises wherewith to make sunshine; or at least, to see that which He does spread over us. "Let Israel hope in the Lord from henceforth.” With strange inconsistency, some of you often postpone your hope till the hour of sickness and death shall come; there are some of you fancying that it will be given to you then, to do what you cannot accomplish in the midst of the burdens and the business of life! You are half disposed to reject the help that is within your reach now, and to wait for some

supernatural quickening when the greatest need shall come. Surely the safest way to secure the consolation of a divine hope in the hour of anguish and parting, is to cherish it always. We stand in perpetual need of it, and it is always possible. The immediateness of all our duties, and the instancy of all God's demands, cannot be too frequently pondered. Let not Christians forget that the words "Now is the accepted time" are addressed to them with as much earnestness as to others. What do we know about to-morrow? Let us "hope in the Lord" to-day. Some one exclaims, 'May I not wait until I have received some clearer evidence of the love of God? May I not wait until this mystery of His providence shall be solved? May I not wait until I see whether the promises of God are more decidedly vindicated?' No! take the hint of my text, and in the hour of your deepest depression "Hope in the Lord from henceforth."

(4) But once more, the true hope is an eternal hope. "From henceforth, even for ever," is the watchword of our Psalm. Our hope should and must take the long "for ever" in. It has to do with unchanging realities, with an everlasting salvation; it looks forward to unseen things; it anticipates the ultimate fulfilment and accomplishment of all things that have been spoken by holy prophets since the world began. Without this element of our hope, this hold upon infinity, which is given us in the gospel, we might easily be discouraged. How else can we endure

H