vision the great poet of the Middle Ages saw whirled like the autumn leaves, round and round the outer circle of the prison-house, aimlessly following the flutter of a giddy flag, hateful alike to God and to His enemies, whom, in his energetic language, Heaven despises and Hell itself rejects. These are they of whom, in language no less energetic and intense, the divine poet of the Apocalypse exclaims: "I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth." It is sad, but it is true, that they are nothing, they do nothing, they learn nothing, they add nothing to the sum of human happiness-numerus et fruges consumere nati; their lives, one had well nigh said, worth less to humanity than the very flower that grows upon their graves. Oh! be not you like these. Be something in life, do something, aim at something; not something great, but something good; not something famous, but something serviceable; not leaves, but fruit. You are planted in the vineyard of God, you are watered by the dews of Heaven; let the great Husbandman not look in vain, when He looketh that ye bring forth grapes; for if not, then lo! even now, in the hands of the watchers and the holy ones, the lifted axe may be swinging through the parted air, even now the dread fiat be issuing forth: "Cut it down; why cumbereth it the ground?"

2. But there are others who hunger and thirst indeed, but it is not for righteousness; hunger and thirst, oh, how fiercely, oh, with what futile pain, spending their money for that which is not bread, and their labour for that which satisfieth not. Some - hundreds-like Balaam, are greedy of gain, and if they succeed, then all that they touch seems to turn to gold, and, like

the foolish king of the legend, they starve in the midst of it. Or they are greedy of sensual pleasure, they rush madly to the "scoriac river of passion," and consume their very beings with draughts of its liquid fire. Or they are greedy of power and fame, and chase those dancing bubbles till at a touch they burst, while, with the echoes of mocking laughter, they themselves fall through some sudden gap of death into the rolling waters of the prodigious tide below. Over and over again, in book after book, in age after age, does Scripture warn us of the emptiness, the unsatisfactoriness of human wishes; it compares them to the vanishing brooks dried up in the summer heat, when they are needed most; it compares them to broken cisterns which will hold no water. A modern army was once crossing a desert, scorched with heat, agonized with thirst; suddenly before them gleamed lakes and rivers, green with their grassy margins, bright with the soft inversion of reflected trees. They pressed forward in their weary hunger, in their raging thirst; warned in vain that it was but a mocking phantom, they pressed forward only to be undeceived with double anguish; they pressed forward to find nothing but the circle of sun-encrimsoned wilderness, nothing but the glare of illuminated sand. They had seen that mirage which is the truest type of the devil's promise and the worldling's hope, the false spectre of waters which are not, and of fruits that fail,— that mirage of the desert, which is hut too apt to deceive us all, till death disenchants the dreaming eyes.

3. But "blessed are they that hunger and thirst after ' righteousness for they shall be filled;" filled with the heavenly manna of which he that gathered least had yet no lack, sated with the water which he who drinketh shall thirst no more. There is no false glamour,

no raging hunger, no scorching thirst in those green pastures, beside those still waters, whither God leadeth His children's feet. The voice of Scripture, which warns us so often of the perils of being deceived by dangerous desires, tells us also again and again that the kingdom of heaven is righteousness, and joy, and peace. "Great is the peace," sang David, " which they have who love Thy law." "Her ways," said Solomon, "are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace." But if any doubt, I will not ask them to believe on the testimony of Scripture only. Scripture is but one of God's revelations, and none of His revelations can contradict each other. But take in hand the unsuspected page of history; read the rich volumes of biography; decipher the tablets of conscience as the light of God's law falls full upon them: will they contradict the warning? will they alter the advice? Nay, let the best-read here find me in all the history of the dead, point to me among all the myriads of the living, but one single man, be he the most gifted, the most successful, the most superior, who has been satisfied and supported by what earth can give, or who, having eaten the fruits of sin, has not found them venomous and bitter; or, on the other hand, one single man, be he the very poorest and most despised, who, having with his whole soul sought righteousness, has not thereby been fully satisfied, infinitely content— find me, I say, but one permanently happy worldling, but one permanently miserable Christian, and I will admit that Scripture errs. But, my brethren, you cannot, even with all the records of the ages and all the literature of the godless to aid your search. Wickedness, even exalted on the throne, even robed in the purple, even lolling at the feast, is gnawed by the secret viper at the heart; righteousness, even lurking in the

catacomb, even tortured in the dungeon, even quivering in the flame, rejoiceth in its deepest sorrow, and is assurance, and life, and peace.

Observe, we do not pretend to offer you a life of unbroken prosperity or of undisturbed repose. Righteousness will give you love, joy, peace; but it will not give you an invincible amulet against misfortune, or a continuous immunity from pain. Pain, bereavement, failure may be the needful fire to purge away the dross of your nature from the seven-times refined gold. Let Satan tempt you with the transient spasms of enjoyment or the mean baits of ease: the service of God disdains such lower allurements. Yes, the path of evil is broad, and smooth, and downwards, and near at hand; but toil stands in the path of righteousness, and that path is narrow, and steep, and rough; but who would exchange its saddest sigh for the laughter of fools, which is as the crackling of thorns under a pot? Who would exchange the tears which God's hand shall wipe away for "the troubles of the envious or the fears of the cowardly, the heaviness of the slothful, or the shame of the unclean?" Nay, who would exchange the banquet of the prodigal at its maddest and most luxurious moment for the sternest duty and the heaviest affliction of his Father's home? Whatever happens to you, if you hunger and thirst after righteousness, you shall be satisfied; for then your hunger is not for the stones of the wilderness, but for the tree of life; your thirst not for poisoned fountains, but for the river pure as crystal proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. For you that tree was planted; for you that river flows: Christ is the river of living water; Christ is that tree of life. "All things are yours, and ye are Christ's, and Christ is God's." Young as you are,

have you never thirsted for something to calm, and satisfy, and give peace to your souls? Well, he that cometh to Christ shall never hunger, and he that believeth on Christ shall never thirst. And if you have failed to win that blessing, may there not be a special meaning for you in that appeal, "Oh that thou hadst hearkened to my commandments; then had thy peace been as a river, and thy righteousness as the waves of the sea"? But if you have hearkened to God's commandments-if you have at least striven to hearken to God's commandments-then you see that what God gives He gives richly, He gives abundantly. It is no dribbling rivulet of peace which He pours into the thirsty soul, but a rejoicing river; no transitory torrent, but an abounding tide; rising in His children as water rises in a fountain, dwelling in them as water dwelleth in a mighty sea. This is His promise, and, if we fulfil its conditions, it can never fail; for the mouth of God hath spoken it, and God is true.

May 7, 1871.