and silently at work. Those who are familiar with tropic forests tell us that for months they look sombre and monotonous, till suddenly on some one day they will rush into crimson blossom, and blaze in masses of floral splendour under the noonday sun; but the glory, so seemingly instantaneous, is in reality a lengthened work, and the sun, and wind, and rain, and the rich air, and glowing sky, nay, even the lost promise and deciduous leaves of many a previous season, must have lent their influence for years together, before the issue of them can stand thus manifest in the eyes of wondering men.

(3.) And more often the conversion of the heart is not even in appearance sudden, but in a long silent growth in grace and holiness, preceded by the day of small things. In the unseen world as in the seen, every man is moulded by myriads of influences, each small as a grain of mustard seed, each rich with a principle of life; and as in nature, so in the spiritual life, but one seed, alas! of many millions may be brought to bear. None can tell which seed shall bring forth. In one man all are hopelessly wasted, on the barren soil, in the rocky obstinacy, in the choked and thorny life; yet, in another, a look, a word, a flower, a breath of spring, a touch of sunset, a sudden memory, the kind warning of a companion, the verse of a hymn, a prayer once uttered at the mother's knee, may make the difference between life and death. A spiritual lustre falls over forgotten or familiar words, like that which gleamed over the graven gems of Aaron's breast, and makes them awful with oracular import, a Urim and a Thummim, a revelation and a light.

The beginnings then are small, and secondly the growth is silent-first the blade, and then the ear,

last of all the full corn in the ear. He, in whom it is working, may not at first sight seem different from others, different from what he was before; but he is in reality an altered man. Within him all is different; thoughts which he once harboured with complacency, he now rejects with horror; hopes which once absorbed his energies, now shrink into nothingness; little serpentine envies which once embittered his spirit, now perish or creep away. All dark things, all shameful things fly from the soul that lies open to the sunlight. A hush comes over the turbulence and the sadness of his spirit, and in that hush he hears distinctly, hears, while his heart thrills within him, the still small Voice of God.

III. But thirdly and lastly, though the beginning be never so small, the development never so silent, the victory is final. It was so with the little seed of Christianity in the world. Paganism fled vanquished before it. One abomination after another vanished; one cruelty after another was repulsed; one high quality after another was recognised in principle; one sweet virtue after another realised in practice. So was it in the world; so, my brethren, will it be in you. If conversion have indeed begun in you (and, oh, be sure that if it have not begun, your life is at this moment a sad, a sinful, and a wasted life), but if conversion have begun in you, you will be also growing in grace, you will be growing day by day purer, humbler, more loving, more temperate, more contented, more certain day by day that your life is in God's hands. The process will begin by the gradual but certain victory over your besetting sin. If you would examine yourself before God, if you would test whether, even but like a grain of mustard seed, the kingdom of God is within you, you may

now;

do so simply and decisively by telling whether you feel a deepening dislike, whether you are engaged in an ever deadlier struggle, against the sin which most easily besetteth you. If you hate sin less than you did when you first were tempted, if familiarity with sin have made it seem less sinful, then look to it, for evil is before you. He who says I will struggle against sin hereafter, instead of saying I will struggle with it he who is content to fight with it in fancy" in the green avenues of the future," not in fact in the hot plains of to-day-will proceed to make excuses for it, will come at last not even to feel its horror. To put off repentance is to court ruin; to postpone the season is to perpetuate the sin. Even to hesitate is to yield; even to deliberate is to be lost. Take any instance of sin. Take evil thoughts, which are the fons et origo of every sin. You are tormented, say, by evil thoughts, by evil thoughts of envy, of hatred, of impurity. Do you really long that God would cleanse the thoughts of your heart by the inspiration of His Holy Spirit? Well, number to yourself the days in which you have not yielded to this temptation. "I did not yield to evil thoughts yesterday, or the day before, or for the last week" and if indeed a whole month have passed since you succumbed to this temptation, then thank God very humbly on your knees. "For the habit is first loosened, then eradicated." 1 If you can say then on your knees before God, honestly, in the light of your own conscience, —if you can say, I am struggling, I have, even in part, even for a time, succeeded,—then be sure that if you continue to be in earnest, it will soon be all right with you; be sure that then God is leading you by the hand, leading you by His loving Spirit into the land of 1 Epictetus.

righteousness. Yes, be sure in that case that you are not far from the kingdom of heaven now, nay, more, be sure that the kingdom of heaven is with you, and shall be in you. "For the kingdom of heaven is like unto a grain of mustard seed which a man took and sowed in his field; which is indeed the least of all seeds, but when it is grown it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches of it."

April 14, 1872.

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SERMON X.

INNOCENT HAPPINESS.

ECCL. xi. 9.

Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth; and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart, and in the sight of thine eyes: but know thou, that for all these things God will bring thee into judgment.

THERE are two ways, my brethren, in which this text may be read and understood. It may be read as the mocking accent of a pitiless irony; it may be read as the sincere counsel of a noble and loving heart.

According to the first view, the text would mean-Go, poor fool, and snatch such transitory enjoyment as thy youth and gaiety allow; the sea of things seen and temporal sparkles around thee, launch upon it thy little gilded bark, and spread every sail to the prosperous winds; but there, in the deep shadow of the future, hushed in grim repose, the whirlwind waits thee, and the painted shallop which now dances so gaily over the sunlit ripple shall soon be "a dismantled hull upon the troubled waters or a desolate wreck upon the lonely shore." Go then, rejoice; that mirth is but the fantastic prelude to disappointment and despair.

No doubt, my brethren, there was a time when, sated and cloyed with luxuries, and finding his mouth filled. with the ashes of such Dead Sea fruit, Solomon might