comes when the carnal man is painfully conscious that he has been cheated by unsubstantial images of greatness, wealth, and joy, whilst the precious realities themselves have never been proved in his soul.

There is a bitter awakening to the hollowness of a life of pleasure. "Take your pleasure and be blind" (v. 9). So many do take their pleasure, only at length to have their eyes open to startling, ghastly facts. The Arabs call the mirage "the devil's sea." God's sea is deep and wide, and its mighty fullness can satisfy the thirst of millions forevermore; but the mirages with which the tempter paints the air leave the infatuated to perish with thirst that they cannot for a moment allay. There is also a cruel awakening to the vanity of intellectual life. Great thinkers are often sorry they ever lifted the veil to find nothing behind but irrationality and despair. Sometimes suddenly, sometimes slowly, men awake from opiates to facts; awake to find their life false, their happiness superficial, their peril great. Then they sink into cynicism, lapse into despair, or, happily, look up if so be there may be hope. And yet, thank God for any light, shock, cry, call, smart, or sting that brings us into the daylight; anything is better than a muddled soul that mistakes phantoms for verities.

The blessed reality. The great peril is that

when men are freed from illusion they should fall into universal scepticism and hopelessness; lest they should conclude that all existence is a farce, a lie. An Eastern traveller confessed that he had been so often deceived by the mirage that when at last he saw the sea he could not believe that it was the sea, he thought it a bigger mirage than usual. But there is reality. "When he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father's have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger!" In Christ the bright reality is ours. "Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread? and your labor for that which satisfieth not? hearken diligently unto Me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness."

XXXI

MOMENTOUS MOMENTS

In that day: A vineyard of wine, sing ye unto it. I the Lord do keep it; I will water it every moment: lest any hurt it, I will keep it night and day.-Isa. 27: 2, 3.

T

HE significance of the moment grows

upon us the more we ponder it. It often gives expression to the long years which have preceded it, and color and character to many years which follow. A point of time, a moment's space, may indeed determine the vastest issues. We are appalled by the thought of geological epochs; yet moments in our life may possess far greater significance than these almost measureless stretches of duration. We can never tell how much we may be affected by any tick of the clock, so big with fate are the fugitive, elusive moments.

ous.

Some moments are intensely anxious and peril"And the devil led Him up, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time" (Luke 4: 5). In the infernal flashlight a dazzling panorama stands revealed, and our spirit may easily be confused and confounded In how short a space, in how sudden a manner,

may we be tried by terrible temptations! Many who fall into grievous sin can never understand how it came to pass; the dark magician perplexed and overwhelmed them as in the twinkling of an eye. "Suddenly are my tents spoiled, and my curtains in a moment" (Jer. 4: 20). Calamity falls upon us when we look not for it, and the whole fabric of our prosperity is ruined by a single stroke, as a pleasant tent is wrecked by a whirlwind. Some moments desolate a whole life. "In overflowing wrath I hid My face from thee for a moment" (Isa. 54: 8). What dreadful interludes are such moments!

Moments like to these

Rend men's lives into immortalities.

We lie at the mercy of dejection and despair. The lightning is for a second only, yet how it shatters and withers! And in the moment of that disastrous eclipse when God's face is hidden, what dark thoughts may be resolved, despairing words spoken, and desperate deeds done! "But they shall not go in to see the sanctuary even for a moment, lest they die" (Num. 4: 20). There are moments of daring unbelief, strange carelessness, unaccountable presumption, and wild passion, in which men are overtaken by fatal sins and judgments. How much we need the habit of caution and watchfulness! Only in fear and trembling can we work out our salvation. What

a joy to know that the Lord keeps His vineyard day and night, and watches over it every moment! In the dangerous hour let us look to Him for sympathy and help, and we shall prove that the God of eternity is also the God of the moment, strong to deliver and good to redeem.

Some moments are specially gracious. "Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee: hide thyself for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast (Isa. 26: 20). A few moments spent with God in prayer work miracles. When fortune frowns and perils are imminent, hide thyself for a moment in thy chamber, and there will be rainbow tints in the cloud and the morning star on the hem of night. "And now for a little moment grace hath been showed from the Lord our God, to leave us a remnant to escape that our God may lighten our eyes, and give us a little reviving in our bondage" (Ezra 9:8). How happy we are if we avail ourselves of the little moment of grace which God never fails to vouchsafe! To do this is to wax strong, to find the tears drying in our eyes, to be more than conquerors, to see the shadow of death change into the morning. "For our light affliction, which is for the moment, worketh for us more and more exceedingly an eternal weight of glory" (2 Cor. 4: 17). Sanctified by prayer, borne in love and patience, short pain turns to immortal advantage.