It is sad that man should need to meet the weariness, before he will fly to his Father's breast. But it is sadder still, that he should fail to perceive the meaning of that unrest whereby God would draw him to Himself. And saddest of all it is, that he should ever need flood after flood to sweep over his outward life, before he will look in faith to the bright covenant of promise. What multitudes of hearts only seek to build up Babel towers to give them refuge! In their vain dream, they would raise themselves above the waters that may come. Or in a more frequent folly, instead of casting themselves at once upon the everlasting arm, one brittle staff is taken to supply the place of that already broken, and the soul has as little self-sustaining life as before. The home the man builds for himself may appear more majestic than that amusing his childish dream. But it may equally fail to be any home for the soul, and it may equally prove to be based upon the sand.

Not to those who turn to these Babel towers, or who supply the place of one transient support by another as transient, can any fulfilment of the promise come. Yet is it still an eternal truth, as every mind may perceive, though it hath not been verified in any living experience. Turn to God in any cherished conviction of an absolute dependence, and a faith in his perpetual presence and boundless grace shall come, to be quickened

anew by every gift, to cheer the heart wheresoever it may move or rest, wherever it rises up to labor, or lies down to repose. Man shall then feel himself forever in the hollow of the Almighty's hand. Turn to the law of God with an absolute submission of the will, and we shall know the adoption of sons, whereby we may cry, Abba, Father. Let an inward renunciation of heart sweep away our trust in the changing, clinging only to the everlasting, and the token of the covenant shall appear to the heart. Yes, and when, by the blessed unrest that will not cease until he turn to his Father's house, or by the desolation of his earthly home, or more wisely still, by the voluntary surrender of the heart, man finds the flood imaged in his experience, and sees the covenant bow, it is with the soul as with the ancient earth. It can never more be overwhelmed. The glorious teaching is intellectually seen to be true. Let the spirit come, brightening and deepening the assent of the mind, into the glorious faith of the heart! Why will man be like the dove flying over the waste of waters, finding no resting place for the sole of his foot? And why does he the ark of God?

fail to return, like the dove, to

Why does he not seek that true Sabbath of the soul, the sweet repose of trust when life becomes a continual prayer; the Sabbath that makes the six days of labor, like the one day of worship, a rest unto the Lord? Why go mournfully on,

seeing no smile of God, when the light of his present love may forever cheer the confiding heart? Beautiful was the significance of the covenant-sign to the elder world! It declared that seed-time and harvest, summer and winter should no more cease. It declared that God would not destroy the world he had made. More beautiful is its significance to the soul! It not only declares seed-time and harvest shall not cease, each bringing in turn joyous hopes and blessed gifts to man. It says that the winters and nights of our earthly pilgrimage shall be made perpetual summer, and continued day. For the Lord God is an everlasting Light; and the sun shall no more withdraw himself from the heart that has seen the token of the covenant. Even the seedtime becometh a harvest. "And when the cloud comes over the Earth, the bow shall be seen in the cloud."

Bethesda.

JOHN v 4. "For an angel went down at a certain season, into the pool, and troubled the water whosoever then first after the troubling of the water stepped in was made whole of what. soever disease he had."

IT is a beautiful instance of an ancient mode of speech, to find the troubling of the waters of the pool attributed to the descent of an angel. Modern speculation sometimes appears to lay a rude hand upon all such forms of expression. It may be, and doubtless must be, a progress to a more intimate recognition of a present God; where the believing soul would not speak of an angel, because it directly sees the Father himself, in every ministry of healing and of love. But we may learn to disbelieve in the angels, before we gain a profound conviction of an immediately present God. The heavens may become empty of all these shining messengers, before they are forever filled to our imagination and our faith with the one universal light and life. We might enquire into the particular elements existing in these healing waters, as they gushed out at peculiar seasons with a peculiar virtue, until in the discussion concerning natural causes, the idea of an angel's, and almost of the

Father's presence, vanished away. It is sad when a momentary tendency may be found in any stage in the progress of thought, to sever the golden chain binding all events directly to the throne of God. It is more philosophic, as well as more grateful to the heart, to accept the mode of expression the text presents, than to go one step upward in the train of causes, and fail to ascend. to the cause of all. An angel was there when the healing waters flowed. Their beneficent flowing was a distinct manifestation of God's love in his universe. And were not the waters themselves His angels, messengers of his changeless and sweet compassion?

The troubled pool possessed an especial healing virtue. Bethesda-that is to say, house of mercy was its customary and significant name. And thither the multitudes of the diseased continually gathered to receive the blessing. We select the text of course, on account of its symbolic application to human experience. The troubled waters everywhere seem to be God's especial messengers of healing.

It is an angelic ministry evermore, to startle man from his habitually superficial mode of life. The great difficulty in the world, is to make the heart conscious of its actual and infinite necessities. It sleeps upon the surface of the depths of its own affections, never knowing the hidden treasures of a deeper life, lying all unseen like