Yes, and we shall not quietly suffer it; for if we sit down with it too easily, it seems clear that we do not feel the matter very deeply. We shall never be able to bear the contempt of Him whom we deeply regard. If we see it among those whom we can reprove and correct, we shall not hesitate a moment in using our authority on God's side, not in a spirit of revenge and wrath against the despisers, but for their own advantage in a spirit of love.

Yet, after all, the best way in which we can honour God is by doing our own part sincerely, and faithfully to uphold His name, and do the work He loves, for His own sake. A person who is not afraid to let it be known (although not to boast of it) that he acts from the fear of God, and because he wishes God to rule in His own world, is effectually honouring Him, and all the more if there are many against him.

If he acts from a sense of love and obligation, it will honour God; but if from a hope of merit or a sense of superiority, it will be honouring himself. Nothing can more entirely fail of honouring God than when we aim at exalting ourselves, or obtaining praise and respect from the good deeds we do.

EXTRACT FROM MY FAMILY BIBLE.

MATTHEW Xxii. 15-23.

THE Herodians were a sect that, according to the general opinion, (though not much is known about them,) favoured Herod in his allowance of heathen practices to the Jews. These people were very properly chosen by the Pharisees to try to ensnare our Saviour into an expression of hatred to Cæsar, the king of the Romans, into whose hands God had delivered His people for their sins. Mark the answer, dear family! it shows that Christ was God the heart-searching, who knows all the wickedness of the chambers of sin that are in the breast of fallen man. Why tempt ye me, ye hypocrites? Show me the tribute money." You are trying to act a part that you cannot put off upon me. Show me one of those pieces of coin that you are required by Cæsar to pay. They bring one. Whose image is this, and by whose order is this writing

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upon it? Both are Cæsar's. Then, rejoins our blessed Lord, "render to Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's, and to God the things that are God's." In other words, pay what is lawfully due to Cæsar, and give to God what is due to Him; namely, your hearts free from the leaven of deceit, hypocrisy, and malice. Well might they marvel, and leave Him, and go away; the disappointed hypocrites, who hoped to trap our Lord into rebellion, as many like people in later times have tried to trap his followers. Where the followers have not been sincere, they have been trapped by those hypocritical Pharisees, or separatists, (for, mind you, that is the real meaning of the word Pharisee,) who hate all authority, except that which they can climb to over the thrones of lawful kings, and the altars of the lawful and properly ordained ministers of the Church of Christ. Be not you, my family, ignorant of their devices. They are real disciples of these cunning people, always laying snares to trap men into their devilish ways. In the time of our Saviour, the Jews were divided into sects; no wonder, then, that true religion was at such a low ebb with the great mass of the people. A LAYMAN.

THE GOSPEL FEAST.

A Sermon on Matt. xxii. 2-10.

(Concluded from page 154.)

AND now then, if space and time allowed, I might, with hope of advantage, call your attention to the particular provisions of this Divine feast, its suitable variety, providing for the exact wants of every guest. I should rightly dwell both on the promises on earth, and their fulfilment in heaven; the lively hopes of the Christian's sacramental experience, both when actually engaged at the holy table and when realizing the virtue of that ordinance in his daily gracious walking with God. should also speak of that cup of salvation, which even waits upon his most afflicted hour, which cheers his sorrows, and enriches his poverty far beyond the possession of fine gold-which befriends him when friendless,

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and becomes a foretaste of his future heaven, amply sufficient to content him with all his earthly lot, while he sits down from all the anxious labour of life under the shadow of his covenanted refuge, and finds his table spread to his heart's content. It would also be a most blessed employment to trace how truly the sorrows of unfeigned repentance and the discipline of humiliation become every guest who is found with acceptance at this marriage feast. Yes, my brethren, there is no real discordance between the Christian's joys and his sorrows; these often exist together, and offer no material interruption the one to the other; for where his sorrows of repentance flow deepest, his joy also in the Lord may most abound.

But I return to the subject; and now confess with shame, that rich and suitable, full and free as is this heavenly provision, it is beyond all question a neglected feast. The servants of the Heavenly King come forth into the world's highways with a commission plainly divine; they state the sanction of their authority-" Thus saith the Lord;" the sign of their message, Christ's uplifted Cross; the evidence of its faithfulness, so many sons and daughters already adopted in grace here and now inheriting eternal glory; the incomparable value of the blessings proposed, hope in life, life in death. The faithful herald of redeeming love enlarges, moreover, on all the gracious perfections of the Master whom he serves; he tells the outcast and the stranger in the sincerity of his heart what his own treatment has been in his Lord's household, that he himself was perishing for lack of heavenly food, when the gracious message reached his ear and won his heart; and thus he "speaks that he knows, and testifies that he hath seen;" and, having himself tasted the word of life, he becomes a true and trusty witness of the grace that bringeth salvation, and yet men receive not his testimony.' He refers every sen

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tence that he utters to the test of this written word that he holds in his hand and binds to his heart, and yet men receive not the testimony of God. Lot seems to his sonsin-law as one that mocketh. Esau despises his birth

right. The unbelieving Israelites scorn the land of promise, giving no credence to the word of the Lord. The wisdom of God is all a dark saying. They say of Ezekiel, "Doth he not speak parables?" and even when Christ Himself, the Heavenly Bridegroom, invites to His affection and His Father's house a reluctant world, who is there that believes the report, and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? who, of the multitudes that carnally press with their teeth the bread of God, who among them are effectually gained over to any gracious communion here or glorious inheritance hereafter? Nay, brethren, men made light of it; and this is strictly true, not only of those who as much as possible break away beyond reach of the heavenly calling; not only of those who run riot amid all those excesses and lusts which lead men to abandon equally the form and power of godliness, but also with a fatality far more deceitful, is it awfully true of all who do not take to heart the Gospel message, who do not affectionately and actively obey the blessed invitation. Mark well the language!" They made light of it, and went their ways; one to his farm, and another to his merchandize:" employments in themselves most lawful, from which the Master of the feast plainly had no intention of drawing them altogether away, since the prosperity of their farms and the gain of their merchandize were proper results of His kingly government; therefore the offence of their neglect does in nowise consist in any unlawfulness of the occupations to which they turned away, but in the preference which they ungraciously gave to them on the great occasion of this royal marriage feast. But in truly judging the evil of such neglect in scriptural matters, we must go far beyond the immediate circumstances of the parable; we must bear in mind the matchless importance of the Gospel call, in competition with which no earthly claim, however lawful, when placed in proper subjection, can stand good for a moment. For what just and full comparison can there be between the kingdoms of this world and the kingdom of heaven? between the most costly and exquisite preparations of carnal things and

the imperishable bread of life? Where is the reasonable excuse that is framed to the prejudice of the soul's eternal salvation? Indeed, indeed, the perfect imagery even of our Lord's own language presents an illustration rather by contrast than comparison with the strongest examples taken from the things of time and sense. Measure then, I pray you, the evil of neglecting the Gospel feast by its own intrinsic infinite value, connected also with the critical situation of man's immortal soultarrying on earth as the creature of a day-whose present joys must so soon be exchanged for the silence of death, or rather, in the case of every unconverted sinner, for the bitter doom of eternal lamentation. Let no one, then, in the deceitfulness of his heart think it enough to thank God that he offers no open hostility to the cause of Christ, because he is not one of that remnant who took the servants of the King and entreated them spitefully, and slew them. No, brethren, the snare of our danger in the present time arises far more from religious servility, from the cringe of mere outward profession. As for us, we would in nowise have crucified the Lord of life. No; but we are doing worse; we are rendering that cross of none effect; we are thwarting its gracious purposes respecting ourselves; we are allowing the precious stream of salvation to run waste from our souls; we are placing time against eternity; we stand at a guilty distance from this munificent, this heavenly feast; professing indeed an empty admiration, but entertaining no real appetite for its best delights. Brethren, men "make light of it;" and yet what concern so momentous, what want so pressing, what claim so impatient of delay, what final ruin so deep and irrecoverable as that which affects the soul of man? Surely, surely, if you could but gain the honest judgment even of worldly men, they must admit that creations infinite would be altogether nothing, compared with the single possession of man's eternal inheritance with the saints in light. O, that we could be persuaded rather to let all things pass than forego "the one thing needful!" O, that we did but seek to sanctify our basket and our store, our farm and our