Do you ask what he has done? Read the history of the cross, visit, with retrospective veneration, Calvary, with all its sacred and its solemn associations; hear, sounding in the depths of your hearts, this most magnificent utterance in human speech, "God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have everlasting life;" or again, "For a good man some would even dare to die; but God commendeth his love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us;" and hear in such expressions, sovereign, disinterested love, for which there is no reason in us, and the origin of which is to be explained by the sovereignty of him who revealed it, and in reading, hearing, thinking of it, the flame is kindled in my heart, of responsive love to Him who so disinterestedly loved me.

The way to love God, now, is what? Not to keep searching into this painful, and yet interminglingly pleasant place, the human heart, to see if love be there. You never will love God by the exercise of an introspective analysis. Did you ever hear of a patient improving his health by feeling his pulse every hour? The patient is to take the physician's prescription, and to leave his pulse alone. You are to study Christ's love in the Bible, and in the minister's sermon, and that sermon is the best where it is unfolded the most earnestly; and the longer you are subjected to the bright beams of the Sun of Righteousness, and the more you are brought into contact and communion with God's deep love to us, the more will your love begin to kindle and to burn, till from the love of a doubting, fearing believer, it ends in the perfect love of perfect day, where love is life and happiness for ever.

CHAPTER XXII.

FORGOTTEN MERCIES AND FORSAKEN VOWS.

"The Pilgrim they laid in a large upper chamber, whose window opened toward the sunrising: the name of the chamber was Peace. There he slept till break of day, and then he awoke and sang." - Pilgrim's Progress.

"And God said unto Jacob, Arise, go up to Beth-el, and dwell there: and make there an altar unto God, that appeared unto thee when thou fleddest from the face of Esau thy brother. Then Jacob said unto his household, and to all that were with him, Put away the strange gods that are among you, and be clean, and change your garments: and let us arise, and go up to Beth-el; and I will make there an altar unto God, who answered me in the day of my distress, and was with me in the way which I went. And they gave unto Jacob all the strange gods which were in their hand, and all their ear-rings which were in their ears; and Jacob hid them under the oak which was by Shechem." - GEN. XXXV. 1-4.

THE verses at the commencement of this chapter seem to require special illustration, and to this I would, under the guidance of God's Spirit, direct the reader's attention. There are some practical lessons to be gathered from the passage, and if we fail to gather them, it is not because the words fail to suggest them.

God first of all reminds Jacob of some past transaction. God said unto Jacob, "Arise, go up to Beth-el, and dwell there; and make there an altar unto God." The simple history of the fact here alluded to is recorded in the chapter where God appeared unto Jacob at the top of the ladder,

and Jacob called the place Beth-el, and vowed a row, saying, If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat, and raiment to put on, so that I come again to my father's house in peace; then shall the Lord be my God; and this stone which I have set for a pillar shall be God's house; and of all that thou shalt give me I will surely give the tenth unto thee." This vow Jacob made in the fulness of his grateful heart. God calls this to his mind, and tells Jacob to go and perform that vow. During all the time that had elapsed, a very great number of years, from the time when Jacob made this vow to the present moment when God addresses to him these words, it appears that God had fulfilled every promise which he had made, and had bestowed upon him every mercy which he had pledged, and that not one jot or tittle had fallen from the least word that God had spoken, but all, and more than all, had come to pass. God having been thus faithful upon his part, the question remains, had Jacob remained faithful upon his part? Did Jacob remember his vow? Did he recollect what he had pledged and promised at Bethel? Did he return to Bethel as he said he would? Did he there build an altar and dedicate and consecrate it as a memorial to God? Surely the distinguishing mercies that he tasted were not forgotten; surely so splendid a Peniel had not parted with its brightness, and ceased to make any impression upon the patriarchal mind. Alas, the promised altar was not yet built, the solemn vows were not yet performed, Jacob had forgotten alike his vows, his mercies, and his duties; and if God had not reminded him of them here, Jacob had probably forgotten them altogether.

But is this conduct peculiar to Jacob? Is he not in this, as in many other things, a type of human nature? When we read of sins in the patriarchs, we are apt to get angry

with them; but instead of feeling thus, which is natural enough, we should seek to see in them merely the mirror that reflects faithfully and fully ourselves; and if we have not fallen into their sins, it is not because we are constitutionally more excellent than they, but because God's grace, which we have not asked so fervently as we ought, has been sufficient for us. Let us see, whether Jacob is not in this respect the type of human nature still. Have not all of us received mercies? has not each of us been distinguished in the past by undeserved blessings from God? has not our cup more than once run over? has not goodness and mercy, in the language of the Psalm, followed us many a day? has not the past been paved with mercies? Can you look into your heart, can you turn over the leaves of memory, can you take a fresh inspection of your home, or trace the winding current of your past biography from boyhood till now, and not see that current sparkling in the sunshine of God's favor, and countless mercies leaping from its bosom as it sweeps by? Can you look back upon the past without seeing that your saddest moments have originated joyous ones, and that over the darkest caverns of sorrow the rainbow of mercy and of love has sprung its arch, and all things have worked only for good to you, not because you loved God, but because he loved you? There is no biography so sad that its mercies do not outnumber its afflictions. There is not a Christian on earth who has not more reason for rejoicing than he has for sorrow, and who, if he were to make the reckoning impartially, would not be constrained to admit that his sunny hours much outnumber his sad ones, and that always and everywhere he has had more to be thankful for than to repine at. If this be our past history, what is our recollection of it? what return do we make for all this? Do impressions, deep at the time, and felt in all their fulness, gradually fade out, like foot prints of the stranger upon the

sea sand as they are washed by each succeeding wave? Is it true that only the dim remembrance of the mercies we have tasted survives, and that so little thankful are we for the past, which we have so much forgotten, that we repine that we have not more, as we think we deserve, instead of being thankful for the undeserved mercies that we have already tasted? Is it not too true that poor man forgets alike his sins and his mercies, so that he is neither humbled for the one, nor thankful for the other; and thus both teach him that memory, like the heart, is deceitful above all things?

If we do remember our mercies, how do we remember them? If we have escaped a treacherous memory, does it not bring us into contact with an insensible and unthankful heart? When we recollect great and distinguishing mercies, we say, It was our good-luck, our tact, our clever management, or such a one's patronage, or such a circumstance that occurred incidentally or accidentally; and, in the language of the old prophet, we burn incense to our own net, and we worship our own drag. David sings, "Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits." As if he felt, My memory is so deceitful that it will not recollect, and my heart is so hard that it will not feel, all my mercies; but if I cannot feel all, and recollect all, let me not forget all his benefits, "who pardoneth our sins, who healeth our diseases, who redeemeth our life from destruction, who crowneth us with loving-kindness and tender mercies, who satisfieth our mouths with good things, who reneweth our youth like the eagle's;" and then, in language the most exquisite, I think, in the Scriptures, "Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth us, for he knoweth our frame, he remembereth that we are dust;" and that, "as for man, his days are as grass," and if he be the chiefest of men, noble and royal, only like the flower of the grass, a little better and a little