reaction from oppression; something like the state of ancient Israel in the interval between the Judges and the anointed Kings, when every man did that which was right in his own eyes. But such licence is mere hidden thraldom. Was it not so at the time of the French reign of terror? It has been well observed, that the wisest liberty is a selfimposed restraint. The lark enjoys as great a sense of freedom when it nestles in the tufted field as when it trills its song in the sky. Agrippa, the base slave in purple, sat upon the judgment-seat, but Paul, the prisoner in fetters, was the Lord's freeman notwithstanding. There is a perfect consistency in the terms of the apostle James.

The Accelerating Progress of Evil.

A denier of the original taint of sin once stood before two pictures which hung side by side upon a wall. The first was the portrait of a boy with open brow, and curls that look golden in the sunshine, and cheeks whose damask beauty shame the ripened fruit, wearing that happy smile which can be worn

but once in life-a smile whose rippling waves are poisoned by no weeds of suspicion, and break upon no strand of doubt, looking gaily up from the flowered earth into the azure heaven, without the slightest misgiving. From the canvas of the second picture there glared out a wolfish eye-the home of all subtlety and malice: and in the gloom of the dim-lighted cell you might perceive the matted hair, and garments stained with blood,— chains clank, or seem to clank, upon his fettered limbs. All tell of the desperate character of the man. On these two pictures, hanging side by side, the denier of original sin fixed his gaze, until the exclamation burst out at length in a tone of half-concealed triumph, "What! do you mean to say that these two beings were originally and radically the same? Do you mean to tell me that any amount of evil teaching could ever develop that guileless child into that debased and godless man?" The artist volunteered the information that the portraits were taken from the life of the self-same individual at different stages of his history. You know the moral of the tale. There is an accelerating progress in an ungodly course, increasing

with the momentum of an avalanche when

The

the first stages of its course have run. descent into perdition is easy when the strivings of the passions are seconded by the dictates of the will. Sinner, I charge thee, beware lest thy sin become habit. What! do you say you have already resolved at some future time to repent, to reform? You are blind to your danger. In yon grim hulks there are multitudes of men to-day who have hearts like yours within them, although they have cased them from the truth as in a coat of triple steel. If you could get them to lay bare the sad secret of their history, you would be frightened to find it so much like your own. Good resolutions, early home teachings, deathless memories of a mother's prayers; but a strong temptation, weak restraints, godless associates, a first fall, from which, alas! the young man never, never rose, and then a casting off the mask of shame. Oh, take the truth to your hearts to-night, you who are unconverted. No man became a criminal, a hypocrite, a villain all at once; but from a state of innocence he has slidden down, until to-night we see him on the lowest rung of the

ladder, and to-morrow a dishonoured suicide. Beware of the deceitfulness of sin

Death.

Death to the Christian is but the time of greatest triumph, because the time of nearest home. Just as autumnal tints are richest in the woodland, and the decaying forest trees wear gayest colours,—as if, like so many Cæsars, they had gathered their imperial robes about them, so seemlily to die,—so the Christian has found often the strength most vigorous, and the peace the stillest and divinest, when the shadow gathered on the countenance sympathetic with the other shadow which had waited in the room. Be comforted, my brother, whom the thought of death hath often oppressed with a strange, heavy disquiet-be comforted. God will be glorified in thy death, if thou but aim to glorify Him in thy life. If the eventide come on with lengthening shadows, or without a twilight, as in eastern skies, there shall be light at eventide; if the conflict be with torn

plume and broken sword, like the wounded

chieftain,

"With dying hand, above the head

You'll shake the fragment of the blade,
And shout your victory."

God in History.

It is not enough, if we would study history aright, that we follow in the track of battles, that we listen to the wail of the vanquished and to the shout of the conquerors; it is not enough that we excite ourselves into a sort of hero worship of the world's foster gods, the stalwart and noble peerage of mankind; it is not enough that we trace upon the page of history the subtle and intricate developments of human character; to study history aright we must find God in it, we must always recognise the ever-present and the ever-acting Divinity, working all things according to the counsel of His own will.