system, and literally and truly it did not suit me; I have tried the other system-I use but do not abuse it and I find I am stronger and can do more work, enjoy better health, and put forth greater energy. I must, therefore, put my experience against an opposite experience. I never drank to excess in my life, and I hope none of you do. Nothing can be more degrading to a human being than drunkenness; nothing can be more disgraceful to a Christian man than excess. The great law, the beautiful law, is the time is short: it remains for them that marry to be as though they married not, for them that sell as though they sold not, and them that buy as though they bought not; thus using the world and not abusing it, for the fashion of this world speedily passeth away.

Thus I have tried to expound this miracle. The issue of it was, that Christ's glory shone forth in it, shone forth as the Lord of creation, and as the Lawgiver to his creatures; and what I pray may be the issue of the exposition of it is, that you shall admire his power, be charmed with his mercy, believe in his sacrifice, rest upon his intercession, and anticipate that blessed day when the marriage festival shall not be that of a poor couple in Cana of Galilee, but when the bridegroom shall be the Lord of glory, and all redeemed saints shall constitute his chosen and his beautiful bride, and the marriage-supper of the Lamb shall come, and we too shall be among those who have made themselves ready. Then it will be seen that this bridal miracle in Galilee was a foreshadow of that great act at the restoration of all things, in which Jesus says, "Behold, I make all things new."

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LECTURE II.

THE NOBLEMAN'S SICK SON.

So Jesus came again into Cana of Galilee, where he made the water wine. And there was a certain nobleman, whose son was sick at Capernaum. When he heard that Jesus was come out of Judea into Galilee, he went unto him, and besought him that he would come down, and heal his son: for he was at the point of death. Then said Jesus unto him, Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will not believe. The nobleman saith unto him, Sir, come down ere my child die. Jesus said unto him, Go thy way; thy son liveth. And the man believed the word that Jesus had spoken unto him, and he went his way. And as he was now going down, his servants met him, and told him, saying, Thy son liveth. Then inquired he of them the hour when he began to amend. And they said unto him, Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him. So the father knew that it was at the same hour in the which Jesus said unto him, Thy son liveth: and himself believed, and his whole house. This is again the second miracle that Jesus did, when he was come out of Judea into Galilee.-JOHN iv. 46-54.

My last lecture was on the first miracle performed by Jesus, at the marriage in Cana of Galilee. I then showed how gently the power of the gospel dawned upon a world that needed it; how Christ came to perform a miracle to sanctify a wedding festival, before he came to do a miracle that was to sweeten all but a funeral bereavement. It is very clear that the gospel teaches humanity, in all its varied phases, to go to Christ. Is any man afflicted? What is he to do? To despair? No, but to pray. Is any man merry? What is he to do? Be extravagant? No, but to praise. Thus our prayers, our sorrows, and our joys equally lead us to Jesus; our smiles and our tears, our sweets and our sufferings, all the heights

and depths, the lights and shadows of human experience lead the child of God to him who can add new beauty to the one, and communicate sustaining strength and comfort to the other.

I also noticed in my last lecture, that Jesus wrought a miracle to provide, not for an absolute necessity, but a luxury. The wine failed, and Jesus wrought a miracle, by producing more than a sufficient quantity; he turned the water into wine. I inferred from this the fact that, whether it be expedient to drink wine or not, it is not sinful to do so; that certainly wine is not condemned and reprobated in Scripture as an unchristian thing. Whether it be a poisonous thing, I suppose people's experience, with that of medical men, will show; but whether it be an unscriptural thing, common sense, with the Bible open, can surely judge. If it be an unscriptural thing, Christ had not wrought a miracle in order to supply it. It has been urged, that the quantity of wine created by Christ must have been certainly a very tempting thing. Might he not, it is asked, have supplied just as much as the necessities of the company required? According to the statement given, he supplied some ninety or a hundred gallons. I answered, there is no more temptation to a sober man to be intoxicated when he drinks from a cask than when he drinks from a wineglass. The secret of temperance is not in the wine cellar, but in the landlord; it is not in what the man has, but what the man is; it is not circumstances that make a man sober, but the grace of God. Here is the grand mistake. People are constantly supposing that holiness and happiness depend upon, and result from, something outward; while, in truth, they depend on, and spring from, something inward. The world's prescription is to change the bed; God's is to heal the patient; the world's prescription is to give man some

thing which man has not, or to take away from man something which man has; God's prescription is to make man what man is not. Put a sober man amid all the wine that Spain can produce, and he will be a sober man still; but a drunkard any where, and he will be a drunkard still. It is the grace of God, and that alone, that can make men sober, righteous, and godly in this present world, looking for that blessed hope, the glorious appearing of Jesus Christ our God and Saviour.

I also prefaced my last exposition by a few remarks upon the nature of miracles. I endeavoured to show that a miracle is not something which contradicts all the laws and ordinances of creation, but something rather which supplements them; but supplements them so gloriously and sublimely, that we can feel and see that creation's Lord is present. The miracle, for instance, that Jesus did when he turned water into wine, was not in contradiction to the laws, as they are called, of nature, but the most beautiful and triumphant completion of them. The ordinary law is, that the rain-drops and the dew-drops shall fall upon the vine-leaves and blossoms, and upon the vineroots and fibres, and that these rain-drops and dew-drops absorbed, shall, by a process that requires a year to mature it, be converted into generous wine. The difference between the dew-drops and rain-drops falling upon the vinė, and being turned into grape-juice, and that fermented into wine, and the miracle wrought by our Lord, when he turned water in a minute into wine, was not a difference of kind, but simply a difference in time. What it usually takes a year to produce, it took Christ a minute to produce; the evidence of creation's Lord being present amid creation's product, was in the speed and instancy of a process which it usually takes months, or a year, to achieve. You have, therefore, in the miracle, not a discord intro

duced into creation's harmony, but heaven's harmony come down to creation's discord; you have a prelibation, as it were, a foretaste of that glorious epoch, when all things that are wrong by sin shall be righted, and the world, as it began with paradise in its morning beauty, shall close and merge in paradise in its meridian glory.

I will preface the miracle to which I now call your attention by a few additional remarks on the nature of miracles.

First. Is there such a thing as a miracle not of God? Is it possible, or have we reason to believe from Scripture, that any power hostile in its principles to Deity, can produce a supernatural thing? Do we read in Scripture of mere jugglery, or do we read of supernatural feats, done by supernatural power, as allies to Satan's kingdom, and antagonisms to Christ's? I believe the latter whether it be so or not, you can judge by what I state. And here I must state what it is always humbling to any one to state, that on this I have seen reason to alter my opinion: I find I have not altered a conviction upon any one vital, essential principle, but upon subordinate things I have changed, and probably I may do so again. I trust we all grow wiser as we grow older. No man should be ashamed to say, "I have altered my mind since I obtained more light." That man must be perfectly wretched who is constantly looking behind him to see that he does the deed to-day in perfect harmony with the deed done years ago, and that he holds the opinion to-day which dovetails exactly with the opinion he held five years ago. We have nothing to do with consistency, but to accept the truth as God reveals it, and act accordingly. I have stated that I thought the miracles performed by the magicians in Egypt to be jugglery. I was perplexed, and felt difficulties in reconciling all the details of their performance with this opinion. I