the disk of the sun. Then may the dews of grace fall, as the dews of heaven do in the still hour, refreshing, cheering, joyous.

Store your mind with God's own truth. This supplies the vital sap of the soul. Let every fibre of your spirit drink it in, and you shall grow in grace and knowledge at once. "There is but one book," said the dying novelist, when he was asked what he would hear read. There is but one book that is full of God, or which can fill us with all His fullness. Read it. Ponder it. Not Plato or Bacon, or Addison, but He that spake as never man spake-speaks there. Go up with Him to the mount, and hear His sermon. Sit with Him at the table and listen to His words. Walk with Him in the fields and read His paragraphs syllabled in flowers, and tares and figtrees. Take David's harp and sweep its strings to the music, "The Lord is my shepherd." Sit at Isaiah's feet and bow and adore, while he unveils the glorious greatness of Him "who weigheth the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance." Or go visit Paul in the chill prison where he writes for his cloak, but puts forth the jubilant song of the triumphant warrior who has "fought the good fight," and even with his manacled hand is already grasping his crown. That is reading the Bible. That is the work of the soul taking wing on the pinions of holy thought, soaring up to God on the lofty aspirations of the saints, on "winged words" plumed by God's own Spirit inbreathed into his own prophets and apostles.

You may find good books if you seek them-books that will cheer you, instruct you, refresh your spirit— books that, as William Wirt once said of Baxter's "Saint's Rest," are "like a piece of old sandal wood, fragrant as ever after it has exhaled its fragrance for

centuries." But among all these there is no Bible. They are precious indeed; they are like the bayous formed by the overflowing of the "Father of Waters," for they are fed from the "River of Life." They are bucketsfull drawn from the well of truth, but Christ alone is the living fountain. He is the vine; they are the branches. Watts may sing his sweetest songs; Toplady, like the dying swan, may breathe into your soul the music of "Rock of Ages cleft for me"; Doddridge may trace for you the "Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul," till the feeble germ has expanded to a cedar in the garden of God, and Baxter, with his "Dying Thoughts," may hold you spell-bound at the very gates of glory or on the edge of the mouth of the pit-but not one of them all can speak like the prophet with his fire-touched lipscan transport you to behold Patmos visions-can awe you with the blended authority and grace of Him, whose dying agony evoked the sympathy of the rending earth and the darkened sky.

Read His words. Read God's utterance through the pens of all the inspired writers. It is like the breath of spring to winter's blasted herbage. The soul freshens and blooms under it, and he that bears the best and noblest fruit of a devoted Christian life is he that is most devoutly conversant with the Divine word.

XXIV.

THE LIFE FOUNDED ON CHRIST.

"If any man build on this foundation."-1 Cor. iii. 12.

THE

HE Christian life is presented by Paul under the figure of a house, the foundation of which is laid in Jesus Christ-the experience of the truth of Christ as our atoning sacrifice and Redeemer. No man can lay any other foundation than this, that is, there is no possible basis of a Christian life which does not rest in the experienced power of the Gospel. Men may go and construct a life of what are called "good works" without that experience which implies of necessity a change of heart, but if so, they are only like the foolish man, of whom our Saviour spoke, who built his house upon the sand. They have, in reality, no foundation. They build on a mere show of one-sand or shadow,—and all their work, however costly, however laborious, however pleasing to the eye, is no better than "the baseless fabric of a vision." It is a mere picture to look at-made to perish. The man that has it may regard it with much self-complacency. He may sometimes, like the Pharisee in the parable, admire himself in admiring it. But it is mere show; it will be swept away and perish.

It is essential to a building that is to stand that it have a solid foundation. This is true of the structure of a Christian life. You cannot build it up on the mud and

rubbish of an unrenewed nature. Men that have begun to build without being converted, without having dug deeper than the eye of man reaches, find, at last, that they might have as well ended where they began. They have put them up a mere tent instead of a house, and when the storm comes they are buried in the wreck. That foundation on which the Christian architect builds is Jesus Christ, that is, his experience of Christ as his Saviour. You may call it what you will, conversion, the new birth, repentance, experience of religion, or some other name, the substance of it is the same; it is Christ in the heart; Christ the wisdom of God and the power of God to salvation; Christ our atoning sacrifice; Christ our Redeemer from the curse of the law. There may be moral men, amiable men, benevolent and charitable men, who do not have this; but you cannot call them Christian men. Their life, admirable in some respects, is not a Christian life. The structure they build may be a splendid Pantheon or museum, but it is not a Christian temple. They have not the foundation for it, the plan for it. They may show skill and taste. They may use labor and diligence, but the Christian corner-stone is wanting, and when the test hour comes they will find it so.

The necessary basis for us on which to build, is one which implies an entire change of ruling purpose. A man comes out of the darkness into the light. He sees himself no longer an irresponsible, independent, isolated being, but a creature and subject of God. He sees what he was made for, and how he has neglected to live for it. He sees himself a sinner, with the prospect of retribution before him—a transgressor of God's law and God his judge, and, thus enlightened, he finds Christ a Saviour

opening the way of pardon, pointing him to heaven, setting before him a hope full of immortality. He sees himself arraigned before the judgment-seat, without a refuge save in the blood of the covenant, and now time shrinks to a span, and eternity spreads out into an ocean, and the infinite littleness of earth is contrasted with the infinite greatness of heaven, and he begins with new plans to live as under God's eye, and as he directs. He has found the way of peace and pardon. He has entered into a new world of invisible realities. Christ is everything to him, life, pardon, hope, fruition, blessedness. Christ is his Friend, Example, Teacher, Redeemer, Mediator, Intercessor. Christ's word is his law, and Christ's smile his reward. He can say with Paul, "for me to live is Christ." All that he is or has or can do, belongs to Christ. Christ is his strength, his refuge, his portion.

What a structure may be built on this foundation! What noble piles have some men, by the grace of God, reared on it-monuments of piety which have come down to our day, and before which we stand and gaze with admiring wonder. Select out of all the cities of the old world the grandest structures of architectural genius that have challenged admiration; bring together at a single view all that Thebes, Palmyra, Babylon, Nineveh, Jerusalem, Athens or Rome could exhibit in their palmiest days, all that has combined beauty, and vastness, and artistic proportion, and when all has been exhibited, I will show you something better, something greater, something more admirable. By the side of the dome of St. Peter's, I will bring the life of the ingenious dreamer, the humble tinker of Bedford, and in the life of Wilberforce, I will show you a loftier art than graced the achievement of the builder of St. Paul's. The man that has built himself up