to time, diligent in making all provision for the business on which they are going? Are we impatient at all delay, as they are? Are we eager for the end of our journey, as they are? Are we, in short, come as Christians thus far in the progress of the day? Thus we must question ourselves; thus watchful must we be over our goings; thus jealous for the glory of the Lord, whose presence we profess to seek, and find in it the fulness of joy. When the day is spent and past, who can call it back again? It is gone into eternity, and nothing remains of it on earth but its name in the calendar. We can walk no more, we can work no more, by its light. Are we then at the end of our proposed journey? Have we found Christ? Has the setting sun brought us again to his door? Does the star in our hearts stand over where He is, that was the young Child in the manger, but is now the King on the throne of his glory? Are our hands full of the works of a living faith, loaded with the gifts of increase of grace? Are our hearts full of good treasure in improved holiness of thought, heightened by purity of affection? Can we stand in his presence? Is Christ before us in all his royal Majesty, in all the sweetness of his love, in all the shining of his truth? And are we before Him in all the devotion of subjects, in all the faithfulness of stewards, in all the love of the redeemed, in all the hope of the believer? Do we find our

selves in his presence, by seeing and recognizing all its glorious ensigns, as exhibited in our heart? Do we see his cross of shame in sincere repentance for the shortcomings of the day? Do we see his shepherd's staff in our support and guidance through the day? Do we see his royal throne and sceptre in the putting down of evil affections, and in the raising up of good through the day?

Then we have made good our day's journey as Christians. We have sought, and we have found. Our labour has been in the Lord, and it has not been in vain in the Lord. Then we have gained the end of another stage of that journey which leads the Christian onward through the perilous dark ways of this world to the everlasting house, where the Son of God dwells with the Father in eternal glory, and has prepared a place for his people, and is waiting to receive them. O then, no star, within or without our hearts, shall be needed to point out that house, the brightness of whose glory shall quench the light of the sun, and moon, and stars! It shall be seen and known with joy as its home by the Christian's eyes, in the moment that it shall open again at the startling sound of the last trump.

O then, shall we not all, every day of our lives, be found upon this journey of seeking Christ? If this be its end, shall we be frightened from it by any thing which savours of

hardship, struggle, and endeavour? Does not a joyful end make the most rugged journey joyful? And, on the contrary, could all the most delightful scenes, all the most comfortable refreshment, all the most easy carriage, minister any pleasure to the man who was on the road to the place of his execution? So little real enjoyment is there on the road of the sinner; for it leads to death and judgment, however it may be strown with flowers, and resound with notes of merriment. But the road of the true Christian is eternal life and blessedness, and not all the sounds of the sorrow of this world can drown the notes of heavenly joy which are heard along it.

SERMON XXV.

SPIRITUAL LIFE.

(Septuagesima Sunday.)

GEN. i. 2.

"And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters."

THIS is the first mention of the Holy Spirit in Scripture, and observe how early it is. He is the Lord and Giver of life both to body and to soul and to spirit; and therefore this world could not have its beginning without Him. Nothing could move without Him, nothing could breathe without Him; but all was in the shapelessness of nothingness, all in the stillness of death. The earth had no form. There was no light; but all was void and wrapt in darkness. But the life-giving Spirit brooded (for that is the proper sense of the word "moved" here) upon the face of the waters of the vast and dark deep in which all things were hidden, as a bird upon her eggs, which she warms and

hatches into life; and then all things came forth in their proper shape and order, one after another; and last of all, as in a procession the great personage always comes last, came man. God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and he, who had been the moment before but the dust of the earth, then became a living soul. The Spirit of God breathed into him a much more excellent spirit of life, even of life everlasting, and the spirit of wisdom and understanding; the spirit of counsel and might; the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord. So excellently was he endowed by the Spirit of God. But in an evil hour he grieved this Spirit of God, and thenceforward the nature of man, as a spiritual being, underwent a sad change. His heart became dead and dark; its thoughts, as far as God was concerned (and all our real concerns are centered in Him), were without form and void. As a heap of dust called into life and motion, like the rest of the things which creep, and walk, and fly upon the face of the earth, he was living in the body; but as a creature born to serve God, and give Him continual glory, he was dead in the spirit.

But for the sake of his dear Son Jesus Christ, who offered Himself from the beginning to be the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world, God sent his life-giving and quickening Spirit again into the world, again to exercise his power as the Lord and