fragmentary human life. He has appointed to each man his bounds, which he cannot pass. He breaks in upon our plans, our vitality, our strength, and decrees the arrest of all our hopes and labors. He does it in ways so varied, so unexpected, so startling, so discriminating, as to leave the impression on men's hearts that there is a supreme Disposer on the throne, who takes counsel of himself in such arbitration, and acts his wise and sovereign pleasure.

Another use of this dispensation is to quicken our diligence. Oh, all the voices of the frailty and brevity of life bid men be up and doing. The morning and the evening, the evening and the morning, in their quick succession, the rapid flight of the seasons, the swift tread of the years, the lapse of fleetness and vigor in the human frame, the changing shadows as our sun crosses the meridian, all unite in this salutation with every dawn, repeating it with each stroke of the hours, "Work while the day lasts, for the night cometh in which no man can work!" Some tasks are sure to be crowded out of life, some labors commenced to be left unfinished. Then "what thou doest, do quickly!"

And again the lesson is that, while redoubling our diligence, we moderate our expectations. We are sowing for magnificent harvests. We are toiling for splendid successes. We are investing for richest returns. We are climbing toward loftiest and most radiant summits. For all our present hardship and rigor, there shall be a golden future, and in the light of it, as it rises above the far horizon and advances to meet us, our eyes glisten and our step is more buoyant. Ah, how many have gone for

ward, their feet sandalled with such hopes, and stepping as though they trod on air, who found that the river intercepted their path before they reached the goal; that their confident expectation was only a view from Pisgah's top; that fruition lay beyond the stream, and their feet touched those cold waters while yet their hands were empty. Be moderate in desire and expectation. Tone down this brilliance and eagerness of life's hopes, so shall life's disappointing incompleteness be less bitter to our spirit when the cup is raised to our lips. There is a peculiar chastening for age in this arrangement of Providence. Age is the harvest time for which we have sowed, and in which we expect to rest with our sheaves thick around us. But how often does age stand by its empty granaries with no field on all its estate yet to reap. The land of promise toward which it travelled so long is beyond it still. Instead of sitting beneath its vines and tasting the grapes of Eshcol, it is sitting on the bank of the river somewhat desolate and alone, waiting rather than enjoying. We wonder often why good men, whose years have been given to works of beneficence and piety, should have such sharp discipline in age, the loss of health, the loss of property, the loss of those on whom they expected to lean, the grief that comes from looking upon the sorrow or the shame of some whom they love and being powerless to help them. Ah, they were not quite weaned from earth, not fully ripe for heaven! These last touches of a gracious discipline are for their final perfecting, the mellowing of the fruit before angel hands gather it. And under this earthly completeness

our eyes look forward and upward for what is denied us here. We shall not indeed go over this Jordan of disappointment and inherit on the other side; but there is another Jordan which we shall cross. We shall not have our home in the earthly Canaan, nor tread its vine-clad hills; but we shall enter that celestial land of promise, and sit on those serene heights where angels cluster, and on which shines the light of God. We may not inherit fully here; we may advance only into the cold shadows of poverty and neglect, as we go forward leaning on our staff; but there, as heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, a full and satisfying inheritance will crown and gladden every desire, and all earthly disappointment be swallowed up in eternal satisfaction. This lifts the people of God out of all the sadness that settles on life's shattered hopes. On this mount of faith their feet can stand as on Pisgah's top, and all the glory of the goodly land appear before them, and loftier and whiter than the snowy crown of Lebanon the dazzling mount of the throne of God, and no voice of stern interdict pronounces the decree, "Thou shalt not go over thither," but a welcome of soft music calls to them, "Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world."

XI.

JOHN'S FAILURE.

AND HE SENT AND BEHEADED JOHN IN THE PRISON.

WH

WHEN the angel Gabriel announced to the aged Zacharias that his old age should be no longer childless, the announcement carried with it this assurance concerning the unborn babe, "Thou shalt have joy and gladness, and many shall rejoice at his birth, for he shall be great in the sight of the Lord." And when that more illustrious prophet heralded by the son of Zacharias had commenced his public work, he bore his witness to the dignity of his messenger and forerunner, -"Verily, I say unto you, Among them that are born of women, there hath not arisen a greater than John the Baptist." was the earthly career of that greatness! it paused! In what obscurity it went out! It seemed to end, too, in failure, a failure all the

But how brief

How suddenly down and went

more disastrous and reproachful (perhaps in our eyes) because it would appear to have been met off the track of the preacher's legitimate calling, and might so easily, with a little care and prudence, have been avoided. "See what comes," we say, "of his interference with the morals

of sovereignty and power. He was not court chaplain. He was not the keeper of the conscience of Herod. He was not sent to regulate the domestic relations of the Tetrarch. He had one message to deliver, one cry to lift up. He was a herald running before the coming of Zion's King to proclaim, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand," "prepare ye the way of the Lord." If he had confined himself to that, kept within his sphere, preached that doctrine of repentance and wrath to come, and the near advent of one mightier than he, he might have escaped the prison and the axe. "Possibly." And what effect had his rash and obtrusive protest upon those implicated in the evil? It kindled a revengeful and remorseless hate in a woman's heart. It drew into sympathy and fellowship with her in a new crime the heart of her daughter. It led the guilty Herod, not to repentance and reformation, but to a deeper and more tragic guilt. It must have held up the name of the chief magistrate to obloquy and odium, and brought a scandal upon the ruler of the people. It set the example of disrespect to dignities, and tended to insubordination in the subject. It ended in the silencing of a voice to whose stirring words thousands had listened, and the sacrifice of a life that might yet have gathered unnumbered trophies of its earnestness and fidelity. "Yes, all that." He had a field of labor. It was broad and unoccupied. No man disputed his precedence in it. His sway there was without a rival. There was no narrowness in its limits to make him feel shut in and straitened. Up and down the Jordan valley, across the length and the breadth of the Judean wilder