underneath the drooping head may glide a strong embrac ing arm; the white cheek may rise and fall to the breath of some cherishing bosom, and the friends dearest in life. may stand around; but the soul enters upon that dread path alone. The fleshly hands meet, but no spirit of its fellows walks hand in hand with the departing traveller. What it sees, it only sees; what it suffers, it only suffers; the progress is all its own, the opening marvels, the clearing shadows, the awful verities; the other attendants, though so near, are by the breadth of worlds behind. We may have stood many a time by the side of the dark river, and seen others go down into the chill waters, and the way may seem familiar; we may think we know it; but when we assay the current, when the cold waves rise higher and higher, and we gasp and falter and feel for firm footing, and look to see what welcome waits us on the further shore, what forms come to meet us and environ us around, that experience we must try alone and by ourselves. It is coming to us, that solemn hour; it will take us into its solitary custody; it will single us out from the crowd and whisper in our ear, unheard by any other, either this inspiring message, "The Master is come and calleth for thee," or this stern arrest, “Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee.”

7. Alone, too, each shall rise in the great day; alone each shall be judged, each sentenced alone. Though that trumpet blast shall wake all that sleep, each shall open his eyes with sensations all his own upon the scenery of that day. Though all the generations of earth shall stand together before the judgment-seat, yet each man's story

shall be recited amid the hush of a listening universe, and the final word, "Come!" or "Depart!" shall fall on each heart as though none beside knew such joy or such grief.

So solitary, though amid dearest fellowships and closest intimacies, is human life in all its stages, from its dawn of being till its destiny is fixed forever. Come, then, my friend, and look your isolation full in the face. You stand a single individual soul in God's sight, responsible for yourself, living your own personal life, moving toward your own definite future. No crowd conceals you, no general movement sweeps you in, no vague fellowship provides for you apart from your personal, individual acting. Alone you have sinned, alone you must repent, believe, and obey. Oh, the vital question of salvation is one between you and God! It must be settled in the chamber of your own spirit. You yourself are to confront all the weighty issues of your being in time. Religion is your own personal matter, a life that is to be special to you, a new vitality to come into the privacy of your own heart. The deep solitariness of your whole existence admits of one grand qualification. Into those lonely chambers one glorious Being may come. Over the fields of consciousness you may stray with one Friend by your side, who shall see and know and feel all that you feel and know and see. In the weighty conflict, this healing and victorious presence may succor your fainting strength and wounded form. Along the changeful highway, in the shade, in the shine, the meek Pilgrim from Nazareth may keep you company and share your experience. In all trouble and anguish one tender Heart shall pulse with

yours, as truly at home at the core of your sorrow as you that suffer. You shall enter the shadowy vale singing, "Thou art with me." As all of earth recedes, you shall whisper again, "These have left me alone, yet am I not alone, for my Saviour is joined to me, and we twain are one spirit." And passing on and out, your watchword at heaven's gate shall be, "Forever with the Lord." Come, O lonely life, and be united to the Lord of life. O solitary spirit, be made one with the Father and the Son, your solitude opening thus upon infinite riches of sympathy, love, and communion.

21

XVI.

THE MINISTRIES OF TIME.

1 THE LORD WILL HASTEN IT IN HIS TIME. - - Isaiah Ix. 22.

OD is sovereign and omnipotent, but he waits the

GOD

is sovereign and omnipotuld force seasons and

laws, but it is his way rather to work through them and by them. He has ordained them as servitors of his will. His purposes on the earth, in the conduct of human affairs, had, in respect to their accomplishment, a germination, a process, and a harvest-hour of consummation.

Time is the prime-minister of Providence, and brings to pass in due order, at their full periods, and at the ap pointed juncture, the patient counsels of the Most High. There is no hurrying and no sickness of deferred hope on that eternal and tranquil mind. "One day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day." It lends a new dignity and a sterner and loftier majesty to Time, when we consider it thus, not impersonally, as the passing away of our days, the swift, mute lapse of the stream of life sliding down the vale, — but as a strong, executive angel, a sceptred and conscious force, that has it in charge to reveal and fulfil the hidden plan of God.

Man is strong, and works great changes upon the earth and his fellow-man. Art is strong, and produces its rapid marvels. The forces serving the human will are nimble and muscular. Heat and frost lift up monuments of their might and magic. The fires of earth's centre, the winds that sweep over the surface, the seas that thunder along her shores, these have their power and their trophies. But Time is the great magician. All these latter forces are sinews of its own arm. The changes, the revolutions, the histories of this world, are only chronicles of the viceregency of Time.

It is fitting, as the swift shuttle glances past again, drawing another thread into the woven fabric of God's scheme for earth and man, bringing out yet more clearly the parts in the pattern for the whole, that we pause to consider

This ministry of Time in accomplishing the divine pleasure.

If the whole scope of the supreme administration may not be known thus, we may gather at least some of the principles and particulars that unite at last to perfect that consummate whole. We shall see that Time is, among men, the revealer, the attester, the vindicator, the rectifier, the fulfiller.

Time tests the principles of human conduct. I speak here of avowed principles consciously, perhaps boldly, proceeded upon, set in contrast or antagonism with one another. There is a difference among men, both in theory and in practice, in respect to these principles. The diversity and the divergence illustrate themselves in in