his step. He seems to have conquered in the fields of life, to have mastered his passions without a conflict. And, perhaps, gray mingles with the native hue of his hair, the seal of his confirmation in settled integrity. He knows not, and no man knows, the strength of his propensities. The hour of trial has never fairly fronted him. What a mutinous crew slumber under the hatches there he suspects not! What combustibles are gathered beneath the fair fabric of his unsullied name! What a train might be fired, what a fight he might be called to maintain, with upleaping and furious foes and flames, he never for a moment dreams! It may happen to him to know better by and by. The ripe hour hurries on. It is all the more perilous that he has never faced real and mortal danger. He has no lore of warning experience. The train is fired, and the tumult begins. Let him gird himself like a man. The combat rages. What a fearful strife! Forward and backward the tide ebbs and flows. No such strain as this has ever tested the might of his arm. He has called himself a soldier, but he has never had a field-day till now. What if it should go against him? He pants and bleeds and falters. Oh! woe the day, if he have not a divine Helper, or if he forget to look up for heavenly succor! Let no man speak harshly of the fallen; let no man plume himself upon his own immaculateness. Our day may Low behind the bending west the distant cloud may even now be rising. Be meek, charitable, watchful, and prayerful.

come.

God even commits his own vindication to Time. He delays, both to visit for daring wrong and to reward pa

tient faith. His threatenings and his promises seem laid aside, forgotten. The impious cry, derisively, "Where is the promise of his coming?" and the believer, "Lord, how long?" But there is no demonstration from the silent heavens. That sovereign hand begins its work afar off. It rolls up not a single event, but an ordered and massive system. The good die while yet the consummation hoped for lingers. The vile triumph, and their seed seems established in the earth. Then on the vast, dim dial, the index points to the appointed hour, and vengeance and deliverance do their work; and amid blasphemy confounded and righteousness exultant, sounds the blessed voice, "I the Lord will hasten it in his time." In the individual life the grandest spiritual truths are learned late. Here, as in all learning, there is an alphabet first, and more wondrous revelations afterward. these deeper and more radiant mysteries there must be often a peculiar preparation. The soul must have a past to look back to, to build upon. The path up the snowy Alps is at first along rugged and earthy ravines; by and by it emerges, and the dazzling peak shoots heavenward. The time of need, the hour of trial, the crisis of sharp experience, must bring the moment of revelation. We must suffer our converts to be babes; we must expect for ourselves more glowing and rapt discoveries of God's grace and loving-kindness than our poor attainments in the past have ever mastered.

For

But these ministries of Time touch heart-nerves in passing. They play sorely on tender chords. The music is solemn, wailing, and dirgelike. There are weep

ing kindreds here who dreamed not a year ago, in their glad security, what Time had in store for them; that he should lead their best beloved away from their circle; that he was weaving ever, while they smiled and slept, a winding-sheet for tender, fair, and manly forms; that, in the silence and in the darkness, he was digging a grave, and lettering some sweet household name in marble; that soon he should shroud their joyousness in the darkness of the tomb, their festive garments in the sable of mourning. But this he had in keeping for them. He has lent strength and grace to many a life; he has piled up bounties at every door; he has filled our garners with his loaded wains; but, alas! he has stolen from hearthstone and fireside what he can never replace.

And yet Time has a ministry of consolation too. He heals where he wounds. It is of God that his touch has such a balm in it. He wipes away tears; he unknits the furrowed brow; he brings back the smile to the quivering lips; he leads the captive forth into the sunshine; he gathers upon the bereaved the tender and soothing spell of memory; he plants flowers in the path where bleeding feet have walked, pierced by the thorns.

O Time! what dost thou yet keep back from us? What commissions hast thou to execute upon us in these fresh, opening days of the new-born year? Whither along this track that glides always into the shadow of tomorrow dost thou lead our feet? What of joy or of sorrow, of conflict or of suffering, art thou marshalling even now? Vain guess! No voice answers. Into the mist opens no vista of light. But this we know, Time is a

creature of God. It waits upon that sovereign will. It comes to us a guide sent from heaven, to conduct us onward into the good pleasure of One whom in life and in death we can trust with our mortal and immortal hopes.

O Time! roll on the year, bring up the forces of the hidden future. With one hand clasping the divine hand, and a mutual good cheer, which we make a prayer today, we go forward in faith and hope.

22*

WH

HEN mention is made of the sufferings of Christ, our thoughts turn naturally to the scene in the garden, where nature, overstrained, gave her witness in crimson drops, and to the slow agonies of the cross, killing, not by any single mortal stroke, but by the sharpness of conquering pain. This habit of thought fails to appreciate the deep significance of such an expression as that we are to dwell upon now.

It need not, necessarily, be a mournful and saddening subject for us to consider. There is nothing depressing in recalling the hardships and wounds of a soldier who has come home victorious and laurelled from the wars, nor in speaking of the storm and wreck and thirst, the great fight with the elements through which the muchenduring mariner has returned safely and prosperously to port, nor in listening to chronicles of the long, dreadful arctic night from one who sits at our warm fireside and tells of the conflict and the triumph. Our Saviour has endured the cross, passed beneath the shame, carried his