its kingly coronal of Upas leaves, and mark the death that spreads beneath its fatal dews; let them look upon some vice of character, at first thought well-nigh harmless, as later it pushes its rank leprosy over the whole soul; let some political wrong, at first only a hidden ferment, break out into rancorous, pestilent eruption, where foul and fast the life itself runs away; let men see, let history record, let generations feel, what desperate wickedness lies in the purpose to maintain political ascendency for a sectional end; let wasted treasuries bear their witness, and crimsoned fields and desolated homes and broken hearts; let the punishment linger till the fell spirit, the horrid rapacity, the death-griping wilfulness of this evil thing is stamped upon its brow, the mark of Cain branded in so deep that not all the gloss of the Father of lies can ever efface it; then let the heel of Omnipotence tread it down, and one such demonstration will be enough.

Good and evil are often so mingled in this life that one cannot be dislodged without uprooting the other. The wheat and tares grow together. For the sake of the wheat, it is often better that the tares remain undisturbed. There are bad men whose crimes demand signal rebuke, but there are certain precious interests partly resting upon them which would suffer if they were rudely struck away. They are men of foul hearts and profane lips, but they are husbands and fathers, and dependent lives wait upon their industry, and nestle under their care. They have fields to till and harvests to raise and products of skill and labor to produce for the

adornment and comfort of other lives. They do not fear God, nor regard man; but God can make them useful nevertheless. Their muscles are strong, and their wits are sharp for him, and their very wrath shall praise him. They shall serve, though unwittingly, as helpers to human advancement, subduing earth's briers and thorns, they are good enough for that, increasing, for selfish ends, useful inventions, sailing the ships of commerce, and manning the ships of war, legislating, ruling, fighting in great battles that set forward the progress of nations.

Shall God make no use of them? If all that he accomplishes by the hands of wicked men were left out of the sum-total of human working, it would greatly change the footing up. Let him delay wrath and subsidize these malign activities for his own beneficent ends.

Meanwhile look in upon the interior experience of these respited lives. The final sentence which they have provoked holds off; but are they therefore exempt from the penal consequences of ill-doing? Are there no sharp returns for wrong which they find they cannot escape? They live; so did Prometheus chained to his rock on the bald Caucasus, with the vulture tearing at his liver every day. Is there no cruel beak that is fleshed perpetually in their tortured heart? Are there not bitter dregs in every cup of sinful pleasure they drink? Are they not taunted with fears and forebodings? Can they lay the pale ghosts of accusing memories? Does not conscience pierce them with her barbed sting? Does not their soul sit in the shadow when it sits alone? Are these criminals really quite at large? If they walk abroad, are they not at

tended by their jailer who leads them chained, and makes them every now and then to feel the corroding iron?

But there is another side of the divine character that comes into radiant vision often in such delays. To show mercy is the infinite delight of God's heart. To recover the erring, to save the lost, to make the dead live again, to bring enemies to his feet in penitent allegiance, these are his most illustrious triumphs. There is an intercessor standing between the axe and every barren figtree pleading, "Let it alone this year also!" Spared men may become changed men. They are spared often on this peradventure. They may awake from delusion and folly; they may see how their feet are snared; they may meet yet some benign influence that shall prevail over all the solicitation of passion and appetite; afflictions may bring them to their sober selves, and the lips that wantoned with the divine sanctities may call tremblingly out of the dust, "God be merciful to me a sinner." Were not this better than instant and hopeless wrath? Whatever voice asks, "How long?" should we not all answer, "Oh, so long as there is hope; so long as Mercy, sweet angel, can yet smile; so long as the golden sceptre of forgiveness and reconciliation can still be stretched out"?

Reviewing, then, these possible reasons for the delay of God's just punishment of the wicked, we may say, Let no man presume on such respite! Delay is not forgetfulness on God's part. It is not escape on man's part. It may indeed keep the way of return open, but all the while it is but preparing, if such forbearance fail of this end, a more certain and crushing doom. God is silent,

is he? while we grow bold in sin. We look and listen; there is no sight or sound to alarm us. Ah, that very silence is appalling. Unseen agencies are at work somewhere. Below the horizon's rim the storm is gathering; the air is breathless; but this hush of the elements precedes the bursting of the tempest. You discern no enemy. Look out, then, for an ambush. Nothing approaches. Be sure, then, you will be surprised. If God delays in mercy, let not our presumption necessitate his wrath; not presumption, but repentance, is the right practical inference from such gracious forbearance.

And, on the other side, let no man's heart doubt or faint because evil seems to have present impunity. God will prove himself an avenger of all violated rights. Wait. The tide will turn, will rise. Wait. The little cloud like a man's hand will cover the face of the sky, and make it black with fury. Wait. Distant the slowgrinding wheels of doom move on. The vast iron rim turns as though it scarce moved at all. The ponderous arc comes down almost imperceptibly; but it crushes where it rolls. Have patience; even a heathen could write, "The mills of the gods grind slow, but they grind fine." The sure, inexorable processes of the heavenly Justice are on their way. Hold on with faith, hope, and good courage. In the end, God and right and truth and virtue will triumph, and wrong will take its hopeless sentence. Endure for a little while, maintain the conflict a little longer, keep a good heart above reverses. God delays, but he will come. To some despairing voice asking for the hundredth time, "How long?" will leap forth his answer, "NOW."

IV.

THE SABBATH IN THE FAMILY.

FOR I KNOW HIM, THAT HE WILL COMMAND HIS CHILDREN AND HIS HOUSEHOLD AFTER HIM, AND THEY SHALL KEEP THE WAY OF THE LORD, TO DO JUSTICE AND JUDGMENT; THAT THE LORD MAY BRING UPON ABRAHAM THAT WHICH HE HATH SPOKEN OF HIM.- - Gen. xviii. 19.

THE

gifts of the promise made to him who was "called the friend of God" were yet suspended on the conditions of parental faithfulness and a household ordered in "the way of the Lord." The divine purpose of mercy and goodness to a pious line takes up, as indispensable links in the golden chain, the right training of each generation in the long succession. If God's favor is to be transmitted from sire to son, the statutes of God are also to be handed down, and a spirit of obedience and conformity to be, by all strenuous nurture, fostered and secured. The family is God's first and fundamental institution for reproducing and continuing, as the fathers die and their sons succeed them, a people to know and serve him. He ordained it before the Church and the State; or rather it was the earliest Church, the original and germinal commonwealth. He builds States by building families, attaching their members thus to the soil of their nativity, making patriotism an instinct, and the subject's