tory. "Yet have I left me seven thousand in Israel who have not bowed the knee to Baal." So, then, Elijah's life had been no failure, after all. Seven thousand at least in Israel had been braced and encouraged by his example, and silently blessed him, perhaps, for the courage which they felt. In God's world, for those that are in earnest there is no failure. No work truly done, no word earnestly spoken, no sacrifice freely made, was ever made in vain. Never did the cup of cold water given for Christ's sake lose its reward.

We turn naturally from this scene to a still darker hour, and more august agony. If ever failure seemed to rest on a noble life, it was when the Son of Man, deserted by His friends, heard the cry which proclaimed that the Pharisees had successfully drawn the net round their Divine Victim. Yet, from that very hour of defeat and death there went forth the world's life, from that very moment of apparent failure there proceeded forth into the ages the spirit of the conquering Cross. Surely, if the Cross says any thing, it says that apparent defeat is real victory, and that there is a heaven for those who have nobly ana truly failed on earth.

Distinguish, therefore, between the Real and the Apparent. Elijah's apparent success was in the shouts of Mount Carmel: his real success was in the unostentatious, unsurmised obedience of the seven thou sand who had taken his God for their God.

A lesson for all. For teachers who lay their heads down at night sickening over their thankless task. Remember the power of indirect influences; those which distil from a life, not from a sudden, brilliant

effort. The former never fail; the latter, often. There is good done of which we can never predicate the when or where. Not in the flushing of a pupil's cheek, or the glistening of an attentive eye; not in the shining results of an examination, does your real success lie. It lies in that invisible influence on character which He alone can read who counted the seven thousand nameless ones in Israel.

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For ministers, again, what is ministerial success? Crowded churches-full aisles-attentive congre gations the approval of the religious world- much impression produced? Elijah thought so; and when he found out his mistake, and discovered that the applause on Carmel subsided into hideous stillness, his heart well-nigh broke with disappointment. Ministerial success lies in altered lives and obedient hum. ble hearts; unseen work recognized in the judgment day.

A public man's success? That which can be measured by feast-days, and the number of journals which espouse his cause? Deeper, deeper far must he work who works for Eternity. In the eye of That, nothing stands but gold. Real work-all elso perishes.

Get below appearances, below glitter and show. Plant your foot upon reality. Not in the jubilee of the myriads on Carmel, but in the humble silence of the hearts of the seven thousand, lay the proof that Elijah had not lived in vain.

VII.

[Preached January 12, 1851.]

NOTES ON PSALM LI.

Written by David, after a double crime: Uriah put in the forefront of the battle, the wife of the murdered man taken, &c.

A DARKER guilt you will scarcely find: kingly power abused-worst passions yielded to. Yet this psalm breathes from a spirit touched with the finest sensibilities of spiritual feeling.

Two sides of our mysterious two-fold being here. Something in us near to hell; something strangely near to God. "Half beast. half devil ?” No: rather half diabolical-half divine: half demon-half God. This man mixing with the world's sins in such sort that we shudder. But he draws near the majesty of God, and becomes softened, purified, melted.

Good to observe this that we rightly estimate: generously of fallen humanity; moderately of highest saintship.

In our best estate and in our purest moments there. s a something of the Devil in us, which, if it could be known, would make men shrink from us. The germs of the worst crimes are in us all. In our deepest degradation there remains something sacred, undefiled,

the pledge and gift of our better nature; a germ of indestructible life, like the grains of wheat among the cerements of a mummy, surviving through three thousand years; which may be planted, and live, and grow again.

It is this truth of human feeling which makes the Psalms, more than any other portion of the Old Testa ment, the link of union between distant ages. The. historical books need a rich store of knowledge before they can be a modern book of life; but the Psalms are the records of individual experience. Personal religion is the same in all ages. The deeps of our humanity remain unruffled by the storms of ages which change the surface. This psalm, written three thousand years ago, might have been written yester day; describes the vicissitudes of spiritual life in an Englishman as truly as of a Jew. "Not of an age, but for all time."

I. Scripture estimate of sin.
II. Spiritual restoration.

I. Scriptural estimate of sin.

1. Personal accountability. "My sin," - strange, but true. It is hard to believe the sin we do our own. One lays the blame on circumstances; another, on those who tempted; a third, on Adam, Satan, or his own nature, as if it were not himself. "The fathers have eaten a sour grape, and the children's teeth are set on edge."

In this psalm no such self-exculpation. Personal accountability throughout. No source of evil sug gested or conceived but his own guilty will; no shifting of responsibility; no pleading of a passionate nature,

or royal exposure as peculiar. "I have sinned." "I acknowledge my transgression; my sin is ever before me."

One passage only seems at first to breathe a dif ferent tone. "In sin did my mother conceive me." By some interpreted as referring to hereditary sin; alleged as a proof of the doctrine of transmitted guilt, as if David traced the cause of his act to his maternal character.

True as the doctrine is that physical and moral qualities are transmissible, you do not find that doctrine here. It is not in excuse, but in exaggeration of his fault, that David speaks. He lays on himself the blame of a tainted nature, instead of that of a single fault: not a murderer only, but of a murderous nature. "Conceived in sin." From first moments up till then, he saw sin-sin-sin; nothing but sin.

Learn the individual character of sin,-its personal origin and personal identity. There can be no transference of it. It is individual and incommunicable. My sin cannot be your sin, nor yours mine.

Conscience, when it is healthy, ever speaks thus: "My transgression." It was not the guilt of them that tempted you. They have theirs; but each, as a separate agent, his own degree of guilt. Yours is your own; the violation of your own and not another's sense of duty; solitary, awful, unshared, adhering to you alone, of all the spirits of the universe.

Perilous to refer the evil in us to any source out of and beyond ourselves. In this way penitence becomes impossible fictitious.

2. Estimated as hateful to God. "Against Thee, Thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in Thy sight;