that others are standing by. It seems to have been this that Job was doing-he was realizing by meditation. You can scarcely read over these words without fancying them the syllables of a man who was thinking aloud.

It is like a soliloquy rather than a conversation. "I shall see him." Myself. Not another. My own eyes. This is what we want. It is good for a man to get alone, and then in silence think upon his own death, and feel how time is hurrying him along: that a little while ago, and he was not a little while still, and he will be no more. It is good to take the Bible in his hands, and read those passages at this season of the year which speak of the Coming and the End of all, till from the printed syllables there seems to come out something that has life, and form, and substance in it, and all things that are passing in the world group themselves in preparation for that, and melt into its outline. Let us try to live with these things in view. God our Friend-Christ our living Redeemer; our sympathizing Brother; our conquering Champion: the triumph of truth, the end of wrong. We shall live upon realities then: and this world will fade away into that which we know it is, but yet can not realize an appearance, and a shadow.

Lastly, God insures that His children shall realize all this by affliction. Job had admitted these things before, but this time he spoke from the ashes on which he was writhing. And if ever a man is sincere, it is when he is in pain. If ever that superficial covering of conventionalities falls from the soul, which gathers round it as the cuticle does upon the body, and the rust upon the metal, it is when men are suffering. There are many things which nothing but sorrow can teach us. Sorrow is the great teacher. Sorrow is the realizer. It is a strange and touching thing to hear the young speak truths which are not yet within the limits of their experience: to listen while they say that life is sorrowful, that friends are treacherous, that there is quiet in the grave. When we are boys we adopt the phrases that we hear. In a kind of prodigal excess of happiness, we say that the world is a dream, and life a nothing-that eternity lasts forever, and that all here is disappointment. But there comes a day of sharpness, when we find to our surprise that what we said had a meaning in it, and we are startled. That is the sentimentalism of youth passing into reality. In the lips of the young such phrases are only sentimentalities. What we

mean by sentimentalism is that state in which a man speaks things deep and true, not because he feels them strongly, but because he perceives that they are beautiful, and that it is

touching and fine to say them-things which he fain would feel, and fancies that he does feel. Therefore, when all is well, when friends abound, and health is strong, and the comforts of life are around us, religion becomes faint and shadowy. Religious phraseology passes into cant-the gay, and light, and trifling use the same words as the holiest; till the earnest man, who feels what the world is sentimentalizing about, shuts up his heart, and either coins other phrases or else keeps silence.

And then it is that if God would rescue a man from that unreal world of names and mere knowledge, He does what he did with Job-He strips him of his flocks, and his herds, and his wealth; or else, what is the equivalent, of the power of enjoying them-the desire of his eyes falls from him at a stroke. Things become real then. Trial brings man face to face with God-God and he touch; and the flimsy veil of bright cloud that hung between him and the sky is blown away: he feels that he is standing outside the earth with nothing between him and the Eternal Infinite. Oh, there is something in the sick-bed, and the aching heart, and the restlessness and the languor of shattered health, and the sorrow of affections withered, and the stream of life poisoned at its fountain, and the cold, lonely feeling of utter rawness of heart which is felt when God strikes home in earnest, that forces a man to feel what is real and what is not.

This is the blessing of affliction to those who will lie still and not struggle in a cowardly or a resentful way. It is God speaking to Job out of the whirlwind, and saying, In the sunshine and the warmth you can not meet Me: but in the hurricane and the darkness, when wave after wave has swept down and across the soul, you shall see My form, and hear My voice, and know that your Redeemer liveth. 6*

XI.

FIRST ADVENT LECTURE.

THE GRECIAN.

"I am debtor both to the Greeks, and to the Barbarians; both to the wise, and to the unwise. So, as much as in me is, I am ready to preach the gospel to you that are at Rome also. For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith."-Rom. i. 14-17.

THE season of Advent commemorates three facts. 1. That the Lord has come. 2. That He is perpetually coming. 3. That He will yet come in greater glory than has yet appeared. And these are the three Advents: The first in the flesh, which is past; the second in the spirit; the third, His judgment advent.

The first occupies our attention in these lectures.

We live surrounded by Christian institutions; breathe an atmosphere saturated by Christianity. It is exceedingly difficult even to imagine another state of things. In the enjoyment of domestic purity, it is difficult to conceive the debasing effects of polygamy; in the midst of political liberty, to conceive of the blighting power of slavery; in scientific progress, to imagine mental stagnation; in religious liberty and free goodness, to fancy the reign of superstition.

Yet to realize the blessings of health we must sit by the sick-bed; to feel what light is we must descend into the mine and see the emaciated forms which dwindle away in darkness; to know what the blessing of sunshine is, go down into the valleys where stunted vegetation and dim vapors tell of a scene on which the sun scarcely shines two hours in the day. And to know what we have from Christianity, it is well to cast the eyes sometimes over the darkness from which the Advent of Christ redeemed us.

There are four departments of human nature spoken of in these verses on which the light shined. The apostle felt that the Gospel was the power of God unto salvation to the Greeks, the Romans, the Barbarians, and the Jews. In the present lecture we consider Christianity presented to the Grecian character, and superseding the Grecian religion.

Four characteristics marked Grecian life and Grecian religion: Restlessness, worldliness, the worship of the beautiful, the worship of the human.

I. Restlessness. Polytheism divided the contemplation over many objects: and as the outward objects were manifold, so was there a want of unity in the inward life. The Grecian mind was distracted by variety. He was to obtain wisdom from one Deity: eloquence from that Mercurius for whom Paul was taken; purity from Diana for whom Ephesus was zealous; protection for his family or country from the respective tutelary deities; success by a prayer to For

tune.

Hence dissipation of mind—that fickleness for which the Greeks were famous-and the restless love of novelty which made Athens a place of literary and social gossip-" some new thing." All stability of character rests on the contemplation of changeless unity.

So in modern science, which is eminently Christian, having exchanged the bold theorizing of ancient times for the patient humble willingness to be taught by the facts of nature, and performing its wonders by exact imitation of them-on the Christian principle-the Son of man can do nothing of Himself but what He seeth the Father do.

And all the results of science have been to simplify and trace back the manifold to unity. Ancient science was only a number of insulated facts and discordant laws; modern science has gradually ranged these under fewer and ever fewer laws. It is ever tending towards unity of law.

For example, gravitation. The planet's motion, and the motion of the atom of water that dashes tumultuously, and as it seems lawlessly, down the foam of the cataract; the floating of the cork, the sinking of the stone, the rise of the balloon, and the curved flight of the arrow, are all brought under one single law, diverse and opposite as they seem.

Hence science is calm and dignified, reposing upon uniform fact. The philosopher's very look tells of repose, resting, as he does, on a few changeless principles.

So also in religion. Christianity proclaimed "One God and one Mediator between God and Man, the man Christ Jesus." Observe the effect in the case of two apostles. St. Paul's view of the Gospel contemplated it as an eternal divine purpose. His Gospel, the salvation of the Gentiles, was the eternal purpose which had been hidden from ages and generations. His own personal election was part of an eternal counsel. All the children of God had been predesti

nated before the creation "unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself." Now see the effect on character. First, on veracity-2 Cor. i. 18, etc. He contemplated the changeless "yea" of God; His own yea became fixed as God's changeless, and calmly unalterable.

Again in orthodoxy-"Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, to-day, and forever." "Be not carried about by divers and strange doctrines." Truth is one, error manifold many opinions, yet there can be but one faith. See how calm and full of rest all this spirit is.

Now consider St. John. His view of the Gospel recognized it rather as the manifestation of love than the carrying out of the unity of an everlasting purpose. If you view the world as the Greek did, all is so various that you must either refer it to various deities, or to different modes of the same Deity. To-day you are happy-God is pleased: tomorrow miserable-God is angry. But St. John referred these all to unity of character-"God is Love." Pain and pleasure, the sigh and smile, the sunshine and the storm, nay, hell itself, to him were but the results of eternal love.

Hence came deep calm-the repose which we are toiling all our lives to find, and which the Greek never found.

II. Worldliness. There are men and nations to whom this world seems given as their province, as if they had no aspiration above it. If ever there was a nation who understood the science of living, it was the Grecian. They had organized social and domestic life; filled existence with comforts; knew how to extract from every thing its greatest measure of enjoyment. This world was their home; this visible world was the object of their worship. Not like the Orientals, who called all materialism bad, and whose highest object was to escape from it, "to be unclothed, not clothed upon," as St. Paul phrases it. The Greeks looked upon this world in its fallen state, and pronounced it all "very good." The results were threefold.

1. Disappointment. Lying on the infinite bosom of Nature, the Greek was yet unsatisfied. And there is an insatiable desire above all external forms and objects in man— all men-which they can never satisfy. Hence his craving too, like others, was from time to time, "Who will show us any good?" This dissatisfaction is exhibited in the parable of the prodigal, who is but the symbol of erring humanity. Away from his father's home, the famine came, and he fed on husks. Famine and husks are the world's unsatisfactoriness. A husk is a thing that seems full-is really hollow