what they need on the morrow will be provided on the morrow. From the Divine bounty, and the orderly design shown in the provision made for the beauty and welfare even of such creatures as exist but for a day, they infer the wisdom and goodness which are employed for those who are created for an everlasting worship in Heaven. They are thus able to "cast their burden on the Lord.” 1 The spring with which the soul rises to "things above,' as unto its true region, is not deadened by a weight of earthly cares; nor are their prayers hindered and distracted by an inroad of pressing anxieties. They know in whom they have believed; and that in every temporal sorrow or suffering He is still concerned to comfort and uphold them; even the same gracious Father who provideth for their eternal salvation by the gift of His beloved Son.*

1 Ps. lv. 22.

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XXXII.-THE FOWLS OF THE AIR.

"Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment ? Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?"-Matt. vi. 25, 26.

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THE same lesson which the lilies of the field teach us in every quiet nook and sunny meadow, is suggested by the fowls of the air as they fly over our heads in the open firmament of heaven. They neither sow, nor reap, nor gather into barns," yet the boundless mercy of the universal Parent fills them day by day with plenteousness.' Each bird that darts across the sky in the full enjoyment of its innocent being, suggests to us a lesson of happy dependence on a wise and merciful Providence. Why are our hearts so backward

to be taught this lesson, which is continually proclaimed to us by those living and rejoicing witnesses? "Are we not much better than they? Will He who supplies their continual wants, fail to remember us in our time of need? Let us shame ourselves out of our poor distrust, and those pining cares which eat out the very heart of religious joy and peace; fulfil diligently the daily duties of our calling, and depend with simple and affectionate trust on an all-wise and all-merciful Providence.

XXXIII.-THE HEATH IN THE DESERT.

"Thus saith the Lord; Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the Lord. For he shall be like the heath in the desert, and shall not see when good cometh; but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land and not inhabited."-Jer. xvii. 5, 6.-See also Isa. i. 30; Luke viii. 6.

As the tree planted by the water side' is an emblem of the true servant of God, so the heath in the

desert represents to us the miserable state of him who trusts in an arm of flesh, and in his heart departeth from the Lord. There is a stunted and dwarfish character even in the better points of his conduct, as if no true virtue could thrive in his soul.

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Whatever be the season, the heath that grows a salt land, or in the parched places of the wilderness, has always the same blighted and withered appearance; and thus, if a man is leaning for support on an arm of flesh, he can receive no true benefit from the best and highest privileges of God's Church. God ever sends leanness into his soul.1 He finds one false prop fail him after another, and when at last he sees the vanity of such miserable dependence, he has no Almighty arm to lean upon.

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Give me grace, O Lord, to renounce from my heart all dependence on anything but on Thy protecting mercy. Whether I be inclined to say "to the fine gold, Thou art my confidence," or to trust for happiness to the ties of kindred and affection, or to intellectual pleasures, or to a self-righteous conceit; teach me to abhor all such unfaithfulness, and in Thee only, and in Thy mercy, through Jesus Christ, to seek for rest and contentment.

1 Ps. cvi. 15.

2 Job xxxi. 24.

XXXIV. THE TWO BUILDERS.

"Whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock : and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock. And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand: and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house, and it fell : and great was the fall of it."--Matt. vii. 24-27.

I MARKED a house standing on the soft sandy cliff, on which the sea is continually making inroads. Already vast portions of the headlands, with the buildings that were upon them, have been washed away; and it is plain that the remaining mansion, however stately, and strongly built, must soon follow. How much labour has been spent in vain! How unwise was the builder who raised so costly a structure on so unsafe a site! How grievous that what is so fair in appearance should be so insecure in reality!

You may have often seen a far poorer structure