there any here that feareth the Lord, and obeyeth the voice of his servant, that walketh in darkness, and hath no light;" in other words, blind and bewildered both? What does the prophet say to him? "Let him trust

in the Lord, and stay himself upon his God." Therefore, whenever you cannot explain the place you are in, the circumstances that surround you, or the difficulties that oppose you, remember that God your Father is there; and that He is leading you, a blind man, by ways that you do not know; and an ignorant man, in paths you have not seen; and that He who has placed you there, if you will wait, trust, pray, hope, and never despair-for despair dishonours God-will make crooked things straight, and dark places light: "and I will never leave thee, never forsake thee, saith the Lord that hath mercy on thee."

So God carries the earth through Gethsemane to Paradise and us there also.

LECTURE XXIX.

PRECIOUS STONES.

The conversation of the redeemed does not relate exclusively or chiefly to the things of this present world. It is the language of "a better country." Its great subjects will be their everlasting inheritance. It partakes of the music and shines in the light of glory, for it is written

"They that feared the Lord spake often one to another; and the Lord hearkened, and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before Him for them that feared the Lord, and that thought_upon his name. And they shall be mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels; and I will spare them, as a man spareth his own son that serveth him."-MALACHI iii. 16, 17.

DECLARED in the precious verses of Malachi iii., especially in the 5th, and the 9th, and the 13th, and the 15th, we find the great corruption that almost universally prevailed in the age in which this was written. It is a picture as dark as it is possible for a picture to be. It furnishes, too, expressive proofs how deceitful, above all things, is the heart of man, and to what a pitch of depravity and evil it may come. hearkened and heard," says the Lord, by Jeremiah, describing a similar moral condition; "I hearkened and heard, but they spake not aright: no man repented him of his wickedness, saying, What have I done? every one turned to his course, as the horse rusheth into the battle." But it was just in the midst of this over

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shadowing eclipse that there appeared, scattered here and there, lights, few and far between, if not relieving, at least revealing the gloom that was around them; for, in the midst of all this great corruption, when the priest by the altar, the tradesman at his counter, the merchant in his counting-house, and all ranks and classes had corrupted their ways and apostatized from God, there was still a remnant, "the faithful few," who "feared the Lord," thought upon his name," ""spake often one to another," and of whom this record is given by Him: "A book of remembrance was written; and they shall be mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels." A few tall cedars, goodly and beautiful, appeared amidst the undergrowth of noxious vegetation and accumulating decay; and these are evidences so far as that day reaches, that in no age of the world is God's Church utterly annihilated, and that in the very worst and least prepossessing of circumstances, He has a people waiting, "as watchmen wait for the morning"-that is, for the dawn of a better day. We find a Noah in the antediluvian world, an Abraham in the land of Ur, a Simeon and an Anna in the deepest degeneracy of Judah, waiting for redemption in Israel; and in the darkness of the mediæval ages, in many a monk's cell and anchorite's sequestered hermitage, there were men who looked beyond the mere flaunting signals of superstition, and held fast the Saviour, and clung to his cross, and found salvation in his precious blood. There is something in real religion enduring, permanent, divine. It is also as true of every individual Christian, that not one shall perish, as it is that not one jot or tittle shall pass from God's Word, until all shall be fulfilled. Human life is found to have marvellous powers of adaptation and endurance in the very worst of circumstances. Man is physically so constituted, that he can live amid polar snows, on Africa's burning sands, or under Indian suns. This indestructible and elastic power is no less true of the hidden life of God in the soul; it has survived all

opposition, it has lived in all circumstances, eliminating increase from the worst, and in the darkest and most depressing times it has sung its own sweet under-song of hope, looking for a better and a brighter day in the future, but incapable of destruction by any force in the present. The Christian life has lived in the catacombs, where the heathen emperors enclosed it; in the Inquisition, where men professing Christ's name confined it. In adversity and in prosperity, in darkness and in sunshine, in all the varied phases of human experience, Christian life has lived and endured; and often it has only become more intense from the opposition by which it has been surrounded. It has proved like the electric element, which gathers strength from opposition, intensity from repression, and kindles richest splendour from surrounding gloom; and so it flourishes in its past victories an augury of that universal triumph, when the whole earth shall be filled with God's glory, and they shall all be righteous, being all taught of God from the least to the greatest.

In seeking to ascertain the characteristics of these few and far between, found in the universal degeneracy, we shall not need to go farther than the picture of Malachi. The very first feature is, that "they feared the Lord;" and this the distinctive feature of their character was no doubt the secret of their preservation. "They feared the Lord." But what may we understand by this expression, "feared the Lord," so frequently given in holy Scripture? David describes the wicked as those who had no fear of God before their eyes. Does fearing God mean being alarmed or terrified at the sense or a thought of his presence? Not at all. Fear, in its sacred sense, is a mingled and composite emotion. It combines the reverence that the creature owes to the Creator with the love and the confidence that a son feels to a parent. It is all the confidence of a son set in all the awe of a creature. It regards God at once as Creator, and Preserver, and Father, in Christ Jesus. And hence, a Christian's fear

is not the fear of the loss of wealth on earth, or the loss of life in heaven, but a sacred sense of obligation to God, gratitude for his mercy, love to his character, and responsibility to Him. It keeps him always in the way that is right, and sustains him in the practice of every great and noble duty. That this fear is the offspring of love is evident from these words of the Psalmist: "There is forgiveness with Thee, that Thou mavest be feared." The conscious sense that a believer has of forgiveness received from God awakens in his bosom that fear which is the characteristic of those described by Malachi, "That feared the Lord, and that thought upon his name." Very beautifully this fear is described by the patriarch Job as the very perfection of wisdom, where he says, in describing what science has done, and what it will do (xxviii. 2): “Iron is taken out of the earth, and brass is molten out of the stone."-There is the skill of man. "He setteth an end to darkness, and searcheth out all perfection. As for the earth, out of it cometh bread and under it is turned up as it were fire. The stones of it are the place of sapphires; and it hath dust of gold."-Describing the discovery of wealth, and the production of crops of wheat for man, and grass for cattle. "Man cutteth out rivers among the rocks; and his eye seeth every precious thing. He bindeth the floods from overflowing; and the thing that is hid bringeth He forth to light."-Describing the powers and the achievements of science. But when God asks, "Where shall wisdom be found? and where is the place of understanding? Man knoweth not the price thereof; neither is it found in the land of the living. The depth saith, It is not in me: and the sea saith, It is not in me. It cannot be gotten for gold, neither shall silver be weighed for the price thereof. It cannot be valued with the gold of Ophir, with the precious onyx, or the sapphire. The gold and the crystal cannot equal it: and the exchange of it shall not be for jewels of fine gold. No mention shall be made of coral, or of pearls: for the price of wisdom is