which lies in no human heart. The avalanche is loosened the nations tremble-men's hearts are failing for fear. Tyrants must quake and concordats must be torn in shreds before the force that smites the four corners of Europe. Christians alone are invited to lift up their heads, for out of the wreck of nations their redemption draweth nigh. "The Lord reigneth" is the anchorage of their hearts-the fountain of their hope the guarantee to the universe that right and truth and love shall prevail.

LECTURE XXXII.

THE YEARNINGS OF NATURE.

I. Who are the sons of God?

II. How are they hid?

III. What is their manifestation?

IV. What interest has creation in them?

"For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God."--ROM. viii. 19.

I. WHO are the sons of God?

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These are not the monopoly of any nation earth. Zion and Gerizim are discrowned and Palestine is no more the limit of the family of God. They are to be found in Africa and India, England and America. Dark and white, bond and free, they are scattered over all the earth.

They are not the monopoly of any church or denomination. Some are still in Rome, groaning under her bondage. Like flowers on the bosom of the avalanche, blossoms in the desert, sparkles on the sea, they are kept alive by God. Some were baptized in infancy, and some in maturer years. Some have been sprinkled and some immersed. They are of various rites and ecclesiastical polities. Some are born and not yet born again; and some are still, in the purpose of God, neither born nor born again.

They are sons of God who are born again. "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." God is their Father, Christ " Redeemer, the Holy Spirit their Sanctif

are chosen in Christ, clothed with his righteousness, and lifted from the family of Adam into the holy family of God. They are all sealed and set apart for a sublime destiny-heirs of no mean city and of no frail inheritance. Theirs is not a reformation of life, but a revolution of nature.

They are trained by paternal dealing for their grand end. Sometimes they are spoiled of riches, and estate, and wealth, in order that through a clearer atmosphere, and unobstructed by Mammon, they may see the splendour of the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the living God, and, thus detached from earth, may aspire upward to heaven. Sometimes sickness wastes their beauty like a moth, that they may think of the health that never fades, and feel that "here they have no continuing city." Sometimes they lose their children, that they may be thus constrained to lift their affections higher, as they see gems disappear on earth, in order that God may make up his jewels in heaven.

But all is the dealing of a Father-in love, not in anger-paternal, not penal-chastening, not punishing.

They bear, in a greater or less degree, a family likeness to the Elder Brother. Still surviving, we discover many defects, but surmounting all the lineaments of their earthly descent we see the likeness of their Lord. As He is in the world even so we find them in various stages of development, with different degrees and various kinds of obscurations and partial eclipses. Yet, through irresistible instincts, emerging victorious, and ripening for the kingdom of God. They love God, his word, his house, and prayer.

"Our life is hid."

"The

II. How are they hid? Scripture says it is so. world knoweth us not." The springs and roots of their conduct are hid. The world can see their justice, kindness, and charity, but not the inner life, nor the hidden manna that feeds it-nor the hidden hopes of glory.

Their moral and spiritual beauty is hid. This is not the sort of beauty that is appreciated by the common eye. It can appreciate justly the beauty of cathedrals, the massive grandeur of the Pyramids, the elegance of palaces, the harmony of basilicas, but it cannot understand or see the beauty of the living temple of God-beautiful, because adorned with righteousness. The king's daughter is all glorious within.

His "sons" are often hid in consequence of their own imperfections. Endless imperfections and infirmities beset us. These disfigure, while they do not destroy, and often overlay the distinguishing features of the Christian. In one man, grace has more to do than in another-more to detach and destroy.

There are still lineaments of the family of God, though dimmed and distorted by many a mist. That hasty temper has a loving heart in the background. That rugged Christian is the rude casket which contains a precious jewel. A keen eye can see beneath the exterior, and detect a son of God in all possible disguises.

"Sons" are often hid in consequence of the various ways of acting out character. In one Christian grace speaks, in another it is silent; in one it is busy, in another it sits still.

We often fail to see a son of God, because we do not see the expression of character which we like.

In many, grace has so much inner work, that its force is expressed in secrecy and silence. If we had more of the charity, which "believeth all things," we should oftener see Christians, when we see men only. Those whom man shuts out, God takes in.

The sons of God are often hid by poverty and obscurity. Christians on the high and sunny tablelands of life are visible to all-their virtues and defects are patent; but Christians in underground cellars, like violets under the cold, gray limestone rock, require to be sought out. There Christianity lives in its least

striking, though not less real types, in meekness, in patience, in martyr-like endurance.

"Full many a gem of purest ray serene,

The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear;
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air."

III. What is their manifestation?

This is explained as synchronous and identical with "the adoption and redemption of the body," in verse 23.

They are already adopted because sons of God. Those who "have" not "wait for." It means visible adoption, i. e., God's public-and before the assembled universe audible recognition of his children, when Jesus, the Judge of all, shall say: "Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world."

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"The redemption of the body." The body is as truly redeemed as the soul. Bought with a price, even the precious blood of a Lamb without spot or blemish." What is here taught is the visible manifestation of its redemption by its resurrection from the grave. This resurrection of the body is as sure as the immortality of the soul-the one is the complement of

the other.

This manifestation of the sons of God is that glorious gathering when every redeemed soul shall descend in the cloud and put on resurrection robes, like dews of the morning, and as numerous-shining in the splendour of a sun that never sets. At that day the voice of the Son of God shall send its accents into all depths and heights; into pyramids of stone and monuments of bronze; into marble mausolea and green hillocks, and martyrs' graves and silent sepulchres; and the sailor's restless winding-sheet shall open joyously its bosom, and the dead of many thousand years shall rise in resurrection beauty, on which the sepulchre shall leave no stain, and death no mark.