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the moon ;" what we know not now we shall know hereafter. We shall then stand with Christ in the zenith of creation, and all suns and systems shall culminate over our heads, and we ourselves, like persons under the equator, cast no shadow. Now we see God in History, then we shall read HISTORY IN GOD.

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God is in your biography. Is your present place what you expected ten years ago? Have you not often set out to a predetermined point, and arrived at the very opposite ? You have toiled and prayed for some object on which you had fixed your heart, and afterwards learned that your success would have been your ruin, and that disappointment was your greatest mercy. Have you not gone to laugh, and remained to weep ? Has not the turning of a corner determined the complexion of your future life? Let any one remember all the way he has been led in the wilderness, and see if it be not so. "Who knoweth what is good for man in this life, . . which he spendeth as a shadow ?" "A man's heart deviseth his ways; but the Lord directeth his steps." "Man's goings are of the Lord." all thy ways acknowledge him, and He will direct thy paths." There are no trifles in the biography of man. It is drops that make up the sea: it is acorns that cover the earth with oaks, and the ocean with glorious navies. Sands make up the bar in the harbour's mouth, on which rich argosies are wrecked ; and little things in youth accumulate into character in age, and destiny in eternity. All the links in that glorious chain, which is in all and around all, we can see and admire, or at least admit; but the staple to which all is fastened, and to which it is the conductor of all, is the throne of Deity.

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Carry with you into the warehouse, the shop, the countinghouse, the market-place, this living and plastic conviction, "Thou God seest me.' It will sweeten, not sadden life. Seek him, and find him now in Christ your Father, and walk with him always, not as a maniac with his keeper, or a slave with his master, but as a son with his father.

Be Christians first, and then you will know what it is to be happy. Christianity is God in the sunshine of mercy. Behold, believe; look to God in the central page of history, the epochal hour of eternity, God manifest in the flesh. In Him I hear not the curses of Ebal, or the thunder of Sinai, but the throbbings of the heart of God.

Read on that manger, 66 Though He was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich." Read on Gethsemane, "On Him were laid the iniquities of us all." Read on that cross, "He bare our sins in his own body on the tree;" and on that grave, "O death, where is thy victory ?"

The weakest, poorest, meanest hearer in this auditory has a soul as precious as the Queen's-more glorious than a thousand worlds-immensity its element-eternity its end; so fallen that it tries to satisfy its want from earthly things; so great that it never succeeds in doing so.

That soul of yours, if an unregenerate young man, is sinking day by day into depths of ruin. God's great bright eye is riveted on it in pity, as truly as if Deity and you were the only twain in creation. And a Father's piercing remonstrance breaks from the sky, "Why will ye die ?" And a mother's tender and holy entreaty from a distant fireside sounds after it, "My son, Absalom, my son; my son, Absalom! What shall it profit thee, if thou gainest the whole world, and losest thine own soul !" The last shock comes on; the last trump is in the archangel's hand. The pause realized in this land, like that given to Jerusalem to allow the Christians to flee to Pella, is now vouchsafed to us. Seize the moments as they rush past. The avenger is at your heels: flee to the city of refuge. The destroying angel has spread his wing upon the blast, and, standing between the living and the dead, I invite you to that blood of sprinkling which alone cleanseth from sin and covers from judgment.

THE BEARING OF COMMERCE UPON THE

SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY.

BY

THE REV. ROBERT BICKERSTETH, M.A.

THE BEARING OF COMMERCE UPON THE

TH

SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY.

HE subject of the following Lecture is, "The Bearing of Commerce upon the Spread of Christianity;" or, in other words, Commerce considered in its subserviency to the diffusion of the Christian religion.

Two important topics evidently meet one at the outset, in the investigation of such a subject: on the one hand, it is presumed that Christianity is to be propagated; it is taken for granted that Christianity is the religion which in the purpose of God is both adapted and intended for unlimited, universal adoption. On the other hand, we are met by this inquiry, May not commerce, may not mercantile intercourse be a medium through which, in the providence of God, the onward march of Christianity can be rapidly promoted? This latter inquiry will admit of very wide expansion. There are several important and distinct aspects under which it may be surveyed. It will lead us to investigate how far it harmonizes with the actings of God, so far as those actings come within the range of our observation, to suppose that subordinate instrumentalities should be employed for the furtherance of such an end as the one here alluded to, namely, the subjugation of the world to the religion of Christ.

Is there not, we may ask, sufficient ground to believe that through the agency of commercial intercourse, commercial power, commercial wealth, the interests of Christianity may be ad

VOL. IV.

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