religion, explaining the whole of our human life, and stamped with the seal of an infallible authority, and giving us all the material evidence we require in support of the things of which we desire to be assured, no place would be left for spiritual training—for growth in holiness, or for faith in God. For the man who requires material evidence in support of his faith in God has no faith in God at all; for faith in God is faith in the highest principles of action, and to ask for some reason appealing to your lower nature why you should act up to your higher, is to confess yourself a man who sees no beauty in holiness unless it can be made

to pay.

The words of our text, therefore, lie at the root of all true religion. Like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, we think that the service of God is the best thing for us, even with respect to the world in which we live; but anyhow we know no other God to serve than the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, Whose meat during life was to do the will of God, and Who yielded up His last breath with a trustful confidence into His Father's hands, which recalls the words of the shepherd-king from whom His descent was traced: "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for Thou art with me; Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me.”

XIII.

The Forging of the Soul.

"Though our outward man perish ['is decaying,' R.V.], yet the ['our,' R.V.] inward man is renewed day by day."-2 COR. iv. 16.

IT may be that some of us, on paying a visit to a village forge, have observed how the smith, if at a loss for a light, has taken up a moderately sized nail, and holding it firmly with his pincers on the anvil, has hammered it with a few smart and well-directed blows until the iron has glowed with an intense red heat, when it may be used for the purposes of a match.

It may also be that there are some who have reflected, or, if they have not hitherto reflected, can easily perceive, that the reason of the glowing of the iron is, that as the nail is held too firmly for it to fly off and escape the blows that are rained upon it, and as the force of the strokes must be spent in some way or other, the minute particles or atoms of which the iron is composed take up the motion among themselves, and begin to vibrate with such extreme rapidity, that the nail glows with the intense red heat to which

I have referred. The external force which has been brought to bear upon the iron from the hammer in the blacksmith's hand has been changed, as the nail cannot escape them, into an inward force of light and heat.

And, of course, it is evident that the better the quality of the iron, the greater is the amount of hammering it will bear without having its structure destroyed. If you took up and hammered a piece of wood, there would be no light and scarcely any heat, because the force would be spent in pounding the wood to bits. Again, if you took up a piece of ordinary cast-iron and hammered that, there would be no light or redness, because it would be broken up under the strokes, for cast-iron has no fibre to speak of, but consists of small grains or crystals, which are easily separated by a blow, so that if it were wished to turn the cast-iron into wrought, it would have to be thrown again into the furnace, and when softened almost to melting-point, to be rolled or hammered until the required fibre was produced. Then is the metal ready to take almost any degree of temper it may be desired to impress upon it, and it may be forged into blades of such excellent toughness and elasticity, that however much they are bent, they will never break, but immediately spring back into their accustomed shape.

Now, I think you must have already anticipated what I am going to say, namely, that just as the iron under the hands of the smith is forged into its required

form and temper, so is the soul under the hands of God forged into the Divine image which He desires to impress upon it by the strokes of adversity, and by all the other circumstances that befall us from the cradle to the grave. And if, instead of trying to escape or to resist the discipline which He lays upon us, we patiently bear it, and seek to turn it to account, it will be with us as it was with the blacksmith's nail; for the metal of which our souls are made will not only become of such a tough and elastic fibre that it will resist whatever strains it may be called upon to bear, but (if I may venture to use such an awkward expression) the minute particles of which it is composed will, if we allow God's chastisements to do their proper work, take up the force of the blows that have been rained upon it, until it begins to glow with an intensity of light and heat which it could never otherwise have obtained. And this heat is nothing else than the love of God which is hereby shed abroad in our hearts, while the light is the light of the knowledge of God which comes of communion with Him, and of a participation in His Spirit.

I say, God hammers the souls of men by all the changes and chances that happen to them in this mortal life, until they begin to glow and burst into love and light-and this light is the revelation of God. For the revelation of God is an inward, not an outward experience. It may be quickened and stimulated by

outward events, or communications, but the revelation itself is that which is inwardly taken up by the soul. For just as the eye and ear have to be educated to appreciate the sights and sounds of nature, so the human conscience has to be educated to obtain a knowledge of God.

However perfect the organs of vision or hearing may be, there can be no sight or sound if the brain on which they depend be diseased; so there can be no vision of God if the conscience be depraved. He may send prophet after prophet, He may send His own well-beloved Son, but unless the heart of man responds to the call of Him Who ever stands at the door to knock, unless it submits to the discipline which God lays upon it, unless it refuses to start aside from His blows, God cannot, so to speak, educate or draw out the good of which it is capable; He cannot cause it to glow with the light and warmth of His love, and forge it into the soul of a child of God.

It may be that what I have said may appear uninteresting and unintelligible to some who are here present, more especially to the young. For a man must have lived some time in the world, and experienced the force of the strokes of God, before he can understand what is meant by the external strokes of adversity being changed into an inward force of light and love, and the peaceable fruits of righteousness which surely follow. So long as we are very young,