among us who have not known what it is to sink in depths of sorrow and anguish of soul. Yet is there never a depth in those terrible hours through which we are called to pass, through which He, our blessed Lord has not passed before! There is no anguish of soul in which we may not lean upon One who has gone down deeper still; who exclaimed, 'My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death;' and, again, 'My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?' Ah, beloved, never can we have to pass through such a depth of agony as that. Thou hast laid Me in the lowest pit.' And because He has been there, His people are delivered. And again, dear friends, as we look forward to the end of our earthly pilgrimage, and see the grave opening before us, the prospect does at times seem very dark and full of gloom. We look around upon the graves of our beloved ones whom we have lost, and we say with bursting hearts, These are indeed laid very low. Ah, not one step lower than He has gone, beloved; yea, He has gone down into that 'lowest pit,' and by His presence there has turned the grave and gate of death' into the " very portal of the skies; so that even they who have by that gateway to leave us, can exclaim, 'O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? Thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.' It was the lowest pit or grave in the land of forgetfulness, in the invisible world, to which He went down. The heart must shrink from the thought of that depth, beloved, and one thing only can throw a gleam of light across the darkness, and give us comfort in the prospect which lies before us all. It is that our Lord has gauged those depths to their very utmost, and when that last hour comes for us, He will reveal Himself as once He did to Stephen's dying gaze, standing at God's right hand, waiting to receive us unto Himself for And the moment we tread the confines of that

ever.

unseen world and step forth into the darkness, is the moment which shall unveil our Saviour's face, and we shall see Him as He is.'

'Thy wrath lieth hard upon me, and Thou hast afflicted me with all Thy waves.' Some sorrow, beloved friends, can only be compared to the being in the depths; we are only conscious of a dull, dead weight of pain. Sometimes it is a ceaseless ebb and flow, like the restless turmoil of the waves, as billow after billow sweep over us. 'All Thy waves and Thy billows are gone over Me.' Thy waves! Every one is in is His hand, and can only fulfil His command. We have stood sometimes upon the seashore, watching the waves as they break upon the beach, fulfilling the command of Him who has said, 'Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further.' And even so, beloved, it is with the waves of sorrow if we are God's people. The Lord sitteth upon the waterflood;' He rides upon those very waves and billows which seem so rough and stormy; and in the hour of our deepest anxiety, when earth and sky seem blended in one blinding and fearful tempest, we can hear the still small voice' which once stilled the stormy waves of the sea of Galilee, Peace, be still.' 'It is I, be not afraid!'

Thy wrath lieth hard upon me.' These words can not be applied to a believing soul; for the wrath of God lay hard upon Him in order that we might escape; and now He has turned Himself from the fierceness of His anger,' and there is no longer any condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus. God and the sinner are reconciled, and peace and favour are going forth to the sinner, because the wrath of God 'lay hard' on Him! In all He sends us now there is no wrath, no anger, because He has laid on Jesus the curse which would have been ours, and He has borne our sins in His own body on the tree.

Thou hast put away mine acquaintance far from me; Thou hast made me an abomination unto them: I am

shut up, and I cannot come forth.' Sometimes the believer has to feel that he is the Lord's prisoner. The providences of God have hedged him in so that he cannot go forth; they may be marked more or less by trial and suffering, but all are His doing. We rejoice in this assurance, my dear friends. Could we dare to choose our own path, were we told to make our choice between joy and sorrow, prosperity and adversity? we could only say, Thy way, not mine, O Lord, However dark it be;

Lead me by Thine own hand,
Choose out the path for me.

I dare not choose my lot,

I would not, if I might;
Choose Thou for me, my God;
So shall I walk aright.'

We rejoice to know that our times are in His hand;' and if we are shut up so that we cannot get forth,' we know that, like Noah, 'the Lord has shut us in.'

Thou hast made me an abomination unto them.' 'They all forsook Him and fled.' Friends did not stand by Him; foes came round about Him; even one of His own chosen followers thrice denied that he knew Him; while others turned away with broken hearts, saying, 'We trusted that it had been He who should have redeemed Israel.'

The child of God can never say, 'Thou hast put away mine acquaintance far from me' in the sense in which it is written here, for often it is in times of deepest trial and suffering to the believer, times when he is 'shut up and cannot get forth,' that the sweetest and brightest graces of the Holy Spirit are seen in him; the prisoner of hope' finds that he is no longer alone, for his Master is with him; and so 'God setteth the solitary in families.' Many servants of his Master gather round him with words of love and comfort and balm of precious

sympathy, so that he is able to thank God and take courage.

'Mine eye mourneth by reason of affliction: Lord, I have called daily upon Thee, I have stretched out my hands unto Thee.' When the heart is full of sorrow, the eye will often be dim with weeping, and we shall 'water our couch with tears;' but let us see to it, my dear friends, that, as Matthew Henry has it, 'weeping must not hinder praying.' We must sow in tears; 'Mine eye mourns,' but I cry unto Thee daily.' Let prayers and tears go together, and they shall be accepted together: 'I have heard thy prayers, I have seen thy tears.'

The tears of God's people ought to be always sanctified tears. Jesus wept' over the wicked and ungodly, as well as over the grave of Lazarus; 'He offered up prayers and supplications, with strong crying and tears.' The believer can pray, in the hour of deepest anguish, Put Thou my tears into Thy bottle, are they not in Thy book?' Every one is numbered; every one is precious in His sight, and shall yield hereafter a reaping-time of joy, which is unspeakable and full of glory. It is sweet, too, to 'weep with those who weep;' sweet amid sorrow which may seem too deep for words, to let the tears flow down as we lay our weary heads on His loving bosom, and find rest for our souls. Lord, I have called daily upon Thee: I have stretched out my hands unto Thee.' Let there never be the sorrow without the prayer, and then it will be with us as once with Jesus in the day of His temptation, when ‘there appeared an angel of God, strengthening Him' not an angel only, but the Lord Himself shall come with His own sweet words of comfort and love, and speak peace unto our souls!

PSALM XC. 16, 17.

A DIADEM OF BEAUTY.

'Let Thy work appear unto Thy servants, and Thy glory unto their children.

'And let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us: and establish Thou the work of our hands upon us; yea, the work of our hands establish Thou it.'

THE closing verses of this beautiful Psalm, my dear friends, form a very precious prayer for every believing heart. We have in it three different parts :

Ist. Prayer for the work of God throughout the world. 2nd. Prayer for the work of God to be carried on in us.

3rd. Prayer for the work of God with us.

Ist. Let Thy work appear unto Thy servants.' How few among us, in these days, my dear friends, really see the works of God! His great and marvellous works have never ceased since the creation of the world: they have manifested forth His goodness, His holiness, His power, and His love; and yet men whom He has created, who live, move, and have their being only from Him, are so blinded by the god of this world that they cannot see the hand of God as manifested in all His dealings with them. They look into science with its many hidden wonders, and they are ready to come forth and tell of all the discoveries they have made, and yet they think nothing of Him whose wonder-working hand has created all these things. Thank God, it is not so with all; there are some whose chief delight in looking at the works of God is in the thought, My Father made them all;' some whose prayer would be that of the Psalmist in the sixteenth verse, 'Let Thy work appear unto Thy servants, and Thy glory unto their children.'

There is progress in the manifestation for which the