The manner in which the Israelites spent their years in the desert was as the telling of a sad tale. It alternated between joy and sorrow, pleasure and pain, fatigue and rest; it was a succession of wonderful events, follies, sins. The deliverance from Egypt was succeeded by the captivity and death of the wilderness. The toil of the march was followed by the repose of the camp. The bitterness of Marah was forgotten amid the groves of Elin. The parching thirst was quenched by the limpid stream. Destitution was relieved by “ angels' food.” Thus their years passed onward. As the patriarch, sitting at the door of his tent rehearsing the traditions of his tribe moves his audience with hope or fear, joy or sorrow, so did they “ spend their years as a tale that is told."

This resemblance applies to us all. Human life is a tale in which the painful and the pleasing are strangely intermingled-afabric interwoven with all the colours of the rainbow. One year is full of joy and gladness, another is laden with heavy calamities, while most of our years are a salutary mixture of joy and sorrow. Few have found a year accord with expectation; there are sorrows on which they had not reckoned, disappointments where least imagined. Hope and fear, joy and sorrow, success and disappointment, alternate in the history of every year. The only immutable thing in life is change. There is no monotony of dullness, far less an unclouded atmosphere. Yet life is not a succession of storms. There are events of calm and solemn interest which throw a refreshing hue over the whole of life. There have been chords of tender feeling which have been rudely touched. The gloomy have found more pleasures than they anticipated, the hopeful have often been saddened by disappointment, while now and then the march of the last enemy has occasioned an excruciating discord amid the music of our homes. There is no one whose heart may not swell with gratitude at the past ; for memory, in rehearsing life, can linger on many a lovely scene. Joy and gladness have formed a delicate but golden thread in the web of life, and these have been increased in intensity and purity by friendship, affection, and religion. There is no one who has not been saddened by grief. The morning of life is often darkened by clouds. The freshest hopes have been blighted, the tenderest ties broken. Sorrow, like a grave Mentor, follows us through every station of society and every period of life. The earth is strewn with places of weeping and with graves. Thus we spend our years. They produce the same effect upon us as the scenes of a tale ; one portion glides away in smiles, another is passed in tears.

The close of a year awakens peculiar emotions. It is the conclusion of a large chapter in the tale of life. For a moment the story seems to pause and give us time for reflection. The few last days are a kind of index to the contents of the year gone by. In every thoughtful heart there are feelings of devout and chastened joy for mercies received, and deep repentance for sins committed, neither of which could be fully estimated in the rapidity of the year's passage. The “tale" of life has not been completely “told.” One more year has been added to our history. Every fleeting moment has witnessed to the Divine beneficence ; in every form in which we could enjoy

them, God has “loaded us with benefits.” In dark contrast with God's mercies stand the sins of men, without apology or extenuation, committed against the deepest obligations, and defiant alike of Divine “gentleness” and “terror.” But the past is now gone to its irrevocable account; it is entered on the records on high, a portion now of the statistics of eternity ; the seal of heaven has been placed on it ; it is vain to wish its mercies were unabused, or its sins uncommitted. In this manner we spend our years. God and man, like good and evil characters in a tale, are constantly engaged in action. God spends the year in blessing, man in sinning; God pours into the cup of life the sweet and joyful elements, man infuses the bitter and painful. So life passes on, filling the heart now with joy and then with sorrow, and " we spend our years as a tale that is told.”

3. Life too often resembles a tale in the character of its object. The design of a tale is merely to please and amuse. It is a kind of wakeful dream. It is only intended to relieve life of its burden by whiling away an idle hour. The moral, even if it has one, is subordinate to the amusement. Instruction forms only a small portion of the tale, and is always voted to be tedious and misplaced. The object of both writer and reader is mainly answered, if the tale cause excitement and pleasure.

The thirty-eight years spent by the Israelites in the desert, after sentence of exclusion from Canaan, form but a small portion of sacred history. The striking events, recorded at great length, occurred within the first two years following their deliverance. From this period they had no object in life. They were wanderers awaiting dissolution. The desert was to be alike their home and their grave.

This is an appropriate picture of life's objectless character with multitudes. If the desert bounded their prospects and desires,-if they had no higher views or ulterior objects than to mend their tents, collect their manna, associate with their kindred, or perform their duty to their tribe,-their life would appear to them, as they thoughtfully regarded it, little better than a tale. The lives of most men are occupied with manual labour, it may be in the field, on the water, or at the loom. The spade, the hammer, the shuttle, and other instruments as mechanical, employ the greater portion of their waking life. They have their domestic joys and griefs, the animal or intellectual pleasures of their class; but the majority of them have no higher end than to eat and drink, to labour, sleep, and die. Others are engaged in callings considered more honourable--the merchant, the tradesman, the mariner, the statesman, the lawyer, the physician. Year after year passes in successful labour; their families grow up to manhood, and enter on kindred pursuits; yet they pursue the same circle of business and pleasure, without any higher aspirations or hopes, as the Israelites wandered within the same area of desert, without thought of Canaan. There may have been sorrows and joys: instead of the sterile sand, there was sometimes the refreshing stream or the shadow of the palms; but all the while they never left the desert, and, if they had once expected to enter Canaan, they had relinquished both hope and desire. They feel not now that they are pilgrims; their hope is their tent, their rich inheritance the scanty life-its insignificance, as compared with the magnitude of the future; its importance, as every hour influences our everlasting destiny. The grandeur of the future rebukes our frivolities and thoughtlessness. We are immortals placed here for a brief period, which is to determine the character of our immortal being. No man, who lives with his eye and heart set upon eternity, can live an ignoble or frivolous or useless life. He is not " of this world ;” he is a denizeu of a higher sphere, his every gesture that of a king. Life with him is no idle tale; it is a heroic struggle and a triumph-a preface to an everlasting history, a monument of imperishable glory.

pasture of the desert; and with this they are content. “Their inward thought is that their houses shall continue for ever, and their dwelling-places to all generations.” They gather the manna and the quails; they beautify their tent, they furnish it with additional comforts; they render life in the desert more luxurious--they collect its shining dust; yet, after all, they perish in the desert.

Those also who are engaged in art or science, or in promoting by beneficent labour the welfare of their species, if their sympathies and aims are restricted to their pursuits, invest their life with no higher character than those already mentioned. Why, some of the Israelites were occuped in ministering to their brethren ; there were healers of the sick, students of nature, priests, and judges; genius of different orders, and benevolence in its expansive sympathies, contributed to the general weal; yet no one had a prospect beyond his immediate work : life was consumed in his labours, and, though he were an Aaron or a Moses, the wilderness was still his grave. When the life of the most honoured statesman or philanthropist has closed, if its object were restricted to this life-if it recognised no higher relation than to his age and species-it was still only a tale. As a tale it might be crowded with more numerous and affecting incidents; it may be narrated in a bolder and more fascinating style ; it may fill a large volume; it may interest a large number of readers : yet it differs only in degree, not in character, from the life of the “ ploughman and the vinedresser.” What moral impress has such a life left behind it? What impulse has it given to the world's recovery to God? What heavenward aspirations has it kindled? What is its everlasting issue to the man himself ? His life is only a story of more romantic interest and greater genius, but a story still. Such a man has missed the true object of existence. He may dream, like the Israelites, of Canaan, but he will never pluck its flowers or taste its fruit. So it is with every man not intent on the future life. The true object of his being was early missed, and soon forgotten ; his life in God's universe is useless and profitless as an idle story; to all the great realities of existence he has lived in vain ; his existence has been and shall be “for a lamentation;" he has “spent his years as a tale that is told.”

Entering on a new year, it is blessed to know that, if we are spared, the character of our life may yet be redeemed, and a permanent glory imparted to it. We are not, like Israel, doomed ; Canaan is not an interdicted land, nor do anyinsuperable barriers prevent our entrance. It is not too late to recover the ground which has been lost; the tents may be struck, and the journey resumed with firm foot and steady front towards the land of promise. Life may become a heroic poem, a series of successful conflicts, a triumphal march to Canaan.

To impart to life a new character, we must view it in relation to eternity. Heaven is the promised land of life's pilgrimage, and if we come short of it, life's true object is lost-we have lived in vain,” Israel's march to Canaan might have been an august spectacle. Life spent in view of eternity must be noble ; it has a lofty aim and a glorious issue ; everything about it bears the stamp of greatness. Eternity shows the insignificance and the importance of

Life must be considered also in its relation to God; for all preparation for the future which begins not by reconciliation through the cross, and is not continued under the promptings of Divine love, and with a supreme devotion to the Divine service, ends in superstition or hypocrisy. A Christian's life, bears a Divine impress; its most trivial acts wear a Divine glory. Everything acquires to the Christiau a sacred character. He lives “ for God." His every act is an act of piety, an act of Divine worship, an act of homage to the King of kings. The great idea of serving God redeems everything from insignificance. Life will be only the naturing of a character destined to be perpetual-a commencement of pursuits and pleasures, to which eternity shall give only the purity and perfection. Life in such case will be no idle “tale,” but a heroic struggle and a triumph, the pre, face to an everlasting history, a monument of imperishable glory. "The path of the just is as the shining light, which shinetli nuore and more unto the perfect day.”

Bristol.

BLIND BARTIMEUS.

BY THE REV. F. EDWARDS, B.A. “Blind Eartimeus, the son of Timeus, sat by the highway side begging."--

Mark x. 46. We all fancy ourselves essential in some way to the happiness, the comfort, and the wellbeing of society, and yet, as a matter of fact, how very few of us there are who will be remembered beyond the immediate times in which we ourselves live. When we look back into the past ages of the world, we must be struck with the vastness of the multitude of persons who have lived, and with the scantiness of those whose names are actually known and familiar to us of the present day. They, all of them, with an equal intensity, desired immortality, but only a few, a very few indeed, amongst them have secured the immortality they desired. And when we come to examine the causes of persons being remembered beyond their own times, we are again surprised and astonished. Those whose names we expected to find amongst these earthly immortals have passed away and are forgotten. Those who have actually survived their times are not at all those we should have reckoned upon finding. Who, for example, would for a moment have expected to find a poor blind man, who sat by a highway side begging, remembered longer-ay, far longer than the rich gentlefolk of whom he solicited alms? Yet so it is. They have passed away, and even their names are forgotten and unknown, while the world still looks back to the poor blind man, and feels that in him it has a treasure which it would not willingly resign. The materials for a biography of this man are very, very scanty ; yet I suspect there is no one of us but would rather have this incident narrated in connection with his name than have it said of him that he was the conqueror of nations and the devastator of lands. At the outset, then, blind Bartimeus says to all who wish to outlive their times: “It matters little what may be the post you are called to fill, do the work that is intrusted to you while you live, and if you are remembered when you are gone away, you shall be remembered with praise and with gratitude, and not with shame and dishonour.”

It may seem strange to make so much of a blind man, and he only a common wayside beggar; and yet, my friends, if you fancy I have made much of him already, you will fancy that I have made a great deal more of him before I have finished these remarks. The fact is I love this blind man, and I shall be satisfied if I can only kindle in your souls the love which I feel toward him as often as I read this narrative respecting him. I shall ask you to consider him under three different aspects—first of all, as a type; then, secondly, as an example ; and then, thirdly, as an encouragement. And may God grant that we all may believe in him who came to give sight unto the blind, and be able, one and all, for himself to say : “ One thing I know, whereas I was once blind, now I see.”

I. BLIND BARTIMEUS AS A TYPE.—You will all remember, that once, when the Saviour told the Pharisces that he came into this world “that they which see not might see, and that they which see it! might be made blind,” they answered him with a feeling akin to indignation, “ Are we blind also ?" It may be that some of you, RS when I speak of a blind man as a type, may turn upon me and say, The “Then, sir, do you mean to intimate that we are blind !" Yes, my friends, that is just what I do mean to do, and, what is more, I mean the to state the fact in as plain and as strong words as I can find. But, San before you condemn me for speaking of blind Bartimeus as a type, let me ask you to consider the following three particulars, in which I believe him to represent us :

1. In his Disease.-- Blindness was and is still far more common in the eastern parts of the world than it is amongst us; yet, in a coun

try that contains upwards of twenty-five thousand blind men, it must · have fallen to the lot of most of its inhabitants to have become fami.

liar with the sight of a blind man. It is at such times that the good. ness and sympathy of our nature are almost involuntarily excited. There are few of us who can help giving expression, as the blind man passes us by, to some such exclamation of pity as, “ Poor blind denne man !" There were some women once, who, struck with the sorrows it he has of the Saviour, wept over him as he passed along. In gentle words annis he rebuked them : “ Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves.” Perhaps, my friends, the Saviour might be check our expressions of pity for the blind if he were near when we are