in Him? "Every good and perfect gift cometh down from above." Nothing perfect ascends up from man to God.

"I, NOT I!" It is a great practical principle. If the apostle says, "I speak as a man," or "Ye walk as men,” he uses the expression disparagingly; it is not the high ground of one who has been CRUCIFIED WITH CHRIST, but, nevertheless, IS ALIVE-in whom CHRIST LIVES. He has come down from divine to human motives. If he speaks about himself, he says, "I speak foolishly." Surely it were folly to speak of self, instead of Christ, unless compelled to do so, as the apostle was. But in his labours he still remembered, "I AM CRUCIFIED WITH CHRIST," and where "I" would, almost necessarily and innocently, appear, the corrective comes in, “I, NOT I.” Had he even to vindicate his apostleship, in writing to the Corinthians; as, likewise, to set before them that the gospel which he preached hinged on the resurrection of Christ, and that, touch that fact, the gospel was gone; he brings forward the witnesses to the resurrection (living witnesses), and then adds, "Last of all He was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time. For I am the least of the apostles, that am not meet to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am: and His grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain; but I laboured more abundantly than they all yet NOT I, but the grace of God which was with

." Deep scholar, indeed, in the grace of God; well instructed disciple in the doctrine of the CROSS! The doctrine of the CROSS was not used by this disciple to set self aside as to judgment only, but to set self aside where it would fain show itself as though the Lord needed our help, our zeal, our energies. It is a hard lesson to learn, not to look with complacency on our labours for Christ, and for the blessing of others, instead of looking to "the travail of His soul."

"I, NOT I!" What mixed motives do we discover in ourselves! Where love should constrain, how often is there vanity and self-seeking! There is a vast amount of activity at work in the things of God; may it be increased; but it is only as the grace of God is with us, that any effectual work is really done. "Not I, but the grace of God which was with me." Labour in the Lord is not, cannot be, in vain. It will stand, and be made manifest in that day. Let there be all activity, and diligence, and patient painstaking; but

when “I” would be prominent, then the CROSS is our refuge against self. "I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me." Let there be the wholesome correction drawn from this doctrine. "I" must meet its end in the CROSS, that Christ may live in me. “I” must be set aside, too, by the CROSS, even in my labours, that the grace of God may appear. Thus "shall no flesh glory in His presence; but,' as it is written, "He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord."

"Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is."-JER. xvii. 7.

FAITH alone can so go on with God as to prove His sufficiency, an absolute sufficiency for the need of His people. Hence is it that the Christian, with the record of Israel's sin spread. open before him, is emphatically admonished in the words: "Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God." (Heb. iii. 12.) And again, "Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall." (1 Cor. x. 12.)

As we are by nature, God is not in all our thoughts; and though we turned to God, on belief of the gospel, yet are there a thousand ways in which "the sin that doth so easily beset" waits but the occasion to evidence itself afresh. There is, however, one form of this so subtle as to be all the more dangerous, to which I desire to direct attention; I mean the tendency, under the profession of acknowledging God in His gifts, to allow instruments and means to get between the soul and Himself.

When God has separated a people unto Himself, not only will He have that people to be for Himself—His people; but He is their God, and He will be reckoned on by them in all circumstances and for all exigencies; in other words, the God of Israel will be God to Israel. "Blessed is the people that is in such a case; yea, blessed is the people whose God is the Lord." As an illustration of this relationship, see Caleb, that man of faith in the midst of a nation of no faith. (Josh. xiv.) He is just about to enter on the long-waited-for inheritance, with strength unabated by the tear and wear of the way.

"Blessed is the man whose strength is in thee." Forty-five years ago he came up with eleven others of the rulers of Israel, to search out the land of promise; he then took back a good report, and made his boast in the God of Israel, as able to give it to His people, all adversaries and evil occurrent hitherto or to come, notwithstanding. Listen now to his big-hearted profession, as he turns to Joshua and says: "Behold the Lord hath kept me alive, as He said, these forty and five years, ever since the Lord spake this word unto Moses, while the children of Israel wandered in the wilderness and now, lo, I am this day fourscore and five years old. And yet I am as strong this day as I was in the day that Moses sent me; as my strength was then, even so is my strength now, for war, both to go out, and to come in." What a fine testimony to the all-sufficiency and the faithfulness of the Holy One whom Israel have limited. The carcases of a whole unbelieving generation strew the way that Caleb has trodden and attest the severity of Jehovah's "breach of promise;" yet just and upright is He, and wilderness tribulations have but wrought patience; and patience, experience; and experience, a hope that hath not made ashamed, in the case of the man in whom there was "another spirit," who, counting on the Promiser, embraced the promise. It has been happily observed that Canaan in the heart carries through the wilderness; and to this we may add, that, when God fills the eye, though nought but an untried and trackless waste, a place of no resources, with its terribleness be around us, it is God and not the desert we prove. "He humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know; that He might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word which proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live."

Though thy way be long and dreary,

Eagle strength He'll still renew:

Garments fresh and foot unweary

Tell how God hath brought thee through.

When to Canaan's long-loved dwelling
Love divine thy foot shall bring,
There, with shouts of triumph swelling,
Zion's songs in rest to sing;

There no stranger God shall meet thee
(Stranger thou in courts above);
He who to His rest shall greet thee,
Greets thee with a well-known love.

But let us examine somewhat more closely into the special form of the evil heart of unbelief I have indicated. To this end we will look at Israel, first in the wilderness, then under one of the judges, and again as reigned over by one of the best of the kings.

For a brief moment, at the first, we see them standing in the attitude of faith. They are on the wilderness side of the Red Sea. Its waters, opened just now for their salvation, but closed again for the destruction of the Egyptian taskmaster, roll between a delivered people and the house of their hard bondage. They are celebrating in that song the triumphs of the right-hand of the Lord. Not only has His hand already done valiantly for them, but it shall yet deliver. They measure every thing by it: Pharaoh and his host are cast into the sea; sorrow takes hold on the inhabitants of Palestina; the dukes of Edom are amazed; the mighty men of Moab tremble; the inhabitants of Canaan melt away. Led forth of Him and guided in His strength, the redeemed of Jehovah are brought in and planted in the mountain of His inheritance, in the place which He has made for Him to dwell in. Not one thing remains to be done. All is accomplished. A faith that is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen, bridges over all between and fills already its basket of the first-fruits of the land, to set it down before the Lord. And now Moses and the children of Israel are silent, and Miriam and the women are taking up the strain, with timbrels and dances; but still their burden is the same, "Sing ye to the LORD, for He hath triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider hath He thrown into the sea."

Alas! this goodness is but as the morning cloud and the early dew. The Psalmist tells us: "They sang His praiseThey soon forgat His works; they waited not for His counsel!" (Ps. cvi.) Quickly does the song of boastfulness in the God of Israel become changed into loud, long murmurings! Is then the Lord's arm shortened, that it can no longer save? Is the ear, that bent down to their wail in Egypt, grown heavy, that it cannot hear? No; but the instrument of deliverance has been leaned on by them, instead of the Deliverer; and this so really, that so soon as Moses is out of sight (gone up for them into the mount to the Lord, before whose terrible glory they were trembling but just now) they run in wild haste to Aaron, with the cry, 'Up, make us gods

which shall go before us, for as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what has become of him!' "They made a calf in Horeb, and worshipped the golden image. Thus they changed their glory into the similitude of an ox that eateth grass. They forgot God their Saviour." Such is the way of man. He must have a something visible and tangible to look to, if faith in an unseen God be either wanting or on the wane.

But the scene shifts. It is the days of the judges. Israel have gone into open idolatry, and are bowing down to the gods of the uncircumcised. And the Lord whom they have provoked has sold them into the hands of the uncircumcised. Repenting Himself because of their groanings, by reason of the oppressor, He has once and again raised up for them "saviours." Yet "it came to pass, when the Judge was dead, that they returned and corrupted themselves worse than their fathers." Just now they are greatly impoverished, the hand of Midian prevails against Israel, and the Midianites, as grasshoppers for multitude, spread themselves over the land, and eat it up. Israel have betaken themselves to mountains, and to dens, and to caves. The highways are unoccupied ; travellers walk through bye-ways. The harvest is reaped by others. The increase of the earth is destroyed, and there is no sustenance left to Israel; neither sheep, nor ox, nor ass. Mark that man of Manasseh threshing wheat under an oak in secret, to hide it from the Midianites. An angel approaches him, and salutes him thus: 'The Lord is with thee, thou mighty man of valour, go deliver Israel, And now,

thou shalt smite the Midianites as one man.' through faith, the trembler is made strong, and after having first purged out idolatry from his home, is led forth to put to flight the armies of the aliens. It is the arm of the Lord's strength that has awaked for His people; and again, as in ancient days, when it broke Rahab (Egypt), it triumphs gloriously. Israel is delivered with a great deliverance. Yet they discern not aright the lighting down of that arm; but as their fathers did, so do they; the instrument fills their eye, and they importune him-- Rule thou over us, thou and thy son, and thy son's son also; for thou hast delivered us from the hands of Midian!' But Gideon cannot allow this; he sets them in their proper relation to the Lord: neither will he rule over them, nor his son, that belongs to the Lord. But then, alas! we have to take the eye off the exploits and