carefully, humbly, and with much prayer for grace. If we are not ready to take part in the afflictions of Christ, we must never expect to share His glory.
The second of our Lord's sayings is addressed to one whom He invited to follow Him. The answer He received was a very remarkable one. "Lord," said the man, " suflFer me first to go and bury my father." — The thing he requested was in itself harmless. But the time at which the request was made was unseasonable. Affairs of far greater importance than even a father's funeral demanded the man's immediate attention. There would always be plenty of people ready and fit to take charge of a funeral. But there was at that moment a pressing want of labourers to do Christ's work in the world. And hence the man's request drew from our Lord the solemn reply, — " Let the dead bury their dead, but go thou and preach the kingdom of God."
Let us learn, from this saying, to beware of allowing family and social duties to interfere with our duty to Christ. Funerals, and marriages, and visits of courtesy, and the like, unquestionably are not in themselves sinful. But when they are allowed to absorb a believer's time, and keep him back from any plain religious duty, they become a snare to his soul. That the children of the world, and the unconverted, should allow them to occupy all their time and thoughts is not wonderful. They know nothing higher, and better, and more important. " Let the dead bury their dead." — But the heirs of glory, and children of the King of kings, should be men of a different stamp. They should declare plainly, by their con- duct, that the world to come is the great reality which fills