tians wbo can canj a fall cup with a steady hand. There are few whose souk prosper in their days of uninterrupted success. We are all inclined to sacrifice to our net, and bum incense to our own drag. (Hab. i 16.) We are ready to think that our own might and our own wisdom have procured us the victory. The caution of the passage before us ought never to be forgotten. In the piidst of our triumphs, let us cry earnestly, "Lord, clothe us with humility.'*
We learn, for anoi7her thing, from these verses, that gijts, and power of working tmracks, are very inferwr to grace. It is written that our Lord said to the seventy disciples, "In this rejoice not, that the spirits are subject unto you, but rafter rejoice because your names are written in heaven." It was doubtless an honour and a privilege to be allowed to cast out devils. The discijdies were right to be thaukfol. Sut it was a far higher privilege to be converted and pardoned men, and to have their names written in the register of saved souls.
The distinction here drawn between grace and gifts is one of deep importance, and often and sadly overlooked in the present day. Gifts, such as mental vigour, vafit memory, striking eloquence, abiHty in argument, power in reasoning, are often unduly valued by those who possess them, and unduly admired by those who possess them not. These things ought not so to be. Men forget that gifts without grace save no one's soul, and are the characteriatic of Satan himself. Grace, on the contrary^ is an everlasting inheritance, and, lowly and despised as its possessor may be, will land him safe in gloiy. Bje that has gifts without grace is dead in sins, how-