HOMILIES BY VARIOUS .AUTHORS. Ver. !.-God's infinite care. In the experience of Christians the joy of first belienng is often followed by a time of discouragement. Freshness of feeling seems to fade. The " law of sin" makes itself felt. Yet it is just the training by which firmer faith and fuller joy are to be reached. Deep must have been the thankfulness of those in the ark ; safe in the midst of the flood. But their faith was tried. Five months, and still no abatement.. Noah may well have had misgivings (cf. Matt. xi. 3). But God had not forgotten him (cf. Mark vi. 48; John x. 14). He remembered not Noah only, but every creature in the ark ( cf. Luke xii. 6). He ,;aves to the uttermost (Heh. vii. 25). The time of trial wae a prelude to complete deliverance ( cf. .Acts xiv. 22). I. THERE ARE TIMES WHEN BELIEVERS ARE TEMPTED TO FEEL FORGOTTEN. When troubles gather, end prayers seem unanswered, it is hard to keep faith firm. The warning Heh. xii. 6, 7 often needful Christiane would fain be led in smooth ways. .And when their course ie irksome and discouraging they sometimes see the wind boisterous, and begin to sink. Still more surely does the feeling follow sin. The disciple has forgotten to watch ; has trusted to his own strength; has ventured into temptation, and fallen. Then God is felt to be afar off (cf. Exod. xxxiii. 7). And there are times of discipline, when spiritual freedom seems denied, and the soul eannot cry .Abba, and prayer seems choked (of. Isa. xlix. 14). ~erhaps it is to teach lrnruility; perhaps to show some root of evil; perhaps to excite more hunger for communion with God. II. BuT Gon DOES NOT FORGET. .A creature's love may fail (Isa. xlix. 15), a crea- ture's watchfulness may faint, but not God's, He made us; can he forget our wants? His purpose is our salvation; will he neglect any step? He gave hie own Son for us; is anything else too great for his goodness? Not even thy coldness and unbelief can make hirn cease to care. III. Goo's CARE EXTENDS TO THE LEAST. Our Lord welcomed (1) those of small account (Matt. xxi. 16; Mark x. 49; Luke xviii. 16), and (2) the undeserving (Luke vii. 39; xv. 10; xix. 7). He cares also for small matters (cf. Luke xii, 28-30). What treasures of wisdom and love surround us on every aide I These are r.ot beneath his care. Will he not fulfil? (Rom. viii. 28). IV. FREEDOM THROUGH THE WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRl'l'. God's time not always what we should choose ( cf. John vii. 6). Noah a prisoner of hope. God showed that the hope was well founded, The agent of deliverance II a wind "-the same word, both in Hebrew and in the LXX., as is used in Gen. i, 2 for the Spirit of God OH, VIII, 1-14.] THE BOOK OF GENESIS. 131
DoubUess the agent in drying up the water was a wind. But in the spiritual lesson we nre reminded of the Holy Spirit. His work at first brought life on the earth ; and his work prepared for repeopling it, and completed the work of Noah's deliverance. And his work gives us freedom, showing us the work of Christ, and our position as children of God.-M. Vera. 1-5.-Grace and providence. The powers of material nature are obedient servants of God, and those who are the objects of his regard, remembered by him, are snfely kept in the midst of the world's changes. "All things work together for their good." There is an inner circle of special providence in which the family of God, with those whose existence is bound up in it, is under the eye of the heavenly Father, and in the hollow of his hand. "And the ark rested" (ver. 4). We speak of the cradle of the human race being set on Mount Ararat ; is it not well to remember-1. The new world came out of an ark of Divine grace. Religion is the real foundation of society. 2. The waves of the flood bore the ark to its resting- place. So the waters of affliction, though they heave ~ur vessel an~ trouble our hearts with fear, carry us onward to a new and often h1~her standpoint of know- ledge and faith. 3. _While the_ flood bore the ark, God himself chose out t~e spot where it should end its awful Journey. The Ararat of the new world was like the paradise of th_e ~rat man-t'!ie nursery of a rising humanity ; .b1;1t whereas i:n the_ st~te of innocence 1t 1s a g·arden, m the case of the redeemed man 1t 1s a mountain, with its steep, rough places, its heights _and ?-ep~hs, its trials and dangers. T~e humanity which started from Ararat earned with 1t at once the good and the evil of the old world which had passed away, and the mountain symbolised the complex treasury of possibilities, ming·led with liabilities, which were laid up in the rescued race.-R. Vera. 6-12.-The dispensations o/rigliteo1tsness and love. The raven and the dove. \Vhile this passage has its natural, historical fitness, we ce.nnot overlook its symbolical significance. It seems to set forth the two administrations of God, both of them going f.1rth from the same centre of his righteousness in which his people are kept safe. The one represented by the carrion bird, the rave,n, is THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUDG· MF.NT, which goes forth to and fro until the wnters are dried up from off the earth- Ending n resting-place in the waters of destruction, though not a permanent rest; returning to the ark, as the beginning and the end of judgment is the righteousness of God. The dove is the emblem of DIVINE GRACE, spiritual life and peace. It ca(i. not find rest in the waters of judgment until another seven days, another perioJ of gracious manifestation, has prepared the world for it ; then it brinKS with it the olucked-off olive leaf, emblem of retiring judgment and revealea mercy; and when yet another period of gracious manifestation has passed by, the dove shall return no more to the ark, for the ark itself is no more needed-the waters are abated from off the face of the earth. So we may say the rnven dispensation was thnt which pre- ceded Noah. Then followed the first sending forth of the dove unto the time of Moses, leading to a seven d!lys' period of the ark life, waiting for another mission of grace. The dove brought back the olive leaf when the prophetic period of the old dispensation gave fuller promise of Divine mercy. But yet another period of seven days must transpire before the dove is sent forth and returns no more to the ark, but abides in the earth. After the two sacred intervals, the period of the law and the period of the prophets, which were both immediately connected with a. special limited covenant such as is represented in the ark, there followed the world-wide missio~ of the Comforter. The waters were abated. The " Grace and Truth" took possea- sion of man's world, cursed by sin, redeemed by grace.-R.