intcrc~t Rnd in~truction for onr everyday lifo as this, presenting to us, ns it docs, two distinct lines of thought. I. TrrE DIFFICULTIES OF LIFF, AS ANXIOUSLY DREADED DY us. "'l'hcso nations are more than I; how cnn I dispossess them?" 'l'heso Israelitos were not tho only people who lta,·e enst glances nhcad, nnd who, foreseeing, as they thought, diffi- culties in the distance, hnYe exclaimed," How shall wo get through them?" We do not rl'fcr now to such as ha,c no living faith in God, and who aro perpetually givin"' wny to dark nnd sinful unbelief; nor have ,vo mainly in view those who have neve~ yet been led out of "the house of bondage." Dut, keeping as closely as we can to the cases suggested by tlw paragraph, we refer to those who, through mercy, know what !!"great deli\'erance has been wrought for man in Christ; to whom that redemption bas become a liYing power through the energy of the Holy Ghost; and who yet, notwith- st:mding nil, ha,·e their moments of despondency, when looking or trying to look far ahcad,-they see innumerable obstructions confronting them, antl ask in anxious sad- 11css, "How can we meet t!::iem all?" This main inquiry may take one or more of the follo11·ing f,,rms: 1. The spec.ial en<ls and aims even of my earthly life; bow can I accomplish them? 2. The difficulties in the way of my much-loved work for Christ; how can I overcome them? 3. The hardships to be met in running the Christian race; how can I encounter them? 4. The many hindrances which oppose themselves to the advance of the cause of God; how can the Church overcome them? 5. All the foes, without and within, which threaten the possession of Canaan; how can we vanquish them? Say, is there to be found any believer in whose spirit such questions as these do not now and then arise, and who does not occasionally shiver from the chill of a doubting forecast? Therefore let us see in this passage- II. THE DIFFICULTIES OF LIFE GRACIOUSLY ANTICIPATED AND PROVIDED FOR DY Gon. The following points will be found, explicitly or implicitly, in the paragraph: 1. "The Lord thy God." That Name is a guarantee of all you want by the way. "Greater is be that is for you than all they which can be against _you." '!'here is more meaning in that one Name than in all other names besides. "If God be for us, who can be against us?" 2. Go<l will go before you to clear the way (ver. 20). All nature waits on him. Fire, thunder, lightning, bail; flies, worms, locusts, hornets; ay, men, dc,·ils, angels, must do his work when be calls. 3. God will be with you, to empower you in the way (ver. 21). If God is not on our side, there is but weakness, whatever the seeming power. If God is on our side, there is power, whatever the seeming weak- ness. 4. God will choose his own best methods of helping you in the way (ver. 22). "Little by little." A more rapid clearance would have brought other dangers. God "<>ently clears our way." 5. Got!'s past deliverances are pledges that he will not for- sake you by the way (vers. 18, 19; see Ps. !xiii. 7; Rom. viii. 32; v. 10). 6. It is one of "the secrets of the Lord," to cause us to meet and grapple with things and beings mightier than we are, that we may cease to rely on ourselves, and be flung upon him, the Almighty One, for strength. The tendency to Relf-trust and self-lauda- tion i~ ,·ery strong ( see eh. viii. 17, 18). Study the history of Gideon, and his band of three hundred men. This education in trust is also an education in holiness. We have, by meeting difficulties which are beyond us, to learn ~ow much we ~~nt God. And yet God will not be with us except as we are loyal to him (see Josh. v11.), Ah I it is by these difficulties in life, by our manner of meeting them, and by God's dealing with us under them, that we are to be educated/or eternity I Ob I if all were smooth, if we bad no complications to meet, no trials to bear, how might we go on drifting down the stream, slumberously calm, dangerously secure, till we awoke, perhaps, too late, to find oursel\'es a wreck and a ruin! It is by these breaks in our peac!l, by these cares and bard stru"crles, 0 which fling us on our God, that we are taught how much we want him, and bo~ ill we could do without him ! On the journey of life we have all entered, antl the supreme question for us is not, " Will it be smooth or rough?" but "How will it end ? "
HOMILIES BY VARIOUS AUTHORS. Vers. 1-11.-Israel's iconoclastic mission. Material idolatry is the great peril of humanity. To what corruption a&d misery such idolatry leads, we in Christianized UJ1, VII. 1-20.] THE BOOK OF DEUTERONOMY. 143