C:ipt~in, has for ages and generations shared the pilgrim lot of his people. If they havo ,wt had a fixed home, so has it been with him also. If they have travelled from placo t-0 place, so bas he also. 2. That he has shared this pilgrim lot of the people without a murmur, without a reproach, a request, or even a suggestion addressed to them. How "ften had they murmured, but he never! How olten had they done worse than murmur I They had rebelled against the Holy One of Israel; but he had for"iven their backslidings, had not forsaken them, and to the last ripe hour would car~y on his own wise, consistent, gracious purpose. They for whose sake all the journey, all the discipline, all the teaching, all the promise were, had wearied, and been impatient; but ho had borne all the sorrow, and stood the mark of all the ingratitude, and gives up no jot nor tittle of the good purpose of his great decrees. He suffers with them, for tbem; he bears and still forbears. 3. That he will not even now anticipate by an hour, as it were, the established peace, happiness, and home of his people. Not till they are where he designs to place them, and have all that he purposes to give them, will he 1,ermit his own house to be builded, his own throne to be set, or himself to "arise and enter into his rest." Great every way is the moral sublimity of this position, when brought into comparison with that so often assumed by men. Each thinks for himself, each snatches for himself, each hastens to make secure above all his own position first. And in the very instance before us, whether more or less rightly, David has built his own house first-has set the example, and established himself first, a representative of the people, and of how it should be with them also. But the Divine Leader and Lord of the people all, both nation and king, obser\"es this different order. He fixes the time, the place, the peace and rent of all, before he will allow that the hour has come for him- self. It is a little type anu a suggestive analogy of what is ever going on throughout nature and the entire world. All the forces of these are at work, and intensely active; their push and strife and tumult are wonderful. They are beneath all appearances finding their own place and fulfilling their legitimate mission, till when they all are satisfied, the Lord shall enter in an emphatic sense his holy temple, A moment all the earth shall keep silence before him, but the next moment the vast theatre shall resound again mth his praise. Whatever fitness of time there may have seemed to David to be present now, we may understand God to say that he knows all that shall be yet, and is biding the moment of supreme occasion. Nor is there a lesson that more , needs, in all our impatience and short-sighted eagerness, to be made familiar with us, and to be accepted with the sacredness of a principle. IL THE USES OF GoD'S DENIAL OF HUMAN PURPOSES, EVEN WHEN AS WELL MEANT AS THAT OF DAVID. Such uses may have been very many, and a large pro- portion of them very indirect, in the present instance. But if not so in any one particular case-if, on the contrary, very few and definite in their character-the other alternative will prove the rule, The apparent slight which God puts on our purposes and our higher aspirations, we may rest assured, is but an apparent slight. It is not real, and is compensated for by what vastly outweighs the pain and disappointment and sorrow of it. Those Divine contradictions: 1. Save us from self-dependence and spiritual pride. These are two of the most noxious weeds, and most baneful their shade, which grow in a nature spiritually inclined. 2. They exert a direct tendency to increa~e t_he wisdom and circumspection and adaptedness of our human purposes. If our asp1rat10n_s are not still continued, they were not deep, and are not entitled to any sympathy if blown away like chaff by the wind. But if they were deep and genuine, then we take th_em back again, nurse them in our hearts, and even improve upon them. 'l'he poor thing called our wisdom then grow&--perhaps only then. 3. They increase the deep, calm pnrity of our heart's purpose, Amazing is the proportion of ecclesias~ical_zeal, priest!! zeal, zeal to have dominion over other men's souls, and to usurp domrnat10n over their whole life thereby, compared with the zeal for God's glory, simple and pure, and man's soul in its infinite value, infinite danger. If any spiritual purpose were fed by the inflammable fuel of su,;cess, a fire would be lighted which would know no suppression, but which would inevitably, in a vast majority of cases, fatally envelop first of all them that lit it. 4. They will increase the reverence and deep religious fear of our noblest human purposes. Easy usefulness, uniform success, rapidly engenders perfunctory service, and perfunctory service bespeaks prompt disaster, wherever it touches the temple, the Cl,urch, the altar. 5, They will, in fact, increase /Cfl'ce. No loss will in the event be ell. xv1I. 1-27.] THE FIRST BOOK OF TllE c11nox1cLES.
sustained. 'l'hat which can best be spared will have disappurecl. The good will be left. And though that good may not show the same bulk, nor utter the lar~er volume ?f s~und, it will _be irresistible. It will work i_ts way, steal its way, penetrat~ its way; 1t will thaw the ice, break the stone, melt the iron of human hearts; it will be mi"hty 0 with the breath of God's own spirit. When, therefore, God holds back awhile our good purpose, it is to make good better. And the better good w_ill always make in the long run the mightier good,