gospel is God's word, not m1m's, you may find one (among innumerable others) in the ,·i<>IY gi,en of sin and God's dealing with it. Take just four passages: (1) John i. 20 • (2_) 1 ,John iv. 10 (" our sins;" q.d. "of the whole world," ii. 2); (3) John vi. 61 "th; hr~nd," etc.); (4) John xvi. 8. ' Ill. THE SUCCESS OF Goo's CAUSE DEPENDS ON GoD HIMSELF PLEADING IT, AS3'B plea(~ C_bron: xiv. 11). We may be in danger of forgetting this. If we seo full 6ubscnpt10n h~ts, large congregations, plenty or new societies, we think God's work is sure!! pro~penng. If the reverse, we are downcast, perhaps almost despairing. One '\\"ay m which God wonderfully holds the work in his own band is in the raising up of workers. What would the religious history of mankind have been without Abraham, Moses, St. Paul? Such men as John Wesley, J. F. Oberlin, Felix Neff, Robert :Moffat, are not results of any law of evolution and human progress. Each is uniqu- gift from God. God only is the Judge, in what way best to plead his own cause. Some- tim~,s by letting men take their _own _blind,_proud way, and eat the fruit of their doings. Spam has never recovered the w1thermg bhght brought on her by the Inquisition which trampled out her noblest life. Nor France the massacre of the Huguenots a'nd the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. IV. Therefore we are WARRANTED, ENCOUDAGED, CONSTRAINED, TO OFFEB TBIB PRAYED. "A.rise," etc. Beware of praying as though we were more zealous for God's cause than God himself, more earnest for his glory, more compassionate towards perish1n_g men. Yet we arc not to treat prayer as a mere form. Sometimes it seems inscrutable, almost incredible, that our poor, weak prayers can be of any account in clie world's history-the fulfilment of God's promises, But God knows best. He has ,:.ade prayer one of the great Jaws of his spiritual uuiverse. Ours not to question, but obey. What infinite comfort to tum from our own failures, the world's unbelief and misery, and the mysteries of providence to God's plain word of promise and command (Matt. vi. 9) I
HOMILIES BY VARIOUS AUTHORS. VeTB. 3-8.-Hell's carnival. This is what is portrayed to us in these lamentations over the desecrations and destructions wreaked upon the temple at Jerusalem, probably at the time of Nebuchadnezzar's invasion (see 2 Chron. xx.xvi.17, etc.). As the destroyer acted then, so he acts now when tbe like work is on hand of profaning God's sanctuary. What the ancient temple was, the Church of God is-the sanctuary of God. And it has once a.nd again come under the destroyer's power. L 'l'HE TEMPLE IB LAID WASTE. (Ver. 3.) 1. That at Jerusalem was. The sacred service had come to an end; the throng of worshippers were diiven away: the ministers of the temple no longer served at the altar; there was desolation everywhere. "The holy ann beautiful house wherein the fathers of Israel had worshipped has been plundered and desecrated by a beathtn soldiery. Instead of the psalms and hymns and sacred anthems which once echoed within those wall~, has been heard the brutal shout of the fierce inrnders, roaring like lions over their prey." 2. .And there have been trimilar desecrations. Our own laud, and other's, are sprinkled over with the ruins of desecrated shrines. 'l'hey are beautiful even now in their decay, and suggest to us how glorious they must have been when they stood erect and complete in all their grandeur; when, instead of being given over, as now, to mouldering ruin, they were thronged with devout worshippers, and the sublime music of the praises of God reverberated through their high-roofed naves and choirs, and down the long vistas of their vaulted aisles. One can, even now, scarce keep back the bitter curse upon those brutal iconoclasts who in these once magnificent houses of God have wrought such cruel havoc aud desolation, and the effects of whose blind fanaticism or wanton wickedness and greed can now never be repaired. The sacred rage which breathes in this psalm fiuds place yet in many hearts against those detestable destroyers of the most beautiful products of God-inspired genius and devotion that the world has ever seen or will see. 3. But the deaoudion of the Bpiritual temple is worse Btill, and what most concerns us all. And the wasters of that are not wicked men who assail us from without, but spiritual foes whom we have sheltered within. It is unbelief which lays 1'8, LXXIV, 1-23.] nm BOOK OF PSALMS. 87