Ver. 26.-Swjfering for the Bina of ot1e'• yovt.\. Job ie perplexed. He cannot see what he has done to merit such terrible troubles as he is now experienoing. It cer- tai nly !'eems to him that no recent conduct of his oan be deserving the punishment from which, according t.o his friends, he is suffering. Can ii be that long-forgotten Bins of his youth are brought up against him, and that he is sulfering from those old offences? I. THE SINS OF YOUTH ABB ll'OT TO BE L1GHTLY IGNORED. 1. Because they were done in haste. Youth is thoughtless; still it hos moral responsibility. 2. BecaW1e youth ii inexp,ri:er.c.. Yollth will not be jndged by the st&n<lard of more enlightened years, but by it8 own light, which is sufficient t.o warn from sin. 3, Becau~ of their custa,it past. Though they were committed long ago, if they have never been repent.ed of, they stand in the record against us still. Tiwe does not condone guilt. 4. Because o f ~ amendmenC. This is the strongest plea. Yet it will not et.and. For the subsequent conduct was no better than it ought to have been. There were no "works of supererogation " in it t.hat could serve as an atonemen1; for past offences. II. THE IIDll! OF YOUTH BEAR FBUl'f IN Al"TBB-nu:as. They do so in this life. Diaease and early decrepitude are the bitter fruit.a of youthful dissipation. If the golden opportunities of youth are wast.ad, the after-life must suffer. If opportunities of educational improvement are neglect.eel in youth, it is impossible to make up for them in manhood. The young man who spends the best years of his life in idle pleasnn- seeking i1JStead of laying the foundation of his future work, is sure to come to a <lay when he will bitterly repent his folly. There is a unity in. life. We C&Dnot slice it into detached periods, ha~ing no connection with one another. The present is a prod.net of the past, and the ultimate future will be a result of our whole life, not of the last moments of it. Future judgment deals with the deeds of the life,_not with the mood of the death-bed. • III. Sms OF YOUTH IAY BB FORGIVEN. They cannot be nndone. Some of their consequences are inevitable. Therefore the hope of pardon is no, encouragement for folly and wickedness. Still, when a man repent.a and seeks the grace, of. God, his case is never treated in Scriptnre 11.11 hopeless. Tbongh a certain loss and suffering may remain, God forgives and heals tbe repenta.nt soul. Therefore it is foolish .to forget or to defend a misspent yonth. The only hopeful thing is to own it before God, and to show ounielves heartily ashamed of it. H is far better to give to God every hour of life; but if the early how:s have been misspent-miserable as is the thought of them -it is possible to mend our ways, and enter the vineyard even at the eleventh. hour. The right use of reflection on the sins of youth is to make a man humble, and to lead him to sympathize with young men, and t.o try to wam them, lest they make tho sad mistake which has thrown 11 shadow over all his subsequent life. For who that is converted in later age would not give all he has to go back and begin again, and so avoid the ugly, unchangeable past ?-W. F. A.
EXPOSITION.
OIIAPTER XIV. lhe patriarch, having ve:iited hfll. feelings, experiences a certain. relief, an interval ·ot Ven. 1-22.-Thie chapter, in wl1ich Job calm, in which. liia own w0e11 preseing l11as eonclndee the fourth of hie addresses, ia heayj.ly upou him, bs ia content tp moralize c:hamowized by a tone of mild and gcuUe oo the gcnero1 oon.dition of humanity. eqioatnlation. whioh contruta with the oom- parative vehemouce and puaion of the two Ver. 1.-Kan that i8 born of a woman. precediilg ~ Ii would tieelll that In this faot Job '8etl the ol"i1h1 of m~n•s ill• OH, UV, 1-22,] THE BOOK OF JOB. 243