Ver. 18.-" The path of the fust." I. .A. SHINING LIGHT. 1 It has all the great leading characteristics suggested by light, viz. truth, purity, joy, life. Perhaps the leading idea is that of holy gladness. This is to be enjoyed here on earth in those pleasant ways and paths of peace through which Wisdom leads her votaries. The Christian may be a. martyr, but he need not be a victim of melancholy. 2. It is open to the day. They who do evil love the darkness that hides their deeds. "The dark places of the earth are full of the habitations of cruelty." Goodness fears no exposure. Cato bad no fear of bis neighbours looking into his garden. Daniel could afford to let his habits be public. 3. It is bright with reflected Divine light. Here is the source of the brightness like that of the dawn that reflects the sun's beams. Christ shines on the soul, and it brightens under his love as the dark hills and darker valleys take on the colours of life before the rising sun. 4. It is always giving out light around it. It is a shining light, a. glistening light; not mere colour, but radiance. The true Christian is a light of the world; it is his duty to let his light shine to the glory of God. IT. .A GROWING LIGHT. We must not stumble at that word "just," as though it removed the whole subject to lofty regions far beyond all. possible attainments of ours. The just man in tbe Old Testament, like the saint in the New Testament, is not neces- sarily a person of fully ripened perfection, but one whose course and aim and tendency are towards righteousness. Such a man will begin with many imperfections. His course, however, will be one of growing brightness. Unless there is growth there must be death. The stagnant Christian is the dead Christian, soon to become the corrupt Christian. It is for our encouragement that we may expect growth if we employ the right means. There is growth in personal piety. Every victory over sin is so much new light gained. There is growth in grace. The richest stores of God's grace are in the future. There is ever "more to follow," and the best wine is reserved for the last. There is growth in knowledge. The light of truth is a growing light. What we know not now we shall know hereafter. "Now we see as in a mirror darkly, but then face to face." There is growth in joy and peace. The best fruits of Christian blessedne~s take time to -ripen. The young Christian is disappointed at finding them green and acid. Time must mellow them. Now, this growth is gradual like the dawn, so that the Christian is carried on from stage to stage. But the rate is not unifor;ID. With some there is a. long twilight. With others the day hastens on with tropical speed. He who has most of Christ will find his dawn spread most rapidly. III. .A. LIGHT THAT LEADS TO PERFECT DAY. .All that we now see is but the dull, chill twilight. It may be a cheerful dawn, but it is not to be compared with the rich Rplendour of the noon. The Christian progress is not to cease till it reaches perfection. It is far from that as yet. With some of us but a few grey streaks have as yet broken out of the old sad night. But all Christians may have the same glad hope of the full and perfect day. Heaven will be the coincidence of ripened character with perfected blessedness. And this day has no afternoon. There a.re no lengthening shadows to 6adden us with threats of the chill evening and the dread darkness, for "tboro ls no night OH. IV. 1-27.] THE PROVERBS. 111
there." A greater than Joshua arrests the sun at the meridian. Or rather there will be no need of the sun, because we shall be beyond this world of successive changes in the life eternal of that new Jerusalem, where it is ever day, because" the Lord God is the Light thereof."
Ver. 19.-.The way of darkness. The way of sin is in all respects one of darkness. It is dark in its origin, dark in its course, and dark in its end. I. THE WAY OF BIN STARTS FROM A DARK ORIGIN. 1. Ignorance. Most criminals are deplorably ignorant. Vicious men are generally men whose mental cultivation has been neglected by others or by themselves. Ignorance of Divine truth leads the way to wickedness. The first preventative of evil is the religious teaching of children. 2. Inherited tendencies to evil. These awful consequences of a parent's sin are a dark heritage which heavily handicaps the child from the first. 3. Satanic influences. Temptations are all dark in their origin. Evil suggestions come up from the pit of darkness. 4. The lower nature. When a man gives way to sin he sacrifices his higher to his lower self. He sinks from the sunlit mountain heights of purity to gloomy depths of baser living. II. THE WAY OF BIN PURSUES A DARK COURSE. It is a road that runs through sombre passes, like some of those Welsh paths far in the heart of the mountains, on which the sun never shines. This is worse than the Valley of the Shadow of Death, for in the fearful path of sin there is no guiding hand and no protecting staff. The darkness of this course is exhaled from the evil committed upon it. 1. Perverted con- science. Sin distorts a man's thought!', blinds his eyes to the highest truth, raises a mist about the old landmarks of right and wrong, and plunges tile soul into a stupor of moral indifference. From neglecting to follow the light of God, the sinner comes at last to be incapable of beholding it. 2. Spiritual desertion. God's Spirit will not always strive with the sons of men (Gen. vi. 3). There comes a time when God leaves the self-abandoned soul to its own devices. Then, indeed, a darkness as of winter midnight sinks upon the lost being. 3. Corrupt conduct. Following the way of evil, the sinner continues to blacken it with the guilt of his own misdeeds. He plunges into the spiritual darkness of wicked living-the degradation, the loss of the joy and purity of heavenly light that sin always induces. III. THE WAY OF SIN ISSUES IN A DARK END. The sinner cannot see his way upon it, and therefore he is sure to stumble. Bruised and confused, he may still persist in his sombre career. But he bas no prospect of light beyond. There are no Beulah heights for him at the further end of the gloomy valley. His night of sin will be followed by no dawn of blessed light. He presses on only to deeper and yet deeper darkness. If he will not return there is nothing before him but the darkness of death. The one way of escape is backwards-to retrace his steps in humble penitence. Then, indeed, he may see the welcome light of bis Father's home, and even earlier the Light of the world, the Saviour who has come out into the darkness to lead him back to God. For the sinner who persists in his evil course there can be no better prospect than that described by Byron in his poem on "Darkness"-