are at once co1Tected by those who know better, and we are ashamed. Do not go to the council without lenrning the facts and understanding the matter, or else wait well and learn patiently before you speak at all. , III. THE FEELING OF RESENTMKNT, "A fool uttereth all his anger, but a wise man keepeth it back and stilleth it " (Revised Version ; eh. xii. 16). Nothing more dis- tinctly marks the presence of wisdom or folly than the habit of speaking quickly or restraining speech under provocation. It is an unfailin~ criterion. The reasons for silence a.t such a time are obvious enough, and they should be strong enough. 1. Hasty speech is (1) very likely indeed to be incorrect, imperfect, if not wholly wrong, for our judgment is sure to be disturbed and unhinged when our spirit is woun<led; (2) most likely to provoke our opponent to feel strongly and to strike severely, and thus tho fiood-gates of strife are opened; (3) unworthy of the wise and strong, lowering in the eyes of our best friends and in our own regard; (4) condemned of God (Jas. i. 19, 20). 2. Conscientious silence under provocation is (1) an admirable victory over our lower nature ( eh. xvi. 32); (2) the wa.y of peace in the council, in the home, in the Church ; (3) the path in which we follow Christ our Lord, and gain his Divine approval (Matt. xxvii. 12; vi. 9).-C. Ver. 13.-(See homily on eh. xx:ii. 2.)-0. Vers. 15-17.-(See homily on eh. xiii. 24.)-C. Ver. 18.-Spiritual ignorance and obedience. (See also homily on eh. xix. 2.) Two things are clear: 1. That God has provided us with many source8 of knowledge. We have, for materials to work with, a very complex and richly endowed nature; and we have, for materials to work upon, (1) that same nature of ours with all its instincts, impulses, desires, hopes; (2) the great visible system around us into which we can constantly be looking, and of which we might be expected to learn much; (3) human life, and the providence of God as manifested therein. 2. 'l'hat these sources of wis,\om, which are constant and common to our race, prove to be lamentably insufficieut. Mau, under the dominion and depression of sin, cannot read a.right the lessons which his own nature, the visible universe, and the providence of God are fitted and intended to teach him. He shows himself utterly incapable; he is completely false in his ideas, aud pitiably wrong in his course of action. Hence we come to the conclusion of the text- I. THE LAMENTABLE RESULT OF SPIBITUAL IGNORANCE. "Whore there is no vision, the people perish." Where there is no special Divine revelation, supplementing the knowledge and correcting the ignorance of the unenlightened, there is a "perishing " or a " nakedness" in the Janel. The sad and miserable reslllt, as all lands and o.11 ages testify, is : 1. Literal, physical death. Without the knowledge of God, and in the abseuce of the control which the knowledge of his will can supply, (1) there is strife, violence, war, and of this death is the continual fruit; (2) there is vice, and this, when it is finished, bringeth forth death. 2. Loss of character. Not only of that which is sometimes understood by character, viz. reputation, but also of character itself. Where God's Word and will a.re unknown, there is such a deplorable descent into the erroneous and the immoral, that both of these go down o.nd perish. 3. Absence of spiritual life. The life of our life is in God, and not only in his kindness to us, but in onr kuow ledge of him. To be in utter ignorance of him, to have lost a.II belief in hiru, to be speuding our days in spiritual separation from him,-is not this to be so destitute of all that beautifies and brightens, of all that enlarges and ennobles, human life, as to be "deatl while we Jive " ? So thought and taught the great Teacher and his great apostle (Luke ix. 60; John v. 24; 1 Tim. v. 6). It is not merely that there is a satl exclusion, at the end, from the heavenly kingllom; it is that spiritual ignorance of God constitutes clmth, and they who are living without God, and becoming more o.nd ruort1 alienated from and unlike to him, are perishillg" day by day." II. THE BLESSEDNESS OF ODl!:DIENCE. "He that keepeth the Law," etc. Happy is the man who walks in the fear of God, in the love and the service of Jesus Christ; for , I. He is walking in the path where all the worst evils cannot harm him; he is defended from "the evil which is in the world;" he is upheld In his purity and bis integrity. 2. He is livi.Dg a, life which will command the est<:em aud wiu the love of the wise and 568 THE PROVEtrns. [err. XXIX, 1-27,
the w?rthy •. 3. ~e a~i~es und_er the wing <?fa heave_nly ~a.ther's fa!our; he is enjoying the friendship ot a D1vme Saviour. 4. He 1s expendmg his powers m the conscious, the happy service of him "whose he is," and in whose service is true and lasting freedom, 5. He is exerting a benignant influence in every circle in which he moves. 6. He i1 travelling homewards.-C.
Vers. 20, 22.-(See homily on ver. 11.)-C, Ver. 23.-(See homily on eh, xvi. 18.)-C.