runny broken rcsoluUons. It is easy to say, very hard to persevern in bearing the cross. How often we hnve promised, at our baptism, at our confirmation, in the Holy Oommunion, in the hour of private prayer and self-examination-how often we have said," I will go up" I But the necent is steep and difficult; the palm tree is high, there o.re no branches to assist the climber; the fruit is at the very top, high out of our roach; there is need of effort, continued persevering effort--effort sometimes very hard 11nd painful to flesh and blood. But we must lift up our hearts, we must look upward. 'fhe Lord was lifted up, and hie disciples must follow him; they know the way (John xiv. 4). We must set him ever before us, aad think of his agony and bloody sweat, his cross and Passion, when we are tempted to regard the cross as hard and painful, and to relax our efforts in the religious life. We must go up. God's saints have gone before us. "They climbed the steep ascent of heaven Through peril, toil, and pain." We must do the like; "we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom" of God. And if we would persevere in well-doing we must go up to the cross of the Lord Jesus; it is only there, in spiritual communion with the crucified Saviour, in his strength which strengthens all who trust in him, through a living and true faith in him, that the Christian can find strength to bear the burden of the cross, It is a heavy burden to flesh and blood, but the Lord makes it light to all who come to him in obedience to his gracious invitation. For he gives to his chosen power to become the sons of God; he strengthens them with all might by his Spirit in the inner man; he bids them cast their burden upon him (Ps. Iv. 22), he bears it with them. But they must go up to the palm tree ; they may have many times said they will do so, and perhaps many times have failed. They must go up with sustained effort. The Lord, indeed, draws us, but it is by the attraction of love and the motions of his Spirit, not by forcing our will. We must go up, yielding up our will to him, asking him to give us grace to pray aright that holy prayer," Not my will, bot thine be done." And we must take hold of the boughs thereof, clinging to them '.with the embrace of loving faith. It is not enough once to go up to the tree; the Lord himself has taught us our need of continual perseverance: " Abide in me, and I in you." We must take hold of him with the earnest prayer of Jacob, "I will not let thee go except thou bless me." .And we must learn of him who endured the cross for us to take up the cross ourselves, to crucify the flesh with the affections and lusts, so that, like St. Paul, we may be crucified with Christ, and, dying unto the world, may ever live with him. We may well take to ourselves the words which tradition puts into the mouth of St. Andrew when he first saw the cross on which he was to suffer, "Hail, precious cross, that hast been consecrated by the body of my Lord I I come to thee ; receive me into thy arms, take me from among men, and present me to my Master, that he who redeemed me on thee may receive me by thee." The cross goeth before the crown. We must go up to the tree, and that with pains o.nd striving, before we can reach the fronds at the summit-. They are the prize of victory. The great multitude that no man could number stood before the throne clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands. That blessed vision may, indeed, be understood as a vision of the true Feast of Tabernacles in heaven; but the palm has ever been reganle<l as the martyr's prize ; we must look upwards to it. "Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things that are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus" (Phil. iii. 13, 14). 4. The bridegroom continues his praises. He repeats the comparison of the vine, and adds that the breath of the bride is fragrant as the smell of the choicest fruits, and the tones of her voice sweet as the best wine. Here the bride interrupts the king, adding the words, "that goeth down smoothly for my beloved." 'IN e mark the loving controversy; each seeks to put the other first. If the king compares the bride to a palm tree, she stops him with the answer that he is to her the stately tree; she will go up to the palm tree, she will take hold of its boughs. If he compiues her voice to the flavour of the sweetest wine, she adds, interrupting him, that that wine is for her beloved, to please and refresh him with its sweetness; her joy is to feel that 170 THE SONG OF SOLOMON. [err. vn. t-13.
8he is wholly his, to delight in his love, to try always to please him. H is n sweet picture of the happiness of wedded love, when each seeks to plense the other when each puts the other first. Then CbrisUan marriage is indeed a holy estate, ~ .,.rent help in the religious life, representing to the wedded pair the union that is bettveen Christ and his Church, so that having in their own mutual relations a parable of that ho!_\' union, they may _be drawn continually nearer to Christ, as they learn continually t() lo,e one another with a purer and deeper love, and in their daily self-denials for