forbids our ma.king any personal gal.Ii the end and aim of life. Show under what self- deceiving forms this covetous de8ire to get ensnares men nowadays. 2. We may live to be. Thitt is, to culture ourselves, and win the worship of men for what we are, in talent, skill, and virtue. This is nobler ; and this is, in measure, right and good ; yet it has this exceeding moral peril, that it keeps us in the self-spheres. It may easily pass into the degrading thing-covetousness for fame. 3. We may live to serve, This is the Divine idea of life for us. Th is is the Christ-like pattern of life for us. This is the kind of life that suffering, sinning humanity asks for from llB, They who can live to serve are, with Obrist, after Obrist, and in his strength, the world's saviours, and the God-glorifiers. n. Goo's JUDGMENTB ON HIM WHO LIVES TO GET. Those judgments will come as natural ngencies, as fixed results of ever-working law, and as circumstances for which men may think to find easy explanation; but they are none the less direct Divine judgments. Such judgments on the covetous take two forms. 1. Character is debased by tbe constant getting and grasping, This may be effectively illustrated in the case of the apostate Judas. No moral deterioration is so serious or so certain as that of the covetous man. Hardening against his fellow-men, he is hardening against God. Crush- ing out all considerateness and all charity, he loses men's love and God's smile, and is wretched indeed when he has got all, and is "placed alone in the midst of the land." If any poor creature of our humanity calls for our supremest pity, it is surely the man who ha.s lived to get, and made his immortal soul grovel among mere possessions. "'_Take heed, ·and beware of covetousness; for a man's life consisteth not in the abun- dance of the things that he possesseth." 2. 1'he calamities of lire will prove utterly ruinous to the covetous. Because they will touch them at their tenderest point, destroying their gains. The picture presented in the verses is a most affecting one. By the insecurity of the land the fine mansions are uninhabited, and the fields are neglected. Travellers tells us of the humiliating sight of decayed mansions in the East: War and civil commotion, often the natural result of the masterful ruling of covet<ius·men, make property valueless; and so the evil brings round its own judgment. '.l.'he law works universally, sometimes quickly, at· other times slowly, so that men presume on its delaying; that "whatsoever a man sowetb, that shall he also reap." Apply by inquiring what is the end and aim of life to the hearers. Jacob would get, and he got years of homelessness, hard toil, and care. Achan would get, and he got an early and dreadful death. Gehazi would get, and he got the leprosy. Ananias and Sapphira would get, and they got a sudden destruction. Woe-earth cries for it, a.nd heaven sends it-woe, sooner or later, for very one who liveth that be may get, and is utterly unworthy of him who, showing God to us, went about among his fellows as "One that serveth."-R. T. •Vera, 11, 12.-The sin of dusipation. That which is here reproved is not mere drinking habits; it is the 'riotous feasting and wasting which characterizes the sensualist. Early drinking was considered by the Jews, as it was by the Romans, a mark of the most degraded sensuality. "In the time of Isaiah, the sensual Jews appear to have employed musicians, and all kinds of merry-makers, as dancers, mimics, buffoons, etc., such as are still common all over the East." "They shooked public feeling by morning banquets" (Eccles. x. 16, 17; Acts ii. 14). Morier says," The Persians, when they commit a debauch, arise betimes, and esteem;the morning as the best time for beginning to drink wine, by which means they carry on their excess till night." Dissipation, in its comprehensive sense, is the temptation and the sin of our young men, especially of those belonging to the wealthier classes. The excitement and rioting of it may be illustrated by the following true •incident. When inflamed with wine, a young man was challenged to eat a five-pound note. Plating .it between slices of bread, in wild foolishness and wickedness, he actually destroyed the note in this way. We fix atten- tion Qn the wastefulness of dissipation, and point out that it is a grievous sin before God, as abusin~ his sacred trusts. Illustrate from (1) the trust, of time; (2) the trust of property; (3) the trust of the body; (4) the trust of the mind; (5) the trust of the power to serve others. Show how mischievous is the influence exerted by the familiar 11aying, "Young men must sow their wild· oats." They should have no wild oats to . aow i and if they have any, the very last thing they should do with them is sow them, 102 THE- BOOK, OF THE PROPHET I,SAfAH, [UH, V, 1-,-3,0,
for they will surely spring up, and be&.r1 for their reaping._a harvest of woe unepealrn.ble. F. W. Robertson says, "There are men who~ make provisiou forth~ Jlesht to, fulfil the lusts thereof.' They whet the appetites by indul_gence, .. They whip: the jaded senses to their work. Whatever the constitutional bias may be-;-ang(!r, intemperance, ericurism, indolence, desires-there are societies, conversations, sooncs, which snpply ·rue for the flame, aa well as opposite ones which cut off the nutriment. Such a ma.n is looking forward to a harvest lVherein he m11.y reap the fruit of his present anticipatiqns,. And he shall reap it. He ha.s sown to the flesh, and of tl_1e _flesh he shall, teap. corruption. This is in his case the ruin of the soul. . He sl,l,all reap the h!\rve!!f; of: dieappointyµen~ t.he harvest of hitter, useless remorse. His harvest is a soul in flames, and the tongue that no drop can cool."-R. T, . ..