deeper voices that speak to us, for its perpettrn.l sound ie in our ear-the hum of its activity, the rattlo of its pleasures, the wail of its distress. Solitude would render an essenUal service if we would but ensure it and employ it. I. THE SERVICE~ SOLITUDE WOULD RENDER UB. 1. It would bring God near tn us. When m1m is quite removed from us, and his voice ie completely hushed; when we are alone, whether it be in the folds of the hill, or in the depth of the valley, or in our own chamber ;-we have a sense of God's nearness to us which we have not amid the crowd. And what an inestimable advantage it would be to us to Jet the conscious- ness of God's own presence often fill our soul, and then to hold sustained communion with him I 2. It would place our past in full view before our soul. It is not well to be very often looking back on that which bas gone. There is deep wisdom in" forget tin~ those things which are behind," both past follies and past successes. Yet is it well some- times to review the way we have been taking-to conMider how much tl,ere is that should bumble us, and how much that should teach us our weakness and cast us on the mercy and the help of God. 3. It would confront us with the fnture. It would make us ask whither we are going, what there remains for us to do before we die, how well we are prepared for death and the great day of account. 4. It would lead us to estimate our pre~ent spiritual condition-how good a use we have made of our privi- leges, whether we have been progressing or receding in our course, whether we are what our Divine Lord would have us be, how we stand in the sight of perfect truth and purity. II. THE OCCASIONS WHEN IT 1B MOST APPROPRIATE. 1. Between the night and the morning; when the soul has to address itself to new duties, new difficultits, new oppor- tunities. 2. Between the evening and the night; before a man commits himself to the "great Guardian of his sleeping hours," hfa hours of utter helplessness and uncon- sciousness. 3. Before leaving the shelter of the home; when the young heart goes forth into deeper waters-who shall say how deep ?-of temptation and trial; when all, and far more than all, its resources will be required for the stem struggle before it. 4. In the crises of our career; when in the innermost chamber of the soul it is deter- mined whether the heart and life shall be yielded to the holy Savi0ur and rightful Sovereign, or shall be withheld from him. 5. At the time of religious avowal ; when a human being takes upon himself the vows of God, and makes open declaration of attachment to the Lord his Redeemer. 6. Before special services which demand the full strength of the soul to meet them bravely and to render them worthily. At such times as these does it most become us to shut our doors upon ourselves a.nd be 101.,g a.lone with God,-C.
Vere. 1-4.-The absolute certainty of the <Jhriatian religion. In this prologue by Luke we have an insight into the conditions and purpotes of bis publication. In a:i age without the art of printing, it was useful to obtain the patromge of the wealthy, and thus secure the production of such a number of" copies" as would save the volume from oblivion. Hence in the classic world dedications to rich men were the rule wiLh authors rather than the exception. Luke's Gospel, which is the "classic" GPspel in the series, is thus written for Til.eophilus, presumably a rich couvort, with whom the writer has bad most intimate relations. It is to the same patron he deuicates the second volume of the life of Christ, which is commonly, though inaccurately, called "The Acts of the .Apostles," but which is renlly a second volume of the acts of the Lord, accomplished in and through his apostles. The Gospel, as Luke tells us in the prologue to the Acts, was an account of all that Jesus began to do and teach (Acts i. 1). Our Lord's earthly life was thus, in Luke's view, only a first stage in an everlasting history. But while Luke, like other authors in the cla~sical world, may have had the interests of bis book in view in dedicating it to Theophilus, he bad at the same time a nobler purpose, even to confirm Theophilus in the Christian faith. He proposes con- sequently to display the basis on which this convert has been building, and how absolutely certain the Christian faith is. It is well to revise the foundatic,ns. We ought to "walk about Zion, nnd go round about her;" we ought to "tell the towers thereof, and mark well her bulwarks, aud consider her palaces; that we may tell it to the generation following" (Pij. xlviii. 12, 13). What, then, does Luke present to Theophilus as an account of the Christian faith? 28 TIIE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. LUKE. rcn. ,. 1-AO,