leo.cling the clo.imant to the poesession of better riches, then all will be well. Anrl bore we notice- !. A MAN OAN NEVEB BK AATISll'IED WITH THINGS. (Ver. 15.) This is the great mistBke men are making. '£hey imflgine that things can ea.tiefy their hearts; whereaR we are so constituted, with our affections and emotions, that fellowship with peroons is indispensable to any measure of satisfaction, and to full satisfaction with no less a Being than God himself. All the effort, consequently, to be satisfied with things. with gifts, when the Giver is left out, proves vain.1 No abundance can satisfy the cmving of the heart. And the feverish desire for more and more wealth on the part of worldly men demonstrates simply that they are on the wrong track altogether, and that so.tisfaction can never be found in things. Covetousness, consequently, as the ido!atry of things, is a tote.I mistake. It misinterprets human natt1re, and is doomed to terrible disappointment. II. SucOEBB MAY DOOM HEN TO LI'll'ELO!l'G WRONG. (Vera. 16-18.) The rich fool, as the man in the parable has been generally called, is overwhelmed by success. It outgrows his calculations. His barns are too small; they must be pulled down to allow of bigger barns being built, so that years of anxious labour are provided out of his inordinate success. He gets steeped to the lips in care. His life becomes a cease- less worry. His grasping only secures his misery. It is truly lamentable to witness the self~infilcted wrong which worldly minds experience as they try to garner more and more of this world's goods to the neglect of better things. How well our great dramatist understood this l In his poems Sh.akesp<'...are says- ,. The profit of excess Is but to surfeit, and such griefs sll!lta.in, That they prove bankrupt in this poor-rich gain. The aim of'all is but to nurse the life With honour, wealth, and ease, in waning e.ge: And in this aim there is such thwarting strife, That one for all, or all for one. we gage, As life for honour in fell battle's rage, Honour for wealth: and oft that wealth doth coat The death of all, and altogether lost." Ill IN THE CABEEB OP SUCCESS THERE IS ONLY A VAIN DESIRE FOB. BEST. (Ver. 19.) The soliloquy betrays the utter weariness of the man. After his bigger barns are built, away down the fretful years he will reach, he hopes, a time when he will be in a position to say to his soul, " Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry." He longs for rest, but it will be years yet before he can think of it. All the worry and the fret of the interval must be passed before rest can come. His idea is to win rest by wealth; to buy it up by a certain measure of success. And the experience of all men is that rest is never got on this line at all It is something that cannot be purchased, but must be God-given.:1 How often do we see men who have retired with a competency at a. loss how to kill time, and as weary and restless as ever ! IV. DEATH OUTS THE SOUL Ol'll' AT ONCE FltOM HIS WORLDLY POSSESSIONS. (Vers. 20, 21.) We never hea.r of millionaires carrying their money-bags with them. A moment after death Crcesus is no richer than the beggar. The things which were so anxiously amassed remain to be divided among the heirs, while the owner goes out into another world absolutely penniless. 'l'he state to which death reduces him is pitiful indeed. Having forgotten God the Giver through occupation with his gifts, he faces his Judge without a single feeling or aspiration which, in God's sight, is valuable at all. A miserable and wretched soul receives dismissal from the gracious God whose bounty we.a ignored and whose Being was despised. V. How ALL-IMPORTANT IN THESE CIROUMSTANCES TO ACCEPT OP' CONTE.'l'TMENT A:SD REST AS THE SA VIOUR's OFFERED GIFT. If the young man had accepted of content- ment in place of cherishing covetousness, he would have been at ease at once. Rest of spirit e.nd growth of spirit would thus have been secured, and he would have been on • er. Gerok's • Evangelien-Predigien,' a. 690. 1 Cf. Goobol'e ' Oeterbeute,' 1. 272. LUKI!:. THE GDRPEL ACCOUDING TO ST. LUKE. [ou. xn. 1---69.
not, 011ly equal tenns with, bnt mo~t probably superior terms to, hie more ltfRSping hrother. It 1s thus thf\t .J e8us deals with us. He can give us a pre.~ent rest from Riu, fr.,ru worry, from c.are of all kinds, and make us rich in the ~ight of God. With the Tic-he6 of th.i ~oul in grnces and giftg, we may hope to pasR into the Divine preoonoe e,nd enjoy the Divine society and GBcape being castaways.-R. M. E.