a law or mind, the object or the eonl'■ devotion transfigures it Into It■ own chamcter, Hence the human spirit gets buried in fie fleshly, absorbed in the selfish and the worldly. Th111 everywhere we find mind■ that should expand into sempha linking into grubs, wonhipping the " beast;" ■ordid ■ycophants, not soaring Mints ; the miserable creature.. not the mighty II18Stera of clroumBta.nces. 2. That the prostitution of the soul to wrong alway, fflctlf'8 lammtable ffljfering. It is said, "The same [he also] shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture rprepared unmixed] into the cup of his indignation [angerl; and he shall be tormenteawith fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angefs, and in the presence of the Lamb" (ver. 10). The metaphors here are borrowed from the 118Cred books of the Hebrew people, and they convey the idea of suffering of an alarming kind, suggesting: (1) A consciousness of Divine antagonism. " Wine of the wrath of God.• In the sense of malignant passion there is no wmth in him who is Looe. But it la a psychological fact that the man who suffers because he has done another an injury, has a conscious- ne■s that the one he has offended is angry with him, and this consciousness is the chief element in his suffering. (2) A sense of intense agony. " Shall be tormented with fire and brimstone." Brimstone ai!ds intensity to the heat and fury to the flames -0f fire. " My punishment is greater than I can bear," 88id Cain. A guilty conscience has its Tartarus. or Gehenna within itself. (3) A state of constant restlessness. "They have no rest day nor [and] night" (ver. 11). There is no rest in sin. "The wicked are like the troubled sea." A guilty eoul under a sense of sin is like Noah's dove ftuttering over tumultuous billows. II. Som.-LOYALTY. "Here is the patience of the saints" (ver. 12). "The meaning here," says Moses Stuart, "is either thus : here then in the dreadful punishment of the wicked every Christian may see of what avail his patience and obedient spirit and faith in Christ are; or here is a disclosure respecting the wicked which is adapted to encourage a patient endurance of the evila of persecution, and a constancy in obedience to the Divine commands and to the Christian faith." What is patience? It is not insensibility. Some people are lauded for their patience who should be denounced for their stoici.'!Dl and indifference. Patience implies at least two things. I. The existence qf trials. Where the path -0f life is all smooth, flowery, and pleasant, where all the winds of life are temperate, bright, and balmy, where all the echoes of life are free from discordant n-0tes, and beating the sweetest melodies, where, in fact, life is entirely free from trial, there is no room for patience. Patience lives only in difficulty and danger, in storms and tempests. 2. ~ highat mental power. Man's highest power of mind is seen, not in unsurpassed mechanical inventions, or the sublimest productions of art, not in the most baffling and confounding strategies of bloody war, hell's own creation, but in the successful effort to govern all the impulses and master all the boisterous passions of the human eoul " The Lord is slow to anger, and great in power." This is a remarkable expression. It seems as if the Prophet Nahum meant that God is slow to anger because he is great in. power ; if he had less power he would be less patient. A man may be slow to anger and slow to deal out vengeance because he lacks power to do eo. But God is slow to anger because he has abundance of power. His power of self-control is infinite. Truly does Solomon say, " He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city.n l The greater the sinner and the greater the sneak, thu better able to take cities; but it requires the greatest man to govern his own soul.
"Be patient, oh be patient I Put your CM" against the earth, Listen there how noiselessly the germ. of the seed has buth: How noiselessly and gently it upheaves its little way, Till it parts the scarcely broken ground, and the blade Btanda up in day I "Be patient, oh be patient I The germs of mighty thought Mmt have their silent undergrowth, must underground be wrought. But as sure as there's a power that makes the grass appear, Our Jand shall be green with liberty, the blade-time shall be here.
! See • Praeti.cal Philosopher,' p. 8SL m. uv 1-20.] THE REVELATION OF BT. JOHN THE DIVINE. ffl