oath of fealty rendered by him to the God of Bethel. To the "I am with thee" of the covenant answers the vow of dedication "then shall the Lord be my God." Of dedication to the life-long conflict wherein fought the apostles, and the prophets, and the noble army of martyrs. Of dedication to the brotherhood of the true cross, to the toils of a true pilgrimage. Of dedication which means renunciation of the soft and luxurious ease wherewith men, forgetful that in the very sound of their baptismal name they hold the pledge of warfare and of endurance, would seek smooth paths for their feet, and bidding another bear their cross, would translate into a soporific strain of worldly conformity the stern vows of Christ's band against sin, the world, and the devil. It is of these that, in our day, the recording spirits "whom the Lord hath sent to walk to and fro throughout the earth," bear testimony, "We have walked to and fro throughout the earth, and behold the earth is still and is at rest;" and these are they who, avoiding the footprints marked in blood of the faithful unto death, go forth delicately, and refuse to follow the Son of David into the wilderness across the dark

mountains, filling up with their unmeaning signature a covenant whereof they know not the terms and care not to fulfil the engagements.

Yet is there a tremulousness in the acceptance given even by the steadfast soul to the pledge and covenant which it so eagerly appropriates. "I will be with thee," saith the Lord; "if the Lord will be with me" is the response. The promise is unconditional and free; the answering dedication is conditional and questioning.

For it is not in its first experiences that the spirit newly joined unto the Lord learns the full security of His divine "I will." It has tried the "I wills" of the world, and they failed. It has tried the "I wills" of friendship, and they failed because of the frailty of all earthly friendship. It has tried the "I wills" of its own determination, and yet more have they proved fallible and unstable. Thou hast yet to learn, O newly enlisted wayfarer, the unchangeableness and sufficiency of that "I will" of the Lord thy God; thou hast yet to try the experiment of the immutability of His promise whose thou now art, that thou mayest take up the song which faintly falls back upon thine ear from those who are on before thee in the

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way, Thou, Lord, hast never failed them that seek Thee."

Trust, after all, is the school in which the believer must graduate until faith be lost in sight; and implicit confidence and trust constitute the spiritual attainment which, perhaps, we are longest in acquiring here below. For we speak not of that conventional thing calling itself "Trust in Providence," which has a verbal currency in the world, and which men profess, betaking themselves thereto as a last resort when circumstances are beyond their control, and when, with a pious ejaculation, they would cover their helplessness. The imitation of true coin thus lightly uttered professes not to stand the test of the gold tried in the fire, though it meet with ready exchange amongst the world's moneychangers, who here penetrate even to the outer courts of the temple. But with them it is excluded from its precincts by the Lord Himself, who, sitting over against the Treasury, recognises and honours as acceptable tribute, if only the two mites of that humble and holy confidence which is trust, well knowing that therein we offer not of that which costs us nothing.

And it is because of the slowness and difficulty of its attainment that the first experiment in trust results but in the "If the Lord will be with me," of the patriarch. The swimmer, first spreading out his hands to swim, dares not to relinquish his footing on the earth, his support from the rock. And not at once, or even in the beginning of that new life which has date from its first memorial pillar, does the soul learn to renounce all reliance on second causes or on surroundings of earthly circumstance, and to cast itself intrepidly on the ocean of divine love, which will bear it up to the complete realization of the promise, "Whoso trusteth in the Lord mercy shall compass him about."

Yet is it our deficiency in implicit trust which too often encompasses our religion with a carefulness and anxiety little pleasing in His sight, who would have us without carefulness. We trust for death, but how little for life; we trust for eternity, yet how little for time; holding it far easier to cry impulsively, "Though He slay me yet will I trust in Him," than to accept the exhortation, "Trust in Him at all times, ye people pour out your hearts before Him." It

is this trust which is Faith in its working dress that we need a faith exercised not on the unseen future, merely, but hourly and momentarily, in the homely details and common things of life, thus made holy and linked with the things of God.

Far easier is it to work than to trust: easier to do much for God than to lean much on God. And yet, who, thoughtfully studying His revealed will, will fail to discern that he who trusts most holds highest rank in His sight, and that the object and meaning of manifold amongst those marvellous works which ought to be had in remembrance are recorded in the words, "that they might put their trust in the Lord."

We need not to look back on the wilderness of Sinai-the practising school, if we may so call it, wherein trust was the lesson, Israel the scholar-or to remember the mournful summary of failure written for our learning in the verdict, 66 they believed not in God and trusted not in His salvation." Rather would we discern in the chronicles of those days, wherein at sundry times and in divers manners God was willing more visibly than afterwards to take the lesson into