will be set and the books opened, for the deeds done in this life, and the duties left undone. Whatever new day may dawn for us beyond the grave, this day of mortal lifeour time in this well-known, familiar, not unbeloved, earth -will be over. Our last opportunity of serving God amongst these our friends, our neighbours, our dear homecircle, will have passed away. But with what perfect security may those meet the coming of that hour, and improve that last opportunity, to whom it is but the completion of a golden chain of very many others well-improved? What sting would there be to them in the thought the last'?

But the strength of sin is the law.' If we had been made to live in solitude, and our Creator had bestowed a separate globe upon each of us, the conscience of each would have been his only law. But, as we are members of a great family, whose archives stretch back beyond history, and who, though scattered abroad over the earth, yet are all more or less in communion with others, and mutually dependent one upon another, to whom Society is indeed. our only world, and the relations in which we stand to others the necessary conditions of our higher life,-the human conscience, essentially the same from the beginning, has formed a code of outward laws, whose characteristic is, not to command, but to forbid. In other words, the same Divine Spirit, which says to each of us, 'Do not this abominable thing which I hate,' has spoken so distinctly to prophets and lawgivers of old, that 'the word of the Lord has been as a burning fire shut up in their bones, so that they could not stay.' They spoke, and all who heard could not evade the message. It bore its own credentials with it. It was God's Will, His Law: the guilty trembled, the faithful embraced it with devout awe, and laid it up in their heart of hearts. What seems to us now trite, familiar, obvious, was a flash of inspiration-a revelation-to those who first thought it, who first put it into audible words.

In the childhood of the world, the imagination raised the throne of the Divine Lawgiver on lofty mountains, and surrounded it with all the most awful pomps of nature. But these added nothing to the real authority of His words, those words spoken in secret to the heart and conscience of man, which, by whatever human lips reported,

are the words of One, whom every conscious human being, that is not embruted by ignorance and depravity, recognizes as his rightful Lord. Many, too, there are, who feel the power of such words, when they hear them from their fellow-men; though the light of their own consciences may be perhaps too faint a gleam, their spiritual powers too feeble, to enable them to find the path of duty without such help. Even as children take their parents' word for their law, so the mass of men are under tutors and governors, until the time appointed by their Father. With children, indeed, we should think the training very defective, which did not lead on through obedience to insight. But an obedient child, on a point where its parent has not spoken clearly, may be in perplexity, or at least in some uncertainty, how to act. And then an elder friend appearing, with a message from the parent, is hailed as the parent himself. Nay, the child may know what the parent is likely to say, may seem to recollect that he has so spoken; but how comforting and reassuring, to hear that he has spoken the same thing to others! Or, in the case of the disobedient and rebellious, how much easier is it to bring the law to bear upon the conscience, when it has become outward, expressed in words universally accepted as true, become a recognized principle of life and action! Those, who have lived some time in this world of trial and temptation, who know something of the winding ways of their own hearts, will recognize at once the value of the outward Law, the expression, in actual words, from the experience of other men, of the very same convictions, which they themselves have felt brought home, as Eternal Truth, within them. To have broken it manifestly, to feel that they have broken it, may be even the means of waking the sleeping conscience. In the consciousness of hearing its condemning voice, is the very strength of remorse; from its grasp there is no escape;—

'The sting of death is sin, but the strength of sin is the Law.' How, then, with our own hearts condemning us, and the voice of God's holy Law giving strength and authority to that condemnation, can we look calmly on that from which nature revolts, and say,

'O Death, where is thy sting? O Grave, where is thy Victory?' 'Thanks be to God!' says the Apostle: we must take

refuge from the condemning law in the very presence, on the footsteps of the throne, of the Lawgiver. Lawgiver. Who giveth us the victory!' There is a struggle, then, a fight, though the moment of dissolution is not the time for it. The spirit of disobedience, which the Law pursues with its penalties, must be encountered and cast out by the true filial spirit, which says, 'Though he slay me, yet will I trust in Him.' 'Through our Lord Jesus Christ': this was the victory won by the Captain of our salvation, as he showed when he said, 'Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit'; and the feeblest Christian may partake of that victory. By faith in Christ Jesus we are all the children of God; and what is it to have faith in Jesus, if it be a real human act, and not a mere mystical, magical figment, but to take his words for truth, and to follow his example?

All the terrors of death, as well as all the sorrows of life, are a Father's warning and a Father's rod, to thwart us in that downward course which we are ever so ready to take. Well may our hearts shrink at the thought of being brought into His nearer Presence, into a more vivid consciousness that the All-seeing Eye is gazing on us, with all our stains upon us, all our deformities. Our only refuge is the faith that through-underneath-those stains and deformities that same All-seeing Eye can yet discern the traces of the child of God, not altogether effaced,—that our Father's Almighty Mercy and Wisdom will see it good to chasten and correct, if need be, but not to give over unto death.

Some, perhaps, will say, 'The pure and holy, the Divine Jesus, knew himself to be the Son of God, though all outward succour was withdrawn. But how can we know that any filial relation subsists between such sinners as we are and the Almighty Father?' Yet 'thanks be to God who has given us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ! It is he-the pure and holy one, speaking the words, doing the works, of God, in whom the Father was dwelling, who came to manifest the Father to us,-it is he who has taught us all to say 'Our Father,'-all the sons of men, the sinful and sin-oppressed, as well as the faithful and true-hearted, those who have trespasses to be 'forgiven,' 'temptations' by which they are harassed, 'evil' from which they long to be delivered': it is he

who said to that guilty woman, 'Go and sin no more'; it is he who said to the penitent thief, 'This day shalt thou be with me in Paradise.' Whatever other doctrines may be found in the New Testament, this of the Fatherhood of God to all, even to the prodigal, is at least the doctrine which Jesus taught, the truth by which he himself conquered death, -the only truth which can overcome the fear of death in any, which can overcome the terror, which can dissipate the despair. This 'victory' is not that of those, who from mere animal courage, excitement, or even ignorance, may meet death boldly, and without flinching, but also without thought, and without hope. It is not gained by mocking, as it were, at death, as if death were a trifling matter. But it is gained by those who have learned to make light of death, as St Paul did, who regarded it as a passage out of this state of being, in which we see through a glass darkly,' into another where we shall'see face to face,' and 'know' our God' even as we are known.' It is gained if we are able to regard both life and death as most awful, yet most blessed, things, 'life,' as the time to serve the Lord,' to travel on through sun or shade, with a faith in the constant Presence of an Unseen Guardian, Father, and Friend,—death, as the step by which we pass into His more immediate Presence. We may not, indeed, pass from hence at once into the full radiance of that glorious light. The analogy of this world, as well as the teaching of Scripture, seems rather to imply that death is a resting-time, a sleep, and that a day of future glory shall be revealed. It matters not to us whether we sleep or wake; we shall still be with the Lord. It may be that we shall say 'good night' to one another, and retire to rest, perhaps at early eve, perhaps at midnight, and only on waking on the glorious morn, shall put on our new apparel. It may be that we shall not go to rest at all, but, having watched all night, shall rise up at once as 'that day' breaks upon us in the hour of death, and be clothed upon, and mortality will be swallowed up at once in life.

XV.

THE DEATH OF THE RIGHTEOUS.

PREACHED IN THE CATHEDRAL CHURCH OF ST PETER'S, MARITZBURG, ON SUNDAY EVENING, APRIL 15, 1866.

NUM. XXIII. 10.

LET ME DIE THE DEATH OF THE RIGHTEOUS, AND LET MY LAST END BE LIKE HIS.'

Ir need hardly be said that there is much in this story of Balaam, which is brought before us in the Lessons of to-day and in that of last Sunday Evening, which stamps the whole narrative as unhistorical. The account of the ass speaking with human voice-in excellent Hebrew-has always been a great stumbling-block to many devout persons, brought up to believe that every word of Scripture. must be regarded as infallibly true and it has perplexed many even of the most orthodox commentators. Not only does the ass speak, while falling under Balaam, but it reasons with the prophet, and the prophet answers without expressing the slightest astonishment at so astounding an occurrence. We are told that—

She said unto Balaam, 'What have I done unto thee, that thou hast smitten me these three times ?' And Balaam said unto the ass, 'Because thou hast mocked me: I would there were a sword in my hand, for now would I kill thee.' And the ass said unto Balaam, Am not I thine ass, upon which thou hast ridden ever since I was thine unto this day? Was ever I wont to do so unto thee?' And he said, “Nay. Accordingly one orthodox Divine (Tholuck) writes:— What rider would sit quiet, if his beast should really utter such a complaint, and would not leap off and cry for help, rather tham stop to give an intelligent answer?

Another says (Hengstenberg) :

The speaking of the ass, when transferred into the presence of external reality, appears to disturb the eternal laws which are laid down in