God hath chosen the weak things. So the last shall be first, and the first last. WHOM MATT. XX. 16. To human eyes THOM God accepts the world rejects. Dives was first and Lazarus last, but God saw differently. Nero had all the world offered, health, an athlete's strength, intellectual culture, boundless wealth, absolute power, great honor. Paul was poor, old, sick, imprisoned, friendless. But the shout of triumph comes from the dungeon, not the palace; from the poor old sick man, not the athlete; from the apostle, not the emperor. "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith." Who thinks of Nero to-day save with contempt? while Paul is loved and honored throughout the world, and will be to the end. Jonathan Edwards's congregation rejected him by a vote of two hundred to twenty. Even the King of heaven "was despised and rejected of men." Saved by grace, we are rewarded according to our faithfulness. The eleventh-hour laborers were as faithful as the rest, and so were paid the same. The weakest, obscurest child of God can be as faithful as Paul or Luther. "Within the smallest flower I often find A richer and more delicate perfume Than in the largest, most pretentious flower, The most beautiful window in the Lincoln Cathedral was made of rejected bits of glass. From material rejected of men, God will fashion some of the brightest and most glorious ornaments of the temple on high. Sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise. - EPH. i. 13. And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.- JOHN xiv. 16, 17. HOW replete with inspiration is every clause of this passage! What wealth of deep spiritual meaning does it convey! Take the very term " Comforter," a Latin derivative, — "con," "fortis," together with strength. Here is implied the Spirit companionship that is strength-giving, softened and sweetened by his tenderness and love. Christ here assumes that he was the first Comforter. His mission was to bind up the broken-hearted; to this end he held within his incarnate person all the treasures of wisdom, grace, and compassion. But the demands of his mediatorial work made it expedient that he should go away. Comfortless or orphaned he could not and would not leave his disciples, hence another Comforter is promised. Equal in his essence with the Father, yet was he officially subordinate in the redeeming order, and so he prayed the Father and his prayer prevailed. An abiding Comforter was sent as the final manifestation of God to the Church. Bereaved, desolate, forsaken, lone one, wearing around the heart the rustling, withered, dead leaves of departed joy, this is your great heritage, a companion who shall abide with you along the untravelled eternities, even the Spirit of truth, who shall guide you up the steeps of time and on to the blissful forever. Grohlouglas. I worship thee, O Holy Ghost, I worship thee, O Holy Ghost, WILLIAM F. WARREN. The word of our God shall stand for ever. — ISAIAH xl. 8. Heaven and earth shall pass away: but my words shall not pass away. WHO could speak thus but a man who was God? The Who could speakverything that Jesus ever said. His doctrines can never pass away. Human philosophies may go out of date, the words of Jesus never; neither can the law which he declared. The Sermon on the Mount will never be toned down to the level of human morality; and the warnings of Jesus abide in force. Men may ignore them, if they like, or explain them away; but this will make no difference. They shall not pass away. But we need not stop with this. This mighty assurance covers also all the promises of Jesus. How many and how precious they are!"Him that cometh unto me, I will in no wise cast out; "I am with you alway;" and "I will come again, and receive you unto myself." Truly such promises as these are royal, godlike! so great that faith often finds it hard to believe them. But he abideth faithful. We feel that we can depend on the rising of the sun and the nightly shining of the stars and the order of the revolving year; yet he assures us these are not so certain as the fulfilment of his words. Let us then hold fast the doctrine of Jesus, obey his law, heed his warnings, and joyfully rest in his promises; and in the end we shall confess with Israel, "Not one good thing hath failed us of all that the Lord our God hath spoken." FreKeylong Wide as the world is thy command, Firm as a rock thy truth must stand, WATTS. Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned: forgive, and ye shall be forgiven. — LUKE vi. 37. No jungell at last shall give account. TOT judged of God to whom all hearts are open and to These words are not to be understood to mean that the Church or the Christian shall pronounce no judgment against evil, — that duty is expressly enjoined in not a few places in the New Testament both by the Lord and the apostles. The Saviour's words in this text are not to be interpreted as permitting the easy-going indifference to evil which is so often simply moral cowardice. His thought is directed rather to censoriousness, that captious, fault-finding spirit which is quick to see evil and overlook good. It is a spirit of rapid growth and wide opportunity. As we see it in others, we wonder at its proportions and its acuteness. It has an eye like a vulture's; and often when its possessor is thought to be enjoying the pure ether and the celestial radiance of the upper air in which at the time he is floating, it detects the single speck of carrion in the wide horizon and descends upon it as if it were the all-important object within its ken. The exhortation is, that we throttle this spirit within ourselves; that we cultivate an eye that shall be quick to discern good, a spirit always eager to wrap the work and the person of others in the mantle of generous charity. It is the command which gives birth to the virtue that Paul so beautifully describes as the pre-eminent grace of the Christian, the charity" that suffereth long and is kind, that taketh not account of evil, that rejoiceth not in iniquity." Nauyet, Stinson Love is kind, and suffers long, C. WORDSWORTH. Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven. MATT. v. 14-16. WE light to perceive the beauty and pertinence of the E do not need to adopt any philosophical theory of figure by which our Lord represents his friends as the light of the world. The world is dark because sin dominates it. Sin darkens the mind so that God, truth, duty, the way of salvation by Christ, are obscured. Therefore it needs light, penetrating, revealing, awakening. Watch the earth when the light of morning breaks over it! So the moral world needs the spiritual light,—the light of Christian example, instruction, influence. This light is not our light. It is given from above. CHRIST is the light of the world, and the light that is in us is from him, as the reflected light of stars is from the central sun. It is not given to be hidden, but to shine forth. The old Roman law maintained the right of citizens to unobstructed light. Light is for the world. If we have it we must let it shine. The light of the individual Christian should make an illuminated home. The light of the united Church should be like a lighted city at night, standing on a hill. Burdett Nart. Oh, let our love and faith abound ; With purest lustre shine, C. WESLEY. |