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he cannot but entrust the same gracious Providence with the supply of his daily wants, in the same way, and with the same simple dependence that a child looks up to a fond and tender parent for his daily bread. Does God take care of the fowls of the air, and direct them by a natural instinct to the apparently precarious supply of their wants? and do they trust the daily hand that feeds them, neither sowing, nor reaping, nor gathering into barns? And are ye not much better than they? Can ye by taking thought, do even the least thing, forward the growth of your natural bodies, by adding one cubit unto your stature; or assist nature, with all your cares and anxious thoughts, even in her simplest operations? And, going down a step lower, from the feeding, to the clothing of your bodies, why take ye thought for raiment? when even the

lilies of the field," the inanimate things of the Creation, pursue the ends of their existence (they toil not, neither do they spin) and yet are the objects of God's Providence, in their scale and degree, equally with ourselves; though so fleeting as to be the ornament of the ground to day, and fuel for the fire to morrow. Shall He not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? Even as much more, as the life of a man is of more worth and consequence than that of a lily, and

his vital principle more durable than that which is assigned to the flower of the grass.

Such are the simplest and most obvious arguments for the duty of trust in God, which our blessed Lord presses upon us from an every-day look into nature, from contemplating the commonest objects around us; such as the flight of a bird above, or the growth of the grass under our feet. And yet from the mere light of nature does he inforce this grand doctrine, "Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body what ye "shall put on."

I shall endeavour to set before you the true meaning of these important words; that is, the restrictive sense in which they are to be taken; and then to draw such rules of conduct from them as they seem to imply.

When our Saviour enjoins us to take no thought for our lives what we shall eat, or what we shall drink, he only cautions the true Christian to avoid all that excessive anxiety about the things of this life, and which pertain to a perishable body, which may take us off, and does in its natural tendency and effects, take us off from religion, from a due, and serious, and constant regard to the welfare of the soul. Excessive anxiety, painful solicitude, and engrossing care,

to the exclusion of all concern for eternity, and to our laying up treasure in Heaven, are what we are to understand by taking no thought:' because, you well know, that whatever is uppermost in the thoughts, is sure to take the sole possession of the mind, to chain down the whole man and all his faculties, desires, pursuits, hopes and fears to that single and simple object, whatever it be. And upon this principle it is that the same divine teacher, our Lord Jesus Christ, lays it down as an undoubted maxim, a neverfailing truth, in the words preceding the text, that "No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other: ye cannot serve God and Mammon,” Some one object will always have the ascendancy in our minds, to the comparative or even utter exclusion of all others. And in the case of those two grand objects which divide the heart of men, those two masters which we all serve respectively, I mean "God and Mammon". those two pursuits of the heart and affections this world or the next-the body or the soul: experience shows how incompatible they are with - each other experience shows how impossible it is to serve God, at least as he ought to be served,

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that is, "with all the heart, with all the mind,

with all the soul, and with all the strength," and to pay an equal regard to the world and the things of the world at the same time.

Take these two objects of man's care separately. Put God and religion, for the moment, out of the question: and I would ask, does he whose heart, and thoughts, and desires, are centred in the world, ever think that he serves it sufficiently? Will all his carefulness and thoughtfulness be able to secure to him what he deems a sufficiency of the things of this life? Is therė not always, even with the utmost stretch of his time and thoughts, is there not always a something which even that cannot procure? a something wanting? Has the world whom he so devotedly serves no further claim upon him? Are the laws and requirements of the world, of fashion and caprice, satisfied that he has paid them nothing less than all his heart, all his soul, all his strength? I fear that the most assiduous votary the world ever had, its veriest and most abject slave, was never able with all his care and fidelity, fully to satisfy this rigid master: but that there will always be a frown from this person, a jealousy from that, or a slight from a third. So that, you see, to serve the world, to pay undivided attention and thought to its pleasures and possessions is not possible;

I mean so as fully and entirely to satisfy ourselves and it.

And with regard to God: where is the man that ever served Him as he ought? Where is the man that ever attended sufficiently to those things which are beyond the reach of time and sense? the things which are not seen and eternal ? even though he has, at least in pur pose, cordially and sincerely devoted himself, his time, his talents, and opportunities to God, to the almost utter exclusion of the world, and the things of the world?

And if to serve but one of these masters faithfully and exclusively, and as they each require to be served, be so difficult a thing, how can a man serve both at once? Experience and the word of God prove the thing to be impossible.

Hence arises the necessity of attending closely to the doctrine contained in the text, viz: that we repose our chief cares, our chief thoughts, our chief trust, in the mercy and goodness of God: since to bestow them any where else is to draw us off from what most concerns us to attend to, which is the care of the soul: and at the same time does not attain the object of its anxiety.

But as we live in the world to be active, busy, and useful to ourselves and to each other: