viour for a single day, and be ready on the morrow to crucify Him by some new act of sin; let us take heed lest He should not be always with us as He is with us now. We cannot expect that He will go on sending us affliction after affliction, warning after warning, call after call. The hour must come at length when His daily teaching in the temple of our hearts will be drawing to a close, and He will enter then with the scourge of sorrow and repentance for the last time. It may be, that it has already come; that this is the day of our visitation, the last of the heart-stirrings that will be granted to us; the last week of godly sadness; the last call, the last warning that we ever shall receive. If after this the spirit of worldliness or impurity again gain dominion over us, our Lord, perhaps, will enter us no more. We may

remain, as did the temple at Jerusalem after His death, in our outward appearance unchanged, but with that Spirit, which can

alone give us life and holiness, withdrawn. Henceforth, the buying and selling, the worldly traffic and unhallowed gain, may go on uninterrupted in the heart that once was the abode of God. It may be said of us, as it is written, "He that is unjust, let him be unjust still, and he that is filthy, let him be filthy still 6." Until at length the day of our judgment arrives, and the abomination of desolation will be set up within us, which will separate for all eternity the house of merchandize from the house of prayer.

To conclude: the events of Monday and Tuesday in Passion week combine in warning us to distinguish between momentary feelings, and a settled and deliberate choice. We must not regard any impulses, whether they be impulses of joy or impulses of sorrow, as signs that we are walking in the right path; they are earnests and pledges

6 Rev. xxii. 11.

of our Saviour's love, but they cannot be earnests and pledges of our own obedience; -to consider them as such, is in truth to mistake the voice of God within us for our own voluntary answer. We can no more help being affected by His calls than the multitude could help shouting Hosanna in His path, or than the buyers and sellers could help forsaking their traffic at His command. "When He opens his hand we are filled with good; when He hides His face we are troubled," just as "when He takes away our breath we die "." All this is His doing, and not ours. And the return He requires from us is not one day or one season, but a life devoted to His service. In the words of the same Psalm, "We must sing unto the Lord as long as we live; we must praise our God while we have our being, and so shall our words please Him, our joy shall be in the

Lord. As for sinners, they shall be consumed out of the earth, and the ungodly shall come to an end. Praise thou the Lord, O my soul, praise the Lord."

Wednesday before Easter.

THE EVENTS OF WEDNESDAY.

"AND in the morning, as they passed by, Mark xi. 20 they saw the fig tree dried up from the

roots.

And Peter calling to remembrance saith unto him, Master, behold, the fig tree which thou cursedst is withered away.

And Jesus answering saith unto them, Have faith in God.

For verily I say unto you, that whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have

-xiv. 2.