in the hand of the Infinite Harpist. Second: Because in that surrender the intellect becomes the docile scholar of the True Teacher In all his life such a soul is like the infant prophet in the Temple saying 'Speak Lord, thy servant heareth." Third: Because in that surrender conscience has accepted the true and perfect guide. III. SUCH SURRENDER ENSURES THE NOBLEST USEFULNESS OF LIFE. It was this surrender that made Paul what he was to the early Churches, and what he is to Christendom to-day. All things in every realm of creation answer their highest ends of usefulness just as they are most completely within the reign of law; that is just as they are most completely surrendered to God. CONCLUSION: To those who surrender themselves to God the Enigma of duty is solved; the secret of peace is found, the way to usefulness is discovered. Bristol. URIJAH R. THOMAS. No. CCCCXIV. The Pleasures and Fallacies of Sin. "COME YE, SAY THEY, I WILL FETCH WINE AND WE WILL FILL OURSELVES WITH STRONG DRINK: AND TO-MORROW SHALL BE AS THIS DAY, AND MUCH MORE ABUNDANT."-Isa. lvi-12. : A photograph this of a very large class of men in every age, the men who "make their belly their god," and who give full play to their gastric and sensuous appetites. They are social, or rather I would say, gregarious withal they meet at the table like swine at their trough. The words suggest two facts in relationto sin-I. There is a SENSUAL PLEASURE in sin. What a breath of carnal delight and rollick is in the words, "Come ye, say they, I will fetch wine and we will fill ourselves with strong drink!" Whatever you may say against sin it has its pleasures. Think of two facts First Sin deadens conscience, and thus delivers man from its restraints. The misgivings and reproaches of conscience often restrain men in the pursuit of mere sensual enjoyment. In the midst of their feastings and revelries, conscience often gives them a sting and they are checked. Secondly: A sensualist free from the restraints of conscience can add artificial to the natural gratification of his senses. The benevolent Creator has attached pleasure to the gratification of all our senses as He has to the brutes, but by the power of imagination man can whetten those senses and give them a keener appetite. He can and does by bringing the simple provisions of nature into new combinations, invest them with a zest of which otherwise they are destitute. By his power of imagination, he rouses his natural propensities into hungry passions, and by the same power he furnishes them with supplies for their full gratification. The words suggest-II. There is a FALLACIOUS CALCULATION in sin. "To-morrow shall be as this day" First: There is no certainty in their ever having a morrow. True, from the laws of nature a morrow will They may be with Secondly: Should "This day" the come, its sun will shine, its air will breathe, and its waters will flow. But there is no certainty that they will be living. all their senses in the unthawing frost of mortality. they have a morrow it will not be as "this day." table is spread with every luxury, to-morrow it may be stripped by the hand of poverty. "This day" they are full of health and hilarity, to-morrow may find them stricken with disease, and the stream of glee dried up for ever. "This day" they have jovial companions sitting at their side, they talk and sing and laugh as the bowl goes round, saying to each other, "I will fetch wine and we will fill ourselves with strong drink" but to-morrow the voice of one, or more may be hushed for ever, and the seat be vacant. In no case will "to-morrow be as this day," even if they should live. No man's to-morrow will ever be to him as is to-day, it comes to him with modifying influences, and acts on a nature, also modified by the twenty-four hours that have gone by. Autumn. "The flowers all are fading, their sweets are rifled now, Ouseley. The Preacher's Emblematory Helps. SCIENTIFIC FACTS AS ILLUSTRATIONS OF ETERNAL TRUTHS. The Yaguey Tree:-Plagi aristic Men. And THE Yaguey tree is unlike all other trees in the fact that it begins to grow at the top. how do you think that is? I will tell you. First the seed of the tree is dropped by the birds, or lodged by the winds, in the moist branching place of other trees, sometimes ten, sometimes fifty feet from the ground. There it quickens, takes root and begins to grow, sending out its branches like another tree and spinning a kind of vinous root along down the body of the tree occupied. At length these vines or rootlings strike the ground and take root in it, and then a growth immediately commences upwards in a reverse order. Now it will be seen that the growths upward and downward, crossing and weaving one with another, knit together at every cross and show you one tree growing as a net, with another tree inside. The outside tree as the parts of it swell, hugs the inside like a huge girdle of anacondas, causes it to protrude at the vacant spaces as if going to burst and finally kills it, becoming itself the tree. Sometimes the body shows how it was made by a hollow inside and vacant spaces or patches where the light shines through, and sometimes it looks. quite smooth and solid except that near the ground even when the tree is six or eight feet in diameter, it straddles out into a hundred legs all separate looking like a tree that is set top downward by mistake. I have seen one through which I might drive a coach. Now for the moral, for there is a moral in trees. There is a class of men that you may call the yaguey men, who get their roots and take on all their signs of growth by fastening on the top of other men. Never able to have stood up alone, they take on the airs of strength and seem to be great. But though they try to hide the merit of the victim by whose opinions and whose character they are supported, still you can always see, by their patchwork look and the vacant spaces where the light shines through that they are not solid. And as the yaguey tree is absolutely good for nothing as regards the practical uses of timber and fire, so these parasites and thieves of merit are sure in the end to find as little honour as they deserve. HORACE BUSHnell, D.D. Leaves: The Law of Compensation. The colours as well as the shapes of leaves are wonderfully diversified, though green is the prevailing hue, and every varied shade of that colour, from the darkest to the lightest tint, is exhibited—and very beautifully, for instance, in the verdure of spring; yet the whole chromatic scale may be seen illustrated in the foliage of plants. Indeed, were it possible to see specimens of the whole vegetable kingdom growing together, an autumnal forest would not exhibit greater varieties of coloured foliage. In some plants the leaves are as beautiful as the flowers of other plants, and these are now cultivated and grouped with great effect in our conservatories. It is a remarkable circumstance that when leaves are dressed in bright crimson, or golden, or silvery splendours, the flowers are almost invariably sombre in hue, and insignificant in form and size. What purposes such beautiful leaves may serve in the economy of vegetation, we cannot in every case find out satisfactorily. It may be to absorb or reflect the light and heat of the sun in a peculiar way, or to guard the vital organs from injury by diverting attention from them. In orchids and other plants, the blossoms are gorgeously coloured in order to attract insects without whose agency the species could not be fertilized. The same law of compensation may be illustrated in the case of coloured leaves where the odd petal has a different and much brighter colour. Do not these curious plants that among their leaves of light have no need of flowers, resemble those rare human plants that develope all the beauties of mind and character at an exceptionally early age and rapidly ripen for the tomb? They do not live to bring forth flowers and the fruit of life's vigorous prime; therefore God converts their foliage into flowers, crowns the initial stage with the glories of the final and makes their very leaves beautiful. HUGH MACMILLAN. The Preacher's Scrap-Book. Views of Poverty from Latin Authors. LIVIUS. (Born B.C. 59. Died A.D. 17.) OVERTY, not to be ashamed of. Of all kinds of shame, the worst surely is the being ashamed of frugality or poverty.— (Rom. XXXIV—4.) LUCANUS. (Born A.D. 39. Died A.D. 65.) The advantages of Poverty.—Oh, the safety of a poor man's life and his humble home! Oh, these are the gifts bestowed by heaven, though seldom understood. What temples or what cities would not feel alarm with dreadful forebodings if Caesar knocked at their door with his armed bands!-(Phar. V-527.) SENECA. (Born A.D. 1. Died A.D. 65.) The poor enjoy a secure repast.—What pleasure it is to stand in the way of no one, to be able to enjoy a secure repast. Crimes do not enter into the cottage of the poor. We may eat our food with safety on an humble table poison is quaffed from golden cups. I speak from experience; an obscure life is preferable to one spent in a high station.— (Phyest 450.) The poor man laughs oftener and more securely.— (Ep. 80.) SALLUSTIUS. (Born B.C. 86. Died B.C. 34.) The Poor and the Rich.-Those who pass their lives sunk in obscurity' if they have committed any offence through the impulse of passion, few |