most inexpedient in the calculations of worldly schemers, and yet all things seemed spellbound to work with them and for them. Nothing is more certain than that they who have done most for the kingdom of God on earth have not been the most popular in their day; and they who have been the most popular, even among good men, in the kingdoms of the world, have left the fewest and faintest traces of truth upon mankind. God seems to work by contraries, and to harden the heart of the world against His servants, to "make His power to be known." For some have been truly outcast, misrepresented, spoiled, and set aside, so that people have thought them fairly defeated and extinct ; and yet the working of their words and deeds, of their silent example, and imperceptible influence on other minds, has spread itself unawares throughout whole nations and Churches. They have courted no one; were solicitous for no favour, or gift, or privilege; they have even crossed the wise and powerful, and resisted the hands which hold the powers of the world. Many of the greatest benefactors of mankind have died without leaving so much as to pay their burial, and yet the hearts of men have obeyed them to the third and the fourth generation.

And what is the secret of all this, but that they worshipped the Lord their God, and Him only did

they serve? They indulged themselves in no remote visions, in no restless imaginations, in no exciting self-contemplation. The whole horizon of their hearts was clear. Nothing lay beneath it disturbing the truth of their intentions. There was no end in life they desired but to do the will of God. They had no cravings for things out of their sphere, no forecasting and expectation of any thing to come. What God had made them, that they simply desired to be-to realise deeply their present lot, to live wholly in it and for it alone, to confide in it as the pledge of God's presence. No nice calculations of probable gain, or usefulness, or power to be gotten otherwise or elsewhere, had any sway over them. They would not hesitate a moment to do acts of the highest indiscretion, as the world judges, and to throw away all promises and offers of interest and advantage, rather than seem to yield even a constructive worship to the powers of the world. They were of more price than the world: with all its gifts and all its gold, it could not buy them. These are they "of whom the world was not worthy." It was cheap, slight, and paltry in their eyes; for by faith they had already "seen the King in His beauty, and beheld the land which is very far off." They had seen the throne and Him that sat upon it, who is "as a jasper and a

1 Isaiah xxxiii. 17.

sardine stone" to look upon; and all earthly things waxed pale and dim. They had tasted "the powers of the world to come," which are perfect and eternal; and the purest and best things of this life drew from them not desires, but tears. None so intensely perceived the good and beautiful which yet lingers in the earth; yet they shrank from the savour of death which, by sin, is shed abroad upon the creation of God. They took refuge in the unseen kingdom, which is all pure, deathless, everlasting; serving and waiting for Him who "hath made us kings and priests unto God."

What is this visible world but the disordered array under which the one only true kingdom abides the day of "the restitution of all things?" The world, with its pageantry, is but shadow and simulation, imitating the order of heavenly things. What else are its fountains of honours, its patents of nobility, and the solemnity with which it issues out its badges and titles of distinction, and arranges its servants in ranks of high and low degree, according to their fidelity to its service and their devotion to its will? But there is coming a day when "the face of the covering" shall be destroyed, "and the veil that is spread over all people," and "the kingdom which cannot be shaken" shall stand forth, and then shall many be first that now are

1 Isaiah xx. 7.

last, and last first. Then will be a strange and awful cancelling of degrees, and an unexpected marshalling of God's elect in a new and wonderful order. Then it shall be seen for whom the right hand and the left, which the sons of Zebedee blindly though nobly desired, are indeed prepared.

Let us beware, then, of the baits and allurements which are peculiarly rife in these latter days. Let us suspect calculations of expediency, dexterous plans, great undertakings at little cost, popular systems of religion, tempting offers of worldly favour and support—that is, the whole course and movement of the world. God's kingdom is to be spread and served in God's own way. There is no other than that hard, strait, unpopular way which prophets, martyrs, and saints have trod. Let us keep close to this. Let no visions draw us out of it. They can only beguile us of our reward; promise us kingdoms, and rob us of our crown; offer us purple raiment, and make the shame of our nakedness to appear "before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, and the elect angels," at His coming.

1 1 Tim. v. 21.

SERMON IX.

THE RIGHT USE OF REST AFTER TRIAL.

ST. MATTHEW iv. 11.

Then the devil leaveth Him, and, behold, angels came and ministered unto Him."

AFTER the temptation of our Lord was ended, St. Luke says, the devil "departed from Him for a season," implying that in some form or other Satan was still hovering about His path. And the forty days of fasting being now over, He was an hungered, faint, wearied in flesh and spirit, with the long and sore conflict He had endured. In this season of peace, angels came and ministered strength and refreshment to Him. What heavenly communications they made to His exhausted soul, it is not for us to imagine. In the wilderness of Sinai "man did eat angels' food." In this desert, the Son of Man, "the true bread which came 1 St. Luke iv. 13.