3. Marriage, as existing in St. Paul's days, had few of its gentler and softer features. The husband was a

master, and the wife very subordinate.

4. Queen Elizabeth was the advocate of celibacy. She said, "England is my husband, and her people my children;" and it was her wish to have recorded on her tombstone," Here lies Elizabeth, who lived and died a maiden queen." But how wide the gap between her and the Royal Lady, Queen Victoria, who so shines as wife and mother!

CHAPTER VII. 29-31.

INSTANT DUTIES.

"BUT this I say, brethren, the time is short: it remaineth, that both they that have wives be as though they had none; and they that weep, as though they wept not; and they that rejoice, as though they rejoiced not; and they that buy, as though they possessed not; and they that use this world, as not abusing it: for the fashion of this world passeth away."

These words, already briefly referred to, constitute the inference which St. Paul draws from a series of discussions on questions of very great relative and social importance. They embosom those great practical truths which he evokes from a discussion of terrestrial and transient relations. The true close to all such discussions, and the true spirit in which we should entertain them, is to realize the fact, that the time for settling such questions is so short that they should be soon settled, and the weightier that the more momentous interests of the soul and eternity may come more vividly and fully before us. "This I say, the time is short." Need we repeat the truism every one constantly utters, and no one correspondingly feels-the shortness of human life? Like a flower that grows up in the spring, blossoms in the summer, dies before autumn, and is

liable even to fade before that; like the grass that must either fall before the scythe of the mower, or that withers by excessive sunshine; and like the flower of the grass are the very chiefs of humanity, who look more beautiful, but are only by their elevation exposed to speedier destruction, and by their very height more liable to be beaten down by the wind or the descending rain. All feel how soon infancy passes into youth, youth into manhood, manhood into old age. When we look forward the years seem endless, the perspective long, almost inexhaustible. But when we look back from each ledge that we have attained in climbing the mount of life, we see how very short the space over which we have travelled, and how true is the word of Scripture, "Our days are as a shadow, that continueth not."

The time the apostle refers to may be taken in the first instance as the time of life. At longest it is short; three score and ten, or four score, or even five score years, very rapidly pass away: like the sands in the glass, like a mountain torrent rushing to the main, they soon exhaust themselves; and "man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets." The visions of youth soon grow dim; the vigour of manhood soon begins to fail; the infirmities of old age very soon come; and then we feel, what we only said before, "The time of life is short." But all this is on the supposition that life lasts to its full measure; all this supposes that the spring of life gradually uncoils, and omits the fact that it often snaps asunder, and man perishes in the mid-time of his days. We see in every churchyard graves of infants, and of youth, and of manhood, and of old age, teaching us, not in Scripture words, but in words very often re

peated, "In the midst of life we are in death." We know not what a day may bring forth. The time of life is short when it is longest, and it is uncertain always. There is one thing certain; it must cease; it is uncertain when. "It remains, therefore, that they that have wives be as though they had none; and they that weep, as though they wept not; and they that buy, as though they possessed not."

The time of privilege is also short. We know not that next year we shall be in a place where the Gospel is preached, or that we shall have opportunities of hearing that Gospel; we know not that we shall have physical health to enable us to go where it is proclaimed, or that we shall have mental vigour to apprehend it as we do now. And besides, there is an accepted time, a now as the day of salvation. How long it may last, whether for years, or months, or weeks, or days, none can say; we only know that the present is the most momentous epoch in our life; and that however long that time of privilege may be, it is at longest very short.

These remarks upon the shortness of life, and the shortness, especially, of privilege, which is a parenthesis in life, remind us of a very important fact; that this life, therefore, cannot be our all. It is impossible to conclude that man, with his forethought, his forebodings, his knowledge of what he is, his foreknowledge that he must die, and his shrinking from it, and his desire to live, and the little opportunities often given him for living;-it is impossible, looking at all these things, to conclude that this life is our all. And we know that it is untrue so to conclude, when we open God's Word, which tells us, "After death the judgment.” This life, then, however short, is long enough to prepare

for another; however short, it is an opportunity for every one, without exception, to lay hold upon the hope that is set before him. It is not so short that it cannot be made the porch of eternity; it is not so long as to be a substitute for that eternity; it is long enough to answer the great design that God had in launching us upon the tide of life, to watch, to pray, to trust, to make ready to go hence, and enter on a new and a nobler state of being.

"The time is short;" therefore let us turn it to practical and instant purposes. The time is short, the epicurean would say; therefore let us eat, drink, and be merry, for to-morrow we die. The time is short; therefore, the ascetic, or the monk, would say, let us go into a convent, and leave the world, and take no more trouble in its affairs and its concerns. The time is short, an apostle says; then act neither as the epicurean nor as the ascetic, but as the Christian must feel to be common sense as well as inspiration, "Let those that weep be as though they wept not; and they that rejoice, as though they rejoiced not; and they that use the world, as not abusing it: for the fashion of it speedily passeth away." In other words, every exhortation that is given us in the Bible, based upon the shortness of life, leads us to feel,"Occupy till I come." Short or long, the Bible's grand prescription is, that the sentinel shall be upon his beat, that the Christian shall be upon his watch, and that we shall live, fulfilling life's lowliest duties with all our might, having our hearts where our treasure is, in heaven.

"It remains that they that have wives be as though they had none." He evidently alludes to the parable, "I have married a wife, and I cannot come." Therefore,