hurrying us along the downward road of destruc

tion.

And as it is with a child, so it is with ourselves; for we are all children, all weak, and the best among us tempted to shrink from responsibility in the serious affairs of life. And if in dealing with a

child our aim should be to awaken it to the necessity of responsibility, even in the very act of obedience, by teaching it that obedience is submission to God's law, and therefore the choice of good in preference to evil, so should it be in our own selfgovernment. To shrink from such a necessity is not humility but faithlessness!

Who are we that we are to tremble at the prospect of any duty when God sees fit to appoint it? Have we indeed no help? are we really left alone, to wander, as best we may, through the intricacies of life's tangled wilderness, with no guiding post to direct us, no light to cheer us, no arm to uphold us ?-He who gave us the power of choice, He who has made it so indestructible that the most imperative human law and the most abject spirit of weakness can never annihilate it, has He not promised His aid, His Spirit, Himself, to be our Guide? The precious gift which makes us living souls and not machines cannot be intended only as a snare to lead us to our ruin.

False and miserable is the thought, for it is the suggestion of the Tempter, and if we obey it, it will work our destruction in two ways.

It will burden our consciences with sins of com

mission-by preventing us from making a positive choice of right in preference to wrong, and thus rendering us partakers in the guilt of that wrong.

And it will lead us to sins of omission-by making us dread to attempt what we believe to be our duty, lest in assuming the responsibility of choice we should in the end be proved to have been in error. The latter may seem the lesser evil of the two now; perhaps it will not appear to be so hereafter. Or rather they cannot be separated. That is the point which we are called upon to remember. "He that is not with Me is against Me." He that does not do all the good he can, does evil. He who does not decide for the right, decides for

the wrong.

Choice! We cannot too often remind either ourselves, or those we attempt to guide, that it is a necessity; and that it only remains with ourselves to make it a duty. We laugh at children when they tell us they do not know what to choose,-they cannot tell which thing they like best. Perhaps we should act more wisely if we were to urge upon them the importance of choice. To know our own minds, as it is called, is often a very difficult task as we grow old; it might not be so if we had been trained to know them from our childhood. And it would surely be no slight acquisition; for to know our own minds, to understand what we wish, and why we wish; or why-as is often the case we hold our wishes suspended; would through God's grace assist us to walk through life clearly

and steadfastly, to have a single heart, a single intention. It is a knowledge essential to a peaceful conscience, and inseparable from the highest aims of duty. When we compel ourselves to choose, however unimportant may be the matter in which choice is exercised, we are assisting ourselves in obtaining this clearness of spiritual insight. There are cases in which to know what we wish to choose may save us from sin in the actual choice. At all events, it will save us from the wretched infatuation of throwing the burden of our choice upon another, or of believing that because we will not openly take the part of the wicked, we are excused if we fail to take the part of the good; not seeing, or, if we do see, wilfully forgetting,-that, like Pilate in the act of making the lesser choice, we are in fact rendering ourselves responsible for the greater.

THE LUXURIES OF RELIGION.

ST. LUKE, Xxiii. 8.

"And when Herod saw Jesus, he was exceeding glad; for he was desirous to see Him of a long season, because He had heard many things of Him: and he hoped to have seen some miracle done by Him."

THE various characters in Scripture are very strongly marked by the slightest touches. Pilate and Herod are so different, and yet each so true to the experience of human nature! Herod at once shows himself to have advanced farther than Pilate in wickedness. He has passed the Our Lord's miracles are nothing

feeling of awe.

to him but a

tion as of the

source of amusement, an exhibitricks of magic. "He hoped to have seen some miracle done by Him." So he would also have hoped to be interested by any strange phenomenon of nature, or any display of art. Many degrees of hardness of heart had he attained since the first rumours of the Redeemer's supernatural power reached him, and drew from him the exclamation, "This is John the Baptist-he is risen from the dead." Conscience then was comparatively tender. The remembrance of his guilt was fresh in his mind. Possibly he might at that time

have been awakened to repentance; but he was a prince, living in luxury, surrounded by flatterers; the means of stifling conscience were ready at hand. Still, yielding up himself to self-indulgence, he felt, but he did not act. And the Divine Teacher, who, if he had then sent for Him, might have "reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come," and in mercy have saved his soul, was never seen until time had gone by, and memory, perhaps, had become dulled, and conscience was deadened; and the rumour of a miracle, instead of arousing him to penitence and self-condemnation, was received but with the mocking curiosity of one who had exhausted all other sources of excitement.

The character of such a man seems far removed from the ordinary sinfulness of private life, in a country and a state of society like our own; but the steps towards its formation are easily taken. see, and hear, and feel, without acting, that is the beginning.

To

And there are many shades of such a disposition to be found amongst us. Herod had no bitter enmity against our Lord. He appears to have been simply indifferent; only he would have made the exhibition of a sacred power the medium through which he indulged an excited curiosity. That sin, if we inquire deeply, will probably come home to us much more than we could at first imagine. What is it to make religion the cloke for the indulgence of our love of beauty or harmony? To attend