virtuously, and I therefore am better than these men who live unvir tuously; and if they will live unvirtuously they must take the consequences; it is none of my business," beware; for that is not the spirit of the Master.

There are a great many of you who have an ideal in life. Ideals are very intangible; but, after all, there are very few things which are so potential in life as an ideal in an energetic nature-the pattern which he sets up before him, and toward which he is forming his whole life. There are a great many whose ideal of life is self-culture and refinement. They are toiling to keep themselves from all coarseness; and that is right. They strive to keep themselves from all that is degrading; and that is right. Their ideal of life is, that yet they shall be able to secure a place where no rude wind will come on them, and where they will be shielded from the crashing discords of this world. It is their ideal of life that they will by and by be able to build their crystal dome so high that they shall not hear the groans and sighs and noises that come from the wickedness of men-so high that their hearts will be separated from quick sympathy with the hearts of men that travail in pain.

If God gave you genius; if God gave you imagination; if God gave you tender sensibility; if God gave you love for music, and love for literature, he did not give you these things as so many feathers put into the nest of selfishness, to be pressed by your breast alone. God gave you these royal lights that you might use them, first for yourselves, and then also for others. You are joined to your kind; and if you are like your Father in heaven, who "maketh his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust;" if you have all excellencies, while they are building you up in refinement and virtue, they will at the same time lead you to pity those who are in transgression.

One word more, and only one; and that is with reference to a danger which merchantmen, who are seeking wealth, are subject to, and ought to be warned against. Beware of taking the power that wealth gives you, to build a house with walls so thick that you cannot hear the sounds of men who sigh in the street. Beware that you do not build your banqueting-hall so that you cannot see the beggar full of sores that lies at your door. Beware of using your virtue and your prosperity as means of separating yourselves from that great sinning, suffering mass of mankind to which Christ came, and to which he sends you, that, in your place, imitating him, you may be according to the measure of your strength a saviour, as he was.

There is nothing that you may not have. Build yourselves up in

all morality, and in all excellence, and in all refinement, and in all art, and in all beauty, and in the power of wealth, and, if need be, in all publicity. These are always right when you have a heart of love to vivify them, and direct them, and control them. But when they change the heart, and leave you an idol of selfishness, woe to you! The publicans and the harlots shall go into the kingdom of God before such a man.

Beware of refined selfishness. Beware of æsthetic selfishness. Beware of aristocratic selfishness. Beware of the selfishness of prosperity and of respectability. Beware of the temptation of the devil. Beware of anything that shall make you indifferent to the sufferings and to the condition of those who are cast down by reason of their sins-for you, in your estate, are sinners, dependent, every hour and every moment, on the goodness of a pitying God. Be you to your fellows what God is to you.

PRAYER BEFORE THE SERMON

Grant unto us, our Heavenly Father, that same blessed invitation that hath so often brought us to thee, and so often made the way familiar and easy to be trodden. For it is not our outward want alone that can bring us to thee. We turn everywhere, and seek succor in everything until we have learned how blessed it is to seek our good of thee. And then, the memories of past mercies; then the sense of thy great goodness and condescension, and the beauty of thy face, revealed to us in times past, awaken in us earnest desires. Our souls long for thee more than all else; for thou only canst fill the solitary hour, and thou only canst cheer the despondency which comes to all; and thou only canst bring peace to the heart disturb ed by pride and selfishness; and thou art the only physician of the soul; and all other things are but poor; all other things but disguise and do not cure. It is thy soul that cures our soul. It is thy love that teaches us to love. It is thy goodness that begets goodness in us. Be pleased then, O our Father! to call us by our names, that we may know that we are remembered of thee, and are sought out of thee and are borne in everlasting remembrance.

We thank thee that thou hast made known to us thy paternity. And though we do not understand it, and, with the little light of our own experience, cannot follow thec as Father of the wide scope of universal government, nor solve all the strange things that come to pass beneath thy wide extended sway, yet we are content. We leave to the future these insoluble mysteries. We trust in thy love. We trust in thy justice, and in thy truth. We believe that thou wilt not forsake any that put their trust in thee; and that whatever things are dark now, shall be cleared by and by. Thou art saying to us, "What I do now ye know not; but ye shall know hereafter;" and to that hereafter we remit all our care, all our anxiety and outreaching questions, and trust thee. Even as children trust their parents long before they can understand them, and trust in simplicity, trust unquestioning, and unreasoning, so we desire to abide in thee. Thou art good; and thou doest good; and Love is thy name; our hearts go up unto thee; and in thy name will we trust.

Be pleased, in thine infinite mercy, to forgive all our past sinfulness, and to cleanse our hearts from all things that are offensive to thee, and make us lovely altogether in thy sight. And we pray that thou wilt help us, and that we may not be discouraged as we find difficulties and obstacles in our way. May we still press forward, and to the end may we walk along the straight and narrow way, that finally we may be saved.

We pray that thou wilt grant thy blessing to rest, to-night, upon all that are gathered together. If there be darkness without, may it be calm and light within. And grant that here in thy sanctuary we may find a home: grant that here we may find our brethren, and rejoice with them. We pray that thou wilt prepare us by the labor and by the enjoyment, and by the instruction of the Sabbath day, for the toil of the campaigning week. May we go forth to our avocations, to our care, and to our responsibility with the presence of the Lord forevermore overshadowing us. May we not forget the lessons of the sanctuary. May we find them every hour a shield, or a weapon of offence against wickedness. May we be strengthened. May our faith not fail us in all the darkness of the way. May there still be the light of thy truth that shall guide us. And we pray that thou wilt prepare us, by the thousand experiences of thy providence-by good and evil that are coming upon us; by pain, and by fears, and by disappointments, and by expectations fulfilled, and by all the blessings of hope and love, and by the medicine of sorrow and trouble-to be men in Christ Jesus. Prepare us to be worthy of our name-sons of God. Prepare us for dying; through death lead us gently into that life which shall know no dying. And there, in thy presence, we will give the praise of our salvation to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

PRAYER AFTER THE SERMON.

Our Heavenly Father, we beseech of thee that thou wilt add thy olessing to the word of exhortation and instruction. May we take heed to our ways. May we remember that to love the Lord our God with all our heart and our neighbor as ourself is the law; and may we feel that in breaking this, the law of the realm is broken. May we be afraid of all sin. May we be afraid of heartless selfishness. Let us not be separated from our kind. And by as much as we are lifted above them, may we use the space to draw them up to us again. And so in every advance, may we bring some with us. Grant that we may more and more interpret thy nature, and understand more and more what is the sacrifice of Christ. And bring us, at last, through our earthly experiences, purified, glorified, into the heav enly kingdom, where we will praise the Father, the Son and the Spirit. Amen.

"Then Saul said to Jonathan, Tell me what thou hast done. And Jonathan told him, and said, I did but taste a little honey with the end of the rod that was in mine hand, and lo, I must die. And Saul answered, God do so, and more also; for thou shalt surely die, Jonathan,”—Samuel XIV., 43, 44.

There was never a better cause worse plead than this of Jonathan. The right was all on his side, but his pleading was good for nothing. We shall understand this better, if we go back now, and come down for a few minutes along the history that led to this transaction, as it is contained in the thirteenth and fourteenth chapters of the first of Samuel. We must not carry back modern ideas to interpret the ancient ideas. We must not imagine that Israel at this time was a civilized people. We must not imagine cities such as existed in the time of our Saviour. They were a rude people. Although in some respects they were superior to their neighbors, in most respects they were not a whit higher in civilization than the Philistines themselves. A better moral light they had; but their social habits were no better. Their cities were rude assemblages of ruder huts. Their army was a mob. Chance determined their battles. Sometimes it was on the one side, and sometimes on the other, according to the nature of the men engaged. And Israel had sunk to a very low point at this time. Saul was a king not a whit more royal than an average Indian chief on our prairies. He was a king without a palace. He was a king without any of the circumstances and trappings of royalty as we now conceive

of them.

Just at this time, Israel, was at such a point of depression, having been over-run and defeated by the Philistines, that there were no armies in the land. And yet, beaten down as they were, a great incursion of the Philistines was made upon them.

North of Jerusalem, or, rather, in the southern part of Palestine, on the west, was the great plain of the Philistines-a sea coast or maritime plain. And on the east was the valley of the Jordan. Intermediate, the country rose in high mountainous ridges, and yet was somewhat of the nature of table-land. Upon the summit of this central part of southern Palestine was a very rich farming or pastoral

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district; and along this ridge, running north from Jerusalem as far as Gerezim and Ebal. or Shechim, and coming down into the plain, was the great battle-ground of Palestine. It was back and forth over that country particularly that these endless Philistine wars flowed. At this time, the Philistines had come up with an enormous army-with thousands of chariots-the chariots probably not ascending further than the bottom of the ravines of the maritime plain. Israel had scattered and fled every whither from the face of the enemy. Saul had tried to collect about six hundred men; and he was lying at the uttermost space in Gibeah of Benjamin. And he and Jonathan alone had arms. There were no swords; there were no spears; there was no armor. The Philistines would not permit them to have forges. If they needed to sharpen their hoes, or their spades, or the colters of their plows, they must go down into Philistia. To keep them disarmed this method was

resorted to.

Well, this was the condition of things. There were three great parties of the Philistines that had gone spoiling, one northward, and another southward, and another eastward, ravaging all the lands; and here was this little band of six hundred men, and the king, lying under a tree at Gibeah watching them.

One day, moved by one of those strange inspirations which sometimes come to men, looking up the ravine (on either side of which were two very high cliffs-one of which was named "Thorn Bush," and the other "Shining Cliff," because it was white and glistening, the limestone there being of a chalky nature)-looking up that ravine, with these two cliffs (the Thorn Cliff and the Shining-Faced Cliff) on either side, they saw the garrison of the Philistines upon the top. And Jonathan said to his armor-bearer, "Let us climb up there." Two men! Well, he had a brave fellow for an armor-bearer; for he said, "You go, and I will follow!" And Jonathan said, "If they say, 'Stand still where you are,' I shall take that for a sign that God does not mean us to succeed; but if they say, 'Come up hither,' then I shall take it for a sign that the Lord has delivered them into our hands." And so they began to climb ravine until they were discerned by the garrison; and they looked over up the at them; and—perhaps in derision, I do not know why-some fellow said, "Come up hither, and I will tell you somewhat." than said, "Let us go up; for the Lord hath delivered them into our And Jonahands." And they went up. And the moment they reached the top they laid about them most violently; and Jonathan and his armorbearer slew twenty men before they knew what they were that, too, as it is said, in the space of half an acre, or what a yoke of doing-and oxen might plow in a day.