pleasures, the true temper is to be forecasting our work.

But, leaving that consideration, let us notice how useless such anticipation, and how mad such confidence, as that expressed in the text is, if directed to anything short of God.

We are so constituted as that we grow into a persuasion that what has been will be, and yet we can give no sufficient reason to ourselves of why we expect it.

"The uniformity of the course of nature" is the corner-stone, not only of physical science, but in a more homely form of the wisdom which grows with experience. We all believe that the sun will rise to-morrow because it rose to-day, and for all the yesterdays. But there was a to-day which had no yesterday, and there will be a to-day which will have no to-morrow. The sun will rise for the last time. The uniformity had a beginning and will have an end.

So even as an axiom of thought, the anticipation that things will continue as they have been, because they have been, seems to rest on an insufficient basis. How much more so, as to our own little lives and their surroundings! There the only thing which we may be quite sure of about to-morrow is that it will not be "as this day." Even for those of us who may have reached, for example, the level plateau of middle life, where our position and tasks are pretty well fixed, and we have little more to expect than the monotonous repetition of the same duties recurring at the same hour every day-even for such each day has its own distinctive character. Like a flock of sheep they seem all alike, but each, on closer inspection, reveals a physiognomy of its own. There will be so many small changes that even the same duties or enjoyments will not be quite the same, and even if the outward things remained absolutely unaltered, we, who meet them, are not the same. Little variations in mood and tone, diminished zest here, weakened power there, other thoughts breaking in, and over and above all the slow silent change wrought on us by growing years, make the perfect reproduction of any part impossible. So, however familiar may be the road we have to traverse, however uneventfully the same our days may sometimes for long spaces in our lives seem to be, though to ourselves often our day's work may appear a mill-horse round, yet in deepest truth, if we take into account the whole sum of the minute changes in it and in us, it may be said of each step of our journey, "Ye have not passed this way heretofore."

But besides all this, we know that these breathingtimes when " we have no changes," are but pauses in the storm, landing-places in the ascent, the interspaces between the shocks. However hope may tempt us to dream that the future is like the present, a deeper wisdom lies in all our souls which says No. Drunken bravery may front that darkness with such words as these of our text, but the least serious spirit, in its most joyous moods, never quite succeeds in forgetting the solemn probabilities, possibilities, and certainties which lodge in the unknown future. So to a wise man it is ever a sobering exercise to look forward, and we shall be nearest the truth if we take due account, as we do so to-day, of the undoubted fact that the only thing certain about tomorrow is that it will not be as this day.

There are the great changes which come to some one every day, which may come to any of us any day, which will come to all of us some day. Some of us will die this year; on a day in our new diaries some of us will make no entry, for we shall be gone. Some of us will be smitten down by illness; some of us will lose our dearest; some of us will lose fortune. Which of us it is to be, and where within these twelve months the blow is to fall, is mercifully hidden. The only thing that we certainly know is that these arrows will fly. The thing we do not know is whose heart they will pierce. This makes the gaze into the darkness grave and solemn. There is ever something of dread in Hope's blue eyes. True the ministry of change is blessed and helpful; true, the darkness which hides the future is merciful, and needful if the present is not to be marred. But helpful and merciful as they are, they invest the unknown to-morrow with a solemn power which it is good, though sobering, for us to feel, and they silence on every lip but that of riot and foolhardy debauchery the presumptuous words, "To-morrow shall be as this day and much more abundant.”

II. But yet there is a possibility of so using the words as to make them the utterance of a sober certainty which will not be put to shame.

So long as our hope and anticipations creep along the low levels of earth, and are concerned with external and creatural good, their language can never rise beyond "To-morrow may be as this day." Oftenest it reaches only to the height of the wistful wish, May it be as this day! But there is no need for our being tortured with such slippery possibilities. We may send out our hope like Noah's dove, not to hover restlessly over a heaving ocean of change, but to light on firm, solid, certainty, and fold its wearied wings there. Forecasting is ever close by foreboding. Hope is interwoven with fear, the golden threads of the weft crossing the dark ones of the warp, and the whole texture gleaming bright or glooming black according to the angle at which it is seen.

So is it always until we turn our hope away from earth to God, and fill the future with the light of his presence, and the certainty of his truth. Then the mists and doubts roll away; we get above the region of "perhapses" into that of "surelys;" the future is as certain as the past: hope as assured of its facts as memory, prophecy as veracious as history.

Looking forward then, let us not occupy ourselves with visions which we know may or may not come true. Let us not feed ourselves with illusions which may make the reality, when it comes to shatter them, yet harder to bear. But let us make God in Christ our hope, and pass from peradventures to certitudes; from "To-morrow may be as this daywould that it might," to "It shall be, it shall be, for God is my expectation and my hope."

We have an unchanging and an inexhaustible God, and He is the true guarantee of the future for us. The more we accustom ourselves to think of Him as shaping all that is contingent and changeful in the nearest and in the remotest to-morrow, and as being Himself the immutable portion of our souls, the calmer will be our outlook into the darkness, and the more bright will be the clear light of certainty which burns for us in it.

To-day's wealth may be to-morrow's poverty, to

day's health to-morrow's sickness, to-day's happy companionship of love to-morrow's aching solitude of heart, but to-day's God will be to-morrow's God, today's Christ will be to-morrow's Christ. Other fountains may dry up in heat or freeze in winter, but this knows no change, "in summer and winter it shall be." Other fountains may sink low in their basins after much drawing, but this is ever full, and after a thousand generations have drawn from it its Other fountains stream is broad and deep as ever. may be left behind on the march, and the wells and palm-trees of each Elim on our road be succeeded by a dry and thirsty land where no water is, but this spring follows us all through the wilderness, and makes music and spreads freshness ever by our path. We can forecast nothing beside. We can be sure of this, that God will be with us in all the days that lie before us. What may be round the next headland we know not; but this we know, that the same sunshine will make a broadening path across the waters right to where we rock on the unknown sea, and the same unmoving mighty star will burn for our guidance. So we may let the waves and currents roll as they list-or rather as He wills, and be little concerned about the incidents or the companions of We can front the our voyage, since He is with us. unknown to-morrow, even when we most keenly feel how solemn and sad are the things it may bring.

"It can bring with it nothing

But He will bear us through."

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III. Looked at in another aspect, these words may There is a future which we can but very slightly be taken as the vow of a firm and lowly resolve. influence, and the less we look at that the better every way. But there is also a future which we can mould as we wish-the future of our own characters, more clearly we set it before ourselves, and make up the only future which is really ours at all-and the our minds as to whither we wish to be tending, the better. In that region, it is eminently true that "to-morrow shall be as this day, and much more abundant." The law of continuity shapes our moral and spiritual characters. What I am to-day, I shall The awful power of increasingly be to-morrow. the reverberation of every note once sounded, along habit solidifies actions into customs, and prolongs the vaulted roof of the chamber where we live. To-day is the child of yesterday and the parent of to-morrow.

That solemn certainty of the continuance and increase of moral and spiritual characteristics works in both good and bad, but with a difference. To secure germs of good there must be constant effort and tenaits full blessing in the gradual development of the cious resolution. So many foes beset the springing of the good seed in our hearts-what with the flying flocks of light-winged fugitive thoughts ever ready to swoop down as soon as the sower's back is turned rock which the roots soon encounter, what with the and snatch it away, what with the hardness of the trust to the natural laws of growth and neglect our thick-sown and quick-springing thorns-that if we careful tending, we may sow much but we shall gather little. But to inherit the full consequences of that same law working in the growth and de-a jungle of velopment of the evil in us, nothing is needed but carelessness. Leave it alone for a year or two and the "fruitful field will be a forest matted weeds, with a struggling blossom here and But if humbly we resolve and earnestly toil, there to tell where cultivation had once been.. our characters will grow in goodness and in likeness looking for his help, we may venture to hope that to our dear Lord, that we shall not cast away our each new day shall find in us a deeper love, a perconfidence, nor make shipwreck of our faith, that fecter consecration, a more joyful service, and that so, in all the beauties of the Christian soul and in all the blessings of the Christian life, "to-morrow

shall be as this day, and much more abundant." "To him that hath shall be given." "The path of the just is as the shining light that shineth more and more until the noon-tide of the day."

So we may look forward undismayed, and while we recognise the darkness that wraps to-morrow in regard to all mundane affairs, may feed our fortitude and fasten our confidence on the double certainties that we shall have God and more of God for our treasure, that we shall have likeness to Him and more of likeness in our characters. Fleeting moments may come and go. The uncertain days may exercise their various ministry of giving and taking away, but whether they plant or root up our earthly props, whether they build or destroy our earthly houses, they will increase our riches in the heavens, and give us fuller possession of deeper draughts from the inexhaustible fountain of living waters.

How dreadfully that same law of the continuity and development of character works in some men there is no need now to dwell upon. By slow, imperceptible, certain degrees the evil gains upon them. Yesterday's sin smooths the path for to-day's. The temptation once yielded to gains power. The crack in the embankment which lets a drop or two ooze through is soon a hole which lets out a flood. It is easier to find a man who has never done a wrong thing than to find a man who has done it only once. Peter denied his Lord thrice, and each time more easily than the time before. So, before we know it, the thin gossamer threads of single actions are twisted into a rope of habit, and we are " tied with the cords of our sins." Let no man say, "Just for once I may venture in evil; so far I will go and no farther." Nay, "to-morrow shall be as this day, and much more abundant."

How important, then, the smallest acts become when we think of them as thus influencing character! The microscopic creatures, thousands of which will go into a square inch, make the great white cliffs that beetle over the wildest sea and front the storm. So, permanent and solid character is built up out of trivial actions, and this is the solemn aspect of our passing days, that they are making us.

We might well tremble before such a thought, which would be dreadful to the best of us, if it were not for pardoning mercy and renewing grace. The law of reaping what we have sown, or of continuing as we have begun, may be modified as far as our sins and failures are concerned. The entail may be cut off, and to-morrow need not inherit to-day's guilt, nor to-day's habits. The past may be all blotted out through the mercy of God in Christ. No debt need be carried forward to another page of the book of our lives, for Christ has given Himself for us, and He speaks to us all-"Thy sins be forgiven thee." No evil habit need continue its dominion over us, nor are we obliged to carry on the bad tradition of wrong-doing into a future day, for Christ lives, and "if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature ; old things are passed away, all things are become new."

So then, brethren, let us humbly take the confidence which these words may be used to express, and as we stand on the threshold of a new year and wait for the curtain to be drawn, let us print deep on our hearts the uncertainty of our hold of all things here, nor seek to build nor anchor on these, but lift our thoughts to Him, who will bless the future as He has blessed the past, and will even enlarge the gifts of his love and the help of his right hand. Let us hope for ourselves not the continuance or increase of outward good, but the growth of our souls in all things lovely and of good report, the daily advance in the love and likeness of our Lord.

So each day, each succeeding wave of the ocean of time, shall cast up treasures for us as it breaks at our feet. As we grow in years, we shall grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, until the day comes when we shall exchange earth for heaven. That will be the sublimest application of this text, when, dying, we can calmly be sure that though to-day be on this side and to-morrow on the other bank of the black river, there will be nò break in the continuity, but only an infinite growth in our life, and heaven's to-morrow shall be as earth's to-day, and much more abundant.

TOUR through Northern Russia long posA Tossed for me two attractions. In the first

place, it appeared decidedly new; and secondly, inasmuch as I like to make my holidays useful, it seemed to present a splendid field for the distribution of tracts and Scriptures. The month of last May, however, did not look like an auspicious time for such an undertaking. The dogs of war were barking, and friends with one consent said that the journey was "ill-timed, dangerous, perilous." But previous travel in the Czar's dominions had given me a favourable impression of the politeness and good sense of the Russians, and so, relying partly on the goodness of my cause and partly on the letters of introduction I hoped to carry, I resolved, with a young friend as

travelling companion, to take the risk, and go, remembering the poet's lines:

"The wise and active conquer difficulties, By daring to attempt them:

Folly and sloth shiver and shrink at sight of toil or trouble, And make the impossibility they fear."

Leaving Dover on a Monday morning, staying for a night at Cologne, an afternoon at Hanover, and a night and a day at Berlin, we reached St. Petersburg on the following Friday evening, where the first thing to be done was to get a stock of provisions, of books, and of tracts. Twenty-five suitable tracts were selected and banded together, and then eight hundred similar packets were ordered to be tied up; making

linked with that to find what we could of interest and enjoyment in a journey through Moscow, Yaroslaf, and Vologda; thence on the rivers Suchona, and Dwina to Archangel, and so back overland by posting and steamer, via lakes Onega and Ladoga, to St. Petersburg.

Our first destination was Novgorod the Great, the cradle of the Russian power, there to see the Yurief monastery; the monument erected in 1862, on the thousandth birthday of the existence of the empire; and also one of the oldest ecclesiastical buildings in Russia, the cathedral of St. Sophia. The architecture of this last is interesting on account of its age: otherwise it is heavy to a degree, the cupola being supported by eight quadrangular pillars. In the chapels are silver sarcophagi containing bodies. of archbishops and saints; a small portion of their shrivelled bodies being exposed for the faithful to kiss.

On arriving at Moscow we presented our letters to the governor, and were received by the prince in a most courteous and fatherly manner. We might see anything we pleased, his Excellency said, only that we had allotted too short a time properly to visit the city. Seeing, however, that our time was short, an aide-de-camp was called, who set clerks writing letters, and introduced our interpreter to Captain this, Doctor that, and Professor the other, in order that arrangements might be made for conducting us over the various institutions under their charge. Papers, cards, and permissions speedily poured upon us, and among them a ticket for the races on Sunday afternoon! This we did not use, but went instead to the prison hospital. We were glad, however, on the Monday to visit the Kremlin, and to see the Imperial Palace as we had done at the northern capital.

Visitors to St. Petersburg will generally allow that the Winter Palace dwarfs the other palaces of Europe. It will accommodate, it is said, when full, more than five thousand persons, and the spectator is bewildered by the wealth amassed in the "gold," the "malachite," the "diamond," and other rooms; to say nothing of scores of costly dishes and chargers as big as shields, piled up in little mountains and representing the presents of various individuals and governments, at home and abroad. Some of these were very valuable and of exquisite workmanship, but none perhaps awoke pleasanter feelings than did a huge charger, made at a cost of five millions of roubles, and presented to the present emperor by the liberated serfs-a noble offering to a noble benefactor! The state apartments in the Moscow Palace are, in their way, equally grand with those in St. Petersburg, and they possess things more ancient; whilst in some of the smaller rooms there are certain features decidedly striking. In the stately hall of St. George in particular, as well as in other rooms, are handsome floors of mosaic and parqueterie work, made at a cost of four hundred roubles per square of twenty feet. In one of the dining-rooms the tables, lustres, and looking-glass frames are of solid silver. In a state bedroom is a monolith column, the largest in the world of those brought from Pompeii, and a mantelpiece of Yashma marble, the working of which cost from ten to fifteen thousand roubles. Again, a third room has walls and fittings of wood, not glued or nailed, but made in joints in such a manner that the whole can be taken to pieces.

A visit to the Treasury, which is the depository of venerated historical objects, brought countless curiosities beneath our notice, such as sceptres taken from foreign kingdoms, a throne of ivory, another studded with eight hundred diamonds and more than a thousand rubies, besides turquoises and pearls; also the crowns of Russian sovereigns, from the 12th century and onwards, one of which has in it no less than two thousand five hundred diamonds alone.

From the palace we went to a prison, one, too, the exact counterpart of which is nowhere to be seen. It was the central dismissal prison for Siberia, where, in summer, the exiles from various parts of the country are gathered and sent off in droves to their new and far-distant abode. The building is arranged for eleven hundred prisoners, though it can be made to hold as many as three thousand. Seven hundred had been sent away on the morning of our visit, and there remained upwards of seven hundred more, who would start after an interval of three or four days. The men were placed in two yards, those in the one being unfettered, those in the other having their hair cut, and their legs fastened with rivetted chains of probably ten or twelve pounds' weight. In a third place were nearly three hundred women with their children, not for the more part criminals but voluntary prisoners, who had elected to accompany their husbands into exile-a touching sight! Some of them were young mothers, with babies (one of them with twins) in arms. The eyes of one superior-looking woman were red with weeping, and on the faces of most was written a sorrowful tale. It would appear that as on the one hand it does not need a crime of very gross proportions to send a man into exile, so, on the other, the prospect of Siberia is not looked upon by some with that horror with which it is regarded in England. For instance, a prisoner in Finland once told me that rather than work as a felon in the streets of the town where his parents lived for the three years for which he had been condemned, he had asked to be allowed to go to Siberia! The introduction of railroads and steamers has made the journey to this almost unknown land much less tedious than it used to be; though even now it is sufficiently long. Two months, I was told, it now takes to get them to Irkutsk; but a woman in a Finnish prison, who had escaped and been recaptured, told me that eighteen years ago she was eight months going from St. Petersburg to Tobolsk, and that she had taken three years in getting back; not, she said, that she was particularly unhappy there, but she said she did so want to see her mother! A drove of prisoners on their way to Siberia is an affecting sight. In the van and at the rear are mounted soldiers, and at the sides are guards with bayonets fixed. The men with fetters on their legs take the lead, fastened together in pairs, and at each step the clanking of their chains makes a most unmusical noise. Behind them come the men without fetters, but secured by the hands to a long iron rod. Then come womenprisoners, and after them the voluntary exiles who choose to accompany their husbands, whilst last of all come the rough waggons in which are transported the young children and perchance those prisoners who are too old or infirm to walk. When thus on the march each prisoner has three pounds of bread