you have been indulging the sin of selfwill, and thuscreating an artificial medium, through which you habitually and erroneously contemplate the conduct of others towards you. Bless and thank Him for the first dawn of real light thrown upon the before unsuspected faults of your character: bless and thank Him for wakening you from the fatal slumber of self-deception; but remember, at the same time, that though God will assuredly "perfect that which concerneth"* His saints, it will not be by "working out their salvation" for them, but by giving them strength to work it out for themselves.† Even this hour a partial light may dawn upon the errors of your past life; but unless you make zealous and persevering efforts to cherish that light into a perfect day, it may again be withdrawn, and you may be allowed to slumber on in darkness as before.

* Psalm cxxxviii. 8.

† Phil. ii. 12.

That such fatal end may not be yours, give earnest heed to any revelations of your own character that may result from this day's discipline. Pursue suspicion to certainty. Try former as well as present instances in which you have to yourself seemed to suffer from the unjustly exercised authority of those who have a rightful claim to your obedience, and ask yourself, as before God, (where the same question will one day be asked you) whether it is not your own self-will, rather than the injustice of others, that caused the pain you suffered;-nay, further, that caused any permanent injury you have suffered. For while a submissive spirit would have soothed and conciliated those in authority, and checked its unjust or unkind exercise, a spirit of insubordination has naturally had the directly contrary effect, and excited to greater strictness and to a more violent display of that authority whose claim was resisted.

Besides, a submissive temper of mind maintains a calm and composure which keeps the judgment free and unimpaired in the use of judicious means for averting the ill consequences of the caprice and tyranny of others, while, on the contrary, the irritation of self-will disturbs and impairs the intellectual powers as well as the moral faculties, and leaves its victim a helpless prey to circumstances.

From what has been said you will see the inference is inevitable, that those who resist rightly-constituted authority not only sin themselves, but tempt others to sin. They tempt them to oppose unjust exercise of authority to that self-will which refused to yield to its just exercise. This is a most important feature of the present subject. It is very far from being alone by our example that we may lead others into sin. There is scarcely any sin which we commit against others which does not entail on us a double guilt, by

being to them the occasion of sin. When, therefore, you experience ill-temper, harshness, injustice, it is only too probably the reaction of your own errors. Cease, then, your murmurs against that portion of the burden of the daily cross which your own sin has wrought for you, and instead of selfish complaining, turn your eyes in time towards the awful responsibility incurred by those who cause others to offend.*

The great importance of acquiring the habit of implicit obedience in childhood consists in this, that when the time comes for the duty of implicit obedience to cease, the former habits of the mind will greatly lessen the difficulty of discerning the cases where obedience, be it ever so opposed to taste and inclination, is an imperative duty, and where on the other hand, it may be conscientiously withheld. Impartiality of judgment on this perplexing point cannot * Matthew, xviii. 6, 7.

be hoped for, unless the habit of obedience has been long cultivated. Before you

come to a decision upon any action or course of conduct dictated by those who have even a shadow of authority over you, ask yourself seriously, solemnly, whether your judgment has been thus trained and disciplined.

There are so many grades and species of authority that no rules, however conscientiously formed, can be applicable to every individual case. But the firmly founded and steadily cherished principle of obedience surely solves every difficulty as soon as it arises. That will be your only safeguard to protect you from error on either side of your path, and that must itself be maintained by prayer and watchfulness and self-denial and self-control, for the human heart is no friendly atmosphere for the growth and strengthening of alien excellence. The grace of submission is, even more peculiarly than others,