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race shall not weary them; for it is written, They shall run and not be weary !' . . . Their daily walk shall not be more than they can bear for it is added, "They shall walk and not faint!'

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The Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity.

THE BLESSEDNESS OF OUR ESTATE AS CHRISTIANS.

ST. LUKE X. 23, 24.

Blessed are the eyes which see the things which ye see: for I tell you that many Prophets and Kings have desired to see those things which ye see, and have not seen them; and to hear those things which ye hear, and have not heard them.

IT is not hard to see how blessed the first believers were. Let the history of God's chosen people be considered, the long interval from Adam to Malachi: let the subsequent period of four hundred years be remembered, until the Advent of MESSIAH, during which the voice of Prophecy was never once heard; and then, the blessedness of living in the days of the Gospel will at once appear. GOD had at last visited and redeemed His people.' Many besides holy Simeon (we think) might have exclaimed, and with the selfsame transport, 'Now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace!'

And yet, we hesitate not to say that we are

were.

more blessed than the men of that generation We have all their blessedness, and we have a blessedness of our own, besides. We are doubly blessed. Unspeakable indeed was the privilege of those who, if they approached our LORD's Divine person in faith, He was sure in no wise to cast out: and many among us must have sometimes wished that they might, like Zacchæus, have climbed into a tree to have been but once blessed with the sight,—though but the momentary sight,-of Him who had been 'the desire of all nations.' To have heard His discourses and witnessed His miracles, must have been a joy altogether unspeakable.

But whatever blessedness may have attached to the actual sight of the Holy One, there was a danger too, an evident danger, which must make us, if we are wise, almost thank GOD that our lot was not cast in Judæa in the days of the Son of Man. How many thousands saw Him, and cared nothing for Him,-nay, persecuted Him, made Him fly for His life, and finally put Him to the most cruel death! Who shall say that we, if we had lived in that day, would have been among the small band of believers who followed His blessed footsteps in faith and love? We may think what we will; we may fancy and

flatter ourselves with whatever pleasant beliefs we like; but if we are wise we shall strongly suspect, every one of us, that had we been natives of Capernaum, or Bethsaida, or Chorazin, we should have been just as wicked, just as faithless, as all the rest. Had we been men o Nazareth, His townsfolk, we might have had a share in expelling Him from the city. Had we lived at Gadara, we might have been one of the crowd who came down to the beach, and besought Him to depart out of their coasts. Had we been at Jerusalem at the last Passover, we should have probably been,-if not among the persecutors of the LORD of Glory, yet,-among the careless of the crowd; lookers on, if not taking an active part; unbelievers, if not helping to blaspheme.

Now, our own blessedness is greater than that of the men of old; in that, while we are spared the great risks which they ran, we enjoy the substance of all they enjoyed, and a vast deal more. For let us remember that our LORD grew up like a tender plant; for thirty years, unknown; and for three, only revealed to those who diligently sought Him. What certainty have we, that we should have been of the number of these? First, What certainty have we

that we should ever have heard of His name at all? Hearing of it, what certainty have we that we should have had the necessary zeal to seek and find Him? Having sought and found, what do we flatter ourselves that our eyes would have beheld? A man clothed in purple? a worker of miracles? It may be much doubted whether our eyes would have discerned anything in Him, beyond the unattractive majesty of a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.' And when He left us, what could we have done but think on what we had seen, and hope we should never forget that we had beheld GOD? Suppose that we had witnessed a miracle, or heard a parable, or listened to one of His heavenly discourses: what could we have done but cherish the memory of it, repeat it over to ourselves, and dwell upon its godlike teaching, till the end of our lives?

But how stands the case with us, at the present day? Those discourses, all ours,-those miracles and those parables, all set down for us. The life and actions, the teaching, the very gesture of the Son of Man, in public and in private, are all recorded for our comfort in the Gospel! We may read them when we will: we may meditate upon any part of them when

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