teaching in Sunday-schools, reading devout books, and the like, for inward submission to the power.

Another cause always operating is the tendency which all action of every kind has to escape from the dominion of its first motives, and to become merely mechanical and habitual. Habit is a most precious ally of goodness, but habitual goodness tends to become involuntary and mechanical goodness, and so to cease to be goodness at all. And the more that we can, in each given case, make each individual act of godliness, whether it be in worship or in practical life, the result of a fresh approach to the one central and legitimate impulse of the Christian life, the better it will be for ourselves. All great causes, as I was saying a moment or two ago, tend to pass from the dominion of impulse into that of use and wont and mere routine and our religion and practical godliness in daily life is apt to do that, as well as all our other actions.

And then, still further, there is the constant operation of earth and sense and present duties and pressing cares, which war against the reality and completeness of our submission to the power of godliness. Microscopically minute grains of sand in the aggregate bury the temples and the images of the gods in the Nile valley. The multitude of small cares and duties, which are blown upon us by every wind, have the effect of withdrawing us, unless we are continually watchful, from that one foundation of all good, the love of Jesus Christ felt in our daily lives. Unless we perpetually tighten our hold, it will loosen, by very weariness of the muscles. Unless the boat be firmly anchored, it will be drifted down the stream. Unless we take care, our Christian

life and earnestness will ooze out at our finger-tips, and we shall never know that it is gone. The world, our own weakness, our very tasks and duties, the pressure of circumstances, the sway of our senses, and the very habit of doing right-all of these may tend to make us mechanical and formal participators in the religious life, and unconscious hypocrites.

IV. So, lastly, let me point you to the discipline which may avert this evil.

First and foremost, I would say, let us cherish a clear and continual recognition of the reality of the danger. Fore-warned is fore-armed. He that will

take counsel of his own weakness, and be taught by God's Word how unreliable he himself is, and how strong the forces are which tend to throw his religion. all to the surface, will thereby be, if not insured against the danger, at least made a great deal more competent to deal with it. Blessed is the man that feareth always," and that knows how likely he is to go wrong unless he carefully seeks to keep himself right.

Rigid, habitual self-inspection, in the light of God's Word, is an all-important help to prevent this sliding into superficiality, of our Christian life. If what I was saying about the unconsciousness of decline is at all true, then most eloquently and impressively does it say to us all," Watch! for you know not what may be going on underground unless you keep a continual carefulness of inspection." We should watch our own characters, the movement of our spiritual nature, and the effect and operation of our habits and of our participation in outward forms of Christianity; we should watch these as carefully as men

in the tropics look for snakes and scorpions in their clothing and their beds before they put them on, or get into them. In a country which is only preserved by the dykes from being swallowed up by the sea, the minutest inspection of the rampart, is the condition of security, for if there be a hole big enough for a mouse to creep through, the water will come in, and make a gap wide enough to drown a province, in a little while. And so, brethren, seeing that we have such dangers round about us, and that the most formidable of them all are powers that work in the dark, let us be very sure that our eyes have searched, as well as we can, the inmost corners of our lives, and that no lurking vermin lie beneath the unturned-up

stones.

And then, lastly, and as that without which all else is vain, let us make continual and earnest and contrite efforts day by day, to renew and deepen our personal communion with Jesus Christ. He is the source of the power which godliness operates in our lives, and the closer we keep to Him the more it will flood our hearts and make us real, out-and-out Christians, and not shallow and self-deceived pretenders.

The tree that had nothing but leaves upon it hid its absence of fruit by its abundance of foliage. The Master came, as He comes to you and to me, seeking fruit, and if He finds it not, He will perpetuate the barrenness by His blasting word, "No fruit grow upon thee henceforward for ever."

XX.

hid in Light.

"THOU shalt hide them in the secret of Thy presence from the pride of man : Thou shalt keep them secretly in a pavilion from the strife of tongues."-PSALM XXXI. 20.

HE word rendered "presence" is literally "face," and the force of this very remarkable expression of confidence is considerably marred unless that rendering is retained. There are other analogous expressions in Scripture, setting forth, under various metaphors, God's protection of them that love Him. But I know not that there is any so noble and striking as this. For instance, we read of His hiding His children "in the secret of His tabernacle," or tent; as an Arab chief might do a fugitive who had eaten of his salt, secreting him in the recesses of his tent whilst the pursuers scoured the desert in vain for their prey. Again, we read of His hiding them "beneath the shadow of His wing"; where the Divine love is softened into the likeness of the maternal instinct which leads a hen to gather her chickens beneath the shelter of her own warm and outspread feathers. But the metaphor of my text is more vivid and beautiful still. Thou shalt hide them in the secret of Thy face." The light that

streams from that countenance is the hiding-place for a poor man. These other metaphors may refer, perhaps, the one to the temple, and the other to the outstretched wings of the cherubim that shadowed the Mercy-seat. And, if so, this metaphor carries us still more near to the central blaze of the Shekinah, the glory that hovered above the Mercy-seat, and glowed in the dark sanctuary, unseen but once a year by one trembling high priest, who had to bear with him blood of sacrifice, lest the sight should slay. The Psalmist says that into that fierce light a man may go, and stand in it, bathed, concealed, secure. "Thou shalt hide them in the secret of Thy face."

I.-Now, then, let us notice, first, this hidingplace.

The "face" of God is so strongly figurative an expression that its metaphorical character cannot but be obvious to the most cursory reader. The very frankness, and, we may say, the grossness of the image, saves it from misconception, and, as with other similar expressions in the Old Testament, at once suggests its meaning. We read, for example, of the "arm," the "hand," the "finger" of God, and everybody feels that that means His power. We read of the "eye" of God, and everybody knows that that means His omniscience. We read of the "ear" of God, and we all understand that that holds forth the blessed thought that He hears and answers the cry of such as be sorrowful. And, in like manner, the "face" of God is the apprehensible part of the Divine nature which turns to men, and by which He makes Himself known. It is roughly equivalent to the other Old and New Testament expression, the "name of the Lord," the