simply to accept the mechanical flow of the stream of time. We are all tempted not to look behind the moving screen to see the force that turns the wheel on which the painted scene is stretched. But, oh ! how dreary a thing it is if all that we have to say about life is "The times pass over us," like the blind rush of a stream, or the movement of the sea around our coasts, eating away here and depositing its spoils there, sometimes taking and sometimes giving, but all the work of mere eyeless and purposeless chance or of natural causes.

Oh! brethren, there is nothing more dismal nor paralyzing than the contemplation of the flow of the times over our heads, unless we see in their flow something far more than itself.

It is very beautiful to notice that this same phrase, or at least the essential part of it, is employed by David himself in one of his Psalms, with a very significant addition. He says, "My times are in Thy hand." So, then, the passage of our epochs over us is not merely the aimless flow of a stream, but the movement of a current which God directs. Therefore, if at any time it goes over our heads and seems to overwhelm us, we can look up through the transparent water, and say, "Thy waves and Thy billows have gone over me,' and so I die not of suffocation beneath them. God orders the times, and therefore, though, as the bitter ingenuity of Ecclesiastes, on the look-out for proofs of the vanity of life, complained in a one-sided view, as an aggravation of man's lot that there is a time for everything, yet that aspect of change is not its deepest or truest. True it is that sometimes birth and sometimes death, sometimes joy and sometimes

sorrow, sometimes building up and sometimes casting down, follow each other with monotonous uniformity of variety, and seem to reduce life to a perpetual heaping up of what is as painfully to be cast down the next moment, like the pitiless sport of the wind amongst the sandhills of the desert. But the fertility is only apparent, and the changes are not meant to occasion man's "misery to be great upon him," as Ecclesiastes says they do. The diversity of the "times" comes from a unity of purpose; and all the various methods of the Divine providence exercised upon us have one unchanging intention. The meaning of all the "times" is that they should bring us nearer to God, and fill us more full of His power and grace. The web is one, however various may be the pattern wrought upon the tapestry. So the varying times do all tend to one great issue. Therefore let us seek to pursue, in all varying circumstances, the one purpose which God has in them all; which the Apostle states to be "even your sanctification," and let us understand how summer and winter, springtime and harvest, tempest and fair weather, do together make up the year, and ensure the springing of the seed and the fruitfulness of the stalk.

III. Lastly, let me remind you, too, how eloquently the words of my text suggest the transiency of all the "times."

They "passed over him" as the wind through an archway, that whistles and cometh not again. The old, old thought, so threadbare and yet always so solemnizing and pathetic, which we know so well that we forget it, and are so sure of that it has little effect

on life, the old, old thought-" this too will pass away"-underlies the phrase of my text.

How blessed it is, brethren, to cherish that wholesome sense of the transiency of things here below, only those who live under its habitual power can fairly estimate. It is thought to be melancholy. We are told that it spoils joys and kills interest, and I know not what beside. It spoils no joys that ought to be joys. It kills no interests that are not on other grounds unworthy to be cherished. Contrariwise, by a strange paradox, the more fully we are penetrated with the persistent conviction of the transiency of the things seen and temporal, the greater they become. For then only are they seen in their true magnitude and nobility, in their true solemnity and importance, as having a bearing on the things that are eternal. Time is "the ceaseless lackey of eternity," and the things that pass over us may become, like the waves of the sea, the means of bearing us to the unmoving shore. Oh, if only in the midst of joys and sorrows, of heavy tasks and corroding cares, of weary work and wounded spirits, we could feel that they are "but for a moment," all would be different, and joy would come, and strength would come, and patience would come, and every grace would come, in the train of the wholesome conviction that "here we have no continuing city."

Cherish the thought. It will spoil nothing the spoiling of which will be a loss. It will heighten everything the possession of which is a gain. It will teach us to trust in the darkness, and to believe in the light. And when the times are dreariest, and frost binds the ground, we shall say, "If winter comes,

can spring be far behind?" The times roll over us, like the seas that break upon some isolated rock, and when the tide has fallen, and the vain flood has subsided, the rock is there. If the world helps us to God, we need not sorrow though it passes, and the fashion thereof.

But do not let us forget that my very text in its connection may teach us another thought. The transitory "times that went over" Israel's king are recorded imperishably on the pages here. And so, though condensed into narrow space, the record of the fleeting moments lives for ever. And "the books shall be opened, and men shall be judged according to their works." We are writing an imperishable record by our fleeting deeds. Half a dozen pages carry all the story of that stormy life of David. It takes a thousand rose-trees to make a vial full of essence of roses. The record and issues of life will be condensed into small compass, but the essence of it is eternal. We shall find it again, and have to drink as we have brewed when we get yonder. Be not deceived, God is not mocked, for whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap." There is a time to "sow," and that is the present life; "and there is a time to reap" the fruits of our sowing, and that is the time when times have ended, and eternity is here.

XXVI.

The Church and Social Evils.

"IT came to pass, when I heard these words, that I sat down and wept, and mourned certain days, and fasted, and prayed before the God of heaven."-NEHEMIAH i. 4.

INETY years had passed since the returning exiles had arrived at Jerusalem. They had encountered many difficulties which had marred their progress and

cooled their enthusiasm. The Temple, indeed, was rebuilt, but Jerusalem. lay in ruins, and its walls remained as they had been left, by Nebuchadnezzar's siege, some century and a half before. A little party of pious pilgrims had gone from Persia to the city, and had come back to Shushan with a sad story of weakness and despondency, affliction and hostility. One of the travellers had a brother, a youth named Nehemiah, who was a cupbearer in the court of the Persian king. Living in a palace, and surrounded with luxury, his heart was with his brethren; and the ruins of Jerusalem were dearer to him than the pomp of Shushan.

My text tells how the young cupbearer was affected by the tidings, and how he wept and prayed before God. The accurate dates given in this book show that