thing I have to say to him is, "Friend, you had better go to an oculist." And if to us the Cross is " foolishness," it is because already the process of "perishing has gone so far that it has attacked our capacity of recognising the wisdom and love of God when we see them.

But, on the other hand, if we clasp that Cross in simple trust, we find that it is the power which saves us out of all sins, sorrows, and dangers, and "shall save us," at last, "into His heavenly kingdom."

Dear friends, that message leaves no man exactly as it found him. My words, I feel, to-day have been very poor, set by the side of the greatness of the theme; but, poor as they have been, you will not be exactly the same man after them, if you have listened to them, as you were before. The difference may be very imperceptible, but it will be real. There will be one more, almost invisible, film over the eyeball; one more thin layer of wax on the ear; one more fold of insensibility round heart and conscience-or else some yielding to the love; some finger put out to take the salvation; some lightening of the pressure of the sickness; some removal of the peril and the danger. The same sun blinds diseased eyes and gladdens sound ones. The same fire melts wax and hardens clay. "This Child is set for the rise and fall of many in Israel." "To the one He is the savour of life unto life; to the other He is the savour of death unto death." Which is He, for He is one of them, to you?

XXXI.

The Faithful heart and the Present

God.

"I HAVE set the Lord' always before me : because He is at my right hand, I shall not be moved."-PSALM xvi. 8.

HIS psalm touches the very high-water mark of the religious life in two aspects; its ardent devotion and its clear certainty of eternal blessedness beyond the grave. These two are connected, as cause and effect, since on my text follows this great "therefore "-"Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoiceth; my flesh, also, shall rest in hope, for Thou wilt not leave my soul in the grave, neither wilt Thou suffer Thy Holy One to see corruption." So this ancient singer speaks to us across the centuries, and bids us ask ourselves whether we, with all the blaze of light of a far fuller, more blessed, and heart-touching and soul-satisfying revelation of God than he had, can place ourselves by his side, and take for ourselves his grand declaration, I have set the Lord always before me," and, therefore, "because He is at my right hand, I shall not be moved."

There are three things then here the effort of faith; the Ally whom the effort brings; and the courageous stability which His presence ensures.

I. The effort of faith: "I have set the Lord always before me."

The very language expresses for us the thought that it took a dead lift of conscious effort for the Psalmist to keep himself continually in touch with that unseen God. This is the very essence of true religion, for what is our religion if it is not the turning of our hearts continually, amidst, and from amidst, all the trivialities of this poor, low planet up to Him, and the realizing-by a conscious effort of an outgoing soul towards Him which is winged by desire, and impelled by a sense of need-of the thrilling and calming presence of Him who is invisible?

We talk about being Christians; we profess, some of us, to be religious men. Let us bring our pretensions to this simple test: Is the conscious effort of our lives directed with a frequency, which may deserve to be called habit, to the realization, amidst our daily duties, of that Divine presence?

Mark how the Psalmist came to this effort. It was because his whole soul clave to God, with the intelligent and reasonable conviction and apprehension that in God alone was all that he needed. No man will ever seek to bring himself into the presence of that Father, unless he knows that he can sun himself in the presence. If it is only a great Taskmaster's eye which we think is resting upon us, we shall crouch to hide from it rather than court it. But the Psalmist tells us how he came to make the attempt, and to carry it through all the changes of his life-" to set the Lord always before

him." For what goes before is this: "I have said unto the Lord, Thou art my Lord; my good is none but Thee the Lord is the portion of mine inheritance, and " (therefore) "I have a goodly heritage," having Him for the portion of mine inheritance, and of my cup. And because thus he felt that all his blessedness was enwrapped in that one Divine Person, and that, whatsoever might call itself and be good, in some subordinate fashion, and as meeting some lower mental or material necessities, there was only one real good for him, satisfying all the depth and circumference of his being. It was only because this was his rooted conviction that he grudged every moment in which he was not living in the light of that countenance, and feeling the worth of the treasure which he possessed in God. But we are often actually ignorant, so to speak, of what we habitually know, and often without the conscious realization of the possession (which is the only real possession) of the riches that are most truly ours. If a man does not think about his wife and his children, it is for the time being all one as if they did not exist. If he does not think about God and His love, it is all one as if he had not Him and it. If we truly are knit to Him by inward sentiments of dependence, thankfulness, love, and obedience, our hearts will not be satisfied, unless we make the effort to reach our hands through all the shadows to grasp the reality, as a man might thrust his fist through some drum, with thin paper in it, in order to clutch some treasure lying beyond.

"I have set the Lord always before me," is the voice of true love, and true love is true religion. If

we can count up the number of times to-day in which we have thought about God-and I am afraid some of us could do it very easily-we have thought about Him too little. "I have set the Lord always before me," like a long band of light running through the whole life. But in the lives of far too many so-called Christians the points of light are dim and far apart, and sending little illumination into the dark intervals, as in some ill-lighted back street.

The effort of faith is the essence of religion, and we have no right to call ourselves Christians unless we can say in some real measure, "I have set the Lord" -for it took a dead lift to do it-" always before me." II.-Notice the ally of faith.

I suppose that the second portion of my text is to be interpreted as being the consequence of the effort. "He is at my right hand." Would He have been, David, if you had not set Him there? No! Of course, apart from effort there would have been that real sustained presence of God without which no life is possible, nor any existence. For I believe, for my part, that when we talk about Omnipresence we mean that where God is not nothing can be; and that this influence, which is His real presence, "preserves the stars from wrong," and keeps in life every living thing; so as that it is the simplest and deepest truth "in Him we," and all creatures, "live and move and have our being." But that is not what the Psalmist means. He is thinking of a presence a great deal more intimate, and of the communication of blessings a great deal more select and precious than creatural life, when he speaks about the presence of God at his right hand, as the direct result of his own definite,