study, hard preparation by day, and deep thinking by night. If this be God's law, that nothing worth having is to be had without study, how should you think that it is possible to decide between God's truth and man's lie without thought, without study? You have learned to distinguish between a good sovereign and a bad one. Did it not cost you some experience? Can you distinguish between a good bank-note and a bad one ? — have you not learned thus to distinguish by considerable practice? Have you made up your mind upon questions of finance, upon the papal aggression, and never made up your mind whether the Bible be God's truth or Satan's lie? Out of your own mouths I condemn you. Let it not be said that the children of this world are wiser in their generation than you.

But perhaps you say, you do mean to decide, but not now. "Wait till I get rid of this troublesome law-suit that I am involved in just now. Let me retire from business, and go to my country-house, and then I will talk upon religion in earnest." This seems very plausible; it is the most successful deception that the devil practises; let us see what is in it. You admit the duty of deciding, but, while you admit the duty, you violate it. God says, " Now;" you say, "No." God says, "To-day;" you say, "To-morrow." Felix tried this experiment; you have read of his success. He failed, he perished. When you retire to your country-house, when you have got over this law-suit, are you sure that God will wait all this time your convenience? are you perfectly satisfied that your heart will be so susceptible, and your mind so inclined to decide, next year, as it is at this very moment? It is needless to disguise it: it is only a more courteous way of rejecting Christ, and ignoring the Gospel.

But some one, perhaps, says, "We dislike extremes; we do not like to go to extremes in religion. We wish to maintain that smooth, quiet kind of Christianity which is charac

terized by moderation." Far be it from me to encourage anything like fanaticism; there is nothing more detrimental. to real religion. But when you speak of moderation in religion, let me ask, Did you ever hear of a man moderately honest? Would you not think such a man was dishonest? Did you ever hear of a man moderately true in his statements? And is it possible to be moderate in the fervor of our love to God, in the intensity of our reliance on the cross of Christ? Such a plea needs only to be investigated to be seen to be utterly untenable; for, so far is moderation from being recommended in these high matters, that God says, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy mind, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength."

Then decide for Christ; count all but loss for the love of him; fling yourselves loose from all that fetters your feet in running the race that is set before you; lay aside every weight, be Christian; and from that moment you will be far happier; you will tread the earth with an elastic step; you will look forward to a judgment-seat without a cloud upon your brow; every pulse in your heart will be a bounding one, because yours is a hope that maketh not ashamed. Do you think that Moses repents in glory the decision that he made on earth? And when you come to die, the only repentance you will have will be, that you did not sooner close with a faith that adds to the grandeur of the man all the glory of the saint, that makes earth's dark places bright, and smooths the wrinkles on the brow of age, and awakens in the fainting heart the voices of the skies, and has perpetuated its echoes in the biography of Moses, who "being dead yet speaketh."

10

CHAPTER VII.

REJECTED GREATNESS.

There is no wind but soweth seeds

Of a more true and holy life,

Which burst, unlooked-for, into high-souled deeds,
With way-side beauty rife.

"By faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter."— HEBREWS 11: 24.

In the preceding chapter, we showed what a beautiful and Christian faith, laden with many and precious truths, was lodged in the hearts and developed in the conduct of Jochebed the mother and Jethro the father of Moses. "By faith Moses when he was born was hid three months of his parents, because" - having a promise from God, and seeing on the brow of that babe the signature that indicated him the object of promise "they saw he was a proper child; and they were not afraid of the king's commandment." We have now the same faith exemplified in the child of so faithful and excellent parents: first, by his refusing great honor in order to identify himself with the sufferings and vindicate the wrongs of the people of God; next, in "esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in" even "Egypt;' and next, in forsaking "Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king; for he endured" that wrath, and clave to this duty, because he saw "him who is " to human eye, to carnal eye, "invisible."

We have already seen that faith may sometimes be exhib

ited in doing what is pleasant, just as it may be developed in enduring what is painful. God prescribes the painful to faith, not because it is painful, but because he would nurse his child in loyalty and confidence in himself; and God prescribes what is pleasant, that he may show us that the Christian may live in sunshine as well as in clouds; and that, whether it be in the sunshine or in the cloud, in the heights of Pisgah or amid the tents of Mesech and the tabernacles of Kedar, a Christian's life is a life of faith. By faith the parents tried to save their child,-what the heart's affections chimed in with; and by faith Abraham left his country, what the heart's feelings protested against; and in both they were accepted, not because the one endured what was painful, and the other did what was pleasant, but because both had confidence in God, and obeyed his will.

Here we have another contrasting evidence of what faith is. The same faith that compelled Joseph to remain in the court of Pharaoh, contradictory as it may look to the world, compelled Moses to quit the court of Pharaoh. This seems almost a contradiction; because, if faith prompted adhesion to place in one, how could it prompt the renunciation of place and power in another? Yet it did so. By faith Joseph held the place of dignity and power to which he was raised by faith Moses quitted the place of dignity and power to which he had been raised; and both did that which was beautiful before God, and consistent with the Christian character by which they were distinguished.

In this we learn a very important lesson: that acts, which in themselves are not sinful, ought not to be judged by us till we see all the circumstances connected with them. To condemn Joseph for remaining amid the splendors of a court, on the plea that he loved pomp and dignity, would be just as rash as to condemn Moses because he left the splendors of a court, by attributing to him asceticism, or fanaticism, or folly.

The acts which are not obviously sinful are to be tested by their motives, their ends, their aim, their object; and when we see how many acts which appear to us sinful are just the reverse when analyzed, the longer we live the more we shall learn the lesson, to be slow to judge, and quick to pray for all men. Joseph remained in this court, and for the obvious reason that he could be a minister of good to the people of God. Israel had perished on the plains of Egypt if Joseph had not been at Pharaoh's right hand. And Moses, on the very same ground, namely, to be a minister of good to the people of God, left that court in which he could not have benefited them, and where he might have injured and weakened his own Christian character. The court that was friendly in Joseph's days had become hostile in the days of Moses. A Christian may remain in an idolatrous court, in whose idolatry he is not called to take a part; but a Christian cannot remain in a persecuting court, whose proscriptions he is compelled to carry out, and of whose fierce passions he must become necessarily the exponent. Thus Joseph remained in an idolatrous court, an evidence of true worship, and a minister of God to his people. Thus Moses left a persecuting court, because, as its chief member, he could not continue in it, and prove hostile to those who were dear to God, and therefore dear to him.

There is not necessarily sin in accepting the honors of a court, as Moses did when he was called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, or as Joseph did when he became the prime minister of Pharaoh. Obadiah lived in the court of Ahab ; Daniel lived and did good in Nebuchadnezzar's; Mordecai had his mission in the court of Ahasuerus; there was a Christian prime minister in the Ethiopian Candace's court; there were saints in the house and amid the palaces of Nero. God sends men, in his providence, where there is something for them to do; and so long as they can do that which con