it was first the sparkling music of a little streamlet, at length becoming deep, continuous, permanent, full of strong conviction. I have heard persons lament, How enthusiastic were we when we first became Christians! but now those feelings are all gone. It is quite right that they should go. God never meant that the soul should have a ceaseless fever any more than the body. The pulse at one hundred and twenty is not health any more than the pulse at forty-it is the pulse at its normal beat that constitutes health. Christianity is not the fever of a first conviction, but the quiet health of a living, loving man; and therefore if our first emotions have passed away, God meant that it should be so. Every child loves his or her parent; but what is the nature of that love? It is not a violent, feverish heat or excitement, but a love so quiet, so gentle, so unseen in its healthy and its natural action, that we scarcely know it is there; but when a crisis comes that demands its interposition, then it shows its vigor and its vitality by the sacrifices that it can make. It is so with the love we bear to God; it is the same with the feeling that we have with reference to the gospel-it is not like the electricity in the jar, breaking forth into sparks of brilliancy, but like the electricity that runs through all nature, binding orbs into harmony, keeping the earth in its cohesion, and silently but surely giving birth at the season of spring, to bud, and blossom, and flower, till Aaron's rod blossoms in sweet spring-tide, and nature gives the prestige and the earnest of its approaching and its everlasting summer. Such was Abraham's love, and such should be ours.

Bring this day, that is, Christ's day, into all the days of life. You will need it deeply in the day of prosperity: let a handful of its sunbeams fall upon the cup of prosperity, and they will make it thankfully and purely glad. Bring this day into that of adversity, for such a day either you

have had or you will have; and some beams falling on the day of adversity, which for a season is yours, will make you read upon the lot that is bitterest-"No chastening for the present seemeth joyous, but rather grievous, yet it worketh out a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory to them that are exercised thereby." And when a time comes of bitter bereavement, you will need its sweetness. Alas! what memory has not in it memorial tablets of the beloved and the sainted dead? what heart has not heavings and recollections, like the pulse of the ocean that cannot rest, of the near and the dear that are gone? What family has not some chair vacant that was full, some threshold silent that was once resonant with welcome feet, and a gap that none on earth can fill, in the agony of which, when our beloved are gone, no earthly wealth, prosperity, or honor is of the least worth? When I have visited those

who are weeping for the lost, whatever was their station in life, or their wealth, at that intense moment the glory was departed from all honor, and the value from all wealth, and they felt that the world was done, because their only hope had left it. In such an hour what is it that will comfort us? Christ's day, rising in its peaceful and majestic beauty, casting its first sprinklings upon the face of the dead, will make the countenance, that death has left so pale, reflect the splendors of a coming resurrection; and in the grave, when dust sounds so melancholy as it goes to dust, you will hear ringing sweeter still, like music from the heavens, “I am the Resurrection and the Life;" and when the green sod is laid on the beloved dead, in that moment the cypress will, to your glad eye, become more beautiful than the palm

tree.

CHAPTER IV.

THE HOLY AND HAPPY WALK.

"The great hearts of the olden time
Are beating with us full and strong;

All holy memories, and sublime,

And glorious round us throng."

"And when Abram was ninety years old and nine, the Lord appeared to Abram, and said unto him, I am the Almighty God; walk before me, and be thou perfect."- GEN. xvii. 1.

THERE is announced in the words of Moses, " And when Abram was ninety years old and nine, the Lord appeared to Abram, and said unto him, I am the Almighty God; walk before me, and be thou perfect:" a declaration of the character of God "the Almighty." There is next indicated the nature of the connection or communion which is to subsist between God and the creature, "Walk before me." There is implied also in that communion, ceaseless progression, "Walk before me;" and lastly, we find the culminating nature of that progression, "Walk before me, and be thou perfect."

"the

This first great truth, the revelation of God as Almighty," was not discovered by the patriarch, but was revealed to him by God. A discovery is something made by reason, capable of greater perfection-a revelation is something given by God, perfect at its very commencement. Reason sets out on a voyage of discovery; faith opens its ear, and listens to the tidings of a revelation. What man

makes, man can improve; what God gives, man can simply receive - he cannot alter, or change, or improve. God reveals himself on this occasion, and in this revelation to Abraham, exactly as the occasion required. Abraham had heard God's promise, that he should have a son in his old age. He and Sarah would not wait God's time, but, thinking that having made a promise He looked to them to fulfil it, they violated one of God's precepts in the foolish attempt to fulfil, what was not their function, one of God's great promises.

The Almighty silences their fears, dissolves all the impossibilities they dreamed of, rebukes their unbelief by telling them in these simple words, "I have given a promise All-suffiif I have done so, I am the El Shaddaicient, I am God Almighty, able to fulfil that promise in its utmost jot and tittle." If God has given us a promise, let us look to his omnipotent power for its fulfilment. We need not be alarmed lest there be failure in the fulfilment of His promises. Our province is, to discharge the duties that are addressed to us in his precepts, and to wait in the exercise of confiding love and persistent patience for the day when all his promises will be proved to be yea and amen. The revelation made to Abraham on this occasion is extremely expressive. "I am the Almighty," which is not the full meaning of El Shaddai; it is, properly translated, "I am the All-sufficient." And that revelation of God to Abraham is as precious to us. Do you ask, "How shall God be just while he justifies?" The answer is -"I am the Allsufficient." Do you ask. given?" The answer is you ask, "How shall man be just before God? How shall God be just, while he justifies them that believe?" "I am the All-sufficient God" is the pledge that every promise given in his truth shall be carried out in his power, and

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"How shall my sins be for"I am the All-sufficient."

Do

you

that not one jot or tittle shall fail till heaven and earth shall all pass away. When difficulties accumulate before us, let us look at all difficulties in the path of duty in this beautiful light. If you look at the difficulties alone, you will despair if look at God's character alone, you may perhaps presume; but if you look at the difficulty in the light of the All-sufficient God, the difficulty will disappear: God will take its place, your hearts will be encouraged, Divine strength will be made perfect in weakness, and you will be more than conquerors through Him that loved you and gave himself for you. Therefore let us begin the rough and the dusty road of life, just as Abraham the patriarch began his, with this preliminary announcement sounding in our hearts,"My God is the All-sufficient, the Almighty God." Just as our Lord taught his disciples to begin their prayers with these words, "Our Father which art in heaven," so we are to carry God's relationship to us, and God's attribute, "the All-sufficient," into all that betides us. If we judge what God is by what befalls us, we shall conclude he is an angry and an offended Being; but if we start with the preconviction, "God is my Father," and then judge of what betides us by what God is declared to be, every thing will seem beautiful and full of love, and working for our good. The natural man, as we have seen, argues from his affliction up to God; the Christian man argues from God down to his affliction. The natural man looks at God in the light of his trials, and therefore he is cast down; the Christian man looks at his trials in the light of God, his Father, and therefore his heart is not troubled; he believes in God, and believes also in Jesus.

Let us study, in the next place, God's command "Walk before me." What does this mean? We can understand it by referring to parallel passages of Scripture. We read, for instance, of "God before whom my father did