are exposed still to the more subtle assaults of worldly scorn. The winged shafts of ridicule have pierced through the joints of many a Christian coat of mail, and have wounded even unto death the wearer. Many a man who could not have been tempted out of his faith, has been laughed out of it; and it requires a kindly as well as a noble nature to enable even a Christian to bear with serenity, and without detriment to his spiritual character, the barbed and poison-tipped arrows of worldly hate and of worldly scorn. May we all then learn boldly to confess Christ before men, in order that Christ may confess us befere His Father which is in heaven.

III. THAT IMPIETY EVER IS AT WAR WITH PIETY, AND INJUSTICE WITH JUSTICE.

These presidents and princes, who were doubtless irreligious, unjust, and corrupt, hated Daniel because he was religious, just, and true. Good and evil can never agree together, they must ever be at war. And, as Swift says a genius may be known from the fact that all the dunces are in combination against him, so a good man may be discerned from the fact that he is perpetually attacked by the wicked. "If ye were of the world, the world would love his own; but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you."

IV. THAT ALL OF US, LIKE DANIEL IN THE SCRIPTURES, AND LIKE CHRISTIAN IN THE "PILGRIM'S PROGRESS," MUST PASS THROUGH THE LIONS TO THE PALACE BEAUTIFUL.

This world oftentimes in our hour of gloom seems to us but a den of darkness, a den filled with the wild beasts to which our sins and our errors may be fitly compared.

As we walk along the narrow road of life, we see on both sides dangers and roaring lions, temptations and snares of all kinds, ready to overwhelm us. If we but advance, however, under the directions of Watchful, and with the roll of the Gospel clasped to our breast, we shall find that the dangers that appeared to threaten us disappear; the mouths of the lions are stopped; the lions, it may be, are chained; and we shall be received in safety in the Palace built for pilgrims by the Lord of the hill, and shall be nourished by such Christian graces as Discretion, Prudence, Piety, and Charity. Then indeed we shall find a rest and refuge in the chamber of Peace, and shall catch bright glimpses of the Delectable Mountains and of Immanuel's Land.

No. XXIV.

23rd Sunday after Trinity.-The Baffled Pharisees. "THEN WENT THE PHARISEES, AND TOOK COUNSEL HOW THEY MIGHT ENTANGLE HIM IN HIS TALK. AND THEY SENT OUT UNTO HIM THEIR DISCIPLES WITH THE HERODIANS.-Matt. xxii. 15, 16.

INTRODUCTORY.

THE three great sects amongst the Jews at the time of our Lord, divided according to their religious opinions, were the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the Essenes. Of these, speaking roughly, it may be said that the Pharisees kept to the strict letter of the Mosaic law, with all the tedious and minute elaborations that traditionary interpretation had added on to it; the Sadducees were inclined to adopt pagan laxity of principle and pagan hopelessness of creed, rejecting

many of the obligatory enactments of the law, and denying the reality of any resurrection; and the Essenes, a small band, numbering amongst them such persons probably as those "devout men " who carried Stephen to his burial, were self-denying ascetics, who strove to worship God in spirit and in truth, and who, by their purity of life and spirituality of views, were well-fitted to welcome the Gospel of Christ and to supply our Lord with His earliest and most ardent disciples. The Herodians, a political sect gathered principally from amongst the Sadducees, were persons who strove to cultivate in their own manners and to introduce throughout the Jewish nation those Gentile customs and those Gentile opinions that all the family of the Herods, after whom they were called, desired to practise and to propagate.

A band of Pharisees and of Herodians came, then, to our Lord on the great day of questions with this subtle question whether it was lawful to give tribute to Cæsar (Tiberius) or not. If He had replied that it was lawful, then the multitude around Jesus, who hated the Roman yoke, which they were ever vainly striving to remove, would probably have stoned Him, or at all events would have altered their feelings towards Him from affection or indifference to active hatred and dislike. If, on the other hand, He had declared that it was not lawful to give tribute to Cæsar, then He would have been represented to Pontius Pilate, the Roman procurator of Judæa, as a man who was stirring up the people to insurrection against the Imperial Government of Rome. Here, then, was a dilemma, upon one or other of the horns of which it seemed manifest Christ must be fixed. But the infinite Wisdom avoided the subtle snare. "Show

me," said He," the tribute money," And they brought unto Him a penny. Then, looking at the image of Tiberius, the most beautiful and the most cruel of the Roman emperors, that was stamped upon it, He asked, "Whose is this image and superscription?" They say unto Him, "Cæsar's." Then saith He to them, "Render, therefore, unto Cæsar the things which are Cæsar's, and unto God the things which are God's."

LESSONS TO BE LEARNED.

1. THAT AGAINST THE RIGHTEOUS THE WICKED COMBINE.

The Pharisees, strict observers of the Mosaic law, combined with the Herodians, notorious despisers and violaters of that law, to tempt and to ensnare Christ.

So throughout all history, it has been found that, to accomplish some important object, to remove hated personages, to get rid of some disagreable restriction, men, forgetting their differences, will combine and work heartily together; and that it is not until the desired effect has been attained that their controversial bitterness reawakes. Thus the sons of Jacob, so different in their dispositions, combined to remove Joseph. Thus the varied and divergent sects of the pagan philosophers joined together to stamp out Christianity.

II. THAT AGAINST THE RIGHTEOUS THE WICKED COMBINE IN VAIN.

Their charges are brought to naught, their snares are exposed. Christ could rend asunder the flimsy subtleties of these Pharisees and Herodians; and with Christ's help, His humblest disciple may bid defiance to all the snares of the world, the flesh, and the devil;

and in the hour of trial and temptation will find himself dowered with a more than human strength and courage.

III. THAT OUR DUTY TO GOD AND TO OUR NEIGHBOUR NEVER REALLY CONFLICT.

It is always possible for us, as it is our duty to do to "render unto Cæsar the things which are Cæsar's and unto God the things which are God's." The evil days of persecution for religious opinions have ceased; no one is called on to be a martyr, and no one is called on to resist the properly constituted authorities of the State, or to bid defiance to its judicial tribunals. We were sent into this world to do our duty to man as well as to God, and so it was arranged by an Allwise Providence that these two duties should never come into collision. We shall not render our services more acceptable to the Almighty by entirely neglecting our duties towards our fellow-men, by striving to ignore our human relationships, and flying to the solitary haunts and the self-centred meditations of the morose ascetic. Nay, rather, as this life was intended to be a state of probation to fit us for another life, and as the performance of our duties to man in this life was intended to train us for the performance of our duties to God in another life, it is greatly to be feared that, by an entire neglect here of our duties as mortal men, we disqualify ourselves for the performance hereafter of our duties as immortal spirits. But as we should not neglect our duties to our fellow-men in the vain hope that thereby we made ourselves more acceptable to God, so neither should we neglect our duties to God under the delusion that we can supply the spiritual deficiency that will arise therefrom by a fussy and perpetual interference in the affairs of men.

As we