fill their minds with gloom and their mouths with lamentation; but there is no need for this, and it ought not so to be. Good men have themselves to blame; for if they were to act rightly their meditations would always be sweet. David was determined that his meditations should not be bitter. He says, "My meditations of God shall be sweet," not "may be sweet," but "shall be sweet." He does not say, "Oh, that my meditations of God were sweet!" but " My meditations of Him shall be sweet." And, if we were to come to the same resolute determination, our meditations of God would be as sweet as ever David's were. The pleasant Psalms of David, which spring from his pleasant meditations on God, have earned for him the delightful appellation of "the sweet singer of Israel." But if he had meditated on God as many do, his title would have been "the gloomy bard of Israel," or "the croaking raven of Jerusalem." Those gloomy meditations on God which some good people cherish present religion to the world in a most repulsive garb, and scare away from the Church many who desire to be religious, but who can never think of living a life of moping, melancholy, monastic austerity; and, therefore, it is the bounden duty of every Christian to resolve with David, "My meditation of Him shall be sweet." It is a duty we owe to ourselves; for it would add to our holiness, usefulness, and blessedness; for the joy of the Lord is our strength. It is a duty we owe to the Church; for it would greatly increase the number of Christ's devoted followers, and add immensely to the joy of believers. And now, consider how easily this resolution may be carried into effect.

(1) Whenever we meditate on God we should remember His paternal character. However great, wise, holy, and powerful God is, yet we should always remember that He is our Father-our reconciled Father; and that, "Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him. For He knoweth our frame; He remembereth that we are dust.” We are all too apt to forget this close and most interesting relationship; therefore, our meditations partake of the painful rather than the pleasant. But if in all our meditations of God we were ever to bear in mind the fatherhood of God, and remember that we are the objects of His sincere, ardent, constant love; of His unwearied solicitude, care, and protection; that He has numbered the hairs of our heads, that nothing can happen to us without His knowledge, that He keeps us as the apple of His eye, and that in the order of His providence He will make all things work together for our good, then our meditations of Him would be unutterably sweet. For as a son rejoices in the wisdom, power, goodness, and wealth of an earthly father-knowing that all will be used for his benefit and not to his injury, even so should we then

rejoice in the wisdom, power, goodness, and wealth of our heavenly Father, knowing that He will employ all for our present and eternal good.

(2) Whenever we meditate on God we should remember that when He chastises us it is for our profit, that we may be made partakers of His holiness. Too many view God as a cruel, vindictive Being; therefore they cannot think of Him with pleasure. They regard the doctrine of atonement with dislike, and God's providential dealings with men as partial and unjust. They think a merciful God would never have required an atonement; and that a just God would never allow His creatures to suffer as men have to suffer. But these views are erroneous, pre-eminently anti-scriptural. God's love provided the atonement, not His wrath. He loved Christ with an infinite love, though He gave Him to be the propitiation for our sin. Then, again, physical evil and mental anguish often educe moral good. The tree needs pruning; the child needs correcting; and man needs chastisement. Under God's judgments men often learn righteousness. Christians often indulge the cruel thought that God is harsh when they have to smart under the rod. If He take away a relative, or deprive them of worldly comforts, or of health, we think Him unkind; and the rebellious words are sometimes uttered, Why should He deal thus with me? Whenever we indulge these unkind thoughts of God our meditations are sure to be bitter. The reason why we ever indulge such thoughts is because we forget the exhortation which speaketh unto us as unto children: "My son, despise not" (Heb. xii. 5—14). With these assurances we ought to banish from our minds the unkind, injurious thought that God takes pleasure in trials, afflictions, and sorrows. If we were always to recollect in our meditations on God that when He afflicts it is for our advantage, that we may become partakers of His holiness and blessedness, that He chastises us to wean us from some idol, to prevent us from falling into some sin, to detach us from the world, and to make us fully meet for the inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away; then our meditations on God, in the darkest hours of earthly trouble, would be inexpressibly sweet.

(3) Whenever we meditate on God we should ever associate with our meditations the delightful thought that we shall soon behold His glory and enter into His joy. Pious people often embitter their meditations on God by giving way to irrational and unscriptural fears about their safety. They will think, at times, that after all they will never reach heaven. These thoughts awaken their fears; but both thoughts and fears are childish, and far, very far below the dignity of the Christian character. We ought to remember that

Christ has purchased heaven for us by His most precious blood; that He has ascended to heaven and claimed the inheritance on oui behalf; that He is busy preparing mansions for our residence; that He is sending down His grace to refresh us and support us on our journey to the heavenly Canaan; and that when we arrive at the Jordan of death He will be with us in the swellings of Jordan and conduct us safely across the river of death into the promised kingdom of glory. If when we were enemies we were reconciled unto God by the death of His Son, much more being reconciled we shall be saved by His life. Have faith in Christ, who is bound by His oath, His promises, and His blood, to preserve us unto His heavenly kingdom and to present us faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy. If we would only thus meditate on God, then our meditations of Him would be sweet, "sweeter than honey or the honeycomb."

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Unconverted sinners! Your meditations of God cannot be sweet while you are living in sin and neglecting the great salvation. If you dwell upon God's nature, you must know that He, being an infinite Spirit, sees and knows all your wickedness. think of His justice and holiness, you must know that you are hateful in His sight. If you think of His truth and faithfulness, you must know that you cannot go unpunished. If you think upon the love of God, If you must know you are despising it. the upon power of God, you must know that He is able to destroy. If you think upon the eternity of God, you must know that He will ever exist to punish your wicked rebellion. Therefore, thoughts of God must be unpleasant to you, and you often strive to banish Him from your minds; were it possible, you would forget God altogether. You may succeed in forgetting God in this world if you try, but death will bring Him to your remembrance; and in hell you will never for a single moment have Him out of your thoughts. There you must meditate upon Him; and the remembrance of Him will be more bitter than gall. Let me prevail upon you, before it be too late, to remember your Creator, to think upon your Redeemer, and to cry with all your might for the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Ghost. Oh, come now to the throne of grace, and obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

SOME people have really picked themselves threadbare with selfexamination. Friends, try a new experiment; whenever tempted to look at self for comfort and strength, look away immediately to Christ, and see if His beauty is not more to be desired than all your subtle selfishness. "Looking unto Jesus" we grow like Him.

MADAGASCAR.

THE recent action of the French Government with regard to Madagascar has stimulated public interest in a country in which the English people have for some generations taken more than a mere selfish interest. Indeed, the Christian philanthropy of this country has found in the great African island a congenial field for exercise, and now, as we are often reminded, the Mission Church has at least a thousand congregations, as well as a vast number of children in course of education within the area of its influence. Because, as a rule, people do not read missionary reports and chronicles, the popular notion concerning Queen Ranavalo's territory and the manners and customs of the people has been vague and unsatisfactory. In order to correct this misapprehension, a London daily paper has recently despatched a special correspondent to Madagascar; and in his first letter the island is described as a new field for English enterprise. The notion is entertained, with some reason, that Madagascar is about to enter on a new era of prosperity, and that the development of her resources will be among the wonders of the closing years of this century. In what degree the threatened civil war may interfere with this prospect, and with the numerous stations which the missionaries have established, we shall not venture any opinion. It seems certain, however, that should the present crisis develop into war, the fratricidal strife will rekindle a good deal of that ferocious instinct which is inseparable from the nature of a people who were recently in a state of paganism. The article on Madagascar in the fifteenth volume of the Encyclopædia Britannica, just published, is by the Rev. J. Sibree, Jun., and a tolerably complete, though of course condensed, summary of our present knowledge will there be found. We speak of our present knowledge, because it is admitted that a country whose total area is 230,000 square miles, or nearly four times the extent of England and Wales, is still only imperfectly explored. The population is estimated at 2,500,000. From the nearest shores of Africa (at Mozambique) Madagascar is distant 246 miles. Its climate is various. The heat on the coasts is often intense, but on the high land of Ankova the thermometer rarely rises above 85 deg.; in the winter, that is from May to October, it often sinks at the same place to 40 deg. On the coast the rains are nearly constant, beginning in the evening and lasting sometimes all night. In the interior the winter is dry and agreeable. The Madagascar fever of the coasts is as fatal to the natives of the interior as to Europeans; and yet only Ankova, with some elevated

spots at the northern extremity of the island, and at the south near Fort Dauphin, are exempt from it. One district on high ground, two days' journey from the capital, is so fatal, that sentence of exile to that spot is equivalent to sentence of death.

Although the interior of Madagascar has not yet been much explored by botanists, enough is known of the vegetable productions of the island to prove their richness and variety. The most important trees are the baobab, the ravinala, or traveller's tree, and a kind of sago-tree, from the filamentous leaves of which is made a kind of cloth, while the stem furnishes a drink like spruce-beer; besides numerous dyeing-woods, tamarinds, sugar-cane trees, and shrubs yielding indiarubber, and the zozora, or papyrus, peculiar to the island. Ginger, pepper, and indigo grow wild in the woods; cotton, sugar-cane, tobacco, and hemp are cultivated. Except in the north-west and west, where the Sakaládas subsist chiefly on arrowroot, the principal food of the inhabitants is rice. Manioc, maize, cocoanut (on the coast), the plantain, the banana, millet, beans, and several kinds of yams, add to the general abundance. Coffee thrives well, and there are ten or twelve trees yielding vegetable oils.

There are few formidable wild animals in Madagascar, and the list of its beasts of prey embraces only an ounce, or small leopard, the wild dog, wild cat, and bushy-tailed fox. Among the most characteristic animals are the lemurs. Crocodiles are numerous in most of the rivers, but in general they are not considered to be dangerous. Snakes of great size are often met with, but there are few venomous species; scorpions and centipedes, however, are common; and there is a spider, the bite of which is said to be often fatal. The birds are very numerous, and poultry plentiful. The horned cattle, in which chiefly lies the wealth of the inhabitants, are of the humped kind, like those of India. There are, however, wild cattle in the forests which have no hump. The Madagascar sheep resemble those of the Cape of Good Hope, being long-legged and fat-tailed, clothed with hair instead of wool, and affording indifferent mutton. Horses have been introduced, and have multiplied rapidly, but not in the wild state. Locusts, which at certain seasons spread in countless multitudes from the south-west over the whole island, are roasted, winnowed to separate the wings, and eaten in large quantities.

The inhabitants of Madagascar, who are known by the name of Malagasy, form substantially a single race, though they are divided into three principal and a great number of minor tribes, and have received a considerable intermixture of blood from the African continent, and also a certain amount of Arab intermixture. All