that every other book in the world were lost, and the Bible preserved, than that we should lose the Bible, and with the Bible lose faith in God.

And now, my friends, what shall we learn from this?

What shall we learn? Have we not learnt enough already? If we have learnt something more of who God is-if we have learnt that he is a God in whom we can trust through joy and sorrow, through light and darkness, through life and death-have we not learnt enough for ourselves? Yes, if even those poor and weak words about God which I have just spoken, could go home into all your hearts, and take root, and bear fruit there, they would give you a peace of mind, a comfort, a courage among all the chances and changes of this mortal life, and a hope for the life to come, such as no other news which man can tell you will ever give. But there is one special lesson which we may learn from the history of the flood, of which I may as well tell you at once. The Bible account of the flood will teach us how to look at the many terrible accidents, as we foolishly call them, which happen still upon this earth. There are floods still, here and there, earthquakes, fires, fearful disasters, like that great colliery disaster of last year, which bring death, misery, and ruin to thousands. The Bible tells us

what to think of them, when it tells us of the flood.

Do I mean that these disasters come as punishments to the people who are killed by them? That is exactly what I do not mean. It was true of the flood. It is true, no doubt, in many other cases. But our blessed Lord has specially forbidden us to settle when it is true to say that any particular set of people are destroyed for their sins: forbidden us to say that the poor creatures who perish in this way are worse than their neighbours.

'Thinkest thou,' he says, 'that those Galilæans 'whose blood Pilate mingled with their sacrifices, 6 were sinners above all the Galilæans? Or those 'eighteen, on whom the tower in Siloam fell, and 'killed them; think you that they were sinners ' above all who dwelt in Jerusalem? I tell you nay.'

'Judge not,' he says, and ye shall not be 'judged,' and therefore we must not judge. We have no right to say, for instance, that the terrible earthquake in Italy, two years ago, came as a punishment for the sins of the people. We have no right to say that the twenty or thirty thousand human beings, with innocent children among them by hundreds, who were crushed or swallowed up by that earthquake in a few hours, were sinners above all that dwelt in Italy. We must not say that, for the Lord God himself has forbidden it.

But this we may say (for God himself has said it in the Bible), that these earthquakes, and all other disasters, great or small, do not come of themselves-do not come by accident, or chance, or blind necessity; but that he sends them, and that they fulfil his will and word. He sends them, and therefore they do not come in vain. They fulfil his will, and his will is a good will. They carry out his purpose, but his purpose is a gracious purpose. God may send them in anger; but in his anger he remembers mercy, and his very wrath to some, is part and parcel of his love to the rest. Therefore these disasters must be meant to do good, and will do good, to mankind. They may be meant to teach men, to warn them, to make them more wise and prudent for the future, more humble and aware of their own ignorance and weakness, more mindful of the frailty of human life, that remembering that in the midst of life we are in death, they may seek the Lord while he may be found, and call upon him while he is near. They may be meant to do that, and to do a thousand things more. For God's ways are not as our ways, or his thoughts as our thoughts. His ways are unsearchable, and his paths past finding Who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him, or even settle what the Lord means by doing this or that ?

out.

All we can say is,-and that is a truly blessed thing to be able to say,-that floods and earthquakes, fire and storms, come from the Lord whose name is Love; the same Lord who walked with Adam in the garden, who brought the children of Israel out of Egypt, who was born on earth of the Virgin Mary, who shed his lifeblood for sinful man, who wept over Jerusalem even when he was about to destroy it so that not one stone was left on another, and who, when he looked on the poor little children of Judæa, untaught or mistaught, enslaved by the Romans, and but too likely to perish or be carried away captive in the fearful war which was coming on their land, said of them, 'It is not the will of your Father in 'heaven, that one of these little ones shall perish.' Him at least we can trust, in the dark and dreadful things of this world, as well as in the bright and cheerful ones; and say with Job, Though 'he slay me, yet will I trust in him. I have ' received good from the hands of the Lord, and 'shall I not receive evil?'

SERMON V.

ABRAHAM.

(First Sunday in Lent.)

GENESIS XVii. 1, 2.

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.

HAVE told you that the Bible reveals, that is, unveils, the Lord God, Jesus Christ our Lord, and through him God the Father Almighty. I have tried to show you how the Bible does so, step by step. I go on to show you another step which the Bible takes, and which explains much that has gone before.

From whom did Moses and the holy men of old whom Moses taught get their knowledge of God, the true God?

The answer seems to be-from Abraham.

God taught Moses more, much more than he taught Abraham. It was Moses who bade men