the soul must be at a low ebb. There is a close connection between this duty and the living presence of religion in the heart.

Let me then urge upon you who profess to walk as Christians, to give heed to these things. As you would preserve the consistency of your Christian profession, as you would grow in the knowledge of God and of your own souls, as you would avoid self-deception and spiritual deadness, as you would keep yourselves free from a worldly spirit, and would attain a clear knowledge of the gospel and continue therein, as you would avoid falling away from the path of eternal life, neglect not the practice of private prayer. And to those who disregard this duty, whether they profess and call themselves Christians or not, let me finally appeal. My brethren, if you have no pleasure in prayer, and live without lifting up your hearts to God in daily worship, be assured that you are destitute of an essential evidence of fitness for His presence. Do not imagine that you can live rightly before God without prayer; that you can be Christians without prayer; or that you can have any firm foundation for hope of eternal life, while you live daily without the recognition, at the footstool of mercy and grace, of your sinfulness, your dependence, and your desire for the grace of God. If you live without habitual prayer, you will die without any sure hope. May God then enable you to seek His presence in earnest, and may He endue you with that spirit which shall always prompt the cry, "God be merciful to me a sinner."

XXXIX.

SO RUN THAT YE MAY OBTAIN.

"Know ye not, that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain."

1 COR. ix. 24.

THESE words, from the Epistle for the day, convey a truth which is expressed in a doctrinal form in the passage with which the Gospel ends, — "many be called, but few chosen." The Scriptures often and most solemnly reiterate this truth in many forms of expression, as one which the human heart is in great danger of neglecting: "Strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.” "Strive to enter in at the strait gate: for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able." Of all those to whom the way of life is made known, an innumerable multitude in every age, we are taught that few pursue it, and continue faithfully to walk in it until they arrive at the end, even the eternal salvation of their souls. A "remnant," only, of the ancient Israelites, composed the true Israel of God, as the prophet Isaiah had declared. "Though the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, a remnant shall be saved." The great body of the people to whom

God and the Saviour and his own soul, that he allows himself to relax the strictness of his religious purposes, as if in obedience to the necessity of his position, and supposes that if the latter were altered, he would become much more devoted to the great work of life. But in all such reflections there is much self-deception, and a fatal impression of the purposes of God towards us as individuals. To a certain and great extent, our lot is controlled by the providence of God; and so far as temptations and trials thus come to us, they are a part of the probation through which we are to pass; and if we fail under this discipline, we have no reason to think we should have done better had God's providence ordered our lives differently. The very blessings of God, such as health, temporal prosperity, and earthly friends, are often occasions of danger; and if men fall from their Christian devotedness through the allurements of property, and in consequence of the associations of earthly friendship not favorable to the spiritual interests of the soul, it is because they abuse the mercy of God and forget the design of His goodness. And yet nothing is more common than this attempt to find in our providential and merciful lot the cause of our sins. The heart follows in this the example of the first father of the race. When the Almighty charged upon him his first act of disobedience, he said, "The woman whom Thou gavest to be with she gave me of the tree, and I did eat."

me,

If God sends many blessings, they may become, through an evil heart, sources of temptation. If He withdraws those blessings, the temptations change, but they are temptations still. Thus the rich may find them in their riches, and the poor in their poverty; the strong and healthy in their strength, and the weak and sickly in their weakness; those in high position in their earthly honor, and those in low estate in their want of the favor of man. With outward changes, duties and temptations vary indeed, but the great causes of danger and difficulty in the work of salvation remain. The hermit flies from the busy world to the desert; but although the temptations of the world may thus be eluded, those from within his own heart may increase in power by the very fact of his loneliness. One in disgust, or from an earnest but ascetic purpose, forsakes the world, and seeks to commune uninterruptedly with his God; but he carries with him the same heart, the same passions, the same appetites, and if he has not subdued and controlled these when in the world, he will not find that this can be done by a mere change of the outward life. This is the truth we are to learn and apply from such experience: that, whatever and wherever our lot, in the providence of God, we are to use it, and by firm and resolute religious purposes overrule it for the highest ends of a religious life. We are to accept it as the sphere of probation to which we are called, and by God's blessing turn it to the great end of

the spiritual and eternal good of the soul. And if men sought to regard their providential lot in this light, it would not so often be found an apparent hindrance to the great end of existence. Whether marked by temporal prosperity, or by adversity, it would be made to promote their spiritual and eternal interests. These may advance under all the varying circumstances of life, and it would be difficult to determine what external condition is most favorable to them. The great dangers and difficulties which every Christian must encounter are thus seen to exist under all circumstances and in all temporal conditions; and the difference in Christian character and life consists in the degrees to which the servant of Christ carries with him in all relations and all positions the spirit of Him whom he serves. If it be his supreme object to live unto God, and to work out his salvation, he will not find his providential lot a hindrance, but on the other hand will discover that "all things work together for good, to them that love God." He will be able, in some degree, to enter into the experience of him who declared, "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors, through Him that loved us."

From no such varying circumstances do the great trials and difficulties of Christian life spring. Wherever the Christian moves, they follow him;