could ye not watch with me ONE HOUR? watch and pray, lest ye enter into temptation." If the Lord come not in our day, by his personal presence to end our watching, we still cannot complain of overendurance or exhaustion, seeing we shall be so soon relieved and taken into his nearer presence, there to watch in rest and joy and light, as here we have watched. in weariness and grief and darkness.*

"Blessed consummation of this weary and sorrowful world! I give it welcome, I hail its approach, I wait its coming more than they that watch for the morning. Over the wrecks of a world I weep; over broken hearts of parents, over suffering infancy, over the unconscious clay of sweet innocents, over the untimely births that have never seen the light, or have just looked upon it and shut their eyes for a season, until the glorious light of the resurrection-morn. my Lord, come away! Hasten with all thy congregated ones. My soul desireth to see the King in his beauty, and the beautiful ones whom he shall bring along with him ; when I shall see these sweet babes, snatched from a parent's weeping eyes, and a parent's sorrowful yet joyful heart."-IRVING'S Lectures on the Revelation, vol. i. p. 77.

CHAPTER III.

THE EARNESTS OF THE MORNING.

THE true morning has not yet broken; hardly does it give forth any sign of breaking, save the deeper darkness that is the sure foreteller of the dawn.

It is still night upon the earth; and "the children of the night" are going to and fro in the world's streets, doing "the unfruitful works of darkness;" "walking in lasciviousness, lusts, excess of wine, revellings, banquetings, and abominable idolatries;" yielding to the "flattering lips" of the seducer, that "lieth in wait at every corner," in "the black and dark night" (Prov. vii. 9-21); making "provision for the flesh," by "living in rioting

THE EARNESTS OF THE MORNING. 33

and drunkenness, in chambering and wantonness, in strife and envying" (Rom. xiii. 13); compassing themselves about with sparks of their own kindling, which only sadden the gloom and make us feel more truly that it is NIGHT.

It is still night to the church; a night of danger, a night of weariness, a night of weeping. Her firmament is dark and troubled. The promise of morning is sure, and she is looking out for it with fixed and pleading eye, sore tried with the long gloom. Yet it has not arisen. It is still deferred-deferred in mercy to an unready world, to whom the ending of this night shall be the closing of hope, and the sealing of ruin, and the settling down of the infinite darkness. For the Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness, but is long-suffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance."

But though it is night, there are times,

both in the saint's own history and the church's annals, which may be spoken of as mornings even now. Such was the 66 morning" to Adam when Seth was born to him after Abel's death. (Gen. iv. 25.) Such was the "morning morning" to Noah when the flood dried up, and the face of the earth was renewed. Such was the 66 ing" to Jacob when the tidings came to him that Joseph was yet alive. Such was the "morning" to Naomi when Ruth and Boaz wiped off the tears of widowhood, and when in her old age she " saw her

morn

seed," and "took the child and laid it in her bosom." (Ruth iv. 16.) Such was Hannah's "morning" when, after long years of bitterness," the Lord granted her petition," and " she went her way and was no more sad." (1 Sam. i. 18.) Such was the "morning" that dawned on Job when the Lord accepted him, and turned his captivity, giving him twice as much as he had before, "blessing his latter end more

Such was Israel's

than his beginning."* "morning" when the Lord turned back the captivity of Zion, " making them like men that dream," filling "their mouth with laughter and their tongue with singing," in the day of their deliverance from exile.

Thus there are "mornings mornings" ever and anon bursting on us now. They are indeed little more than brief brightenings of the darkness-lulls in the long tempest that is to rage unspent till the Lord come. Still we may call them "mornings," just as we give the name of mid-day to the dim kindlings of the sky at daily noon, in the six months' arctic night, when the sun

*Job xlii. 9-12.

Yet even here there seems an allusion to the true morning yet to come, and an intimation that all this restored fulness was but an 66 earnest. For, as has been remarked, while Job has all his sheep, oxen, &c. exactly doubled to him, his children are not doubled. He had lost seven, and he gets back but seven; for he must look to the resurrection-morning for the restoration of his seven lost ones, and not till then is he to get the double.