THE SECOND SUNDAY AFTER

CHRISTMAS.

THE UNKNOWN PATH.

And I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not; I will lead them in paths that they have not known.-ISA. xlii. 16.

GOD would lead Israel by a way that had not yet been trodden; He would redeem her from Babylon, not as He delivered her from Egypt in the distant past, but by inclining towards her the heart of her captor; He would bring her with a gentle but a strong hand out of the power of her enemy, and lead her by an unknown way to her own land. The words of the text that applied so long ago to Israel as a nation, are applicable to our individual life as we confront the future. They speak of

I. THE UNKNOWN, UNTRODDEN PATH BEFORE US. 1. It is an unknown path which we are about to tread. Our powerlessness to forecast the future is a very familiar theme, but it remains an unlearnt lesson. We "think in our heart" that we can divine it with some approach to correctness; but the event proves that we were wrong. Let the child or even the young man draw an outline of his anticipated career, and let that line be compared with the one which really marks his course; what a divergence will there be! Who of us can calculate, with any confidence, on the point where we shall stand in twelvemonth's time? Who of us can assure his heart, with any certainty, that the path immediately before him will lead through the sunshine, will take him to the uplands of prosperity and joy? Who of us can convince himself that the coming months will not find him walking along a clouded way, bereft of that which is most precious, of those who are most dear to him? We are not indeed absolutely "blind"; we are able and obligated to consider what does await us, for whom we shall provide, and for what we should be prepared; yet do we but dimly see our way. 2. It is an untrodden path. As the second great Divine deliverance of Israel differed materially from the first, so God's

dealings with individual men differ with the several periods of their life. There is never a point at which we may not say that we "have not passed this way heretofore." The future may be a resemblance, but it will not be a repetition of the past. The coming year will have for us all some passages which no past year has had. "In paths that we have not known" our feet will be sure to walk. It may be that experiences altogether new and important await as; we shall certainly find ourselves in surroundings which will demand wisdom, patience, and loyalty. How glad shall we be, therefore, of

II. THE GUIDANCE OF OUR GOD. "I will bring. I will lead." There are two ways by which God leads His people. 1. By controlling their circumstances. God may preserve us from taking the wrong path by providentially blocking the way in which we might otherwise have walked; and who shall tell how many or how great are the sorrows and the sins from which He thus delivers us as we pass through the various periods of our life? Or He may keep us from a false movement, or induce us to make the true one by bringing us unto the fellowship of some wise friend whose timely counsel either dissuades or determines us. 2. By influencing their minds. "God is with us," in the deepest and fullest sense of those simple yet significant words. He is nearer to us than our nearest friends; and He can influence us more powerfully than the wisest and strongest of our teachers or our guardians. "He lays His hand upon us," and that touch of His, tenderest yet mightiest of forces, will make all the difference between ignorance and insight, between delusive folly and redeeming wisdom.

III. HIS DISPOSITION AND FREEDOM TO HELP US. 1. That God is disposed to help us, we need not doubt. (1) His sovereignty over Israel would account for all His watchfulness over that people; and His Fatherhood of every human spirit will certainly ensure His Divine interest in each one of His children; and if this were an insufficient bond to constrain such condescending notice, we have but to remember that Jesus Christ is the Divine Saviour and

Friend of every one of His people, most tenderly united to each of them by the strongest ties. The Good Shepherd cares, and cares much, for every sheep of His flock. (2) Our Lord's intimation of the Father's care for all His creatures, and His own a fortiori argument therefrom ("Ye are of more value than many sparrows."—Luke xii. 7), is convincing proof to all Christian minds that our God is thinking upon" us, that He is mindful of our necessities, and is shaping our course from day to day. 2. That God is free to help us, we may also be assured. Nothing is more incredible than that the Father of spirits, the Saviour of souls, should, by the established order of nature which He has constructed, have to cut Himself off from His human family, that, however earnestly they cried to Him, He would not be at liberty to respond to them. The Fatherhood of God carries with it the Divine freedom to help His children when they cry unto Him. That He should not weaken our sense of the imperative claims of duty and diligence by too obviously and constantly interposing on our behalf, we can readily understand. It is but necessary that He should touch some link in the chain of causes which is out of our sight: thus, with unseen but unfettered hand, He works on our behalf.

IV. OUR DUTY AND OUR COMFORT. 1. Our duty is threefold. It is (1) to become His children indeed, in the very fullest sense, by living faith in Jesus Christ. (See John i. 12; 1 John iii. 1.) For how can we claim the rights and privileges of sonship if we are estranged from Him? (2) To live before God as His obedient children, that our service and submission may win His Fatherly delight and His parental longing to bless us. (3) To ask for His constant guidance in daily prayer. To His dutiful and prayerful child the Father of heaven is very near, to hearken and to help. 2. Our comfort is great indeed. God will be our guide; He will lead us whithersoever we go; a heavenly Father's hand will trace the track we shall pursue. He will be our vanguard, and be our rereward (chap. lii. 12).

Even though we have to tread some death-shadowed valley, we will fear no evil because He will be with us. He will "know our soul" in any adversities that may befall us. He will lead us by the right way toward the heavenly city. He who directs the waterfowl will surely be our guide, all the year through, "even unto death."

THE FIRST SUNDAY AFTER EPIPHANY.

SATISFACTION AND DISSATISFACTION.

Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.-MATT. vi. 2.

THESE words of our Lord contain thought which may go far to fortify our mind against that which is apt to trouble us, and they may stir our souls to seek that which should attract us. There is in them

1. A GOOD REASON FOR SATISFACTION. How is it, we ask sadly and even complainingly, that the wicked prosper as they do? How is it that the man we are convinced is nothing but a hypocrite stands so high in public estimation? How is it that the man whose ambition is so low and so unworthy is "riding in the high places"? How is it that the man who has no respect for the rights of others, either men or women, but only seeks his own pleasure, is living such a life of enjoyment and success? Where is the Divine Ruler, and where the penalty which should be paid by these men, but is not? Now, our Master's words provide us with the answer to this difficulty. They nave their reward, and no more. 1. The hypocrite, you say, is honoured and prized by his contemporaries. He is; and has he not paid a heavy price for all the honour he receives? He has paid the price of attending services in which he takes no interest, of offering a large number of prayers in which there has been much constraint and no spontaneity; he has compelled himself to abstain from a great many indulgences of which he has been longing to partake; he has been working in fields where all labour has been toil to him; he has had years of hard restraint and strong constraint; he has borne a heavy burden; he has paid' his price,-let him wear his honours for his brief day; they represent a large amount of labour and of suffering. 2. The men who are "of this world" and whose "portion is in this life" do often rise to great estate and possess a fair heritage. But have they not paid their price for it? They have devoted all their time and their strength, they have sacrificed all the finer and nobler aspirations of their soul to attain the prize of their vain ambition. Why should we "envy the sinner" (Prov. xxiii. 17)-he only has his appropriate reward; if we were willing to pay

such a price, we might have the same; but we are not willing. 3. The man of pleasure has his forbidden, his unholy gratifications. But what has he paid for them? What degradation of his powers, what disregard of his friends, what loss of self-respect, what decline of health and strength, what risk of life itself! What wise man would make so great a sacrifice for so small and poor a good? Unholy pleasure is the costliest thing that a man can buy the "man of pleasure" is the last man who can be said to be overpaid. We have here also

:

II. A GOOD REASON FOR DISSATISFACTION. The emphasis in the text is on the word have. Christ would say that the hypocrites, if they only knew it, had profound reason for being dissatisfied with themselves and with their portion, because they are in the position of men who have nothing more to look for. What they are reaping constitutes all the harvest they will attain. Their recompense is before them. Their whole estate is within their sight, there is nothing beyond the horizon. They do not move toward their hope, every step is but leaving it behind. They have their reward! How pitiable is the portion of those who are content to strive for that which can be rewarded with present and passing good! 1. The schoolboy who has the reward of his idleness in momentary mirth, or of his "cribbing" in transient success, but has no reward to look for in later days, when a mind well stored with knowledge and well trained with patient study would yield fitness for the path of life and the post of honour. 2. The pretender, whether in business, medicine, law, legislature, or religion, who by certain arts acquires a temporary success that may be brilliant in its way, but has nothing beyond to count upon,-no blessing from those he has benefited by faithful service, no approval from his own conscience, no satisfaction in looking back from the time of old age on a work that has been truly and nobly done. 3. The superficial worker in the field of holy service. He may gain his large audience, he may glory in his long lists of contributions, he may be crowned with the wreath of popularity; but his soul should be deeply dissatisfied if, after all, he has only been building with "wood, hay, and stubble" which the fires of experience and temptation will reduce to ashes. He is one of those truly pitiable men who "have their reward." He has nothing to hope for. All that he has earned he has been paid. For

him there is no "Well done!" to greet his entrance into another world, no celestial blessing from those whom he instructed and led in Divine wisdom, no broad sphere, enlarged and amplified by patient and faithful service to fill in the heavenly kingdom.

(1) Do not envy those who reap their reward by sacrificing the future to the present, the spritual to the temporal: pity them profoundly; they are as men who have no hope. To secure an immediate good they have blotted out the future. Life without hope is a melancholy failure; it is a sinful sacrifice. (2) Question your own aim, lest it be unworthy; lest it fall from a noble aspiration to an ignoble ambition. Are you building for to-day, or for to-morrow? Is yours an edifice which the fires that try every man's work will consume? Or are you building for life, or (what is better still) for immortality?

THE SECOND SUNDAY AFTER

EPIPHANY.

SIN THE SUPREME MISTAKE.

Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread? and your labour for that which satisfieth not? Hearken diligently unto ine, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness.—Isa. lv. 2. ONCE when our Lord looked upon a number of his countrymen "He was moved with compassion for them": it was their religious destitution, and consequent spiritual weariness, that distressed His spirit. And "He began to teach them many things." (Sec Matt. ix. 36—marginal reading—and Mark vi. 34.) He evidently felt that those poor sheep were being grievously misled by false shepherds, that they were being taken out of the green pastures and away from the still waters of heavenly wisdom, unto the dry and arid wastes of a formalism that was starving and killing them. There is, perhaps, no more terrible thought than this-that such a vast amount of human energy is so entirely misspent, that if the very same expenditure of forces now given to unwise and unworthy objects were but directed to those that are wise and worthy, then would poverty, misery, and wrong be replaced by abundance, happiness, and righteousness. The pity of it is that, in every age and beneath every sky, mankind has been spending its money for that which is not bread, its labour for that which does not

satisfy its soul. We may look at the subject in

I. ITS BROAD AND GENERAL ASPECT. We lament the poverty and want that are to be found in our great cities; it is deplorable that so many thousands of men, women, and children should be ill-fed, ill-clad, ill-housed in Europe and even in England to-day. And what may well fill us with shame is the fact that there is no necessity for it. If all the money that is now wasted-wasted by reason of the hard necessities caused by sin and crime, or by reason of evil and imperious habitsupon unproductive labour were but employed in beneficial tillage, or wholesome produce, or in useful structure, what a different world should we be living in. The human race is spending a very large proportion of its "money" on that which "is not bread," which does not provide for its necessities; it is devoting a very serious quantity of its "labour" to that which meets a momentary craving, but does not really "satisfy " its wants, or minister to its strength, or multiply its happiness. To remove, or even to sensibly reduce, this pitiful waste may seem a hopeless task; yet it is one to which, both as good citizens and as Christian men, we should address ourselves, not only with earnestness and resolution, but with intelligence and statesmanship.

II. ITS INDIVIDUAL ASPECT. There is no adequate account of our folly but that which is found in human sin. It is the fact that we "have sinned against the Lord" which alone will explain the fatal error which pervades our life and perverts our activity. We must consider-1. The essential nature of sin. This is nothing other than the departure of the soul from God. We have separated ourselves from God; we have lost our love for Him, and, therefore, our delight in Him and in His service. "We have forsaken the fountain of living waters, and have hewn us out broken cisterns that can hold no water" (Jer. ii. 13). This is our sin, in its very essence: we have left, have forsaken, have lost our God. 2. The miserable mistake that we have made. For, leaving God and losing our heritage in Him, we have sought satisfaction elsewhere, and have not found it. We have sought it in the creature instead of in the Creator, in lower instead of in higher things, and we have been deluded. These lower things have it not in their power to satisfy our senses. Man's life can only be sustained by "bread" not by any kind of chaff, and these things are not bread:

(1) Pleasure is not "bread"; it may be very sweet for a while, and we may congratulate ourselves that in various excitements we have discovered the excellency of life. But it is not long before we find that pleasure fails, that the delights which are born of the flesh grow dull and die. (2) Money is not "bread." To "make money" is necessary, to some extent, in order to discharge the common duties of life; it is also an allowable gratification in itself, when held in check and not permitted to become engrossing and exclusive. But it cannot satisfy the soul. The more men gain the more they need, and the more they crave. It is an appetite that "grows by what it feeds on." (3) Power, position, is not "bread." To minds of a certain structure, the exercise of power, the occupancy of high position in society, is, at first, a pleasant dream, but, after all, an unsatisfying acquisition. They who have climbed to the highest seats of power and of position have found themselves subjected to worries, anxieties, annoyances, jealousies, which have taken the sweetness out of the cup, the enjoyment out of the lot of their life. (4) Human affection is not "bread." The ties that bind us together, heart and life, are very beautiful and sacred. We give God our most heartfelt thanks for them. We take them from His hand as gifts of inestimable value. Yet may we not find in them the portion and heritage of our life. Our friends and kindred die : they become separated from us by bonds which bind them to others and unloose them from ourselves; they may become estranged. And even when the light of human love burns on, steady and bright, even to the end, it is not the light that is needed to shine into the depths of a human soul or to illumine all the path of a human life. We were made for something higher and better still; not even this can fill the heart which God created for Him. self. 3. Our duty which is our wisdom. Since our sin has so abundantly proved to be our folly, since our departure from God has led us into weariness and misery, it is clear that it is our duty and wisdom to return unto the God we have forsaken and find rest and joy in Him. If we are are wise we shall— (1) Hearken diligently to Him when He speaks to us in the Person of His Son. (2) Recognize His sovereign claims upon us, and yield ourselves to Him; accepting Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour of our souls. (3) Find in Him and in His service all that our hearts crave.

In the love of our unfailing Friend; in that happy and holy service which transfigures the lowliest duties and irradiates the commonest days of life; in that unwavering submission which converts pining sorrow into unrepining trustfulness and even into cheerful acquiescence; in those fruitful labours which make us fellow-workers with Christ and the saviours of our fellow-men; in that bright hope which lights up the whole path of life, penetrates the darkness of death, and enters "within the veil";-in all these things we solve the difficulty for which sin can find no solution, we spend our money for that which is "bread"; we eat that which is good; for we partake of that "bread of life," eating of which we never hunger more.

THE THIRD SUNDAY AFTER EPIPHANY.

DOES GOD DEPEND ON MAN? And He did not many mighty works there because of their unbelief. MATT. xiii. 58.

WE might adopt the much stronger words of Mark's Gospel, "He could there do no mighty work," &c. (chap. vi. 5, 6), without being troubled by any serious philosophical or theological difficulty. It is not necessary to conclude that an absolute inability on the part of the Great Healer is there affirmed. The statement of the Evangelist is satisfied by the truth that Jesus Christ required faith on the part of the recipients of His kindness, and by the fact that the men of "His own country" had not the faith He required. We know that-1. God has wrought many and great things for us, unconditionally. He fashioned and fitted up for us our present home; He clothed it with beauty and grandeur; He "greatly enriched" it with the minerals and metals with which He stored its depths; He arranged its recurring seasons; He prepared soil for its seed, and seed for its soil; He conferred upon us our human nature with its noble and even immeasurable capacities;-He did these things, these "mighty works," without our aid or co-operation. He did not demand so much as a volition from any human will as the condition of these Divine works. 2. Jesus Christ wrought the greatest part of His redeeming work unconditionally. Of His own accord, prompted by His own boundless pity, unmoved by any

prayers or efforts of ours, He stooped to take our nature, and to live our life of His own will He carried the burdens and endured the sorrows which He bore; "of Himself" He laid down His life as "of Himself" He took it again; uninspired by any word of ours, He taught His never-dying truth, and left behind Him the "everlasting Gospel " for the human race. 3. Our Heavenly Father is now working for us conditionally. He will not provide for us a well-stored mind of large and fruitful culture without the acquisition of knowledge and the exercise of thought. He will not grant to any one of His children a happy and honoured life without the putting forth of energy and the practice of righteousness. He will not work for us that annual "miracle," that constant "wonder," that great "power," the yearly harvest, except we have the practical and living faith which leads us to plough the soil and sow the seed. If we were to withhold our faith in His gift of sunshine and rain, it is certain that He would withhold His bountiful provision. Under those constant conditions which are the laws by which He is governing the world, He could not do this mighty work because of our unbelief. Our faith in His word (Gen. viii. 22), in His power, in His active and beneficent presence in the works of nature (John v. 17), is the condition of our activity, and our activity is the condition of His bestowment. That God has thus chosen to make His action depend upon ours is seen and illustrated

in

The

I. THE HEALING WORK OF CHRIST. statement of the text is amply confirmed by other incidents in the life of Christ and other passages of Scripture. Of these the most striking is the act of healing recorded in Mark ix. 14-27: "If Thou canst do anything," implored the father of the afflicted child. "If thou canst believe," replied the Lord, "all things are possible to him that believeth.' Without some measure of faith on the part of the recipient, Christ would not, could not have wrought the healing. It would have been a departure from the principle which guided His hand, which determined His course. "Thy faith hath saved thee;"

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according to thy faith be it unto thee;" "thy faith hath made thee whole." These are familiar words which speak of something more than a habit; they certify a sacred principle. For their sake who sought His aid, in order that they might be spiritually as