passing day, by which he must provide for its wants, comes under the description of the text: he fulfils the duty and will be invested with the privilege there represented.

(4.) "They also serve, who only stand and wait:" they are humbly faithful, who, scarcely known or noticed, bear with patience the chastening rod of their Father in heaven, and thus edify the little sphere in which they have been placed.

(5.) There are, every day, and every hour, a thousand apparently minute circumstances, which may try our temper, and affect our manners and conversation. Now if in what is reputed as thus little, we be faithful-if we be free from violent passion, unseemly behaviour, improper and unkind discoursewe are, so far, disciples of him who came to set up a spiritual kingdom on earth, and who from all its subjects requires activity and usefulness answering to their respective advantages.

(6.) Further, Most of the incidents of every man's life may be styled little: yet the application that we make of them is important; and here we can manifest fidelity in improving our least gifts and smallest privileges.

(7.) Our advantages for the more direct cultivation of our intellectual and spiritual powers are various : many of them, it may be, of no great account in

the eyes of the young, the thoughtless and the gay. Nevertheless, they may and will be of the utmost moment in their results; that is, as they are faithfully or unfaithfully employed. HE WHO DESPISETH

SMALL THINGS, SHALL FALL BY LITTLE AND LITTLE.

SERMON XVII.

THE PARABLE OF THE BARREN

FIG TREE.

LUKE xiii. 7.-CUT IT DOWN: WHY CUMBERETH IT THE

GROUND?

THE parable whence these words are taken, is a lively representation of the degeneracy of the Jews of our Saviour's age, and of the punishment awaiting their impenitence. It explains his intention in devoting the barren fig tree to destruction,* by which symbolical act he signified his country's guilt and doom; and it was awfully fulfilled, forty years after his death, in the capture of Jerusalem by the Roman army. But, although delivered on a specific occasion, and with immediate reference to one people, it applies to other communities, both civil and religious, and is, moreover, descriptive of the situation of many individual men. At present, I shall consider it chiefly in the latter of these views; request

Mark xi. 12-15.

ing your attention to the seasonable and impressive warnings that it conveys.

Four propositions will comprize the instruction suggested by this parable:

We are furnished by Almighty God with ample means for the attainment of solid bliss;

He reasonably expects that we make a just use of these advantages;

He is wonderfully forbearing to men's ingratitude and supineness;

Our reformation and welfare are the object of His long-suffering, which, if it be slighted by us, He will withdraw, and cause our future condition to be proportionably wretched.

I. I observe, in the first place, that we are supplied by Almighty God with ample opportunities for the attainment of solid bliss.

To use the imagery of this parable-we are planted in His vineyard, where we receive all needful tendance -we possess sufficient degrees of health, strength, reason and leisure, to store our minds with useful knowledge, and to discipline our hearts by religious principle we have relatives, friends, to direct, advise and restrain us, as circumstances demand. Opportunities are statedly given us of reading the Scriptures within our homes, and of hearing their contents illustrated and enforced in our Christian assemblies.