is set forth as the grand reason why we should be kind, tender-hearted, and forgiving towards one another.

Again, brethren, observe that our sins grieve the Spirit, not only because they are contrary to His nature, but by reason of our ingratitude. He is ever striving with us for our salvation. He has on His side done all hitherto that has been necessary to secure it, and He is ready to do the rest. It was by this "Eternal Spirit that Christ offered Himself without spot to God." The same Spirit inspired the messengers by whom the word was at first delivered. This Spirit is still present in the midst of the Church, and still strives to instruct us and lead us in the right way. To resist Him, then, is great and horrible ingratitude, from which may God preserve us!

If we thwart Him,

Turn ye, turn ye from
His pleasure is our

Our sins grieve the Spirit by their folly, by their tendency to ruin us. It is His aim to save us. we shall have ourselves to thank for our destruction. All His suggestions tend the other way. your evil way; for why will ye die? salvation, and our destruction grieves Him in proportion. If then, by your sins, you perish, it will be your own doing. You will have perversely resisted the Spirit's long-suffering love. How awful are the words of St. Stephen: Ye do always resist the Holy Ghost. It will be no insignificant ingredient in the sufferings of the lost, to remember the strivings of the patient Spirit while their trial lasted; that for their own obstinacy, they died not in the Lord, but their worthless carcases fell in the wilderness; that their stubbornness provoked at last the wrathful oath, They shall not enter into my rest; and that their ruin itself grieved the Spirit, even when in judgment He departed from them, leaving them to perish.

Beware, then, of grieving the Spirit, on account of the heinousness of the crime. Well may we tremble at the thought of the awful power we hold; at the possibility, to say the least, that we have already misused it, and have disturbed with grief the Holy Spirit of God! If we have any reverence for

God, any sense of His sacred Majesty, any dread of incurring most fearful guilt-O brethren! let us be on our guard for the future.

Grieve not the Spirit, because He is the Spirit of love. Have we not all felt that the conduct of the prodigal son in the parable was not more foolish than it was mean and selfish? He thought not of the dishonor he put on his parent, when he prematurely claimed his portion of goods, nor of the grief his vices would occasion when he was wasting his substance in riotous living. He was seeking only his own gratification. Now, if an earthly father grieves over his lost child, how much more the Heavenly! Much greater than the mean selfishness of the prodigal son is ours, when we grieve the holy and loving Spirit of God, whereby we are sealed unto the day of redemption.

Grieve Him not, lest He depart from you. The Israelites in the wilderness rebelled and vexed God's Holy Spirit: therefore He was turned to be their enemy, and He fought against them. (Is. lxiii. 10.) If He should finally depart-all the resources of His long-suffering, exhausted by our resistance, and His yearning to save changed to indignation-far worse will be our condition, and more tremendous our punishment, than if He had never abode with us at all, than if our brows had never felt the washing of His font, nor our foreheads received His mark. O let us listen to God's most kind but awful warning! To-day, if ye will hear His voice, harden not your hearts; as in the provocation, and as in the day of temptation in the wilderness; when your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my works. Forty years long was I grieved with this generation and said; It is a people that do err in their hearts, for they have not known my ways; unto whom I sware in my wrath, that they should not enter into my rest.

"Wherefore if any man thinketh he standeth, let him take heed lest he fall." "Let us pass the time of our sojourning here in fear," "giving all diligence to make our calling and election sure."

Once more, brethren, I beseech you by God's inestimable love in the sending of His Son, "for the Lord Jesus Christ's

sake, for the love of the Spirit," and by your own eternal wellbeing by the wisest, the most sacred and the tenderest reasons which can influence the human being, that you grieve not the Holy Spirit, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption. But who can tell how oft he offendeth? Watchfulness is needful-watchfulness of ourselves, to repress every vain and wicked movement; watchfulness against temptation, lest the enemy enter at some unguarded post; watchfulness of the Spirit, that we may be ready for His every suggestion, wait upon Him with lowly dependence, open our hearts to His influence, follow His leading, and "stir up the gift of God which is in us." (2 Tim. i. 6).

It is a cheering and joyful thought, that if the Spirit is grieved by our sin, He is likewise pleased by our obedience. As the sculptor sees with delight feature after feature, limb after limb, rising into shape, in significance and beauty, under the skilful chisel, so the Spirit rejoices over His works with a Divine joy. When they were finished, He pronounced them very good. The work of the Creator Spirit on our mind, will, and affections, is nobler than the other, and the renewed man rejoices Him more. As a father rejoices over the success, honor, and happiness of his dear son, so the Spirit will rejoice over every soul He brings to "glory, honor, and immortality." When Bezaleel and Aholiab in the desert, with the skill which God had given them, had accomplished the work of the tabernacle, according to God's commandment and the pattern which was showed in the mount, Moses blessed them in the name of God. Their work was pleasing in His sight; He approved of it as a dwelling, and His glory filled the tabernacle. So when the temple of the Church, which, under the Spirit's inspiration and direction, is now a-building in secret, shall at last be uncovered, God's glory shall take up therein an everlasting abode, and the Spirit will rejoice in His work. May we, brethren, share in the gladness of that day! May it be ours thus to please the Spirit! May His seal, Christ's mark upon us, never be effaced; but, being carefully guarded, become ever more evident unto the day of redemption !

"So when at last our weary days

Are well-nigh wasted here,

And we can trace Thy wond'rous ways
In distance calm and clear,

"When in Thy love, and Israel's sin,
We read our story true,

We may not all too late-begin
To wish our hopes were new;

"Long-loved, long-tried, long-spared as they,
Unlike in this alone,

That, by Thy grace, our hearts shall stay
For evermore Thine own."

The Preacher's Finger-Post.

STRENGTH AND STILLNESS.

"Their strength is to sit still."Isa. xxx. 7.

THE context reveals two things. First: A great national danger. The Jewish people now stood in terror of having their country invaded, and their city destroyed by Sennacherib the king of Assyria. It was an hour of terrible anxiety to the nation. The national firmament was black with threatening clouds. Secondly: A great national sin. To meet the danger, to ward off the threatened blow, instead of looking for help to the God of nations, they sought for an alliance with Egypt. They trusted to an arm of flesh, rather than in the Almighty God. Isaiah,

the holy prophet, is missioned to lift his earnest protest against this iniquity. "Woe to the rebellious children," &c. And in the text he tells them wherein their strength lay. It was in sitting still, calmly relying on the promises of God.

Wherein is the truth of the statement, that man's strength is in sitting still? or, rather, what is meant by sitting still? We answer at once, that it is not the stillness of INDOLENCE. Indolence is weakness-is ruin. Physical indolence, is physical ruin; intellectual indolence, is intellectual ruin; moral indolence, is moral ruin. Activity is the condition of strength. Industry is essential to progress in all that is great and