leans,

-ay,

and so would his soul, and be bowed quite down, only that, as he grows weaker, he feels more and more a divine arm about him upholding him. And upon that arm he leans, and the more lovingly the longer he lives.

MARHAM.

There is good, Oliver, there is great good, in old age; more and more I hope to know of it for myself.

AUBIN.

The ancients might call old age sad, but that is what we Christians ought not to do. And if about any old man there are things that might sadden nim a little, let him be a Christian, and his melancholy will be changed into what will be like a gentle prayer, always rising from within his soul. In a sermon which I once wrote

MARHAM.

A sermon, you said ?

AUBIN.

Yes, uncle; I thought once of writing and publishing some ten or twelve sermons on the religiousness of daily life, but I only wrote one.

MARHAM.

I should like to see it, Oliver.

AUBIN.

You shall have it, uncle, this evening.

CHAPTER XVI.

Where there is no vision, the people perish.-PROV. xxix. 18.

THIS text was a proverb once, and its meaning was accurately known a hundred generations ago ; but now it is not, and it never will be known quite exactly; for this proverb is a something of the spirit, and the world of spirit is not to be scrutinized like that of matter.

From a few marks studied upon limestone, from a few rocky appearances, from a few fossils and bones, and other like proofs, will a man, after the manner of Baron Cuvier, rightly infer what this earth was before it became what it now is ; what its climate was and its plants, and what the aspect of its forests; how the mammoth looked and moved amid tall trees, and in and out of their shadow how there went creeping things innumerable and monstrous; at what swiftness the bird of prey flew upon its victims, and what its victims were; how it rained then as it rains now, and how the tide rippled on the sea-shore then as it ripples now, and how the shells were mostly then what are not to be found now. And the look of

what all this was, science will make out from a few vestiges.

And vestiges of ancient thought the book of Proverbs is. Our text is one of these spiritual remains, and for us it has a meaning plain enough, though perhaps not exactly what the author meant; because what his state of mind was in thinking it we do not know, for at that time the human mind was under another economy than the Christian.

"Where there is no vision, the people perish." There may be hidden meaning in these words, perhaps, but there is plain truth. Most of the Proverbs are easy to be understood, though some of them are of no use in our English circumstances, and some others are too shrewd for Christian simplicity. But all of them are interesting as spiritual remains. Vestiges they are of an era in the human mind, long, long back; words of caution, spiritual armour, fashioned for the use of the young in the anxious minds of experienced sages; proved advice for behaviour in the house, the city, and the field; and immortal truths which wise men coined out of their mortal sufferings.

"Where there is no vision, the people perish." Whence came this proverb among the Jews, for had not they their prophets always, and visions always? No, for the school of the prophets in Ramah was sometimes attended in vain; and as

in the latter days of Eli, the priest, often there was no open vision. And why was it, at any time, that the prophets could "find no vision from the Lord"? It was because the people had disabled themselves for such grace, and not because God was changeable, as some of them thought, and so withheld his free spirit from them. God never

withdrew from them who had Abraham to their father; but withdraw from Him they did, not over Jordan, but farther still, down the steeps of vice, into that thick air of sensualized thought, which hardly a ray of spiritual light can shine into.

Among the Jews, when there was no vision, they perished, and with ourselves spiritual ruin is very common, for want of spiritual insight. Spiritual insight into life is the subject of this sermon.

do

I. Let us think about life as activity. In God you live and move and have your being. That not a breath do you draw, nor a pulse do you feel, nor a step do you take, but in dependence on another will besides your own, - this you not doubt. Nor can you doubt that in God your spirits live, as far as they live at all; for like the church of Sardis, they may have a name that they live, and be dead.

Our human is no empty existence. The circumstances of our lives are not unmeaning, but infinitely otherwise; but this we very often do not see for want of vision. High as heaven and wide

as the earth is the atmosphere of holy opportunity, in which our souls have their being. Is not it felt? Then it is only because it is not wished.

Not every hour, nor every day, perhaps, can generous wishes ripen into kind actions; but there is not a moment that cannot be freighted with prayer. But do you say that you cannot pray except when night solemnizes your spirits, or before the day's business begins? Begins the disorder of your souls; say that, and so you finish your excuse. But do you establish it? No. For that would be unchristian business, and to be shunned like hell itself, that could not be done in a quiet, loving, and devout spirit.

What! you have perverse wills to deal with, have you ? And these evils you do not, some of you, overcome with goodness, but oppose with heat. Firmness, principle, do you call it? But it is not. For be sure of this, that, in any circumstances, a right temper towards your fellowcreatures is what would any moment pass freely into prayer. Do you object, then, that business is not and cannot be made religious? Theological it cannot be made, but religious it ought to be. Do you say that labor can be executed rightly, only by minding it and thinking of nothing else? But is not it done sometimes sulkily, and sometimes cheerfully? And cannot it also be done trustfully? And would it be done any the