marked those things down: the eternal was what he marked, but not the transient.

Another meaning is, take heed. You must put all the translations together to get the meaning. In the gospel according to Luke this word is translated, "Take heed." The apostle meant, no doubt, that he did not take heed of the things which were seen. He did not exercise care, thought and anxiety about them; but his care, thought and anxiety were about the things which are not seen. "After all these things," says Christ, "do the Gentiles seek." So they do. They are always seeking after the world; from early morning till late at night it is the world they are after. Well, let the Gentiles follow their pursuits; but the child of God should not, for our Lord says unto us, "Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat or what ye shall drink, or wherewithal ye shall be clothed." He bids us cast our care upon Him, and cease from all anxiety. "Seek ye," says he, "first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you." the apostle Paul tells us not to care, not to worry or trouble ourselves about things which are seen, whether good or bad, prosperous or adverse-never suffering them to eat like a corrosive acid into our spirit. We are to spend all our heed upon our walk with God, our obedience to His command, our fulfilling His will, our spreading His kingdom, our getting ready for the coming of Christ, our being prepared for judgment, our being prepared to dwell eternally with God at His right hand. About these we ought to take heed. This is our business, but, alas! our thoughts naturally drift the other way. These temporalities are wont to absorb us. There are some who not

So

only apologize for themselves, but justify their worldly-mindedness. Fitly, therefore, doth the Lord Jesus Christ, by the mouth of His apostle, recall our thoughts from grovelling themes, and bid us take heed of the eternal, and let the secular sit lightly on our minds.

Paul in the Epistle to the Galatians uses the word in the sense of considering, “considering thyself lest thou also be tempted." We shall dive still more deeply into the meaning if we understand how in certain conditions, the present, the transient, the things most palpable to the senses are properly left out of all consideration and not taken into the reckoning. For instance, if the apostle knew that he should glorify God by preaching the gospel, what would it matter to him if friend or foe should say to him, "Paul, you will risk your life by attempting to do so"? Live or die, he would be bold to preach. He never took their caveat into his consideration. And if they had said, "If you state such and such a truth, or administer such and such a reproof in a certain church, you will be sure to lose their respect; you will lose caste among them," again he woula

have smiled. It would have had no more influence upon him than it would have upon a merchant should you say to him, "If you go into such a district you will have to encounter clouds of dust." He would reply, "Why, if I can net a thousand pounds, what do I care about dust or no dust?" If it be my object to ascend a mountain, am I to be deterred by a few cobwebs across my path? What are tiny obstacles to a strong man? So Paul did not consider the things which are seen to be worth a thought, though there be puny folk who value nothing else. The cost to him seemed so little that he would let it go into the scale or not, as men pleased. "I reckon that these light afflictions, which are but for a moment, are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed

in us.

Are you not sometimes placed in this position? You know you ought to do right, but you fear that if you do so you will lose your situation. Well, now, if God's cause be uppermost in your estimation, you will not consider your loss as the first matter. You will rather say, "I can lose anything sooner than lose peace of mind and miss pleasing God." Or there is some duty which you know you ought to perform, and you are told, "Well, if you do that you will lose your old uncle's love. He will strike you out of his will. You must think about it." What is the use of thinking about it? It is only an earthly, transient thing; and what are these transient things, be they what they may, compared with the eternal weight of glory? O brothers, if men lived in the light of eternity, and judged their position accordingly, how differently would they act! But instead of so doing we begin weighing those trifles which we may have to endure for Christ's sake, and making much of them. This is playing the traitor to Christ, and forsaking Him when we ought to be most firm. Shame upon us if we thus requite our Lord. Eternal contempt awaits such cowards. From this time forth may we never look upon the things which are seen as substantial, but put them down as vanity, and let the things which are not seen rise before us in all their supremacy

of value.

Perhaps you may get a stili clearer perception of the meaning of the text if I tell you its full interpretation. By "not looking at the things which are seen" we may understand not mak ing them our scope. That is the nearest English word I can find to interpret the Greek. Let not these visible objects be the scope of your life; for, alas! there are many whose whole scope of life is that they may prosper in this world. The next world may go as it wills; their scope ends here. To win the esteem of God seems a trifle to them. That they may live at ease, enjoy the comforts and, if possible, the luxuries of this life, is their sole aim and object. As for the eternal things of

heaven, they seem dim and unsubstantial. Now, it must not be so with us. We should say, "The things eternal I pursue. I am no more a citizen of this world, but a pilgrim bound for the celestial city. When I passed through Vanity Fair, they asked me to buy this and that, and I said, 'I buy the truth.' I must go through the Enchanted Ground, but I will not sleep there, for this is not my rest. Whatever I see which is enchanting to others shall have no power over me, for the scope of my soul's desire and life-work is eternity." Would to God we all had invisible joys for our object!

To sum up the whole, my dear brothers and sisters in Christ, look not at the things which are seen. Do not look upon your comforts as if they were enduring. Do not dote upon them. Do not think of them as if you had them otherwise than on loan, or as if you had any right to them. Be thankful to God for them; but, because they will so soon pass away, do not set much store by them. Build not your nest on any of these trees, for they are all marked for the axe, and ere long they will all come down. Say not of any mortal man, or woman, or dear child, or worldly possession, or knowledge, or pursuit, or honor-" This is much to me." Let it be little to you. Put the gifts of God far down in the scale compared with Himself. Try, when you have your comforts, to find God in all; and, when you lose your comforts, then just change the words, and try to find all in God; for, remember, " Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God shall man live.

You have not to live on the creature comfort; you are bound to live on the living word of the living God, and you will never be fully happy until you do this, A man who goes to a town and chooses a house that is dilapidated, the foundations gone and the beams decayed, may say, "This is a very comfortable house." But you would not think so highly of its charms. "Nay," you would be ready to say, "I cannot be comfortable in it. The rich hangings and costly furniture do not hide the serious defects; it may come down at any time about the heads of the sleepers. This is not a house for me." You know this is the case in daily life and common experience. Well, it is just similar with regard to the things eternal. Say, therefore, to yourself, "I must repose my soul upon that which is true, real, well founded, and imperishable; earthly things are too transient to afford me any solace or security. I dare not set my soul upon them. I cannot drink water out of these broken cisterns; I must go to the fountain whence all-satisfying, trustworthy supplies flow."

You must do the same with regard to your sorrows: although it looks rather hard, yet it is the wiser way to take them cheerfully, rather than to exaggerate their weight by murmuring at them. If a man has grace to live above his joys, that same

grace will enable him to live above his sorrows. As I said just now, when earthly joys enchant you too much, then should earthly sorrows overtake you they will make you sorely despond. Your wisdom is to live above them both, above the glee of prosperity and the gloom of adversity. Dear brother, what ails you? Have you lost a child? Lost! Why, you will be where that dear one is within so incredibly short a time that you need not worry and fret. Coming down from such a domestic grief as that to a commercial anxiety: you have had a sad loss in the city, have you? Some of your comforts will be curtailed. But if you get nearer to the heart of your Lord, and love Him better, and walk in the light of His countenance more than you did, you will never know you had a loss. You will be so much richer in the fine gold of His comfort that you will scarcely miss the silver of this poor world.

And so, too, if you lose credit or are discountenanced by old friends, or are deprived of aught which men are wont to make great account of here below; if you do but remember that it was only a bubble, and it has burst, you will not be brokenhearted. Say, "It never was more than a bubble, and I ought to have known that it would soon be gone. The comfort I had was never anything but a temporary loan, and I ought to have remembered that it was borrowed." If you get into that mind you will live above the cares of this life. May God help you so to do!

II. Now, for a few minutes let us address ourselves to the second point-LOOKING AT THE THINGS WHICH ARE NOT SEEN. How can we do that?

Well, first, realize them by faith. We believe in the resurrection of the dead, and in the judgment, and in life everlasting, according to the teaching of the Word of God. Try to look at these things-to look at them as present facts. Some will never do so. They will tell you that they could not see them if they tried; but that is just what we, who have been taught of God so to look at the things which are not seen, can palpably disOh, to look beyond death to "the home over there,' beyond the swelling flood where souls that were loved of God from before the foundation of the world are safe with Jesus! I invite you to do so, especially if you have some dear ones there. Do you see them? Do you hear their music? Do you behold their joys? Are you going to be troubled about them any longer, after having realized their certain happiness? By-and-by there cometh the resurrection, and the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised. The very body over which you wept because it was to be given to the worm shall rise in matchless beauty in the likeness of its Lord. Will you not wipe your eyes dry now and submit to the Divine will, for surely the hope of the blessed resurrection makes amends for the loss by death?

Then there is to come the judgment, and you and I will be there. A soldier, some time ago, was in the Valley of Jehoshaphat, where, according to tradition, the feet of the Messiah will rest in the day of judgment, and he sat on the stone and said, "And shall we all be present? I will sit here in that day.' And there, absorbed with the thought, he looked up to the sky, and so distinctly did he realize the majestic vision of the day of judgment that he fell to the ground in amazement, oblivious of everything that was transpiring around him. Ah, if all of us were living in the light of the day of the Lord, what trifles these ebbs and flows, these ups and downs of passing circumstances would seem! How lightly we should bear sorrow, and how little we should reck of earthly fortunes and misfortunes if we could actually forecast the tremendous day when, with angels for witnesses and Christ for our Judge, we shall have to stand and be judged according to the things done in the body! Realize heaven, brothers and sisters, the heaven of the perfected manhood after the resurrection, the heaven where we shall see the Beloved's face, and day and night extol Him for ever. Oh, what is it to be poor? What is it to be sick? What would it be to go through a thousand deaths if we may but at last behold His glory, world without end? And think of hell, ye that forget God and revel in vanities; as your trembling spirit best may, think what it must be to be driven from His presence-to hear Him say, "Depart, ye cursed, into everlasting fire in hell." Ah! gilded world, how thou dost lose thy lustre when once I see the lurid glare of Tophet! Oh, painted harlot, how I see thy haggard ugliness when I hear the weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth of those who chose the broad road and let the Lord the Saviour go! How I despise thee! As the vision opens before the eyes of faith, what zeal it kindles in my breast! Would to God I could induce some careless person here, who, nevertheless does believe the Scriptures, to sit down, if it were but for one half-hour, and try, believingly, to picture these things to his mind's eye. This sacred volume is full of pictures-pictures of things that shall shortly come to pass. Oh, that ye had the discernment to see them, not as weird fancies, but as veritable facts-the true sayings of God! The real thing is what you do not see to be real. The fiction is that which you account a solid fact. We are going down, each one of us to the grave, but God liveth for ever and ever. As for that body of yours in which you are sitting in this house, it is not a substance which shall abide, but it is a shadow which shall dissolve, mouldering into dust, and exhaling into water. Yet there lives within you what you cannot see the real and true self; and that true self of yours will pass into another state, and through it into yet another, which shall be everlasting. And, oh, may God grant that your lot