and the Lessons it Suggests. are parts of a whole over which no human eye can sweep. It is too vast and too complicated for man's feeble powers. At the best we can but see a few yards in advance. But God's plan moves in a cyclo that consumes ages in its evolution, reaching backward over the dark past, and onward over a future which is often forbidding because it is unknown. In all our judgments of the operation of God' it behoves us, therefore, to speak with caution and modesty. But in regard to the present reverse we may be certain of one thing. It is the legitimate fruit of sin not only in America, which has held in bondage four millions of people, but in England, which has helped by her custom to keep them enslaved. Yet we fervently hope that as we have suffered chastisement at the hand of God, the Ever Merciful One will work out a permanent blessing both for ourselves and for the slave. God's love is written on every page of the world's past history, and it will yet be written upon this. The stroke of His judgment is oftentimes the prelude to celestial bene diction. : Let us not forget, however, that adversity has its dangers. It may harden the mind. The fearful distress and want against which men have struggled through long weary months, with fortitude and sublime patience, may at last appal by their very greatness. Under the pressure of woes so heavy and protracted, hope may sink into dull stony despair. Sick of hoping against hope, the cold spasm of utter scepticism may change the current of the soul for ever. The danger is great; but to know the danger will in some measure assist in guarding against its approach. Most helpful of all will be the thought of His care and love without whom 3 not a sparrow falleth to the ground. Selfishness also grows apace in seasons of great adversity, unless it be checked, especially that form of it which shows itself in envy. The eye scans the better lot of others as compared with its own, and is in danger of overlooking the envious thoughts which may be thus engendered. Once encourage them and you will become their slave. Trample them under your feet, therefore, at their first appearance. Think: you may be envying a lot dashed with a bitterness to which you are a stranger, and the happiness coveted may be only in appearance. Recall the steadfast faith of Him who swerved not from the path of duty, though tempted to create bread out of the stones in the wilderness, and who rebuked the suggestion of evil by the answer-Man doth not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. The day of adversity has a lesson to those who have been blessed with comparative abundance. In the day of prosperity, be joyful. But how? By an open-handed liberality in assisting to assuage the want and sorrow of your less favoured brethren. Kindliness of heart is purchased at an easy rate, if it can be thus obtained. A swift sympathy with distress will go far towards producing a kindly spirit. The warlike spirit of England, which the events of recent years has evoked, may perchance give place to a more gracious temper under the universal anxiety awakened for the condition of our distressed fellowcountrymen. a thousand comforts. The best of Moreover, adversity marvellously us are sadly ungrateful, and much more ready to complain than to give thanks. We are disposed rather to bemoan the absence of things we covet than to acknowledge with gratitude the things we possess. We need again and again to be reminded of His beneficence whose full hand supplies our need; and now, if ever, we are so reminded of it that we may learn the lesson of thankfulness wisely and well. But the day of adversity not only supplies special subjects for thought. It also affords special facilities for their apprehension. Illness gives many busy men time for serious meditation, and brings them the very season they often sighed for in vain in the days of their healthy activity. And yet how few turn such seasons to any good account. The forced idleness, also, produced by the present distress leaves open a large space of time for reflection. Business does not absorb the mind. Fingers are idle; so that now men can scarcely plead their old excuses: I have no time.' 'I am too busy to-day.' 'Serious things to-morrow.' 'I will finish this plan; and then-.' There is time for cultivation now; why not for the cultivation of that which is most precious because most enduring? Prosperity often places things in a false light. That which is of no value in the eyes of the Allseeing is highly esteemed among men; and that which He regards as of priceless worth they despise. But in the day of adversity the glare which thus prevents men from seeing things at their true value is absent. They learn to put that first which God meant to be first; and that second which He intended should occupy a subordinate place. Men get to see,when the glozing power of prosperity is gone that truth, goodness, mercy, and love are valuables; and that their worth is above rubies. And the thought slowly dawns on some minds for the first time that those are the true riches whose treasure-house is heaven. quickens the sensibilities of our nature. The feelings of childhood become wedded with the wisdom of riper years. Hearts now throb with joy over that which in other days would have kindled no emotion. Thankfulness gushes forth for blessings once despised because of their very commonness. Stalwart men are sensitive as delicate women, and long stifled sorrow finds a ready outlet in tears. This is not weakness-nor yet the mere effect of depression and want. It is rather the result of quickened thought and feeling. Prosperity often blinds men. Adversity restores their sight. Prosperity magnifies differences between class and class. Adversity lessens them. Prosperity makes men inhuman. Adversity__makes the whole world kin. Here is unquestionably an important auxiliary to those who would win men for truth and for Christ. Many gracious words of Divine invitation may now be pressed with gentle force upon the soul; and many precious words of promise become potent for enduring good. Christianity, indeed, is pre-eminently the religion of adversity. Her Master beautified everything He touched-poverty among the rest. In sharing the poor man's lot He for ever destroyed the fancied degradation which worldly men dread while they affect only to despise. But His poverty was not forced upon Him. It was willingly and eagerly accepted, that the full blessings of the better life might be co-extensive with the curse. Though he was rich, for our sakes he became poor, that we through his poverty might be rich. The most striking instances of His beneficence and miraculous power were shown for those in adversity and distress. The very preaching of the gospel to the poor He himself selected as an evidence of His divine mission equal with the most astounding miracles. Christianity was cradled in adversity, and may therefore claim to be the truest helper of those who suffer. The Shepherdhood of Christ. The darkest day of her history was the brightest day of her triumph: when the sun set over Calvary the day dawned for a benighted and sorrowful world. Her greatest successes were achieved in circumstances the most adverse, as the annals of the early church abundantly show; and persecution, instead of chasing her disciples out of the world, drove them everywhere as preachers of the everlasting gospel. Practically the most humane religion on earth, Christianity is the fullest of consolation. She reveals to man in his sorrow the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort. She points the decrepit and the aged to a resurrection that shall bring them a fadeless beauty and an immortal youth. She pours forth her golden horn of promises in the presence of the weary and heavy laden, and flings back the gates of the celestial city 5 to the men who would walk with God. She shows her gracious power over the soul by transmuting into her own gladness the hearts of men, and by a subtle and divine chemistry makes the bitterness of sorrow yield the sweet precipitate of heavenly peace. Adversity becomes her handmaid, and chastisement her channel of blessing. Under her guidance "Affliction has a taste as sweet As any cordial comfort;' and the woes of life, which crush unbelievers to the earth, bring the trustful soul into closer fellowship with God. Happy are we if this gracious power descend upon us; and thrice happy, if in the day of our adversity-which God grant in His mercy may be but a day-we apply our hearts to consider. THE SHEPHERDHOOD OF CHRIST. SIMONIDES, the ancient lyrist of the bright isle of Cos, when asked by Dionysius, the tyrant, as to the nature and being of God, desired the grant of a day ere he replied. On the second day he requested two more, and on the third he pleaded for a still longer period. He felt all the unfathomable immensity of the subject. Earth, sea, and sky, were they not in some way mightier in response than his own soul? and yet their eloquence was mutest. How then could he be other than awed, mute, passive, humble? There has always been unfathomable mystery upon these great themes. Man's reason has made her eyrie higher than the eagle's and scorned the sun, and yet answered them not. Epithets, beautiful, terrible, loving, and comprehensive, have been invented; for what the judgment cannot analyze, nor the understanding comprehend, the fancy will pin by an epithet, and paint by a word. Some of these names for the great God are chaste and even sublime. In the Vedas, God (Brahma) is represented as the great Incomparable Light, which enliveneth all, cheereth all, whence all proceeds, to which all returns, and which alone can illumine our Ideas.' In the Zendavesta of the Persians, He is called Zeruane Akhrene, or Uncreated Time; while in the Edda, He is Surtur, the FlameEnvironed. Amongst the Greek people He was Pan the universal God, or nature, and Jove, the cloudcompeller and thunderer; but with their philosophers He was the Absolute Substance, the Infinite, the World-builder, the Thought of Thoughts, the Supreme Intelligence, the One, the All.' It was only amongst those to whom He had more immediately revealed Himself that the truer attributes of Jehovah are expressed. He himself, in the first revelation of His absolute being, has given us the grand and eternal I am what I am. But owing to the equivocal what here, as Coleridge has well shewn, and which had been better rendered | right reason as the governor and in that, or because, this demonstrative utterance of His absoluteness, seems degraded into the language of reproof to impertinent inquiry. Selfsufficient, Self-existent, the God of Gods, were other Hebrew names of the Supreme; and such reverence had they for the name of Jehovah, or the Eternally Existing that they never wrote it at full length, but pausing and washing their pens, they expressed it by a small hieroglyph, which they pronounced Adonai, Fountain of Light. The names of our Saviour have been fewer, but more expressive. Of old he was the Shiloh, the Peacemaker. He was to be called Wonderful, Counsellor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. To the Jews he was the Messiah, or anointed, Jesus, the Saviour, Emmanuel, God with us, the fulness of God's glory, the express image of His Person. And one of the best epithetical expressions to be found out of the New Testament is the precious old Saxon one, AllHealer. All these are good, suggestive, and reverential. And yet there is one other He himself gave, which David anticipated, and Ezekiel predicted, that is as sweet, homely, and expressive as of any of them. I am the GOOD SHEPHERD, and know my sheep, and am known of mine. Yea, devout contemplative John, the bosom disciple, with all his inner revelations of the word and his deep knowledge of divine things, can find no more endearing title than the Lamb of God. Full of beauty and homeliness was this shepherdhood to the people of the east. To the Egyptians, indeed, as we learn from Joseph's instruction to his brethren, every shepherd was an abomination. Philo Judæus, the Alexandrian allegorizer, explains that this was because of their haughty disdain and boastful ambition, and coupling this with the leading of Jethro's flock by Moses, says in his own way, For every man who loves his passions hates guide to good things. Not so did the Hebrews despise the shepherd and his craft. It was their everyday joy and pleasure. Their flocks were as dear to them as our household memories, our Lares and Penates. Music, poetry, astronomy, geometry, and chronometry, had their origin in the leisure and musing of the shepherd's life. Such a quiet monotony predisposed them to all kinds of meditation. Without doubt we may consider them as eminently pure, pious, and high-minded, a type of the Jew with all his fire subdued into gentleness and docility, all bis rigidness softened into grace and mellowed into ease, all his pride subdued into humility and chastened into meekness, all his ignorance exalted into wisdom, and his privilege sanctified into holiness. The offering of the first of shepherds was graciously accepted of God. Lord Bacon sees in this the marked favour of God upon Abel's calling itself, and Philo will go still farther, and see in the conduct of the two brothers, in the best offering of one, and that of the other, who offered everything to himself and his own mind,' a mystic appropriateness in their respective titles, keeper of sheep, and tiller of the earth. To the shepherds, as knowing their calling and character, and symbolic of Christ's mission, came the Angel of the Lord as they watched over their flocks by night, perchance rehearsing to themselves the prophecy of His coming. Unto their ears, first of mortals, was chaunted the new evangel-hymn. Upon them, and round about them, may we not add, within them, shone the glory of the Lord. They of the Jews were first to salute the newborn, first to comprehend His mission, first to glorify and praise. Who shall say there was no deep pervasive purpose in all this? Shall a Paulus say it was mere chance and accident? shall a Strauss step after him with his intangible mythologies, and say, This too was part of the subtle web-weaving of tradition ? Surely not. Rather we accept this Love and Longing for Pastoral Life. symbolism of the shepherd-king as Hebraic, universal, and metaphysic. Who can tell the mystery, beauty, and wisdom of this title of our Lord's? One should have the pen of Moses, the vision of Ezekiel, the harp of David, and the wisdom of Solomon. The spiritual fathers and rulers amongst the Jews were shepherds amongst the people and the nations. Ezekiel reproved them for their neglect, selfishness, and carelessness, and Zechariah painted for their behoof the type of the foolish shepherd. But all this was forgiven them. The very office they had sustained so unworthily towards others Christ would hold towards them with beautiful meekness and tenderest love. The shepherd's calling had always been noble and dignified, now it was to be noblier, princelier, divine. Nor was this all. It knit them, as far as they had walled themselves up in towns and cities, once again to the beauty, singleness, and simplicity of pastoral life. It was a breath from fruitful plains, a wave from sacred streams, fusing all the incoherencies and falsities of a rapid civilization into the ancient nobleness of patriarchal government. David, the ruddy youth, the sorrowing, the tempted, the sweet singer of Israel, was re-born to them. Israel was free. The curse of Cain, the Flood, and the fatal consequence of Babel were melted into inoffensiveness and shaded into the back-ground of more blissful conditions. The Gentile was by it embraced into the same provisions as the Jew. It was a soft-breathed Benedicite to wool-clad Scythian, flying Parthian, sturdy Greek, and desert Arab. It has come down to us a charm for stern old Time himself; he stays his glass and leans upon his scythe. When we call Him our Shepherd, all the pomp and tumult of the present vanishes like a curled and cloudy panorama, and we are with David and Saul, Amos, Rachel, and Zipporah. He knoweth our frame. Nothing is ignored by Him that will in any 7 All way conduce to our edification, moral, spiritual, and eternal. the ideas that have ever vexed the unquiet brain of man, stirred him to war, stayed him to peace, moulded his thinking, grounded his faith, and warmed his heart, are known and registered in the courts of the Supreme. Civilization and progress come not alone by man's aid. Spiritual agencies are around, fighting our battles for us, as at Marathon and thousand other places heathen deities warred in mid air, or clashed in the thickest of the fray. helpeth our aspirations for the future. He is our very present Helper, and shall He not sanctify our past respirations and our dreamings? He Plato might have been wider from the truth. Man is very microcosmic, very given to reminiscence, very inclined to repeat himself. We have eras in our individual lives very analogous to those in universal history. And this necessarily; for what is history, but the 'essence of innumerable biographies,' as Coleridge said. The very physical traits of men tend to perpetuate themselves. The nose of the Roman, the hair of the Norseman, the chiselled contour of the Greek, the eye of the Asiatic, the bold bronze of the Jew, have each been repeated for ages. They are imperishable. Obscured and lost for a time they will still develop themselves. So with Ideas. They root themselves in our being, like cedars in Lebanon. New ones will spring up, and their fronds may give promise of a green waving forest of fairy lightsomeness and beauty, but these old pre-natal ones are deathless and irrevertible. They may repose in quiet, but it is the quietness of conscious strength and not of weakness. Speak the old charm-word, breathe but the old plaint, or raise the old war-blast, and then, lo! how they tower in proud might, and what a clash of brazen glee and garrulous hum of eld-voices is there among the boughs. We can hear grave patriarchs, bearded Rabbins, philosophic Athe |