Yes, our human life has been enriched in its experiences and glorified in its manifestations by the existence of suffering in the world. Affliction is often simply the discipline which the kind and loving Father in Heaven sees meet to send us for our good.

Here, then, the disciples were utterly wrong in thinking this man's suffering could have no other explanation but in his or his parents' sins. But another great error of the disciples was this

3. They conceived that Providence always metes out perfect and impartial awards in this life. The good, they thought, were always and exactly rewarded. The evil were always punished in due proportion to their offence. So as this man was, as they thought, evidently being punished, he must be, or his parents must have been, great offenders. For the Divine awards are certain, exact, and unerring. And this is an idea which also largely prevails still. Now while we believe that sin always brings some punishment, we do not believe the punishment is always proportioned to the offence, nor does it fall immediately on the transgressor. And while we believe that there is a stream of tendency making for righteousness, and that, in the long run, sin meets with penalty and good with reward, still there is much more in human life than such facts as these. There are facts which are hard to reconcile with the righteous rule of an all-powerful Being. It is only in books that the villains of a story are all exposed and punished, and that all the heroes triumph over every difficulty and are crowned with prosperity. But you will find that books which are true to nature do not twist the facts of life to gratify sentimental readers. In the pages of Shakespeare many a gentle heart is crossed in love and broken by misfortune. Many a noble life is pourtrayed which begins with promise and ends with failure. And that is but a reflection of human experience, it is but a transcript of what is seen happening every year. For indeed our life is full of inequalities. Ofttimes the evil prosper and the good are overwhelmed with adversity. Men of great merit are outstripped by boisterous conceit. Arrogant pretension rides rough-shod over unpretending worth. Gentleness and modesty are trodden in the dust by loudmouthed self-assertion. Virtue and honour cannot hold their

own against cunning and chicanery. Unscrupulous greed laughs amid her gathered treasures at the unprofitable integrity of conscientious men. No! the reward of virtue and religion are not seldom the contempt and persecution of the world. He who would be religious to advance his temporal interests is seriously mistaken. If our love to God has no deeper root than that, it will speedily be destroyed through disappointed expectations. The rewards of piety are peace, love, purity; but not outward gains and emoluments.

Here then was the great mistake of the disciples, in thinking that God's awards are always perfectly dispensed in this life, and that, therefore, this man or his parents must have been great sinners, since he was blind from his birth. Turn next to

III. THE ANSWER OF OUR LORD. "Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him."

Of course Christ did not mean that no sin had ever been committed by this man or his parents, but simply that his suffering was not the result or the punishment of their sins. Those sufferings had a different origin and cause, that the works of God might be manifested in him.

By this reply then we are taught that God afflicts ofttimes for ends unseen and unrecognised, but all worthy and good.

1. To show forth His glory. You see how that glory was made manifest through the affliction of this poor sufferer. Christ found him in his helplessness and gave him sight. Now here was a revealing of God. But what was revealed-Divine power? No doubt. It was Divine power only that could have made those eyes, so long sightless, look upon the green earth and the bright But it was not Divine power only or chiefly that was so revealed. It was the compassion, the tenderness, the sympathy dwelling in God's heart that were most of all manifested. And in the deed of Christ, in giving this man his sight, the works of God, the glory of God, the heart of God were revealed and made manifest. I have often thought that God's glory is revealed in many a poor afflicted sufferer to-day. Only lately I visited a

sun.

friend who was slowly dying of a very painful disease. For months she had endured uncomplainingly the most excruciating agony that can thrill the human frame. She wrote on a slate, for the disease had destroyed the power of speech, "Can you explain why God permits his children to suffer such pain." I said, what could I say?" I was dumb, I opened not my mouth; because Thou didst it." Then after a while I recalled these words of Jesus, "That the works of God should be made manifest." In the calm faith which sustained my friend in her patient, Christlike submission, in her quiet waiting for death, and in her hope of immortality, was not God's glory seen?

2. But, again, looking at this subject more generally, these afflictions, that visit good and bad alike, teach us that this life is not all our existence. These inequalities that now prevail, this apparent confusion in which the good are often defeated and the wicked triumphant, are strong hints and suggestions that another scene will correct and perfect what is now so wrong. God has given us a strong instinctive feeling that goodness must some day be victorious, and that evil will be finally overcome. We believe that. It is a native instinct of the human heart. But in the present life these confusions exist. We see, indeed, a tendency in good even now to gain the victory, but that tendency is often thwarted and crossed. So we feel that a righteous and loving Lord will not finally leave matters in this condition. He will make gloriously manifest that He is against all sin and on the side of all good. He will show that the cause of right, of justice, and of truth is His own cause. But if He must do this, then there must be a hereafter for you, for me, for all of us. In that after life we shall behold the final and complete victory of good over evil. In that other world, the goal of all pure souls, "the crooked will be made straight, the rough places plain," and that which is wanting shall be numbered. All the inequalities of the present removed, all its evils redressed.

"Oh, yet we trust that somehow good

Will be the final goal of ill,

To pangs of nature, sins of will,
Defects of doubt and taints of blood.

LEEDS.

"That nothing walks with aimless feet,
That not one life shall be destroyed,
Or cast as rubbish in the void,
When God hath made the pile complete.

"Behold, we know not anything:

I can but trust that good shall fall
At last-far off-at last to all,
And every winter change to spring."

JAMES LEGGE, M.A.

Gamaliel and his Advice; or the Policy of Caution and Neutrality.

"AND NOW I SAY UNTO YOU, REFRAIN FROM THESE MEN, AND LET THEM ALONE: FOR IF THIS COUNSEL OR THIS WORK BE OF MEN, IT WILL BE OVERTHROWN: BUT IF IT IS OF GOD, YE WILL NOT BE ABLE TO OVERTHROW THEM; LEST HAPLY YE BE FOUND EVEN TO BE FIGHTING AGAINST GOD."-Acts v. 38, 39. (R. V.)

BROADLY speaking, men divide themselves into three classes in relation to Christianity.

First: There are the open enemies, who never miss an opportunity of offering unto it the most energetic and violent opposition.

Secondly: To this class belong the earnest advocates and the zealous propagators of Christianity.

Thirdly: But coming midway between these two classes there is another, which we might term the cautious, timid, and perhaps, temporising, neutral class. On this I wish to dwell.

Peter and his comrades stood before the Sanhedrim, charged with nothing worse than having taught and healed in the name of Christ. The feeling of the meeting seemed to run strongly

in favour of further imprisonment. Speech after speech was delivered in favour of physical violence. Possibly Paul was there, Saul then, and delivered a vigorous and fervent speech in favour of imprisonment, if not of death. At length Gamaliel arose; probably the grandson of Hillel, the great Rabbi, himself a Rabbi worthy of such an ancestor; the theological professor, at whose feet Saul had sat. He was deeply versed in the law, and regarded on every hand as a pious, learned, and able man. A man, too, of known moderation and tolerance, hence regarded by all parties as "a safe man." His speech was what we might term a moderate speech. It counselled caution, "refrain," "take heed." "Do not lay rash and violent hands on these men." "Do not endeavour to stamp out this new religion or irreligion by rash and violent methods. Wait a little; let time be the test. This movement is either human or Divine; if human, it will come to nought without your interference; if Divine, by interfering you only fight against God."

Now it may be worth our while for a few minutes to discuss this policy of Gamaliel's. "Wait; refrain from using violence, let time be the test of the character of the movement." It has its favourable aspect and so far is it to be commended; it has also its unfavourable aspect, and so far is it to be condemned.

I. THE FAVOURABLE ASPECT OF THIS POLICY. Let us point out what there is that is commendable in this policy of awaiting the test of time.

(a) Time certainly is a most searching and accurate test. It is very difficult to judge a movement that is in its infancy. But let it develope, take shape, make for itself "a local habitation and a name," "then he who runneth may read"; "though fools they cannot err therein." By their fruits men are known. By their fruits movements too are known. But then you must allow time for the fruit to appear and to mature. Time is generally an unfailing test. Here is a movement,-it is difficult to detect its true character, whether it will grow like an upas tree, poisonous and destructive, or like a splendid oak, under the shadow of which nations yet unborn may find shelter and rest. Give it