Rejoicing in their boastings. in their proud speeches about what they are going to do to-day and to-morrow and next year; not only do they boast of what they are going to do in their own strength, but as if somewhere they had got the assurance that everything they set their hands to would prosper, they rejoice, they make a song, they exult in these boastings. It is a peculiar expression, but it is not a peculiar experience. "Don't you have any fears for me, I am strong, never had a headache in my life, I don't look like dying, just feel that arm! I'll let you see what I am made of yet, I can see my way before me, I have taken everything into account, and I don't think that anything will turn up to overturn my calculations, just leave it to me!" Men talk thus, rejoicing in their boastings: do we need the apostle to tell us that all such rejoicing is evil? Do we not feel it to be evil as we hear them talk in that foolish, boastful way, and do we not anticipate that their strength will yet be seen to be but weakness, their foresight blindness, and their wisdom the veriest folly? Well, we know the truth of all these things, we assent to everyone of them, we have known everyone of them ever since we knew anything; there is nothing new, nothing fresh here. Ah, but do we act as we know; do we put this knowledge into Knowing and our lives; do we plan as knowing this, as feeling not doing. this, as gladly taking a shelter from all the uncertainties of the future in this? If not, does not the condemnation of the Word of God come down heavy upon us, do we not acknowledge the justice of it: "therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin," aggravated sin, sin by way of conscience. "If I had not come unto them they had not had sin, but now they have no cloak for their sin." To have the light and to sin against the light, to know and not to do, is not this sin? "While ye have the light walk in the light, that ye may be children of light." "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom in the grave whither thou goest." "Be ye also ready, for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh." And after 'A professor of great reputation for wisdom and piety was once addressed by a student just entering the university. 'My parents have just given me leave to study the law, the thing I have been wishing for all my life, and I have now come to this university on account of its great fame, and mean that? to spare no pains in mastering the subject.' While he was thus running on the professor interrupted him: 'Well, and when you have got through your studies, what then?' "Then I shall take my doctor's degree.' 'And then?' 'And then I shall have a number of difficult cases to manage, which will increase my fame, and I shall gain a great reputation.' 'And then?' 'Why, then there cannot be a question I shall be promoted to some high office or other: besides I shall make money and grow rich.' And then?' rich.' And then?' And then I shall live in honour and dignity, and be able to look forward to a happy old age.' 'And then?' And then, and then, I shall die!' 'And then?' 'And then?' Like the young man in the gospels he could answer no more, but went away very sorrowful.” ८ Go to now, ye that say, To-day or to-morrow we will go into such a city, and buy and sell, and get gain: whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away." GLASGOW. PETER RUTHERFORD. CHRISTIANITY IDENTIFIED WITH A PERSON." Nothing can be more obvious than that Christianity is frequently and commonly identified in men's minds with an ecclesiastical organization or institution, or with some religious or theological system. The essential vitality of person of Christ. Living Christianity consists in its union with the Christianity is no theological system, or group of truths, however exalted or true, but personal union with a living person, and the possession of life received in and derived from Him."-STANLEY LEATHES, D.D. GERMS OF PRACTICAL THOUGHT EVOLVED FROM THE APOCALYPSE. [The writer of these Homiletic Sketches aims not to decide between the numerous theories and speculations which the interpreters of this book have propounded. So far as his work is concerned it does not matter who the author may be, the exact time in which he lived, the place of his writing, or the peculiarities of his language. The whole book appears to his mind as a grand, prophetic poem, full of strange and grotesque symbols. As a prophecy, some have regarded it as already fulfilled, such as Grotius, Hammond, Bossuet, Calmet, Wetstein, Eichhorn, Hug, Herder, Ewald, Lücke, De Wette, Dusterdieck, Stuart, Lee, and Maurice. These are called the Praterist expositors. Some have regarded it as yet almost entirely unfulfilled. All events referred to, except those in the first three chapters, they take as pointing to what is yet to come. Among such interpreters in recent times are Drs. Todd, Maitland, Newton, De Burgh, &c. These are called Futurists. Some regard it as in a progressive course of fulfilment, running on from the first century to the end of time. Amongst these interpreters the following names are included: Mede, Sir I. Newton, Vitringa, Bengel, Woodhouse, Faber, E. B. Elliott, Wordsworth, Hengstenberg, Ebrard, &c. These are called Historical expositors. The present Homiletic Sketches will be drawn in the light of this school. The whole book is a symbolical representation of a great moral campaign between right and wrong, running on from the dawn of the Christian era to the crash of doom. Babylon here is, so to say, the metropolis of evil and Jerusalem the metropolis of good. The battle is not between the mere forms, organizations, and institutions of good and evil, but between their spirit, their essence. The victories of Christ here are, to use the language of Carpenter, "against all wrong-thoughtedness, wrong-heartedness, and wrong-spiritedness."] No. XIII. The Words of Christ to the Congregation at Sardis. "AND UNTO THE ANGEL OF THE CHURCH IN SARDIS WRITE; THESE THINGS SAITH HE THAT HATH THE SEVEN SPIRITS OF GOD, AND THE SEVEN STARS; I KNOW THY WORKS, THAT THOU HAST A NAME THAT THOU LIVEST, AND ART DEAD. BE WATCHFUL, AND STRENGTHEN THE THINGS WHICH REMAIN, THAT ARE READY TO DIE FOR I HAVE NOT FOUND THY WORKS PERFECT BEFORE GOD. REMEMBER THEREFORE HOW THOU HAST RECEIVED AND HEARD, AND HOLD FAST, AND REPENT. IF THEREFORE THOU SHALT NOT WATCH, I WILL COME ON THEE AS A THIEF, AND THOU SHALT NOT KNOW WHAT HOUR I WILL COME UPON THEE. THOU HAST A FEW NAMES EVEN IN SARDIS WHICH HAVE NOT DEFILED THEIR GARMENTS; AND THEY SHALL WALK WITH ME IN WHITE FOR THEY ARE WORTHY. HE THAT OVERCOMETH, THE SAME SHALL BE CLOTHED IN WHITE RAIMENT; AND I WILL NOT BLOT OUT HIS NAME OUT OF THE BOOK OF LIFE, BUT I WILL CONFESS HIS NAME BEFORE MY FATHER, AND BEFORE HIS ANGELS. HE THAT HATH AN EAR, LET HIM HEAR WHAT THE SPIRIT SAITH UNTO THE CHURCHES."-Rev. iii. 1-6. was plundered by Cyrus, and afterwards desolated by an earthquake, the ruins of it being still visible a little distance to the south of the present town. Nothing is now to be seen but a few mud huts, inhabited by ignorant, stupid, filthy Turks, and the only men who bear the Christian name are at work all day in their mill. Everything seems as if God had cursed the place and left it to the dominion of Satan." A modern traveller says, "I sat beneath the sky of Asia to gaze upon the ruins of Sardis from the banks of the golden-sanded Pactolus. Beside me were the cliffs of that Acropolis which centuries before the hardy Median scaled while leading on the conquering Persians whose tents had covered the very spot on which I was reclining. Before me were the vestiges of what had been the palace of the gorgeous Croesus; within its walls were once congregated the wisest of mankind, Thales, Cleotolus, and Solon. Far in the distance were the gigantic tumuli of the Lydian monarch, and around them spread those very plains once trodden by the countless hosts of Xerxes when hurrying on to find a sepulchre at Marathon. But all had passed away! There before me were the fanes of a dead religion and the tombs. of forgotten monarchs and the palm tree that waved in the banquet-halls of kings." Who founded the Christian community at Sardis, or the exact period when the Gospel was first preached, there are questions that have not been, and perhaps cannot be, settled. The address of Christ to this community, as recorded in these verses, forcibly calls our attention to the consideration of three things, the general character of the many, the exceptional character of the few, and the absolute Judge of all. Notice I. The GENERAL CHARACTER OF THE MANY. They were in a very lamentable condition. First: They had a reputation for being what they were not. "Thou hast a name that thou livest, and (thou) art dead." It was bad enough for them to be "dead," that is, all but destitute of that supreme sympathy with spiritual goodness which is the essence of moral life. It was worse still for them to have the reputation of life, and for them to believe in that reputation. The sight of death is bad enough, but death garbed and decorated with the semblances of life makes it more ghastly to behold. How this community obtained this name for living, this high reputation in the neighbourhood, does not appear, albeit it is not difficult to guess. Perhaps it made loud professions, appeared very zealous and active, and paraded its affected virtues. Then, as now, perhaps, men were taken by their contemporaries to be rather what they appeared than what they were. In these days, and in our England, there are Churches that have the reputation of wonderful usefulness. All their doings, their prayers, their sprinklings and dippings, their pulpit deliverances and their psalmodies, their architectural expansions and numerical additions are emblazoned in the so-called "Christian" journals, so that they have a great name to live, whereas spiritually they may be all but dead. Reputation is one thing, character is another. Everywhere in a corrupt world like this, the basest characters have the brightest reputation, and the reverse. The barren fig-tree was covered with luxuriant leafage. "Thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead." Secondly: They were in a state of spiritual consumption. "That are ready to die." It would seem that whilst they were not all spiritually dead, that there was a spiritual consumption amongst some. Things ready to die." What things are these? The greatest things in the universe, eternal principles of virtue and truth. What things are comparable to these? To them literatures, markets, governments, are puerilities. There is a spiritual consumption and the symptoms are manifest. Weakness, morbid appetites, false views of self. Thirdly: They were in a state requiring prompt and urgent attention. "Be (thou) watchful and strengthen (stablish) the things which remain, that are (which were) ready to die." What is to be done? (1) They were to be vigilant. Watchful," wakeful, to shake off slothfulness, open their |