finite capacity for joy, an immortal thirst for happiness, which everything on earth seems to mock. Like a dream by night, when we seem to be close to some much-desired object, and it fades from us- -some friend whom we have lost we think to grasp by the hand, to speak face to face with him; the whole soul goes forth in the force of that phantom of the imagination, but the hand withdraws itself from us, the vision vanishes, we awake, and behold, it was a dream! The voice, whose echoes we almost seem to hear, is mute and still. We start to find a solitude, a dreary vacancy, in the place which our dream had but just filled and peopled with its own imaginings.

Such is the meaning of the text. "She shall not find her paths. She shall follow after her lovers, but she shall not overtake them; she shall seek them, but shall not find them."* The soul shall be let alone a little while to see whether sin's ways of pleasantness are also paths of peace; let alone to see whether it can slake its thirst with the deceitful and ever-vanishing mirage of water which ever flies farther and yet farther, while its scent is inhaled and the murmur of its flow is heard, but no cool draught ever moistens the parched tongue; still the text implies that the backsliding soul would ever follow on after the fleeting and delusive image of joy, if God Himself did not interpose and hedge up the way to obstruct further progress. It implies that if a man were left to himself, and found no break nor drawback, he would never recover or restore himself, but would be hopelessly lost. Therefore He makes the crooked ways which the soul has chosen bring it anguish, makes schemes of unlawful self-enrichment end in failure and miser*Hosea ii. 6, 7.

able disappointment. The friend whom you have tried to please at the expense of God proves to be no friend at all; you ruined your soul's comfort and peace to gratify him, and either he is not gratified, or else you have reason to know that the path of duty, conscientiously adhered to, would have brought you infinitely more blessing, perhaps, even for this world. Oh, there is no cruelty about these hedges of God's planting; they are set there by the hand of infinite love; take them out of the way, and what remains between you and hell but the smooth and swift decline down which you plunge? Such are some of the hedges God is pleased to block up the sinner's path with, for his good, and more particularly the path of His backsliding children, those who, at any period of their lives, have solemnly and deliberately dedicated themselves to the Lord to be His servants, and have found peace through the blood of His cross. But an opportunity was given them to return, a favourable, flattering moment of return to the world or sin, and was too feebly striven against and resisted, or even too readily embraced. There may be some such here to-day. There may be some one who feels to-day, "God has set just such a hedge in my path. I have been entangled and overcome of the world, or of some sinful temptation; I have followed along the path to which it beckoned me, deaf to remonstrances and reproofs, persuaded my happiness was in it; that steady devotion to the one object would cause it to yield me the comfort, the soul-stirring joy I sought; but still it has left me behind, and there is something within me which tells me that it is a hopeless and profitless search, that the thing which stole my heart from my God promised me a joy which,

pursue it as I will, I never can overtake. Oh, if there were any hope of my being received back again, if my declensions of heart might be forgiven, I would "arise, and go to my Father;" I would cry with an exceeding bitter cry, as Esau, "Hast thou but one blessing, my father? bless me, even me also, O my father!” “Oh that I knew where I might find Him! that I might come even to His seat !"* or, to use the language of the text, then shall she say, "I will go and return unto my first husband; for then was it better with me than now." It was not that the disappointment of earthly hopes necessarily led to this blessed result. The drying up and emptying of the cistern does not necessarily bring the soul to the fountain of living waters; but God speaks to Israel in the text, and tells her that He will use those failures and wrecks of fleshly confidences to bring her back again to Himself for solid comfort and peace. Thus it is that God, using such occasions. as these, of deep dissatisfaction with the result of its former courses, surprises the soul by a revelation to it of its lukewarmness and deadness; even from the lips of the loving Saviour are heard those terrible words, "I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth." But then it is that He may add those good and comforting words, "I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eye-salve, that thou mayest see."+ "One petition in the Litany (says a great and good man) has dwelt much on my mind all this day: 'O Lamb † Rev. iii. 15, 16, 18.

* Job xxiii. 3.

of God, that takest away the sins of the world, grant us Thy PEACE.' I am fearful of receiving peace from any but Christ, or in any other way than having my sins taken away. Time often wears away the sense of guilt, and the accusations of conscience die away. Attention to other things drives my sins into obscurity and forgetfulness, hence my peace, hence my daily neglect of Christ. I am healed without Him. I hope to be, above all things, watchful against this ruinous evil; I will endeavour to keep my sins in view in all their guilt, and to have a continual feeling of what is due to them till the Lamb of God takes them away, and grants me His peace." "Then was it better with me than now." Is not this the testimony of every soul that has found its peace in a reconciled and pardoning God, and then afterwards has gone to seek its peace elsewhere, hunting after happiness in every exciting novelty and amusement, finding its shadow everywhere, its substance nowhere; asking every one it meets, "Who will show me any good?" Is not the testimony of every such soul this: “Then it was better with me than now." Then there was an evenness, a calm, a oneness in my soul, and now it is rent and torn, distracted and scattered. Then it was my true self; now it is my false self. Then I was living with life's true end and aim before me; now I have no fixed and definite aim. Then heaven was open, and God was near, and a ladder was set up-a ladder of holy, hearty communion with God through the Mediator of the new covenant. I felt then I had a faithful and wise counsellor to advise me in my difficulties, and to whom I could intrust the burden of my Then the thought of the blood of sprinkling gave me confidence; the handwriting of condemnation,

cares.

with all its terrors, was seen blotted out by it; my conscience was purged from the guilt that lay heavy upon it. I could look on death undismayed then; for in the great marriage contract in the covenant of grace, one of the terms of its stipulations was, "All things are yours-life-death-things present, things to come-all are yours, and ye are Christ's."* Yes, then it was better than now; for now I am driven before every storm, and am dependent for my happiness on what is hollow and unreal. I look back, and see only regrets. I look forward, and see no hope, no holdfast, no pillar and rock of confidence. What are the words, then, which Hosea would put into the mouth of such an one? "Come, and let us return unto the Lord: for He hath torn, and He will heal us; He hath smitten, and He will bind us up."↑ "Take away all iniquity, receive us graciously." "Behold, we come unto Thee; for Thou art our God. Truly in vain is salvation hoped for from the hill."§

In conclusion, dear brethren, remember that all true return is by way of the cross. "God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified to me, and I unto the world."|| From thence does God's voice of recall sound with most touching and forcible expostulations, "Turn, O backsliding children, saith the Lord." "Behold my hands and my feet; it is I." See how every mark of nail and spear, every cry of deep heartanguish, every drop of the sprinkled blood, speaks "better things than that of Abel," of transgressions finished and reconciliation made, " everlasting righteousness brought in. There are you pointed to the ‡ Hosea xiv. 2. || Gal. vi. 14. § Jer. iii. 22 23.

* 1 Cor. iii. 21, 22, 23. + Hosea vi. I.