activity and usefulness. The highest and happiest creatures that He created were ministering spirits. They have nothing to trouble them, and nothing to wish for but what they possess; still they are serviceable, and are serviceable to those who are beneath themselves in position and intelligence. They do not despise the service of administering to Job in his affliction; to Daniel in the lions' den; and to Peter in the prison. We might learn a lesson from this, and not consider ourselves above performing the most menial service for God. If the example of angels be not a sufficient inducement, surely that of the Lord of angels should be. When He, according to the arrangements of the blessed Trinity, came down to earth, He thought it not too great to stoop even to wash the feet of His disciples. We are thus encouraged to adore God's name, to admire God's goodness, and to imitate God's example.

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The First Sunday after Trinity.

MORNING SERVICE.-First Lesson: Josh. x.

Verse 12.-" Then spake Joshua to the Lord in the day when the Lord delivered up the Amorites before the children of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel, Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou, Moon, in the valley of Ajalon."

GIBEON was a city situated upon a hill, about five miles to the north of Jerusalem, and Ajalon was another city lying to the south-west of Gibeon. Both places have been rendered famous in sacred history by the miraculous interposition of Divine Providence in behalf of the Israelites and their confederates, in answer to the prayer of Joshua. The history connected with the circumstance is most interesting. The inhabitants of those places, being alarmed by the wonderful progress of the Israelites, came to meet them in old clothes and with mouldy provisions, as if they had come from a far country, and begged that they would enter into a league with them. After making some objections, the Hebrew princes, without consulting the Lord, complied, and partook of their provisions as a testimony of their friendship. On coming to their cities a few days afterwards, the Hebrews discovered their mistake, and charged the Gibeonites with the fraud, and they pleaded in excuse their impending danger of utter destruction. By the terms of the league, their lives were spared, but Joshua condemned them to the servile work of hewing wood, and drawing water for the use of the congregation.

This covenant with the Israelites was regarded an act of perfidy on the part of the Gibeonites by the neighbouring nations, five of whom immediately took up arms against

them; but Joshua protected them, and by the help of God, destroyed their enemies.

That a most remarkable miracle was wrought on this occasion no one can pretend to deny. The object of such a miracle must have had some great ends to serve besides affording time and light to conquer the few kings and their armies who stood in opposition to Joshua; for provided the swords of the Israelites could not have dispatched the whole number, the tremendous storm of hailstones by which so many died whilst fleeing to Azekah might, at the same time, have destroyed every man in the camp. God, however, as at all times, had His ends to accomplish. What those ends were we can but conjecture. Probably He wished to magnify Joshua in the estimation of the Israelites by manifesting an unwonted phenomenon in answer to his prayers, so that they might henceforth place implicit confidence in his leadership. Or, as Matthew Henry says, He would hereby notify to all the world what He was doing for His people Israel in Canaan. The sun, the eye of the world, must be fixed for some hours upon Gibeon and the Valley of Ajalon, as it were, to contemplate in wonder the great works of God for His people, and so to engage the children of men from other parts to look that way, and to enquire of this wonder in the land; for if the course of nature was suspended to give two days' consecutive light in Canaan, the same period of light or darkness must have universally existed in other parts, which would naturally produce great enquiry among the nations of the earth. Or, perhaps God wished to strike terror into the hearts of the remaining Canaanites, that they might fall an easy prey into the hands of the encouraged Israelites.

There are two things worthy of special notice in the circumstance-first, the care of Providence; and secondly, the potency of prayer.

I. The care of Providence over the affairs of man is here manifested.

We need no arguments, we might hope, to convince every

one present of the existence of a Divine Providence. You all, I trust, believe that there is a Providence exercised in the world. The Deist may tell you that there is not. He will acknowledge indeed that there is a God, but thinks that He is too sublime and exalted to notice this little insignificant world of ours. He will tell you that God at first made the world, when He wound it up like a watch or a clock, and then let it work by the force of its own machinery without any further superintendence until the weights go down, when all will come to an end. To get rid of his difficulties respecting the extraordinary occurrences which take place in it, he will tell you that everything occurs by accident or chance. Chance! What is chance? It is an empty word without any meaning except in the corrupt recesses of an infidel mind, if you attach to it the idea that things happen in our world without the control of a Supreme Being. Rather than adopt such a pernicious, soul-destroying notion, let us believe Ezekiel, when he tells us of the vision which he saw by the River Chebar. In that vision was presented to him the appearance of wheels, supported and guided by living creatures; above the living creatures was a firmament, above the firmament was a throne, and upon the "throne was as the likeness of a man above upon it." Or let us believe the word of the Lord, that came to Zechariah, saying, "They are the eyes of the Lord, which run to and fro through the whole earth." In regarding this Providence we may observe

1. That it is both general and special.

By God's general Providence we understand His ordinary superintendence of all the affairs of Creation, whereby all things are guided, counteracted, and overruled. In this respect He dwells in all space, regulates every object, so that the minutest insect, as well as the largest luminary, is directed by His power and wisdom. Thus He governs all, and supplies the wants of all. The young ravens cry unto Him, and are satisfied; the beasts of the forest receive their food from His bountiful beneficence; the fowls of the air, that neither sow nor reap, nor gather into barns, are fed by

"Our Heavenly Father;" the lilies of the field, that neither toil nor spin, are decked by Him in superior raiment than "even Solomon in all his glory;" and a sparrow falls not to the ground without His notice. Man also, independent of his character, is the object of His general care. In "Him we live, move, and have our being." His arm is underneath us, His hand is extended to supply our wants, He protects us from danger and harm, provides us with homes, friends, and comforts. "He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.” St. Paul, in addressing the idolatrous Lycaonians, refers especially to God's general Providence, when he says, “Nevertheless He left not Himself without witness, in that He did good, and gave us rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness." There is not an instance in which He has violated His promise to Noah after the deluge, "While the earth remaineth, seed-time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease." In acknowledging God, in thus providing for us, we must call upon our soul and all that is within us to bless His holy name, for whatever has been our conduct towards Him, His conduct towards us has been invariably kind and good.

In addition to this general superintendence there is a special Providence interposing in behalf of certain individuals, under certain circumstances, for certain designs. Perhaps instances of those special Providences cannot be selected so definitely in our day as under previous dispensations, for the reason that in the absence of an ample written revelation, God formerly revealed His ways more directly to the senses of men; still there are some circumstances within the personal experiences of every true child of God, and there are many recorded on the pages of modern history in which we can trace something beyond an ordinary Divine superintendence; but this I believe is never exercised except in behalf of the good, or to further some great design which the Almighty has in view to accomplish.