to indulge my natural desires, to enjoy my youth, or to lay up a larger store for age, and then I will follow thee." But there must be no reservation; and where power accompanies the call, there will be none-no human ties, no earthly idols-all in subservience to the one paramount duty and privilege of following the Lord fully— of following the Lamb whithersoever he goeth, whether it be through trial or persecution, or even unto death. "I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest." Lord, make thine own call effectual in our hearts, that we may be "thy people, willing in the day of thy power."

SECTION XI.

(Chapter v. verses 1—13.)

WE have in this and the two following chapters what is called our Lord's "Sermon on the Mount." It is the first Christian sermon on record; and when we consider who the preacher was, that it fell from the lips of Him who spake as never man spake, we may well conclude that it contains a storehouse and a treasury of spiritual wisdom and instruction. The first twelve verses which I have read are called the Beatitudes, or Blessings, because each verse begins with the word "Blessed," and describes the character of those who are really and truly blessed. The word, however, would be more correctly rendered "Happy;"

and, in fact, these first verses may be called "A Definition of Human Happiness." Many have written and taught upon the same subject, and Solomon has left us a book in which he professes to discuss the different pursuits after human happiness; but he records rather its disappointments and its failures, and sums up all earthly enjoyment in the sad acknowledgment that it is but "vanity and vexation of spirit." Let us then see what He who came from heaven to teach us, and who taught with power and as one having authority, and not as the scribes, has said on the subject, and whom He has delineated as the truly happy. How sweetly blended with the purest love and the tenderest yearnings for our good are these words of our Lord! how characteristic of Him who was full of grace and truth, and of that gospel he came to deliver! The law had been delivered on Mount Sinai with its appropriate accompaniments of "blackness, and darkness, and tempest," amid thunders and lightnings so fearful, that the children of Israel stood afar off; and even Moses, their mediator, himself quaked exceedingly; but now the people pressed around Him, while Jesus, as a father instructing his children, sat in the midst and taught them. But how different the truths which proceeded from his lips to that doctrine which they had been taught by those who sat in Moses' seat, or to what they no doubt expected him to deliver. They were looking for an earthly deli

verer-they were expecting one who was to "restore the kingdom to Israel," and anticipation had already fixed on Jesus as "he that should redeem Israel." With what eagerness, then, may we imagine them hanging on the lips of Jesus, and ready to catch the first accents that fell from him as the harbinger of deliverance, and victory, and triumph! and we may imagine, too, something of the disappointment, and the downfall of hopes so excited, with which no doubt many, and the sneer and the scorn with which some, would listen to a precept, not only so subversive of every anticipation, but so contrary to every maxim of the world and of experience: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." They, too, desired a kingdom, but it was a kingdom on earth; and they cared not for the reversion of one, if it was to be attained by such self-denying paths as poverty of spirit. There were, however, no doubt, some amid those multitudes on whose hearts such gracious words must have descended as the dew upon the mown grass, and who were ready to respond in the Psalmist's words, "Thou art fairer than the children of men; grace is poured into thy lips." And, assuredly, never from the lips of mortal man descended such golden rules as are here embodied in these first few verses of the fifth chapter of St. Matthew's Gospel. Read them over and over again—ponder them deeply in your hearts-pray over them; pray that a fair and

unsullied transcript of them may be made in your own life and conversation, and that thus it may be noted of you, as was noted of his apostles afterwards, that you have indeed been with Jesus, and have learnt of him.

SECTION XII.

(Chapter v. verses 14-21.)

It is a very striking and appropriate metaphor which our Lord here makes use of in reference to his disciples, and Christians in general, that they are the salt of the earth. It is the property of salt, we know, to preserve that which is corruptible from corruption, and that which is liable to dissolution, from decay. The whole world lieth in wickedness, and is full of corruption, and if left to its own unhindered progress, it would soon perish. The sins and wickedness of the larger portion of mankind would soon hasten its decay and ruin; but good men, men of piety and prayer, men of active charity to their fellow-creatures, and of fervent intercession with their God, scattered here and there, "one of a family and two of a city," are as an handful of salt to season and preserve and for their sakes many and many a family and place and nation is spared, which would otherwise be doomed to righteous retribution. Thus the Lord said to Abraham, when pleading for Sodom, "If there be found ten

righteous within the city, I will not destroy the city for ten's sake;" and even when that scanty number was not found, and the city was left to its doom, even then the Lord avowed that he could do nothing till righteous Lot was delivered out of the place. And in the parable of the tares, they are spared, lest in rooting them up, the wheat also be rooted up with them ;-lest in the punishment of the one, the interests of the other should be involved. But this is not the only way in which God's people are as salt of the earth there is a far more beneficial influence exerted by them than even their fervent intercession with the Almighty to spare. It is their example, the example of their lives and conversation acting on an ungodly world; and here, perhaps, the other metaphor applied by our Lord, as the light of the world, may more appropriately be adopted; but whether as salt to season and give savour, or as light to lighten, in either metaphor there is the greatest encouragement to ourselves. Our sphere may be a very lowly one, and in our own estimation we may think that we have no power to do good to others. But there is no situation so lowly, no station so humble, no sphere so limited, but a child of God may, and does, in a variety of ways unknown even to himself, effect an incalculable and never-ending amount of good. How often, for instance, has a Sunday-school child taken home, perhaps to an ungodly home, some text of Scripture, or some remark of the