II. THE DIVINE PICTURE OF AN UNHAPPY MAN.

1. HIS CONDITION IS THAT OF GREAT DESTITUTION. "The ungodly are not so, but are like the chaff which the wind driveth away." First: They are without root. They are chaff," not "trees," no real life in them. The life of true manhood is extinct. Secondly: They are without beauty. There is nothing interesting in chaff; there is nothing in the character of ungodliness on which one can look with complacency; wickedness is loathsome. Thirdly: They are without value. Chaff-the precious grain is gone, nothing but the husk is left. The ungodly man is but a worthless shell, he has lost the germ of his manhood-love to God. Fourthly: They are without power. "The wind driveth it away." He is at the mercy of the wind of external circumstances, which tosses him about at its pleasure. The ungodly man is the creature of circumstances.

2. HIS CHARACTER IS WITHOUT DEFENCE. "Shall not stand the judgment." There is justice in the universe, and every man must consciously confront that justice some time, he must appear in the great court of punitive righteousness. "We must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ," &c. Now the sinner will not be able to "stand " in a law sense, in this court. The man arraigned for some offence in the court of human judicature will not be able to stand unless he can make out one of three things: (1) That he has never committed the offence with which he is charged, or (2) that if he committed the offence it was accidental not intentional, or (3) that his offence was one single exception in the history of a life that had been signally loyal, and of high service to the state. Can the sinner stand at the bar of God on either of these grounds?

3. HIS FELLOWSHIP WITH THE GOOD MUST TERMINATE. "Nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous." The good and the bad mingle together in this life. The tares and the wheat grow together. It will not be ever so. Heaven has decreed a separation. The great Judge shall divide them as the shepherd divideth his sheep, the one on the right hand and the other on the left. The wicked must be divided from the good. "Nothing that defileth or that worketh abomination, nothing that maketh a lie."

4. HIS DESTINY WILL BE UTTER RUIN. "For the Lord

knoweth the way of the righteous; but the way of the ungodly shall perish." He shall perish, not his existence, nor his consciousness, nor his obligations, but all that makes existence worth having shall perish. The Lord knowethapproves of the righteous, and they are blessed. He does not approve of the ungodly, and they perish.

PSALMS.

THE Greeks call this book the Psalter, and deservedly give it many high commendations, as that it is the Soul's Anatomy, the Law's Epitome, the Gospel's Index, the Garden of the Scriptures, a Sweet Field and Rosary of Promises, Precepts, Predictions, Praises, Soliloquies, &c., the very Heart and Soul of God, the Tongue and Pen of David, a man after God's own heart, one murmur of whose michtam or maschil, one touch of whose heavenly harp is far above all the buskined raptures, garish phantasms, splendid vanities, pageants, and landscapes of profane wits; far better worthy to be written in letters of gold than Pindar's Seventh 'Ode' in the temple at Rhodes; and far more fit to have been laid up as a rare and precious jewel, in the Persian Casket, embroidered with gold and pearl, than 'Homer's Iliads,' for which it was reserved by great Alexander. T. TRAPP.

MEN seemingly the most unlikely to express enthusiasm about any such matters-lawyers and statists immersed deeply in this world's business, classical scholars, familiar with other models of beauty, other standards of art-these have been forward as the forwardest to set their seal to this book; have left their confession that it was the voice of the inmost heart, that the spirit of it passed into their spirits, as did the spirit of no other book, that it found them more often, and at greater depths of their being, lifted them to higher heights than did any other, or as one greatly-suffering man, telling of the solace which he found from this book of Psalms in the hours of a long imprisonment, has expressed it, that it bore him up, as a lark perched between an eagle's wings is borne up into the everlasting sunlight, till he saw the world and all its trouble for ever underneath him. ARCHBISHOP TRENCH.

A Homiletic Glance at the Acts of the

Apostles.

Able expositions of the ACTS OF THE APOSTLES, describing the manners, customs, and localities described by the inspired writers; also interpreting their words, and harmonizing their formal discrepancies, are, happily, not wanting amongst us. But the eduction of their WIDEST truths and highest suggestions is still a felt desideratum. To some attempt at the work we devote these pages. We gratefully avail ourselves of all exegetical helps within our reach; but to occupy our limited space with any lengthened archæological, geographical, or philological remarks, would be to miss our aim; which is not to make bare the mechanical process of the study of Scripture, but to reveal its spiritual results.

SUBJECT: Paul at Malta-Good in Christianity.

"In the same quarters were possessions of the chief man of the island, whose name was Publius; who received us, and lodged us three days courteously. And it came to pass, that the father of Publius lay sick of a fever, and of a bloody flux: to whom Paul entered in, and prayed, and laid his hands on him, and healed him. So, when this was done, others also, which had diseases in the island, came, and were healed."-Acts xxviii. 7-9.

E have seen that the conduct of the Maltese towards Paul manifested a certain kind and measure of good that is found even in the heathen world; and now the conduct of Paul toward the Maltese, recorded in these verses, gives us an insight into a good which is found only in Christendom-the good of Christianity. The service that the apostle renders the Maltese, here recorded, suggests that the good in Christianity is supernatural, restorative, and impartial.

I. HERE IS THE SUPERNATURAL. Paul performs a miracle upon the father of Publius. This Publius was most probably the governor of the island. Heathen though he was, he had a heart that was touched into compassion at the sufferings of Paul and his shipwrecked companions. He received, and lodged them "three days courteously." The word courteously means benevolently or philanthropically. The father of this chief was the patient on whom the great apostle' performed his miraculous operation. "He lay sick of a fever and of a bloody flux." "It has been remarked, that no writer of the New Testament uses such exact technical expressions for diseases as Luke, who was

trained as a physician. Formerly it was maintained that a dry climate, such as Malta, did not generate dysentery and inflammation of the lower bowels; but recently physicians resident in the island have shown that these diseases are by no means uncommon at the present day."—Hackett. In the effectuation of this cure, Paul only did that which was a part of his great mission as an apostle of the new faith! ́... They shall take up serpents, and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them, they shall lay hands on the sick and they shall recover." Christianity is good in a supernatural form. It is a good, not naturally rising from the human heart, but supernaturally imported from Heaven. The history both of its Founder and of its apostles is essentially supernatural. Christianity is a stone cut out of the mountain "without hands."

II. HERE IS THE RESTORATIVE. "... Paul entered in, and prayed, and laid his hands on him, and healed him." The supernatural power with which Paul, as the apostle of Christianity was endowed, was not to inflict diseases but to remove them, not to destroy men's lives but to save them. Restoration is the great work of Christianity. In all the miracles of Christ there is only one connected with destruction, and that was on the fruitless fig-tree. Redemption is its mission. First: It redeems men from moral diseases. From error, carnality, selfishness, impiety, guilt, &c. Secondly: By redeeming men from moral diseases, it redeems them from all others, corporcal, social, and political. Its grand consummation will be the redemption of the entire man, body and soul, from all evil.

III. HERE IS THE IMPARTIAL. ". . . So when this was done, others also, which had diseases in the island, came and were healed." The healing of the father of Publius, their host, was the commencement of a series of miraculous cures. The afflicted from all parts of the island came to the messenger of Christianity, and he healed them. He treated all alike, he knew of no distinction of birth, influence, or position. They were human, and as such he sympathized with them and restored them. Christianity is no respecter of persons. It has the same message to all, -barbarian, Scythian, bondmen, free. It offers salvation to all.

VOL. XXII.

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SUBJECT: Paul's journey from Malta to Rome.

“Who also honoured us with many honours; and when we departed, they laded us with such things as were necessary. And after three months we departed in a ship of Alexandria, which had wintered in the isle, whose sign was Castor and Pollux. And landing at Syracuse, we tarried there three days. And from thence we fetched a compass, and came to Rhegium: and after one day the south wind blew, and we came the next day to Puteoli; where we found brethren, and were desired to tarry with them seven days: and so we went toward Rome. And from thence, when the brethren heard of us, they came to meet us as far as Appii Forum, and The Three Taverns; whom, when Paul saw, he thanked God, and took courage. And when we came to Rome, the centurion delivered the prisoners to the captain of the guard: but Paul was suffered to dwell by himself with a soldier that kept him. '—Acts xxviii. 11-16.

HESE verses bring under our notice three things:-Paul's departure from Malta; his voyage to Puteoli; his walk from Puteoli to Rome.

I. HIS DEPARTURE FROM MALTA. 66 Who also honoured us with many honours, and when we departed they laded us with such things as were necessary."

First The attentions they received on leaving the island. The natives having received nothing but priceless gifts from the apostle expressed their gratitude by presenting them with "many honours"-gifts, and also such things as were necessary in the voyage. The men who will present Christianity to heathens as Paul presented it to them, will, instead of generating their suspicions and enmity, leave them with grateful memories and loving hearts. It is not in human nature to hate the good and kind.

Secondly: The time when they left the island. "After three months." All that we have recorded of Paul's doings there those three months are these few verses. We should like to have had a full history of his three months' labours and trials at Malta. We may rest assured that every day was spent in preaching Jesus of Nazareth.

Thirdly The ship in which they left the island. "... We departed in a ship of Alexandria, which had wintered in the isle, whose sign was Castor and Pollux." This vessel was, no doubt,