God's world. And take with you this blessed thought, that God sees you as a Father: "Our Father which art in heaven." This thought will transform life into a festival. Do afflictions come to you? They constitute the bitter but the useful medicine that the Great Physician gives you, and sees to be needful for you. Do plague, and pestilence, and famine approach and overwhelm you? You can repeat the ninety-first Psalm, and feel you are safe beneath the shadow of his wings. Whatever betides you, you will recognize in it the presence of your heavenly Father.

"Seek

And let me give you another prescription. first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all other things will be added unto you." Set your heart upon the main thing, and all the subordinate things will fall in in proportionate array. Seek first the chief thing, and you may be quite sure God will superadd the subordinate thing. Let the word of God dwell in you richly; let it be a lamp to your feet; let it be a light to your path; let it be your prayer that in all things and in all places you may be lights in the world, or salt in the earth; and if needful for you, God will give you, as in the case of Solomon, who asked only wisdom, and God gave him that, and all things beside ; so if you ask this, and only this, God will superadd all other things expedient for you.

Let us then, this year, sow seeds that will grow up into everlasting harvests. Let us set our hearts and our affections not upon things that are beneath, but upon things that are above. Let us do all the good we can, for if it be Christian to suffer evil and to be silent, it is almost god-like and divine to do good, and to say nothing about it; and let us recollect that we

owe to every human being all the good that we can possibly do. We live not for ourselves, and, by a very beautiful law, the man that lives least for himself, in his practical joy feels that he lives most for himself. And "Whatever thy hand findeth to do, do it with all thy might; for there is no device nor work in the grave, whither we are all hasting." Pray that if this year close upon you, and you are spared to commence its successor, that you may be able to say what Paul said at the close of his last year upon earth, "I am ready to be offered; the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith; henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day; and not to me only, but unto all them that love his appearing." What a splendid spectacle was that holy and divine apostle, showing that where the noon is so cloudless, the evening setting will ever be so fair. He looks, when he says, "The hour of my departure is come," like the strong, full-freighted ship, bound for a distant strand: how she strains her cable that she may part from the shores of this land, and fling loose her canvas to the

"The hour of my

winds, and go on her way rejoicing. departure is at hand." That departure will be beautiful, if Christ, the only sacrifice, be your trust; if the Holy Spirit, the only sanctifier, be in your hearts; if heaven be your aim, God's will be your law; and sympathy with all suffering, and sacrifice to do all men good, the great and solemn trust that you feel; a work that by God's grace you are determined to fulfil.

CHAPTER V.

RELATIVE DUTIES.

THIS chapter begins with a rebuke of the selfish rich. "Go to, now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you." Is it a crime to be rich? Certainly not. It is not a virtue to be poor, and it is no crime to be rich. A poor man may be as proud and conceited over the little that he has, as a rich man over the much that he has. It is not what a man has that determines his character; but it is what a man is. What one has is responsibility; what one is is character. If we have much, we are responsible for much; but only the grace of God can make us what will end in the consecrated use of whatever God

has given us. But these rich men were guilty; not because they had riches, but because they withheld them from those necessitous persons who had a just and legitimate claim upon their overflowing; and, secondly, because they hoarded them up, and placed their joy and trust in the abundance of their possessions. The representative of wealth in ancient times was not coins and currency, but garments; also gold and silver in various shapes; also fields, and lands, and and harvests, and all that the earth can produce. Now

these rich men, having wealth in these various forms and shapes, hoarded and accumulated it, making it their god, their chief trust, and happiness. St. James, speaking to them, says, "Weep and howl;" for what is the result? "Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you." He then shows them wherein they had acted unjustly. "The hire of your labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth;" and while your poor workmen have been starved, you have been living in pleasure, and been wanton; and you have only nourished your hearts for the day of slaughter.

Now I think of all reflections it would be the saddest for a master at the head of a great establishment, or for a landlord possessed of countless acres, to employ men dependent on the produce of their toil for themselves and their families, and either to pay them what is unfair and inadequate recompense, or to withhold, for his own selfish gratification, what is their lawful hire their fair and just wages. This is evidently branded by James as a great crime; a crime for which these men will be called to account at the day of judgment.

After he has rebuked the selfish and unjust rich, he addresses the patient, the afflicted, and the persecuted Christian poor; and he says to them, "Be ye patient unto the coming of the Lord." When that may be he does not say, but it is the hope of the Christian; aud in the prospect of it he is to cultivate and practise every Christian grace, and draw in every rich consolation. And just as the husbandman bears

with the wind, and the rain, and the storm, the frosts and the snows, but is confident that God's promise will not fail, that there shall be seed for the sower and bread for the eater; so, says he, I ask you, the afflicted of the earth, patiently to endure the storm while it lasts; but to look by faith above the storm-cloud, and see the everlasting sunshine that will soon break forth,. and end alike your afflictions, and the persecutions and proscriptions of the ungodly and the selfish rich. And then he calls upon them among themselves not to grudge one against another,—not to quarrel with each other: "Behold the judge standeth at the door." And he asks them to take, as an example of patience, eminent saints, whose names are emblazoned in the loftiest and brightest page of inspired history. "Ye have heard of the patience of Job;" what endurance in spite of temptation; what afflictions he passed through; but how the sun broke forth in his declining day, and irradiated the land of Uzz with more than its first glory; and enabled Job to feel, and to express what he felt, that his latter days had been more prosperous than his first.

He then corrects a very common sin among the Christians of that day. "Swear not, neither by heaven, neither by the earth, neither by any other oath; but let your yea be yea; and your nay, nay; lest ye fall into condemnation." He is not speaking of a judicial oath; that is not the immediate question. To quote a passage like this, and to make it, as some do, the grounds on which they refuse to take an oath before a magistrate or a competent authority, is to pervert and misapply, of course not intentionally, the word of God. The apostle is laying down laws for private and individual social