laid ourselves open to the charge of trying to make it less strait. It may be that the ungodly have listened with secret satisfaction to some things that have been said, and will go to their homes with a somewhat safer feeling than usual. This is a danger which besets us at all times. We cannot speak to one class of our hearers without some risk of being misunderstood by others. We cannot proclaim the freeness of Christ's salvation without suggesting the thought to some that mercy may be had at any time, and therefore need not be sought to-day. We cannot call men to repentance and a holy life, and tell them their souls are in their own keeping, -their own wills must decide for God,—their own efforts must be put forth from day to day,-without seeming to encroach upon the great truth that man is helpless of himself, and that all our sufficiency is of God. So too we cannot tell our brother Christians that they err sometimes in their hasty, unsparing condemnation of all who are not most evidently religious, without giving some countenance to the lax notions of worldly men about Christian faith and Christian duty.

Mistake us not, however, we beseech you, so much as to fancy we have one word of comfort or encouragement for the men whose own consciences will tell them that in secret, as in the broad light of day, there is no mark of Christ on their words or works. There are many amongst you, perhaps, of whom it becomes us to speak with caution 'and reserve. There are some hidden ones, we trust,

of whom the great Searcher of hearts knoweth more than we know, and whose secret prayers go up as a memorial before Him from day to day. But how does this concern the profane, the proudhearted, the sensualist, the man who knows that his prayers are a form, and that the world's feasts are worth more to him than the Church's sacraments? We may break down our fences, and enlarge our borders, as much as we dare in conscience; but these men will not be included at last. They stand without, condemned on their own showing, with the traitor's mark stamped upon their foreheads.

God did not tell Elijah that there were no worshippers of Baal left. He did not make light of idolatry, as if it were a thing which might be passed over. He only excepted some from the general charge, and gave the Prophet to know that his censures had been too sweeping. There was the broad, separating line then between God's servants and the servants of the Wicked One; and there is the same broad, separating line now. To love the world, to be unrenewed in heart,-to look for rest in this troubled scene,-to take our religion at hazard, instead of looking for it in our Bibles,—all this is fatal guilt and folly. It is still true that "the carnal mind is enmity against God." Christ is still "the Way, and the Truth, and the Life; no man cometh to the Father but by Him." The little child in God's family, equally with the fullgrown man, must be praying from the heart, cling

ing to the Cross, struggling with sin, longing to be made holy after the pattern of Christ, his Lord. Never will we tell you that you may win heaven at small cost. Never will we foster the delusion that you may be at home in the world, and at peace with God. Never will we confound the life of faith with the cheap moralities, and outside show of godliness, which satisfy more than half our neighbours. On the contrary, whether men will hear or whether they will forbear, our message must be to every one of you, "Flee from idolatry ;"—" No man can serve two Masters;"-" That which is born of God overcometh the world ;" "Put off the old man with his deeds;"-"Be not deceived; God is not mocked; for whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap; he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting."

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SERMON XIV.

KING AHAB'S PALACE AND NABOTH'S VINEYARD.

1 KINGS XXI. 7.

"And Jezebel his wife said unto him, Dost thou now govern the kingdom of Israel? Arise, and eat bread, and let thine heart be merry: I will give thee the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite."

(Tenth Sunday after Trinity.-Morning.)

NABOTH is one of those persons who have risen from obscurity to fame by coming into collision with men of more note than themselves. What so unlikely beforehand as that this Israelite, whose business it was, just like any peasant in the country, to. cultivate his little plot of ground and support his family out of its produce, should be the subject of a narrative which is bound up in Holy Scripture with the history of our Lord Himself, and read out year by year in our Christian Churches for the instruction of the faithful? Yet there it is, written for our learning, preserved by God as a part of that word which is His Lesson-Book for

the human family; and the children of our Sunday Schools, who never heard of Alexander or the Cæsars, can tell of the sturdy Jezreelite who loved his vineyard too well to sell it, and was basely murdered by command of that idolatrous woman whose name has become a by-word of reproach to all succeeding ages.

The story has a sort of dramatic interest about it. The incidents have such a look of reality,Ahab's timid and abject spirit contrasts so strikingly with the reckless daring of his wife, -Naboth's tragical end is such a fearful exhibition of weakness trampled down by unprincipled and uncontrollable power,--the triumphing of the wicked was so short, and their sentencing so speedy,—so much is taught us in a little space of the workings of our evil nature against temptations either weak or strong, when there are few checks from without, and no fear of God ruling the inner man,—that we think the Chapter is well chosen for one of the Sunday Lessons, and willingly take for our subject that which the Church herself has suggested. You will find, if you come to look closely at the narrative, that it is something more than a bygone tale, and that you and I, who never think to kill like Jezebel, or to perish like her victim, may learn much from that which the Holy Spirit, in this particular Chapter, has recorded for our benefit. O may the great Teacher teach us, and we shall be taught effectually! May He help us to read the world and our own hearts aright, and then in every page,