father's dying bed, or will come thronging about his memory in those still solemn hours between death and burial, as he sits in the old room, and recals scenes which now startle him by their freshness, -scenes in which he sees plainly enough now that he was the sinning party, and forbearance did not shame and melt him as it should have done. Sometimes buried sins, so to speak, will rise up from a parent's grave, and the man who stands there, if he might have one wish granted, would desire passionately that the fetters of Death might be broken for an instant, and that the closed lips might open to speak one sentence of pardon and of blessing. O yes, sins of undutifulness, be sure, are fastrunning sins, and if a man be not cut off before the time of repentance comes, they overtake him. surely, just because they are very, very few in whom natural affection is quite dead; and every man, who is not a brute, feels that to lose a parent is one of the most solemn events of life; and if he has sinned deeply against the departed one it is as impossible that he should then forget what has been done amiss as that the escaped man should forget the fire which consumed his home, or the shipwreck from which he, a solitary survivor, escaped on a plank to shore. We need not say sins of dishonesty find men out. They are hidden safely for a while, like the wedge of gold, and the shekels of silver, and the Babylonish garment, in Achan's tent; and then, on some evil day, detection comes, like the lot that fell on the wrongdoer, in the face of all the tribes of Israel; and lo! the guilty ones stand up before the sun, stripped of all their seeming virtue, with a tainted name that shall make their children hang down their heads for shame. Or if detection be escaped, -as it often is with little customary frauds,-there is the secret in the man's own bosom which he dare not tell his brother; and think you not, while he carries that burden, and to himself must confess that he is not an honest man till he puts away the accursed thing, that his sin has found him out, and cleaves to him, even while business prospers and friends congratulate him, like a maimed limb or an open sore? The man who wastes his youth in idleness, preferring self-indulgent and luxurious ease to the manly toil of self-culture, or to useful employments which bring with them their own reward of healthful pleasure,—that man sins against God and himself and society, when he lets precious talents run to waste; and he reaps his harvest when he gets respect from none of his equals,-when he wants occupation or excitement in middle life, and cannot find them to his liking,-or when sons and daughters grow up about him, and he feels that he can teach them little beyond what they learn from books before they are ten years old. One other class of sins remains to be spoken of, -sins of ungodliness and unbelief. Of these we cannot say that they shall surely find men out. We cannot promise one of all our worldly-minded hearers that for a certainty, before he dies, he will acknowledge the guilt and shame of being an unconverted man. It may be that he will never be shocked by his past ingratitude,-never brought to sorrow after a godly sort,—never made to feel that to call himself a Christian, without ever beginning fairly to live to Christ, is a miserable pretence. The number is not small of those who keep their place in the Church unchallenged, maintain a life of decency like their neighbours, live to old age without ever suspecting their want of faith, and then die with a cheating hope for their last earthly comforter. We know what the end must be if that sin does not find a man out in time. It will find him out in eternity. O judge yourselves, my dear brethren, and build on no foundation less sure than the Rock of Ages. We have been hearing about Jacob's sin; remember his dream as he slept at Bethel,— how he saw a ladder reaching to the skies, and "the angels of God ascending and descending on it." The way is as open as the vision made it. Peace is made between earth and heaven by the blood of the Cross; and Christ, "the good Shepherd, who gave His life for the sheep," guardeth and feedeth them hour by hour, and good angels, who rejoice to do His bidding, wait in very deed D about them who are heirs of salvation. Make a covenant with God, as the patriarch did when he woke up from his dream, and let it be on the Gospel terms,-"Lord, take me to be Thy servant; rule in my heart, and let my life be consecrated to Thy service; for Thou hast spared me, and redeemed me with precious blood, and whom should I serve but Thee?" Sin, alas! will still be a pursuing enemy in one sense; but the stronghold, the city of refuge, will be ever in view; and, again and again, you will find the promise come true, as you battle manfully with your old temptations, "Sin shall not have dominion over you; for ye are not under the law, but under grace." SERMON III. ESAU'S BITTER CRY. GENESIS XXvii. 38. "And Esau said unto his father, Hast thou but one blessing, my father? bless me, even me also, O my father. And Esau lifted up his voice, and wept." (Second Sunday in Lent.-Morning.) THERE is something very doleful in this cry of Esau. Year by year, when it is read out in the public services of the Church, we cannot help siding, for the moment, with the man who sold his birthright, and lost the blessing. We feel that, whatever might be his faults elsewhere, in the chamber of his fond old father he appears to great advantage when compared with Jacob and Rebekah. The story of this divided household is told very briefly in a former chapter,-"Isaac loved Esau because he did eat of his venison; but Rebekah loved Jacob." We need not infer from this brief statement that Esau's success as a hunter was the single reason for Isaac's preference; though, undoubtedly, it bespeaks a sad weakness in one nurtured and |