rejoiced not, and they that buy as though they possessed not, and they that use this world as not abusing it; for the fashion of this world passeth away." The things that grow out of the dust are washed away.

II. Job unconsciously stated a great fact.

There are laws by which all changes and convulsions in nature are regulated. Storms are the baptism by which nature is regenerated. There is a law of darkness as well as of light. There is a law of change as well as of rest. There must be quiescence and repose, that strength may be gathered up for seasons of action. There is a law of life and death, -there is death to one form of life that there may be new and more mature developments. There are laws for great things, and for all trivial things in nature for storms and floods, for the action of water on the stones, and for the death of things that grow up out of the dust.

Stones may preach sermons to us. The laws which operated in the formation of each stone are as clearly written upon it, as the laws of the ten commandments were on the two tables of stone. The stone shows the effect of the winds and rains of a past age, or exhibits the ripples of ancient seas, or tells of violent or volcanic action.

There is in nature a provision against the waste which appears to follow change. The things which grow out of the dust owe their beauty or fruitfulness

to the soil. The soil is necessary to vegetable lifewithout it our fields would presently become sterile; and yet the soil, consisting as it does of loose materials, must be constantly undergoing change-the rains and floods must sweep it away. The very destruction of the soil seems imminent through the waste which is going on year after year, but still there is no apparent diminution. There are causes at work to supply the loss. The storms and tempests, the rush of waters and overwhelming floods-mechanical and chemical agencies, and the action of atmospheric influences on the mountains and rocks -create the new soil. The winds scatter over the fields new particles of nourishment, and the streams. bring deposits from the higher lands.

You have seen rocks in their fearful loneliness, with only some few signs of life on their bare and stony sides. How came these flowers to grow there? Did the sun kiss the rocks, and give birth to life? No! The winds howled around them, and smote them, the tempest swept by them, or expended its force against them, the lightnings struck them, and left scars behind, and thus there were made clefts, crevices, in which the seeds of these frail but beautiful forms of life were posited by the passing breeze. There is no soil so miraculously prolific as sorrowthe seed sown there will bring forth the peaceable fruits of righteousness. Life seems to have its birth in death.

There are certain conditions of thought and feeling in which the mind becomes barren, and the heart loses its sensitiveness. You may pace the same round of thought so regularly that at last you may make footprints in your beaten track, and you can only walk by putting your feet in these. You lose the capacity for fresh and vigorous thought on great subjects—your heart loses the power of deep feeling, and becomes contracted. Any convulsion, any revolution is to be welcomed which shall break up these forms of life, these conventional states of thought and feeling. The depths of your nature must be broken up. There comes some mighty rushing wind, or some earthquake, causing the very foundations of your nature to be shaken;-and the Lord is in the earthquake. There are new deposits. Amidst the débris—the desolations of your old life, there will be material for new forms of strength and beauty.

There is a necessity for change; you see this in nature. There must come the desolation, the barrenness of winter, that the spring may follow with its verdure and promises of fruitfulness. From those awful mountains, where the storm sweeps and the avalanche falls, comes forth in its calmness and unruffled serenity the stream which makes glad the city of God.

There is one great change produced directly by Divine agency. It is indispensable that we should experience this. I refer to the Spirit of God regene

rating the fallen creature to the new creation in Christ Jesus. Do not think that God is jealous of any attempt on your part to change yourself. Not so; but the change is so great that it can only be effected by Divine power. If a man has ruined his physical nature, would he not be willing to be restored to health? and are you not willing for God to create you anew? You must be made a new creature in Christ Jesus, and then the old things pass away, and lo, all is new.

H

TEMPLE VIEWS OF WINTER.

"And it was at Ferusalem the feast of the dedication, and it was winter. And Jesus walked in the temple in Solomon's borch."-JOHN X. 22, 23.

NATIONAL humiliation and national rejoicing may at times be every way fit and proper. Events may call for them, their propriety may be universally recognised; but if annually perpetuated, they may become unmeaning-the memorials of worn-out and obsolete things. Antiochus had defiled the temple by offering swine upon the altar. Judas Maccabeus had purified it, and the "feast of the dedication" was the annual commemoration of this event in Jewish history. In addition to fasts and festivals of Divine appointment, others were appended, and these, though not binding on men's consciences, appear to have been scrupulously observed. It is instructive to observe with how much more reverence men treat Church institutions than those ordained and sanctioned by God.

What a contrast there is between Christianity and Judaism! Christianity is a religion without fasts and festivals. It is not an outward religion. It is