extract honey from the bitterest plant; or, like the Eolian harp, can turn the shrieking wind into music.

Thirdly: In relation to appropriation. As the body lives by appropriating the outward, so does the soul; and as the effects of the appropriation, whether universal or otherwise, depend on the condition of the body's health, as the appropriation of a diseased body only increases the physical ailment; so with the soul. A corrupt soul appropriates, even from the most strengthening and refreshing means of spiritual improvement, that which weakens and destroys. Pharaoh and his host got moral mischief out of the ministry of Moses; and the men of Capernaum were pressed into a deeper and darker hell through the elevating and enlightening ministry of Jesus of Nazareth. Mark then the supreme importance of moral character.

II. The morally DEFILED in relation to all things. "Unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure; but even their mind and conscience is defiled." Here is

the converse. Mark in passing three things.

First: The sphere of the defilement. "The mind and conscience." "The mind," says a modern expositor, "is the willing as well as the thinking part of man, as it has been well defined the human spirit (pneuma) in one of its aspects, not simply quatenus cogitat, et intelligit, but also quatenus vult. Defilement of this mind (nous) means that the thoughts, wishes, purposes, activities, are all stained and debased. The second of these, the conscience (suneidesis), is the moral consciousness within, and that which is ever bringing up the memory of the past, with its omissions and commissions, its errors, its cruel heartless unkindness, its selfish disregard of others. When this is defiled, then this last safeguard of the soul is broken down. The man and woman of the defiled conscience is self-satisfied, hard, impenitent to the last." Every part and faculty of the soul stained with sin. The

body may be cleansed by ceremonial ablutions, and the external manners and speech kept pure by culture and civilization, but the soul be

black, the outside of the "cup and of the platter clean," but inside full of corruption. Mark

Secondly: The cause of the defilement. "They profess that they know God, but in works they deny Him." There is nothing, perhaps, so morally defiling to the soul as religious hypocrisy. The man who, with the lip, professes to know God, and who in the life denies Him, gets deeper stains upon his soul, than the agnostic who professes that he knows nothing about Him. What millions in our churches every Sunday publicly, at each service, avow with their lip their belief in God, but in their week-day life" He is not in all their thoughts." Thus souls get deeply dyed in corruption in Christian churches. Thirdly: The hideousness of the defilement. Being abominable and disobedient, and unto every good work reprobate." However fair their conduct in the religious observances, they are "abominable" within, hideous to the eye of God. However rigorous in their observances and religious ordinances, they are "disobedient" in heart; they

outrage moral laws; however useful they regard themselves and appear to others, they are reprobate, they are rejected and worthless.

These "defiled" in soul, defile every thing without, all outward things in their appearance, influences, and appropriation are to them corrupt.

CONCLUSION.-Mark

First: The natural sovereignty of the human soul. We are not necessarily the creatures of the outward, we have, within, the power to bend circumstances to our will, to get good out of evil, to turn outward dissonance into music, deformity into beauty, poison into nourishment. Let us adore our Maker for this wonderful endowment-an endowment which guards us from the coercion of outward forces, secures to us an inward freedom of action, and enables us to put all outward things in subjection to our own spiritual selves. Mark—

Secondly: The dependency of the soul's destiny on itself. A man's destiny depends upon his moral character, and his character depends upon him

self. As food, however nu-
tritious, cannot administer
strength to a man's body
without the digestive and
appropriate power, so no ex-
ternal influences, however
good and useful in themselves,
can raise a man's soul, with-
out the right action of its
faculties. Man cannot be

made good. His body may

be borne to the summit of a
lofty mountain, without the
use of his limbs, but if his
soul is to ascend "the holy
hill of the Lord," he must
climb it every inch himself.
Fortune or patronage may
raise him to some eminent
social position, but he cannot
reach a single stage of moral
dignity-the true dignity of
man-apart from his own
earnest endeavours. The
transformative power of the
soul is to external circum-
stances, what the builder is to
the materials out of which he
rears his edifice. The choicest
materials may be brought
together, gold, marble, and
cedar, but unless the builder
use them with artistic skill,
they will never take the form
of a beautiful structure. So
the providence of God may
gather around man all the

facilities and elements for the raising of a noble character, but unless he use them with his own spiritual hand, he will never produce such a structure. Mark

Thirdly: The grand end of true teaching. What is that? The supreme importance of every man obtaining a true moral character. "Marvel not that I say unto you ye must be born again." In moral goodness of soul alone, can we not only find our heaven, but find our way safely and happily through this life. We live in a world of evil. We cannot escape its damning influence by endeavouring, like the anchorite, to avoid its touch. Whilst no man should put himself in the way of temptation, no man should be afraid to confront evil, to go into its most malarial regions if duty call. In truth, if man's well-being depended upon escaping outward evil, it could never be realised, because to live in the world he is bound to live in its midst, and evil must stream into him every day. How, then, is he to reach a blessed destiny? Not merely by endeavouring to frame his life

according to the outward rules of morality and religion, but by a right use of his own spiritual powers. There is a power in the body, when in a healthy state, to appropriate whatever goes into it from external nature that is wholesome and necessary, and to expel that which is noxious and superfluous. The soul has a power analogous to this: a power to appropriate the wholesome and to expel the injurious. This power we call

the transformative. Let us use it rightly-use it as Noah used it, who, amidst the blasphemy and ridicule of a corrupt generation, walked with God, and fulfilled a noble destiny; as Paul used it at sceptical Athens, in dissolute Corinth, and in Pagan Rome, who from experience left the world this testimony-" All things work together for good to them that love God.” * DAVID THOMAS, D.D.

LONDON.

OBSERVE here—

I. A WRONG social state. A state of society in which no man cares for another. Each taken up with himself, and none concerned for his neighbours, is manifestly wrong.

First: It is unnatural. The constitution of our nature,endowed as we are with social longings and sympathies, and with faculties suited to render service one to another,-proves the unnaturalness of social indifference. What is morally abnormal is morally wrong.

Secondly: It is unrelational. By this I mean it is contrary to the relationship we sustain one to another, and all to God. We are all the offspring of the same common Father, all united by the bonds of consanguinity. The same blood quivers in the veins of each, and all are necessarily dependent on one another. Indifference, therefore, is manifestly wrong.

Thirdly It is un-Christian.

Christ lived and died for our race, and His apostles exhorted us to care for others rather than ourselves. Here is

IL-A MISERABLE social state. A more pitiable condition one can scarcely imagine than that of a man who feels himself utterly disregarded by his fellow-men, even by those nearest to him in relationship and locality. Though there may be much in a man's temperament, character, and procedure, to alienate him from others, -he may be unsocial, irascible, and grossly immoral,-all this does not justify his fellows for utterly disregarding him. In truth it forms a strong reason why they should be interested in him. "The whole need not a physician." Christ went amongst publicans and sinners. "Am I my brother's keeper?" Yes, you are bound to look after him, whether he be a lamb or a tiger.

LONDON.

DAVID THOMAS, D.D.