and the Helper by whose aid we may become loyal also. "My grace is sufficient for you." EDITOR.

John xvi. 30, 31, 32. (The Fifth Sunday after Easter.) "Now ARE WE SURE THAT THOU KNOWEST ALL THINGS," &c.

As the time of Christ's stay with His disciples was drawing to a close, He drew them closer than ever to Himself. In the Paschal Chamber, on the eve of His passion and death, there was a beautiful tenderness in His manner toward them; a tenderness which was very human and pathetic. The coming separation from them cast its shadow over Him, and made Him more solicitous than ever for their faith, and courage, and obedience. His works were richer and wider in their range of meaning than they had ever been before, and the hallowed atmosphere of the occasion heightened their impressiveness. He spoke of the Father, of Heaven, of fellowship with Himself when He should be no more seen, of prayer in His name, of His oneness with the Father. The whole scene, with the wonderful, heavenly talk of Christ, flowing like a river of life, was one of unearthly serenity and inspiration. The disciples feel it to be so. Their hearts were kindled. There was much they did not understand, but they

were none the less awed and filled with reverence and love. As they listened to the tones of that voice uttering the highest truths of the soul and eternity, and looked into that face so full of love and moral perfection, and looked around them upon the signs of the Passover Feast, they were filled with a new joy, and, for the time, they had a new vision of the greatness of Christ. They exclaimed, "Now we believe that Thou camest forth from God." "We know Thee now to be one from heaven. We see now that Thou art greater than the Baptist, or Elias, or the Prophets." It was a moment of inspiration and faith in their lives. But Christ sees beyond the passing hour. He looks out into

the dark, searching hour of trial that is so soon to overtake them, and He knows how they will fail under it. "Do ye now believe? Behold the hour cometh, yea, is now come, that ye shall be scattered every man to his own, and shall leave Me alone." It was not that they had no faith and love at all. Christ knew that they did believe in Him and love Him, but He saw that they were weak, and when the strain came upon them they would not be able to bear it. While they were with Him and He was opening His heart to them as He had never done before, while the brightness and peace of

that upper room were around them, while they dreamed not of approaching peril and conflict, they could exclaim, "We believe in Thee." But when the scenes of Gethsemane, and the Hall of Caiaphas, and Pilate's Tribunal, and Calvary came, they would be like frightened, bewildered, shepherdless sheep. True, ye are believing now, but ere long ye will be scattered every man to his own; and, as Christ had said, so it occurred. The hour of betrayal and capture startled the disciples out of their courage and fidelity, and they all forsook Him and fled.

There are, in human life, transitions from circumstances that are congenial to religious character, to circumstances that severely test it. A man should have a love to Christ that is strong enough to sustain him not alone in the "upper room," but also in the rough, adverse storms of life.

I. There is the change from a time of inspiration, to the absence of inspiration. As there is a tidal ebb and flow in the ocean, so there is an ebb and flow of the energies and life of the human mind and spirit. The thinker, poet, philosopher, historian feels this. At one time he is full of power and his work is a joy to him. He is lifted into a pure and lustrous atmosphere. It is a time of open, clear vision with him,

when he can write, or sing, or philosophise without strain or painful effort. The quick thoughts stream in upon him, and the world around unfolds its truths and lessons to him. At another time all is changed. The light fades, and he gropes painfully and with difficulty over his work. This is even more true of the higher life of the spirit. At one time spiritual power flows in upon a man. The Divine realities come home to him with solemn impressiveness. His love to God burns as an illuminating, purifying fire in his heart. The higher nature is in the ascendency, and evil dispositions and moral weaknesses are easily controlled. Temptations have lost much of their force. A Divine calm and strength fill the soul. In such an hour it is no great task to love and follow Christ. But the season of inspiration fades away. The heavens recede out of sight. The cold, dark night of trial and temptation gathers around us. We are no longer on the mount, but down in the weary, monotonous plain. Life is a battle once more. It is then that the reality of a man's faith in Christ is tested, and it is then that many a man fails. There is the faith of the hallowed hour of inspiration, when Divine influences enter like a flood into the spirit, and there is the far

more difficult and, therefore, nobler faith of the hour when the spirit is dull and void of inspiration.

II. There are times of seclusion from the tempting outside world, and times of contact with the world.

IIL-There are occasions when Christian character is honoured and esteemed, and occasions when a man must suffer for righteousness' sake.

IV.-There are seasons of Christian fellowship, and seasons when a man is deprived of fellowship.

There should be faith in Christ and obedience to His truth, not only in the happy, peaceful atmosphere of the Upper Room, but also in the time of peril, and suffering, and loneliness. "He that endureth to the end shall be saved."

WOODFORD.

THOMAS HAMMOND.

Acts i. 12.

(The Ascension Day.)

"THEN RETURNED THEY UNTO JERUSALEM FROM THE MOUNT CALLED OLIVET, WHICH IS FROM JERUSALEM A SABBATH DAY'S JOURNEY."

READING anew these familiar words, we are led at this time to enquire what the scene of our

Lord's Ascension suggests about our own higher life. For whether the scene be, as Bishop Ellicott and most expositors agree, Mount Olivet, or, as Dean Stanley and some others think, an upland between Olivet and Bethany, either locality equally suggests the place in its association with—

I. PRAYER. Olivet stands as the very symbol of Christ's prayers. How fitting that from the scene of His devotions He should finally ascend to His Father and our Father, His God and our God. And is not prayer the mount from which the soul ascends to the higher life of communion and service even here. Every true prayer is a Mount of Olives to the soul. We think of the place in its association with

III. SORROW. The grave of Lazarus was not far off, and there "Jesus wept." In view of that place of tears He ascended. So our sorrows are often on mountains of ascension; and even when we do not rise, we find "a tear the telescope through which we see furthest into the heavens of truth and fact." We think of the place in its association with

IV. COMPASSION. It was on a ridge of the mountain, from whose crest probably He now ascended, that Jesus had been transfixed with the emotion of compassion for the city at its base. There He cried, "O Jerusalem," &c. And from the scene where once He, with patriot's and philanthropist's strongest passion, had been overcome with emotion, He now rose to Heaven. So compassionate sacrifice is ever a mount of ascension to the soul; for "he that loseth his life shall find it.' We think of the place in its association with

V.-RESIGNATION. At the foot of the hill was there the brook and the garden for ever memorable as the scene of His strange struggle and sublime resignation, "Father, not as I will," &c. Our hours of truest resignation are the hours in which our souls reach their loftiest destiny, breathe their purest air, are nighest to God.

EDITOR.

John ix. 4.

(The Sunday after Ascension.) "I MUST WORK THE WORKS OF HIM THAT SENT ME, WHILE IT IS DAY: THE NIGHT COMETH, WHEN NO MAN CAN WORK."

THE natural division of Time into Day and Night fulfils not only physical but moral ends. It utters a spiritual message, it conveys spiritual impressions. The Great Teacher who interpreted for man the voices of birds, of harvest-fields, of flowers, has also here, and elsewhere, interpreted the Voice of Night. Among other great facts of which night speaks to us, Jesus says it tells of Death. So He heard it speak, and so He repeats what He heard from its strangely silent voice.

Reflecting on some of the analogies between Death and Night, we notice that Death like Night

I-IS CERTAIN. Night is certain, however unlikely its approach sometimes seems in the brightness of some Midsummer noon.

"All men think all men mortal but themselves."

But when we remember that all the human race down to this generation is dead, that every wave but two of the great ocean of life has broken on the shores of death, that all history is a narrative of those who are now dead, that all our

houses (almost) were once inhabited by those who are now dead, that our living bodies are ever tending towards dissolution and decay, we feel that just as every day is wheeling to the West to be buried in the great grave of Night, so the life of every one of us is hastening to Death. Death like Night

IL-BRINGS CHANGE OF SCENE AND OF OCCUPATION. The civ. Psalm supplies a beautiful picture of the change that comes over animal life at night, "Thou makest darkness," &c., and it supplies an equally beautiful suggestion concerning human life, "Man goeth forth unto his work and to his labour until the evening." But even where ordinary work ends at eventide, evening and night do not end life. The stream rolls on, though in another course.

of danger is surely part of the burden of the promise concerning the world, of which it is said, "There shall be no night there." Divine lips have said, "If any man walk in the night he stumbleth." Words fail to tell the peril of the night of death to those whose feet stumble on the dark mountains, without the light of the Word of God, the cross of Christ, the Spirit of light and love. Death like Night

IV. IS A TIME OF REST AND PEACE TO MANY. "The dews of the night heal the wounds of the day." So, to the good, death brings blessing. Then, as in the night when Peter slept, the doors of a darker prison, the chains of a harsher bondage than his will be opened and will be broken. "I heard a voice from heaven, saying, blessed," &c. There are, however, contrasts between death and night. Death is unlike night because there is

I. NO INDICATION OF ITS APPROACH TO MANY. Night gives indications of its approach. "There are two faces," some one has well said, "on the clock of time-one in the sky, where the hours are marked by the rising and the setting of the orbs of heaven, and the other on the earth, where the hours are marked by the opening and closing of the flowers." The chilliness, the obscurity, the hush of twilight, all