A blind man in a strange city dare not move. How valuable as well as kind if some one take him by the hand! You are compelled to travel in a country with which you are entirely unacquainted. There are many cross roads and few indications of the paths you should take. Some one overtakes you and shows you the path which conducts to your destination, but which, without his leading, you could probably not have found. It is night. Impenetrable darkness surrounds. You dare not move, lest you should plunge into some dangerous place; for it is a wild moorland. But the morning breaks. The sun begins to shine. The light is in your way. There is a crooked road which must be straight ened before you can prosper. You cannot straighten it. Lo! it becomes straight!

Is not man's path in this world one of darkness until God illuminates it? We are blind and ignorant. He alone can enlighten and inform us. He alone knows our way, and He has promised to lead us.

I Look at this truth as illustrated by the history of the Church.

1. In Egypt the Israelites were blind. They groaned under their bondage, but saw no way of deliverance. But God did, and in due time He led them forth,

2. Through the wilderness they were led; they did not foresee the way. Even Moses did not arrange their movements. For great disciplinary reasons God kept them wandering forty years in an unexpected path. But He led them notwithstanding. There was the pillar of cloud and fire by day and by night.

3. In Babylon. It was a dark and dreary time. They hung their harps on the willows. They saw no possibility of restoration. But He knew of the Cyrus whom He would raise up, who would lead the besieging army, who would capture the city, who would proclaim deliverance. He knows beforehand the political movements of heathen courts, and how they will affect His Church.

4. From that time to the birth of Christ. The Jewish people in their own land. Wonderful control of circumstances by which the Advent occurred according to ancient promise.

5. Thus in the Church of Christ to the present time. Early Church led in a way quite other than the Apostles would have chosen. Through many vicissitudes the Christian Church has been brought. Yet her great Head has brought her through. Openings have been made for the gospel in unexpected ways. Thus it will be. We are blind. We know not how the final triumph of Christ will be secured, but it will be secured.

II. Look at this truth as illustrated by the spiritual experience of believers.

God has a people in this world. Some of them may not yet have been called from it. They are in the blindness of heathenism or indifference and sin. God's time comes. Paul sets forth on his missionary journeys, Williams to the South Seas, Moffat to Africa. Souls are brought into contact with the truth. Christian households are formed. Some are called in early life under parental influence; some resist and continue for years in a course of sin; an unexpected sickness or disaster awakens, or God blesses some sermon (H. E. I. 1414, 1415). You did not know the way of salvation. devise it. covered it.

Human wisdom did not You could never have dis

He brought it near. He led you to His feet, and began in your soul the strange new life.

And thus He is leading you to heaven. His Word and Spirit conduct by paths hitherto unknown. Sometimes through pleasant fields of promise, of communion, of holy aspiration, of Christian work; sometimes through dark passages of sorrow and perplexity; now awakening the slumbering conscience, now soothing the troubled heart. Thus He will continue (Ps. cvii. 7).

III. Look at this truth as illustrated by the course of Divine Providence.

How often are the Lord's people

brought into complete distress and uncertainty! They dare not move a foot lest it should be a fatal mistake. Then, when He has brought them to the realisation of their entire dependence on Him, and to cast themselves on Him in simple faith, He opens an unexpected way, by means quite unlikely. Jacob thus led into Egypt, where he finds the long-lost Joseph. Peter delivered by the angel from prison. Paul's desire to see Rome gratified, not as he planned, but by his going as a prisoner. You are not to-day where you expected to be at the outset of your career. Recall your changes and deliverances.

Does not this subject teach the lesson of simple trust? Is it dark with you to-day? It is not so with Him. He knows why your sky is overcast. He may have blessings in store which could not otherwise come. Comfort your hearts with His promises. Gather up your courage. Let faith look through the cloud at His guiding hand.-J. Rawlinson.

nothing as He sees it; and unless He lead, we cannot go. But His gracious promise is, "I will bring the blind," &c.

I. The fulfilment of this promise has been splendidly exhibited in God's dealings with our general humanity. How remarkable is that mystery of His gracious providence, that the most important things in the universe should come out of their very opposites !—e.g., that the greatest material prosperity should come out of the greatest spiritual aspiration. And yet this has been the history of the world. The only people able to hold itself unpulverised in the conflicts of nations is the one nation set apart wholly to the service of religion. When men try to further the world, enlarge its commerce, increase its mass of material wealth by devoting themselves only to the things which are seen, they become utterly VOL. II.

degraded. On the contrary, material things used for spiritual ends gain new splendours. A house consecrated to God becomes a home. Bread eaten rather for the uses of the spirit that is in the body than for the body itself becomes holy.

IL This promise is no less wonderfully fulfilled in God's dealings with individual souls. No man knows the way. Science cannot find a door in the hard wall of the visible: God must reveal it. When a spirit undertakes to engineer its course, it naturally seeks to enter at a wide gate, and to go in the broad way. To all human appearance there is room there. But when God takes the hand of the soul, He carries it through a very narrow gate, and along a very strait way. From His throne He sees every possible way from Egypt to Canaan. The soul can only see its immediate surroundings, a sea in front, mountain walls on both hands, or a wide, pathless, and devouring desert. We do not know the paths. He does. He is offering to guide us. Let us not go blundering in our blindness, falling over a hundred obstacles for every clear step we make. Let us put our hands in His, who hath promised to lead us.

"For one thing only, Lord, dear Lord, I plead ; Lead me aright,

Though strength should falter, and though heart should bleed,

Through peace to light.

"I do not ask my cross to understand,
My way to see;

Better in darkness just to feel Thy hand,
And follow Thee."

-The Study and the Pulpit, 1877, pp. 761, 762.

How rich in comfort we should be if we could get well into the thought of this text, and if we could get the thought well into us! As to our being blind, needing counsel and guidance, in constant danger of taking false and disastrous steps if we attempt to pursue our way alone, how often are we reminded of this! 1. There is the blindness that results from the limitation

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of our faculties. 2. Blindness that is due to our inexperience. 3. Blindness caused by our degradation.

very

The promise in our text is consoling by the very closeness and completeness with which it takes hold of our condition. Not only does it assure us of the loving guidance of God in a general way, but in those cases also where the darkness is deepest, and where the blindness is total. Even the blind have sometimes their familiar paths, where they are safe as long as they keep to them. Here, however, the blind are to be brought by ways they know not: they are to be led in paths they have not known. A very special guidance must here be at work, coming in at the moment of deepest need, taking us by the hand and leading us on, just when even the ordinary knowledge that serves us on the familiar paths can be of no use to us. When the usual roadway ends, when the landmarks disappear, when the well-known signs are gone, and no accustomed object meets the eye, then the Divine Hand comes near to lead the trustful heart, and to direct it into the heavenly way, which otherwise it could not find.

The special thought before us, then, is, that God, in His providence, so orders the critical and decisive steps of His people, that they are safe, even when they cannot see the issues. Illustrate this by a few striking examples. 1. The case of Joseph. Trace the stages of his career. Even he does not dream of the steps that will lead to the fulfilment of his destiny. Yet in what marvellous ways, through a process which now we should term romantic, does he at last reach the goal! The full conviction of Joseph, that God had been working through all that wonderful history, is clearly stated in his memorable words to his brethren (Gen. xlv. 8). 2. The sojourn of Israel in Egypt. Consider the manner in which Jacob was drawn down to Egypt to begin that sojourn. Joseph's history had affected, not himself only, but that of the whole family and the whole race of Israel. But how totally

unable must the members of that family have been to perceive the critical nature of the successive steps of the history! How wonderful that so many long years after Jacob had given up his son Joseph as being dead, regarding it as the crowning grief of a very strange and sorrowful life, news should be brought him that his son was yet alive, and that he must go and see him before his death! Then consider what that journey from Hebron into Egypt meant. Roots up Jacob from his home in his last days to die in a strange land: inaugurates the life of Israel in Egypt, &c. Yet Jacob, too, could see the hand of God in all the strange history of the past, when he could survey it in its wholeness, and was sure also of the future guidance of the people. Among his dying words he said to Joseph, "Behold, I die; but God shall be with you, and bring you again unto the land of your fathers." 3. Israel's deliverance from Egypt. Strange process was that by which Moses was fitted to become their deliverer, &c. Similar illustrations might be easily traced in the lives of such men as David, Nehemiah, Daniel, and indeed most of the saints of Old and New Testament Scripture, all bearing out the truth we have previously stated-that God's providence takes special care of the critical and decisive steps of His people, so that they are safely guided through the paths they did not and could not know.

Our text indicates, also, what these histories beautifully confirm-1. That happy surprises are in store for those who are thus Divinely led. "I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight." 2. That the Divine purpose and fidelity are all-comprehensive. God does not break off in the middle of things, but fully completes what He begins. "These things will I do unto them, and not forsake them."

Such a subject as this may well be applied to strengthen our faith and hope. It suggests such lessons as the following:-1. The leading is conducted by Infinite Wisdom and Love. God's

set to their guilt, before God's pardon can ever reach them (Rom. x. 2, 3). All this is in vain. If God leads them, they will see it is in vain. Salvation is a gift; and that God has led them in an unknown way, their own astonishment is evidence, when they have found peace in believing. Among the sweet and grateful recollections of believers, this leading of God has universally a place.

3. Perhaps the most remarkable of all illustrations of this truth is to be found in the experience of Christians. We should naturally expect them to have more correct expectations of God's treatment than other people. But they are slow to learn; they are often disappointed; their anticipations are no foreshadowings of God's treatment of them. Their comforts, their prosperity, and strength seldom come to them in the way of their anticipations; yea, very seldom, or never. The allotments of Divine Providence which affect them most are such as they little expected.

II. SOME REMARKS ON THIS SUBJECT.

1. God will make Himself known as infinitely above us. Be ashamed that you ever distrusted Him.

2. We must have faith. We cannot walk by sight.

3. If God is leading us on toward heaven, He will compel us to trust Him. We are blind. By faith darkness becomes light. Never point out a way for yourself. Take God's way. Never despond. Trust Him. Accept His Son, and pillow your aching head upon His promises (P. D. 1652-1659).

4. This mode of God's leading us is calculated to bring us most near to Himself. Has it not been so?

Do nothing but trust Him in His Son.-Ichabod S. Spencer, D.D.: Sermons, vol. i. pp. 247-262.

The great truth which the prophet plainly teaches is, that the whole course of each individual is so guided and arranged by an unseen, but not an unfelt hand, that, like a blind man,

he is led by another. Prov. xvi. 9 is almost a commentary upon this

passage.

"There's a divinity that shapes our ends, Rough-hew them how we will."

I. Illustrate this by a little introspective inspection of your inner and past history. Recall, as far as you are able, all you can recollect in your past biography. Is not your whole life, in warp and woof, totally different from anything you ever expected years ago? Like blind men, you have been led in a path that you knew not. This is the fulfilment of God's prophecy. Did not an unforeseen accident, as the world would call it, alter the course of your career? A bereavement a sudden reverse-an accidental conversation or remark. Will any man tell me that all these little incidents fraught with vast issues were chance? Is it not upon the minutest incidents that the most gigantic results often depend? What can be the explanation? God leads us (H. E. I. 3223-3226, 4015-4022).

But what is still more remarkable, God often takes the sins of His people, and out of those sins He elaborates their progress in likeness to Himself, and in fitness for the kingdom of heaven. Nothing so demonstrates the infinite compassion of God as this.

Apply the same great truths to those things that brought you to the Saviour. The heart wounded to the quick, only to apply to it a balm that heals it perfectly and forever. Instances of this in the Bible: The Samaritan woman (John iv.); the Feast of Pentecost and Peter's sermon (Acts ii.); Saul visiting Damascus. on an errand of proscription and blood (Acts ix.); Abraham-Jacob

the

Shunamite woman. What are these but proofs that God leads the blind in a way that they know not? And what do they teach us? "Stand still and see the salvation of God." Man's extremity is God's opportunity.

II. Some useful practical inferences. 1. God is in everything. In all things magnificently great, and microscopi