fingers touch us, and holy gleams from the glistening eyes speak of innocence and happy joys within. The Saviour said, "Of such is the kingdom of heaven."

Heaven lies about us in our infancy, and certainly it lies very deeply and very sweetly within us. "Their angels do always behold the face of my Father in the heavens" (Matt. xviii. 10). As we grow in stature, however, we often decline in innocence. Other thoughts and impulses which belong to a lower grade of our nature, the carnal part, derived from our human ancestry and depraved by human faults, shew themselves. The coarse and corrupt ways of the world around us call out in us states of evil, and habits very different from the sweet purity of childhood. The giddy girl, and the rough boy, shew that the Hebron within is not what it once was. Three giants now live there, sons of Anak, and they have strongly entrenched themselves (Josh. xv. 14). Only by a grand struggle can they be driven These three giants are, the LUST OF THE FLESH (polluted pleasure), the LUST OF THE EVES (the love of show), and the PRIDE OF LIFE. They are hard to overcome, and many flinch from the struggle through cowardice. These monsters got in when they were little, but have now become great. They tyrannize over everything, and defile everything. Every one knows that they produce abundance of misery, but faint-hearted ones flinch from facing them. Yet without their destruction

out.

there can be no peace.

See what ruin POLLUTED PLEASURE has caused; what disease, what sorrow, what loss of character, what loss of health, what horrid experiences of body and soul, what insane follies are the inflictions of this giant who has long cursed Hebron with his vile presence. The myriads of drunkards are his work, the myriads of gluttons, the foul army of those who are the deadliest foes of the purities of home are all his followers. It is full time he should be cast out, with all belonging to him.

Then his brother, LUST OF THE EYES, is little better than he. What thousands have been ruined for vain show! The restless spirit of vanity, which is ever striving to deck itself out with some new gewgaw, and to procure a little more gilding, a little more finery, suffers integrity to be utterly lost, and the great aims of life utterly to fail before the tinsel of to-day. This senseless giant induces his poor victims to imagine they are exciting admiration by their silly expenditure, when they are only inducing sorrow in the judicious, and provoking sneers in such as are like themselves: sneers at their vanity in their elevation, and mockery at their ruin when they fall.

And lastly, PRIDE. He is an awful giant, the eldest son of the terrible Anak of self-love. What ruin has he not caused! Pride in the despot has cried "havock and let slip the dogs of war." What devastated lands and ruined cities, what burning houses, slaughtered brothers, husbands, and fathers, abused maidens, sisters, mothers, mangled and mutilated bodies, and brutalized minds! These are thy works, O Pride. Who should spare thee? Then see in the disdainful walk, the insolent haughty silence, the supercilious look, the bitter taunt, the insulting gibe, the factitious separations between the children of the same Heavenly Father induced by thee, the neglect of the humble, and the swelling jauntiness of the high; how thy gall embitters all the ways of private life, and makes the sweet intercourse of life, intended to multiply all our blessings, a constant struggling through thorns. With many, life is a long agony, mainly, O Pride, through thee. But Joshua has given orders that both thou and thy terrible brothers shall be cast out of Hebron. Down, down, all of you! Why should poor souls be vexed, harassed, cursed and destroyed by you any longer, either in time or in eternity?

The faint-hearted fear these giants, and are afraid they will never overcome them. But those who have true courage and trust in the Lord, are always victorious. These were represented by Caleb, who took Hebron, and drove out the giants. He and Joshua were the two faithful ones who were firm for the Lord and for right, when the timid spies disheartened the people by their discouraging report. To the brave Caleb, whose name signifies AS THE HEART, and who represents a firm affection in the heart for the Lord and for religion, it was given to take Hebron, and introduce into it peace and rest. He said to Joshua, “As yet I am as strong this day as I was in the day that Moses sent me as my strength was then, even so is my strength now, for war, both to go out, and to come in. Now therefore give me this mountain, whereof the Lord spake in that day: for thou heardest in that day, how the Anakim were there, and that the cities were great and fenced: if so be the Lord will be with me, then I shall be able to drive them out, as the Lord said. Hebron therefore became the inheritance of Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenezite unto this day, because that he wholly followed the Lord God of Israel" (Josh. xiv. 11, 12, 14). If we were all single-hearted and courageous like Caleb, what mighty giants would fall before us!

The sins of the heart are strong in our fears and

Let a

timidity, much more than in any power of their own. man resolve with the help of the Lord, that he will overcome the evil he hates, and persevere, and he will assuredly triumph, and that soon. The giants will fall and fade, and he will be astonished how soon. Oh how sad it is to see a man bewailing his sin, despising himself, and bemoaning himself, and going again, as if drawn by a cart rope, to the old lust and the old misery. What a terrible hold an evil has, when a man is ashamed of himself, and feels he is ruining himself, and yet, as if drawn by a strong magnet, goes to the same unhappy slavery again.

"Oh, where's the slave so lowly,
Bound fast by chains unholy,
Who, could he burst

His chains at first,

Would pine beneath them slowly?"

If we were all true Calebs, and acted from religion in the heart, our exulting faith would cheerfully exclaim, "I can do all things through Christ that strengtheneth me" (Phil. iv. 13). Our giants would soon perish, and the Hebron of our hearts would be taken possession of first by Caleb and his family, or in other words by the desire to be conformed to the Lord, and then by the Lord Himself, our Divine David, coming to be King at Hebron.

Caleb was not satisfied with taking Hebron; he determined also to take Kirjath Sepher, the neighbouring city, whose name signifies the Metropolis of the Book. He acquired it by the aid of the brave Othniel, to whom he gave his daughter in marriage, and as a dowry the upper and lower springs. The taking of the city of Kirjath Sepher, represents the removal of the Word from those who had made it of none effect, to be honoured, loved, and obeyed by those who regarded it as abounding with truths for heart and life, the upper and the nether springs. They who have expelled giant lusts from the heart, by the power of true love for God and their neighbour, go to the Word with earnest yearning, and draw from it with joy holy water as from the wells of salvation (Isa. xii. 3). The waters of life from the upper springs refresh and purify the inner man the waters of life from the lower springs wash the feet of the soul, and make the daily conduct pure. Stimulated and gladdened by the sacred and pellucid waters of the sanctuary, they run and are not weary, they walk and never faint (Isa xl. 31).

The blessing of David being anointed king in Hebron, or,

in application to the progress of our regeneration, making the Lord the ruler of our inner man, is unspeakable. When religion has become embedded in the heart, and exists there as a fountain of hopes and aspirations, the heaven within begins to be felt, and becomes a focus of new powers and new joys. There may yet be many a conflict to reduce the outer man to order, but the power is there that can do it. David will need to stay seven years and six months at Hebron (ver. 11), or in other words, he must acquire a full sanctity of state in the inner man (signified by the seven years), and a full faith that by steady untiring labour the outer man will be regenerated also (for this is meant by the six months); and then he will become king over the whole land. We shall find still that in the outer man there is much sin working death; but we delight in the law of God after the inward man (Rom. vii. 22, 23). David is king in Hebron. What we would, often we cannot do; what we would not sometimes unhappily is done. When we would do good, evil is present with us; but we will neither despair nor cease our efforts, until the whole soul becomes the embodiment of virtues and thoughts of wisdom. We are cleansing the inside of the cup and the platter, and the outside will become clean also (Matt. xxiii. 26).

Our text adds, "They told David, saying, the men of Jabesh Gilead were they that buried Saul." The respectful burial of Saul signifies the respectful remembrance of the good of a former state. Saul had done good service, though his day of government was over. So is it with us in the progress of our regenerate life. We come into states of experience in which we discern how inadequate and how poor were the thoughts, sentiments, and affections of our early religious life. Yet they were everything to us then. We should bury them with a grateful confession of their worth, like the men of Jabesh Gilead. They buried the remains of Saul under an oak-tree; which, in spiritual things, represented the perception by the soul of the help the religion of the letter of the Word had been in our early childlike states. This is accompanied with sadness, which Jabesh signifies, but with gratitude. We enter on a new career, laying aside the former with the feeling: "He who has helped us hitherto,

Will help us all our journey through :
And give us daily cause to raise
A new and grateful song of praise."

SERMON XVIII.

THE HOUSE OF DAVID WAXING STRONGER, AND THE HOUSE OF SAUL WEAKER.

"Now there was long war between the house of Saul and the house of David: but David waxed stronger and stronger, and the house of Saul waxed weaker and weaker.”– 2 SAM. iii. I.

EVERYTHING changes by degrees. The spring glides into summer, the summer into autumn, the autumn into winter. This is done so gradually that it is difficult to say when the one ends and the other begins. So when the morning breaks, how slowly does darkness give way to dawn! Like a dissolving view the light gradually blends with shade, and the day emerges; but by such faint changes that all flows peacefully on, and nature sustains no shock. With the first faint streaks of light you hear the first chirps of the early birds, and these with the increase of day pour forth a livelier song; but only when the sun appears, in all its splendour, does the full gush of harmony salute the ear. It is so with all growth, natural and spiritual. By little and little does Divine Providence work out its benign operations, whether in robing the earth with beauty, or in restoring and regenerating the soul. It is "first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear" (Mark iv. 28). What amazing love there is in this! what adorable wisdom! A man to whom religion is yet a stranger, is little better than a savage, covered more or less completely with a superficial polish, and frequently disclosing the vicious nature underneath. For this unhallowed soul to become a full image and likeness of God, one who loves everything good and true purely for the sake of goodness and truth, what a vast change must be effected! All the aims of life need to be transformed. He must learn to love what he once hated, and hate what he once loved. Pride, power, fame, applause, pleasure, those deities which allure and