glances the glowing fervours of the immortal being within. Oh wondrous door of thought! oh wondrous window through which the radiant splendours of the spirit shine! Oh wonderful photographic power which transfers the universe, and with God-given appliances fixes all the pictures! What malicious being would dare or desire to injure an organ so guarded and so prized by Providence Divine?

Yet in such cases as the one in our text, wretched cruel tyrants have sought ruthlessly to destroy what the skill of all the philosophers who ever lived could never make. We shudder to think what a monster Nahash the Ammonite must have been! He proposed to put out the right eyes of the inhabitants of this city. Appalling crime! Yet how many there are who, from lust of power, or from an unguarded acquiescence in blind traditions, are constantly seeking to induce spiritual blindness. Have we quite as vivid a dread of these? "You must not dare to think for yourself. Religion is a collection of dark mysteries, of which we have the keeping. You are not to think, but to heed what we say, in blind obedience to what we call faith." Yet to darken the soul is more mischievous than to darken the body. "You must sacrifice your intellect," say these blindness makers. "The greater the mystery, the greater the faith." "I believe because it is impossible." "The more impossible, the more certain." These are of the tribe of Nahash the Ammonite. His name signifies "serpent ;' many such serpents there have been in the past, and many such there are at the present day. They long for a blind people, especially in relation to THE RIGHT EYE. The right eye corresponds to the intellect which is directed chiefly to notice things of love; the left eye to that part of the understanding which is directed to things of faith. The mental right eye, when it looks up to the Lord, sees that He is good to all, that His tender mercies are over all His works. When it looks to heaven, it beholds the realms of bliss a kingdom of love; when it looks to religion, it regards charity as chief; when it looks to human conduct, it rejoices when it sees a loving heart and a good life.

What is there in all this to offend Nahash the Ammonite ? Let us see.

Jabesh-Gilead was situated in the portion of the Israelitish possessions beyond the Jordan. They had a beautiful country, rich in fruits and flowers, surrounded by glorious mountains, part of the territory granted to the two tribes and a half, Reuben, Gad, and the half tribe of Manasseh. They represented good,

simple people, who are upright, but who do not think deeply or care for much beyond the letter of the Word. The name Jabesh, which signifies dryness, is expressive of their state ; there is but little of sap in them, but in external life they conform themselves to the teaching of the divine commandments. Gilead means a "heap of testimony." It was the place where Jacob and Laban made a covenant. It signifies such a state of religion as a Gentile would admit, and to which he would conform. The Ammonites were the descendants of Lot from one of the two sons who were the result of his unhappy proceedings in a cave: Moab was the other.

Ammon represented a religion of perverted truth originating from evil, and an obscure state of mind, a mind like a cave. Moab represents a religion of ceremony, with a similar origin, Both are superstitious, and hate the light.

Lot was the cousin of Abraham, and was in a certain state of good, but a very low one. After he was saved from Sodom, he declined, and he represented those who have dispositions towards religion, but whose gloomy minds are like a cave. They invent a religion of their own, but a religion of grimness. They take some parts of the letter of the Bible, but never enter into its loving, broad, and genial spirit. They have no love, and they don't think God has any. They magnify what they esteem to be duties, and these must be attended to, whatever becomes of the weightier matters of the law. They would neglect their families to attend a prayer meeting; they would grind down their workpeople to build a place of prayer. They would multiply services of worship and profession; but the services of justice, uprightness to all men, goodness, real virtue, and gentleness are, in their code, of no account. They will, like the Pharisees of old, move heaven and earth to make a proselyte, but it is a convert to their party, not to wisdom, to loving-kindness, or to God. They make much of a few things in the letter of religion, and call it FAITH to believe in these ; but all the loving part of religion they despise. This is the reason of their being represented by Nahash desiring to put out the right eyes of the men of Jabesh-Gilead. These latter, being simple people, had not sufficient power to drive their foes thoroughly away, but they held them at bay for a time. They desired a truce of seven days.

Seven is the sacred number, and the truce for seven days implied that in the loving religion of the Heavenly Father there would be found help for them.

In the meantime Saul had been chosen king, and had taken the responsibility of government. Messengers came to him, whose tidings spread sorrow around. The Spirit of God came upon Saul and filled him with courage and wisdom. He took his two oxen and hewed them in pieces, sending the pieces by messengers in every direction, requiring all the able-bodied men to assemble with him, and denouncing the destruction of the oxen of all who failed to attend.

Oxen correspond to obedience, the plodding spirit of duty; the two oxen imply the acknowledgment of duty to God and duty to man; and Saul sent pieces of the oxen around, inviting thus the aid of all who sympathized with him in the conviction that the one indispensable principle is obedience to the commandments of God, to obey God in using rightly the faculties He has given, and to repel all who in His name are "blind leaders of the blind." This is the true duty implied in Saul's invitation to come up to the help of the men of Jabesh-Gilead. Religion is

a thing of light, not of darkness; of seeing, not of blindness. The thirty thousand men of Judah and the three hundred thousand men of Israel who came, represented all the teachings of love and all the powers of faith; for three, which is the chief number concerned, is used in Scripture when fulness of truth is intended to be expressed. They sent messengers to JabeshGilead to assure them of help on the morrow, when the sun should be hot. When the soul has marshalled its powers as carefully as if all depended upon itself, and stands ready to do its best for the Lord, it will soon have a glorious morrow; the sun will soon be hot, and victory will soon be achieved. The Lord is the Sun of the soul, the Sun of righteousness; and when we prepare ourselves in devout and loving trust in Him, He will soon rise in the warm glow of love, with healing in His wings. The soul burning with zeal and courage will chase as "chaff before the wind" all who love darkness rather than light. The agents of man-made mystery must then fly like detected owls. Divine mysteries indeed there are, but they are hidden wisdom, which we are invited to fathom (1 Cor. ii. 7). “Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven," said the Lord to His disciples (Matt. xiii. 11), and He says the same in every age.

"Let there be light" was His original charter for mankind. It is His charter now. Conspiracy demands secrecy and darkness; innocence, virtue, and progress rejoice in the light. They are of the tribe of Nahash the Ammonite, who seek to put out

the right eyes of mankind, who say, "Don't pry into divine things, don't examine, don't think, you are sure to be either infidel or insane if you venture to use your mental powers." It was well said by an ancient sage, "The wise man's eyes are in his head, but the fool walketh in darkness" (Eccles. ii. 14). When poor Caspar Hauser, who had been confined from childhood in a dark cellar, first saw the brilliant sky on a splendid star-light night, all radiant with magnificent loveliness, he burst into tears, and exclaimed, "Oh what have I ever done that I should not have been permitted to see this wondrous sight before!"

Look further at a beautiful sunrise. See how the glorious light diffuses its splendours over the east, and gilds the mountain tops. As the sunbeams spread down, and lighten up the plains, fields, forests, gardens, towns, and towers, the soul exclaims, rejoicing at the beauties bursting into view on every side, "These are Thy glorious works, parent of Good! Thine this universal frame!" Just so it is with the splendours of truth when they enter the mind. Fields of thought, landscapes of mind, expand before you. Heaven opens its bright lights irradiated with golden hopes, and the Lord shows you the path of life. Mysteries give place to holy beauties, and you rise above the mists and fogs of ignorance and error to lovelier and still lovelier things, until your thoughts settle on the Lord Jesus in His glorified beauty for ever. "Your sun shall no more go down, nor your moon withdraw itself: for the Lord shall be your everlasting light, and your God your glory."

Dread, as a sacred duty, the efforts of all who would substitute dreamy darkness for the light of holy truth that commends itself by being spiritual, rational, and scientific at the same time. When the superstitious would call you down to gloom and contradiction, do you rise to the glorious liberty of the children of light; and in the spirit of charity invite the sleepy sons of superstition to awake, in the divine words of the prophet, "Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee" (Isa. lx. 1).

SERMON VIII.

SAMUEL'S CHARGE IN HIS OLD AGE.

"Moreover, as for me, God forbid that I should sin against the Lord in ceasing to pray for you: but I will teach you the good and the right way.

Only fear the Lord, and serve him in truth with all your heart: for consider how great things he hath done for you."-1 SAM. xii. 23, 24.

THE prophet Samuel's life was really a noble one. The characters of Joseph and Samuel stand out far beyond all others in the Israelitish history, as having from childhood to old age been singularly stainless. We have their whole history before us; and by Divine Mercy their lives were so pure that no one could lay anything to their charge. The blessings of a wellspent life gathered round their declining years; and while they were grateful to Him whose shield had protected them as they went in and out before them, they felt they could claim in the sight of their people to have been absolutely blameless.

It was a grand time for Samuel when, having surrendered the government of the nation at their request to a young and valiant king, he could appeal to them in full assembly, and say, “I am old and grey-headed; and, behold, my sons are with you and I have walked before you from my childhood unto this day. Behold, here I am: witness against me, before the Lord, and before His anointed. Whose ox have I taken? or whose ass have I taken? or whom have I defrauded? or whom have I oppressed? or of whose hands have I received any bribe to blind mine eyes therewith? and I will restore it you." It must have been delightful to the grand old man to hear the reply of the assembled people: "Thou hast not defrauded us, nor oppressed us, neither hast thou taken aught of any man's hand." Though the good man has in his own conscience the testimony that he has faithfully done his duty, it is a pleasure as well as a right to receive from those who have been the objects of his care the assurance that they entirely acknowledge