Though our foes exist, yet they have been kept under restraint, and have not been allowed to injure us, neither shall they, as long as we adhere to the service of God, and persevere in His strength to resist the assaults made upon us. “Who is he that can harm you, if ye be followers of that which is good?" God's grace is sufficient for us. His power will be exercised in our favour during our warfare in the period of life, and finally when we shall be put fully in possession of the promised land, every adversary shall be destroyed. "Thanks be to God who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ."

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The Fifth Sunday after Easter.

MORNING SERVICE.-First Lesson: Deut. viii.

Verse 2.-"And thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldest keep his commandments,

or no."

MOSES was a man of God. He bore all the evidences of possessing a Divine mission, or of being divinely appointed to the high station which he occupied. The sketch of his character given by the Spirit of God, though very concise, is yet full and satisfactory. "And there arose not a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face. In all the signs and the wonders which the Lord sent him to do in the land of Egypt, to Pharaoh and to all his servants, and to all his land: and all that mighty hand, and in all the great terror which Moses shewed in the sight of all Israel." He was in every respect a great, as well as a good man. Every virtue that constitutes genuine nobility was concentrated in his mind, and displayed in his conduct. He faithfully discharged the trust reposed in him, regardless of his own and his family's secular interests. He laboured incessantly to promote God's honour and the people's welfare, which on many occasions he showed were dearer to him than his own life. This disinterested feeling continued to actuate his conduct to the close of his life. In this chapter, standing as it were on the verge of his earthly pilgrimage, he recounts to the people the evidences of God's goodness towards them, to encourage them to cleave to the Lord, to obey His commandments, and not to forget their obligations to Him: whilst the text is an emphatic exhortation to remind them of

God's continued kindness as an incentive to future devotion and obedience. "And thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness."

Forty is a prominent number in Scripture history. It rained forty days and forty nights at the time of the deluge. Noah waited forty days after the tops of the mountains were seen before he opened the windows of the ark. Moses was forty days and forty nights on two occasions in the mount with God. His life was divided into three forties; forty years in the court of Pharaoh, forty years in the land of Midian, and forty years in the wilderness. The Israelites were forty years in the same wilderness. Elijah was forty days a wanderer without food in the days of Ahab. Our Saviour fasted forty days when He was tempted of the devil. To-day is the anniversary of the last Sunday in the forty days which He spent upon earth between His resurrection and His ascension into heaven. The forty years of the Israelites' sojourn in the wilderness were intended as a time of probation between their deliverance from Egypt and their entrance into Canaan. Divine wisdom had ordained this for purposes which they are here solemnly called upon to consider, and which should be a lesson of instruction unto us.

We may regard the text, First, As a representation of human reflection; and Secondly, As a representation of divine motive.

I. We shall regard it as a representation of human reflection. It is a remembrance of past experience. "Thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness."

Past experience is a guide to future conduct. No person will rightly form his future life in the world unless he occasionally takes a retrospect of the past circumstances with which his path has been surrounded.

In the outlines of Israel's journey we see our own lives depicted. Their picture is our portrait. In speaking of

them we cannot help seeing ourselves described. In both instances we see three things brought prominently to our notice. First, errors; Secondly, trials; and Thirdly, mercies.

1. All the way is strewed with errors. To err is human. To do that which is wrong seems as natural to man as the downward running of the stream. We blame the obstinate disobedience, the impious murmurings, and the daring rebellion of the Israelites in the wilderness: but placed in the like circumstances, unregenerate human nature invariably acts with the like tendency to evil. No one can say to his neighbour, "I am holier than thou." If any differ it must be attributed to God's grace, and not to their own superior goodness. When we remember all the way which the Lord our God has led us, we find errors recorded in our history equally aggravating as those of the Israelites. We may not all have " run to the same excess of riot." Everyone may not have been an actual murderer, or felon, or drunkard, or adulterer. The superior religious training of some has given them a higher standard of morality than that of others: or the motives of decency have deterred them from committing the grosser crimes. All the Israelites were not like Corah, Dathan, and Abiram: everyone in the camp was not like Achan each man in the tribes was not like Zimri, the son of Salu: but they were all a corrupt and rebellious people; even Moses and Aaron, the best of them, had their faults and besetting sins. An hour in the closet would convince us that more errors are connected with our lives than we have any conception of, without the proper serious reflection. Such reflection is incalculably profitable to point out to us our delinquencies, and to show us how sinful we have been. Yes, brethren, "We have erred and strayed like lost sheep" from God's ways. In retracing our steps, we should be humbled in the presence of God: each one may bewail his state in the language of Job, "Wherefore I abhor myself in dust and ashes."

2. Reflection reminds us of a series of severe trials through which we have been called to pass. The people were re

minded by Moses that they should remember the chastisements of God during the forty years' sojourn. "Thou shalt also consider in thine heart that as a man chasteneth his son, so the Lord thy God chasteneth thee." They had often been brought into straits, and trials, and temptations. The sword, the pestilence, the fiery serpents, the drought, the scarceness, the trembling at the foot of Sinai, and the strife at the waters of Meribah, were all to be recalled to mind, now they were approaching the borders of Canaan.

Thus we also are reminded of the difficulties of our journey through life. The dark clouds of trial have been often suspended over our heads. When we take a retrospect of the past, we can point to a season of great temptation here, an event of severe sorrow there, a circumstance of deep affliction in another place: all of which were intended for our correction. "Man is born unto trouble as the sparks fly upwards." Our daily experience may record some scene of trial; perhaps many of them of minor magnitude, but none "for the present joyous, but grievous." to others of greater importance, which stand forth in bold relief on the canvas of life. One trace shows sorrowful bereavements, another serious accidents, another ruinous reverses, another painful affliction, another pinching destitution, another crushing disappointment. None of them should be forgotten, for God does not willingly afflict the children of

men.

In many instances we can refer

He did not bring those troubles upon the people of Israel, neither does He bring any sorrow upon us, out of a cruel disposition to inflict suffering upon His creatures. They are all sent by way of punishment for sin. Were there no sin there would be no suffering. Those people were rebellious, hence their suffering; we are equally sinful, hence our afflictions.

3. There are also mercies to be remembered. What a catalogue of both temporal and spiritual mercies could be recorded on the page of memory were we duly to remember all the way which the Lord our God has led us! But we are prone to receive the favours and forget the hand that