practical. Christian truth must be accepted as a whole, and every part of it should, in its order, appear in the teaching of the pulpit. Do not expect a system of theology in every sermon. Every portion of truth must be presented in its measure of importance, if the hearers are to be "fed with knowledge and understanding," and "nourished up" unto "eternal life." Hear the word for yourself, not for others. Apply it to your own heart. Hear it with the desire to receive a new religious impulse. Every part of God's word is of use, if it receive devout attention. "As new-born babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby." "Receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls." Seek to retain what you hear. The adversary is ever seeking to "take away the word that is sown in your hearts." Recall it to remembrance. Reflect on it. Strive to observe the resolutions formed under its influence. "Lift up your hearts" for grace to live in harmony with its laws, and in the enjoyment of its hopes. Be careful of your converse as you quit the sanctuary. It is true that nature must be relieved from its tension; but it is also true that, if frivolous topics speedily divert you, your heart has not been seriously affected, and the small measure of thoughtfulness awakened will soon be dissipated. Do not pronounce to others critical judgments on what you have heard ; for such judgments will usually be severe, while those who utter them are rarely the wisest, the holiest, or the most candid men. In the free expression of unfavourable opinions, Christians are neither kind nor wise-not kind, since it is impossible for a minister to meet every one's taste, or at all times come up to the desired standard of excellence-not wise, since their remarks often produce mischievous results on the young and serious, on whom perhaps the discourse so flippantly condemned had exerted a salutary influence. Go home and pray over what you have heard, that the word of God may be as "good seed" in your hearts, and in the hearts of others, hereafter to "bring forth fruit." Seek to remember and exemplify on the morrow what you have heard on the Lord's-day. Carry the spirit and teaching of the Sabbath into the duties and pleasures of the week. "Be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves." A conscientious discharge of a Christian's obligation in reference to public worship is of great moment to the growth of his religious character, and the increase of his usefulness. If he disregard, or fail to improve, the privileges of the sanctuary, he will reap a reward in losing the measure of devoutness which yet remains to him, and in gradually becoming worldly and irreligious. If, on the other hand, he seek to "worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness," if in this matter he "walk worthy of his vocation," it will tend greatly to strengthen and mature Christian virtues, it will give a new impulse to the zeal and piety of the Church, it will secure the presence of the Lord in the assembly of His people, it will impart new life to every Christian agency, and from that time may be dated the commencement of a revival in the Church, and a new pentecost for the world. Let this plain exposition of Christian duty be accepted in the spirit in which it is given, Let the "house of prayer" be to you the "house of God.” Let your supplications and praises ever rise with acceptance to His throne. Let the influence of the sanctuary be ever giving you a new impulse in a heavenward course. Seek to foster in the church the worship that "becometh saints.' Engage in the prayers and songs, and listen to the word of God, as if you were in the immediate presence of the Almighty, as if the destinies of eternity were suspended on the hour of prayer." If you are debarred from its solemnities, unite in spirit in the hallowed exercises, and let your supplications rise heavenward to meet those of your brethren at the mercy seat. These earthly services are, in connection with the discipline of life, a part of the divine arrangements to prepare you for the higher worship of the heavenly temple, and the more endeared fellowship of your Father's house. Soon will you enter on the everlasting rest. Soon will you join the circle of the glorified, and your voice be heard in the chorus of the saved. In the purity and bliss of the divine pavilion the errors and imperfections of your mortal life will be forgotten. Avail yourself, then, of your sacred privileges, as one who is thereby preparing himself for the worship of the skies. Draw near to those blessed ones in character and spirit; let your adoration be lowly as theirs, your songs as fervent, your love and gratitude as strong. Bathe yourself in the spirit, and familiarize yourself with the employments, of that beatific life. Let the presence of Deity and the light of an opening heaven ever so glorify to you the "house of prayer," that you feel it to be " none other than the house of God;" while, in the atmosphere of purity you breathe, and the serene blessedness which, like the smile of God, refreshes your spirit, you confess it to be "the gate of heaven." Many a Tabor rears its head for you on earth, on which you may behold the glory of your Master, long ere you see Him as He is." Seize with avidity these precious hours in which you may gaze upon His face. Tread with reverence. the consecrated spots which He hallows with the revelation of His glory. Let the spirit of the sanctuary preside over all your earthly pursuits. Let your mortal history reflect in every part the influence of divine communion. As the prophet's face shone when he descended from the mount, so let your character and course be radiant with the effect of a higher fellowship. Let "the path of the just" be " as the shining light, which shineth more and more unto the perfect day." Then, ever dwelling in spirit on the confines of the heavenly world, death will never take you by surprise, no new song will you have to learn, the blessedness of heaven will have commenced on earth, and the purity of heaven have already suffused your soul. As a pilgrim you will be waiting at the threshold of the temple, till admission be granted to pay your homage at the shrine. As a loving and happy child, whose days of discipline are over, you will be approaching the door of your Father's house, and it will create no surprise when a dearer than angel hand gently leads you in, conducts you to the innermost recesses of the everlasting mansions, and puts you in possession of the "inheritance undefiled." Death is but a transition to a higher life. From Tabor you pass to Paradise. You ascend, like the prophet, in a chariot of fire, leaving only the mantle of mortality behind you. Bristol, 66 PETER WALKS ON THE SEA.* THE night is darkest just before the dawn; and it must have been very dark when Peter leaped from the gunwale of the little ship on to the heaving seadark without, but there must have been some light within him, though even that interior light was, as we shall see, partly a darkness too. Peter was very weary when he cried, "Lord, bid me come to Thee;" but, to be with Christ, he thought he could still walk a little way, though the path was rough and dangerous. Jesus also was weary; yet He has still sufficient strength to walk on the rough waves which "tossed" the ship, to upbear the sinking disciple, and to hush the raging storm into a great calm. Both for the Master and for His disciples it had been a laborious and exciting day. They had spent it on the grassy slopes of a mountain which overlooked the lake the Master in teaching an immense multitude and in multiplying the loaves on which they fed; and the disciples, with no leisure so much as to eat, first in listening, and then in marshalling more than five thousand men in orderly bands, and in carrying round the bread and fish which grew beneath their Master's touch.t For twelve men to wait on five thousand, and that at the close of a long day and in the keen mountain air, must have been a sufficiently fatiguing labour. Excitement was added to fatigue. It was not often that their Master was honoured with an audience so large, or that an audience grew so enthusiastic. The disciples, who loved their Master and were jealous for Him, must have been proud men that day. It must have seemed to them that the visible kingdom, which was to be the reward of all their toils, would soon be set up, if the men of Israel came out in thousands to listen to Him-to listen with such entire unanimity of assent and grateful answering response. And when the evening shadows settled on near. the scene, and the five thousand, full of bread, and longing for more bread on the same easy terms, hailed Jesus as the Messianic King, insisted on making Him their king whether He would or not, their hopes must have run very high, their reward must have seemed very It must have been a cruel disappointment to what they would hold to be perfectly natural and legitimate hopes, that at this moment their Master should ask them to leave Him, and, so far from raising them to this office or that in His kingdom, should bid them return to familiar toils, and betake themselves to the little ship which waited for them at the foot of the mountain. No wonder that they were reluctant to go! No wonder that Jesus had to "constrain" them into the ship-to compel them to go before Him while He dismissed the multitude. At last they submit to the constraints of His authority and persuasion. They cast off from the land. Evening darkens into night. They linger near the shore, hoping to hear their Master's hail, and to receive Him into the ship. The multitude has long since dispersed. "It is now dark, but Jesus has not come to them." A storm is rising; they must lose no time. They bend to the oars. Weary with the labours of the long previous day, suffering from the extreme languor and exhaustion into which intense excitement invariably reacts, they have to brace themselves for the labours and perils of the night. The storm breaks upon them; the sea works and is tempestuous. They have to strain every muscle, to "toil in rowing." Hours pass, and the " great contrary wind" grows more contrary, the labour more exhausting. The superstitions of their class awake in their hearts. They hear voices in the storm; the mist and foam take strange and monstrous shapes. The ship plunges and staggers. Death seems *Matt. xiv. 28-32. + See THE CHURCH for April. at hand. At last, just before dawn, when the tempest is at its height and the danger most imminent, a Figure draws near, passing swiftly yet calmly along the crests of the waves. What is it? Can it be the Master? Ah, no; for see, it flits by, bending no look of pity on them even, nor offering to share, if it cannot avert, their peril. He would never have done that. "It is a Ghost," they say, and cry out for fear, deeming that an apparition has been sent to warn them of their approaching doom.* None the less, it is the Master, who from the summit of the mountain on which He had spent the night in prayer I and communion with the Father, had 66 seen them" as they toiled in the midst of the sea-had watched over them and cared for them. The comfortable words, “Have courage; it is I; be not afraid," reassure their alarmed and failing hearts, quieting the inward storm of terror. And now what joy and confident hope spring up into the faces which a moment since were convulsed with fear! weary storm-tossed men, exhausted with toil and excitement, feel a new strength, and prepare with glad activity to receive Jesus into the ship. The But there is a Peter in the crew; and in such an hour the individual characteristics of our common nature are sure to reveal themselves with peculiar emphasis. A Thomas may still have doubted, despite the familiar tones and reassuring words-doubted until he had clasped the hand and looked close into the face of Jesus. A John, so soon as he caught the first friendly tone, may have sunk back on his bench with the satisfied sigh, "It is the Lord." But Peter will, we may be sure, leap from extreme to extreme, from despair to presumption, from superstitious dread to a complete, even arrogant, momentary self-confidence. I make no doubt but that his cry had been loudest, his face whitest, as the supposed "Ghost" swept by; and now that the threatening Ghost is transformed into the helping Friend, he has his character to redeem. In the sudden revulsion his impetuous nature on overleaps restraint. He is not content But if we take note of Peter's characteristic rashness and audacity, let us not fail to note also the characteristic wisdom and grace of Christ. Any teacher less wise and good than He would probably have bidden Peter keep his place or rebuked his fault. Jesus, on the contrary, lets him put the strength in which he has boasted to the test. Peter says, "Bid me come ;" and Jesus replies, "Come." And this surely was the true, the divine wisdom. For self-confidence is not to be chastened out of us by words. Only the experience of our own weakness and the memory of conspicuous. diastrous failure will suffice for this. An ardent nature, moreover, is prone to, self-confident moods; and while seeking to shake the self-confidence, it is well to preserve its ardour. Peter was very bold; and in after years his boldness, when chastened from its sinful alloys, stood him in good stead-fitted him to go so far and to do so much in the *See THE CHURCH for May, 66 service of Christ. And hence, both now and afterwards, we find that Christ's aim was not at all to diminish Peter's bold fervent courage, but to bring it within due limits, to purify it from taints of arrogance and self-will. "Come to me," says Christ; come by all means, if you can; and you will find that while you think only of me and lean on my help you can walk on the troubled sea; but so soon as you begin to look away from me, to think how great a feat you are doing, to glory over your brethren, and to wonder whether you shall be able to carry your enterprise through and triumph over them, you will begin to sink." This was the very training Peter needed-and we all need it--not to have the peculiar and characteristic qualities of his nature altered or reversed, but to have them chastened from the stains of self-will and drawn into a spiritual and holy service. And this was the training Peter had. When he leaped down from the ship, his heart full of Christ and the desire to be with Him, he walked on the rough sea as on a plain path, upborne by the power of faith. But when he permits himself to look around-when, forgetting the power of Christ, he begins to mark how violent the wind is and how rough the waves, his faith fails him, or partially fails him; for though he begins to sink, he cries, "Lord, save me !" looks to the only Helper for help. The Lord does save him. Immediately Jesus stretched forth His hand and caught him." It is not till Peter, hand in hand with his Master, once more walks on the sea, that he hears the rebuke, "Thou little believing; wherefore didst thou doubt ?" Christ helps before He reproves. And when the reproof comes, how tender and gracious and instructive it is! For Jesus did not say, "Wherefore didst thou come?" That would have been to check Peter's frank bold ardour, and to put a curb on its future impulses. These Christ would rather encourage, and does encourage by the hint contained in his reproof, that Peter's fault lay not in attempting too much, but in too little relying on the strength which would have upheld him had he 66 relied on it instead of relying on himself. "Thou little believing," says the Master reproachfully; not austerely, Thou unbelieving!" Faith was there, and would have carried him through, had it been perfect. But it was not perfect. "Wherefore didst thou doubt?" Wherefore, as the word implies, suffer thy mind to be distracted, drawn in two dif ferent directions? So long as the soul of Peter was turned full upon the Lord he was able to receive the fulness of the Lord's power. It was not till his attention was diverted, till he began to look round at the wind that flew howl. ing past loaded with spray, and the rough waters that rose and fell beneath his feet, that he began to sink. It is for this inward distraction, this turning and alternation of spirit-which indeed is fatal to all great enterprises--that Christ rebukes him. And it is to be specially noted, as indicating the grace of the rebukes of Perfect Love, that Christ, still holding the discomfited disciple by the hand, says, not Why dost thou doubt?" but "Why didst thou doubt?" He speaks of the doubt as already a thing of the past, as a mere momentary failure for which Peter need not afflict himself with shame, which they may both dismiss from their minds, as they are now received up into the ship. 66 Now this narrative, which is the supplement of the narrative we considered last month, like all the Scripture stories is full of lessons which we shall do well to learn. 1. For instance: Peter presents a prayer which Jesus grants. "Bid me come to Thee," says the disciple, and the Master answers, "Come." Peter has his wish then; and yet has he his wish? When he made his request he was thinking to atone a past failure of his faith; and see, instead of atoning for it, he fails again. He hoped to retrieve his character for boldness; and lo, once more his heart sinks, and the first cry of fear, "It is a ghost!" is followed by a second cry of fear, "Lord, save, or I perish!" It is not always good, then, to have a literal and exact answer to our requests. We often think it would be good. If |