were names of places indicating their dedication to the uses of a Divine Revelation long before Israel possessed the land. Thus, we have a king of Jerusalem, the leader of the armed hosts against the Israelites, and his name was Adoni-zedec, the lord of righteousness. In the time of Abraham, nearly five hundred years before the events we are now considering, there was a Melchizedek, king of Salem, called the priest of the Most High God.-Gen. xiv. 18. Many of the names mentioned in this book of Joshua, which, to the cursory reader convey no meaning, are seen to be eminently suggestive when their signification in Hebrew is given. Thus, in such a sentence as the following, how much of meaning is hidden. "And he went up thence to the inhabitants of Debir; and the name of Debir before was Kirjath-Sepher." Debir, means the word, or the oracle; and Kirjath-Sepher means the metropolis of the book; Kirjath, whenever named, means the metropolis of a district, and Sepher is Hebrew for book. We can scarcely doubt that this Debir had been from very ancient times a city of priests, the teachers and expounders of a Divine Revelation.

The kings who rushed to prevent the march of Israel, and who began by attempting to destroy those whom they regarded as traitors to the land, (although they, the Hivites, were its most ancient known inhabitants) had significant names.

The names with their interpretations are as follows:-1st, king Adoni-zedec, the lord of righteousness; 2nd, king Hoham, woe unto them; 3rd, king Piram, a wild ass; 4th, king Japhia, outward show; 5th, king Debir, the word.

These kings, one may easily perceive, represent such a mixture of truth and falsity as to form a system totally opposed to real purification of the heart, and real justice in life. Superstition esteems itself lord of righteousness superstition breathes out denunciation against others, "Woe unto them." Adoni-zedec opposing, calls upon Hoham to help him. Superstition's religion is sour, melancholy, and morose; it moans, and warns, and denounces. It is continually saying, "Woe unto them." True religion is gentle, courteous, charitable, kind; ready to be just in its appreciation of others, and to do justice. True religion rejoices in God's love and mercy to all, is genial, generous, frank, and easily entreated; ready to oblige, ready to defer to others, ready to act for the public good. Superstition strains at gnats, while it swallows camels. Superstition is full of gloom and ready to condemn. It raises its own whims and ways into divine commandments, and if any neglect these, it cries, "Woe

unto them." There are, however, three other kings to help this lord of righteousness which opposes Israel. There is Piram, the wild ass, Japhia, outward show, and lastly Debir. The wild ass is a symbol of a wrangler in religion. Ishmael was named a wild-ass man (Gen. xvi. 12), and the character is defined as one whose "hand is against every man's hand, and every man's hand against him."

A person of profession in religion, but who clings to and cherishes the inner evils of the heart, has been well described as one who will write for religion, quarrel for religion, fight for religion, and die for religion, but will not live for religion.

Wrangle and outward show are poor substitutes for love to God and love to man. Yet they are by many unfortunately preferred. For them, inner regeneration has been often resisted by thousands and millions, and hecatombs of slaughter have been made in the names of wrangle and of outward show. The thirty years religious war of Germany, and the forty years of religious wars of France, all owed their virulence to superstition, quarrelsomeness, and outward show, which practised every abomination in the name of the Prince of Peace and purity. Debir, the last king, means the Word, because there must be some apparent acknowledgment of the Word, at least, for any system of professed religion to be maintained.

Such are the powers that sustain forms of religion which resist regeneration, and teach that the inner virtues of the heart are of no real necessity in preparing for heaven.

But in the struggles of the soul, when we appeal in earnest to the Lord Jesus to come and help us against these, He quickly appears. He travels all night, and early in the morning overthrows the tempting powers.

It is sad to reflect that a profession of religion should be made the means of defeating the sacred ends of religion itself, yet so it is. The work of religion is to change the outward life and inward affections, from evil to good, from disorder to order, from being selfish to being heavenly. If we fail in this, we fail in everything, so far as our eternal good is concerned. Yet the religion of a large portion of mankind is such as to divert the soul from this one thing needful, and to interest it in things really of very inferior importance, if of any value at all; such as pilgrimages, the use of relics, rivetting the attention overweeningly upon the ceremonies and outward services of religion, to the neglect of the priceless attainments of a temper that cannot be roused to anger, of just principles that will not turn aside from

integrity or stoop to meanness or dishonour for any consideration, and a life of truth, purity, and faithfulness to every duty and engagement.

Just as with one class of professing Christians the REGENERATION of the soul is neglected, and trivial forms and forgiveness by the priest, instead of change of heart, relied on, so by another class, faith in the merits of the Lord, and excitement, are made the all in all of Christian duty. You are not to do anything, Christ has done everything. You have only to believe, and that instant you are saved, and made white as an angel. The intense joy felt at being liberated from the dread of torments, excruciating for the natural man to contemplate, and the offspring of unbridled imagination in preachers, who imagine the most repulsive horrors, and revel in them while they brandish them over the sinners head, often hides the evils ingrained in a man's inner dispositions from himself, and they only slowly show themselves when the excitement has passed away, and with the advance of age. How often, as years increase, does amiability grow less! How often do worry and irascibility make aged Christians painful burdens to themselves and others, and the decline of life not like a glorious autumn, rich and smiling, with an abundant harvest of virtues and graces, but cold, hard, and bitter, like a premature winter!

These deadly results are inevitable unless we hasten up under the leadership of Joshua and come upon the kings of our spiritual Amorites-the lusts which dwell in the mountains, and who are headed by a lord of false righteousness, who speak of woe, instead of joy in doing good; who are quarrelsome and contentious, instead of living in charity; and who make an outward show of religion, instead of rooting out evil tempers within, and cultivating in every act of life, meekness, truth, virtue, and good will to all men.

Joshua's march all night from Gilgal, and sudden appearance with his host before the army of the confederates, represents the Lord's presence with us in the interiors of the soul, preparing for victory while we are yet in doubt and darkness. Gilgal was about three miles within the Jordan, its name signifies a wheel, and it represents a state in which everything is prepared for progress, for the rejection of evil, and for advancement in good.

Startled by the presence and vigorous onset of the great leader, the man of courage and decision, the enemies broke and fled. They were slain with a great slaughter, and chased along the way that goeth up to Beth-horon (the house of wrath),

the upper, and as they fled down to Beth-horon the nether. The rocky pass, along which they fled, can easily be traced now. And as they hurried away and sunk, they were the sublime symbols of the impotence of sin, when the Lord's help is faithfully used. From within to without, evil becomes powerless in the glow of holy zeal. "No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper, and every tongue that riseth up against thee, thou shalt condemn."

The hail-stones the Lord cast down upon them (ver. 11), as they fled to Azekah (the strength of walls), represent condemnatory truths, which descend copiously while evils are yet trying to excuse themselves; and the pursuit to Makkedah where the kings took refuge in a cave represents the utter exhaustion of the evil; the name itself signifying exhaustion.

While Joshua saw the discomfited foe flying along the formidable defiles, and felt the unspeakable value of that day's deliverance, he longed for a prolongation of the day, and taking up the divine poetry of the book of Jasher, he exclaimed, "Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou Moon, in the valley of Ajalon.” That which was spiritually expressive in the book of Jasher of the Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom, the sun and moon of the soul illuminating it, until the false and evil which had imperilled it were subdued, was actually represented before his eyes. The sun and moon appeared to stand still, so as to lengthen the day, until the wild host of Israel's enemies was utterly scattered and destroyed. In the same way, as every evening to lengthen our day, the sun appears above the horizon by refraction in the atmosphere twenty minutes after he has actually gone down; in the same way as in the north, frequently another sun, or two other suns appear by refraction, quite as bright as the real So to the senses of the children of Israel, and as far as they knew, the sun stood still, and the moon stayed until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies.

sun.

So will it be with us, when we make decisive battle with our mental foes. The Divine Love and Divine Wisdom will give us light in all the trial. They will not go down for the whole day. The Divine Love will smile upon our affections, our hill of Gibeon; the Divine Wisdom will rest upon our valley of Ajalon, or valley of the harts, which the name signifies, while we are yearning for that wisdom, as the hart panteth for the water-brooks; and these gracious encouragements will continue until evil lies fully subdued within us, and no enemy of the Lord remains to trouble our Canaan within.

SERMON LX.

THE DEATH OF JOSHUA.

"And it came to pass after these things, that Joshua, the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died, being an hundred and ten years old. And they buried him in the border of his inheritance in Timnath-serah, which is in mount Ephraim, on the north side of the hill of Gaash."-Joshua xxiv. 29, 30.

It was a solemn and wonderful scene that was presented at Shechem when Joshua was about to die. The brave and singlehearted leader of the tribes was about to quit the people whom he had loved and led to victory. The heads, the elders, the judges, and the officers were all about him. He, a chief actor in the astonishing events by which Israel had been made a nation, and become settled in the land so long the object of promise and of hope, was about to quit them for the still better country above, and he desired to give them his counsel and his blessing. He was the same man in death that he had been in life-calm, brave, and decided. There is no trace of fear through the whole discourse. There is only in Joshua thankfulness, faithfulness, and trust. May we die the death of the righteous, and may our last end be like his. Two lessons pervade the whole of the discourse of the dying leader-faithfulness to God, and courage in maintaining what is good. These were the traits of his character during his life. When others were timid, hesitating, and fearful, again and again Joshua stood undauntedly forth, ready to brave any danger which faithfulness required to be confronted. Nothing made him quail. Numbers, giants, strong walls, were all alike to him. Brave himself, he communicated courage to the fainting, and on several occasions prevented the trembling and timid from falling utterly away.

How strongly this was brought out when the ten disheartened spies brought their ignoble report, after their forty days' exploration of the glorious country they had been sent to search. They