light of the Lord; " every day completes a portion of our walk, every day's account goes up before God.

We read in the Psalms this prayer of David : "Cause me to know the way wherein I should walk.” (Psalm. ¿xliii. 8.)

Will you make it your Prayer?

We must remember that we do not of ourselves know the right way. We must be taught of the Lord. (John vi. 45.)

And even when looking to Him for guidance, we are sometimes in doubt and perplexity, we do not see exactly the right thing to do. We feel we are in darkness, and have need of a guiding light.

David again tells us where he looked. (Psalm cxix. 105.) The Word of God was his light.

We have the very same Word to guide us: only we have much more of it, and may have even a fuller light than David had.

There was another prayer that he used with reference to this walk of faith. "Hold up my goings in Thy paths, that my footsteps slip not." (Psalm xvii. 5.) Have you ever walked in dangerous places, up a steep cliff, or on slippery ground? And have you not felt the value of help? Of a hand you could grasp, or a stick held out to you to seize, if the path was so narrow, or the ascent so steep that your friend could only go before you ?

Life has many such slippery places and steep ascents: we need the help that David prayed for, and which is promised to us as well as to him. (Psalm xxxii. 8.)

But then, like him, we must resolve to go in this right way. He says, I will walk before the Lord. (Psalm. cxvi. 13.) Doubtless the word spoken by God to Abraham was in his thoughts: "Walk before me." (Gen. xvii. 1.)

To walk before the Lord is to do everything as in His presence: to bear in mind that His eye is always upon us. This will check the vain and foolish thought, the idle word, the worldly act; and we shall be filled with that sweet sense of a loving Companionship, which we do not realize, if we are walking carelessly.

There are many promises in the Bible, as well as many precepts, on the subject of this walk of faith. It would make a very interesting study if you were to look them out for yourselves; we will only now glance at one promise, which we shall find in John viii. 12, where Jesus says, "He that followeth Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life."

Let us test ourselves by this promise. Are we in darkness? If so, then we cannot be following Jesus closely. Oh, seek to walk "in the light, as He is in the light," for then to you belongs this precious promise: "The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin." (1 John i. 7.)

Let us remember too, that darkness within comes more frequently from sin and worldliness, than from any other cause. "If thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness." (Matt. vi. 22.) There are, as I say, many precepts on this

subject in Scripture. Far too many they are for us to talk of to-day. I will only tell you of three, which may help you in this heavenly walk:

WALK IN THE SPIRIT. (Gal. v. 16.)

WALK SO AS TO PLEASE GOD. (1 Thess. iv. 1.)

Hide these three precepts in your heart. Seek to make them the rule of your life, and you will find that "His commandments are not grievous," but that "in keeping of them there is great reward." (1 John v. 3; Ps. xix. 11.)

"The path of the just is as the shining light that shineth more and more unto the perfect day." (Prov. iv. 18.)

III.

THE FLOOD.

GENESIS VII.

THE history of the Flood is one familiar to us all. In our childhood we play with a Noah's Ark, and as we get old enough to understand, we are taught, either at home or at school, all the details of this beautiful story.

But this familiarity with a Scripture narrative has its dangers. We are apt to miss the spiritual lesson; we are content with the knowledge of the facts, without searching for any further instruction; we treat the subject superficially.

Now, of all Holy Scripture it may be said, that it cannot be understood at a glance. We cannot read it as we do any ordinary book: it wants real study. I do not mean the study of the learned, nor the reasoning of a clever mind, but it wants searching into by the light and teaching of the Holy Spirit.

Every book of the Bible is a mine of wealth, but we must dig into it. In the coal districts, the streaks of coal which appear above the ground give indica

tions of a mine below. Who would be content to scrape this coal dust together and use it for firing? Men are wiser than that. They dig deep, and work far down in the ground, and there they find a vast extent of coal, a supply which seems inexhaustible. So must it be with our way of reading the Bible. We must search as for hidden treasure (Prov. ii. 4); digging deeper and deeper: for the more we search, the more shall we be enriched.

I have to day read only the 7th chapter of Genesis, but we must refer to the 6th for an account of God's command to Noah to build the Ark, and for the reason of it.

The command we shall find in ver. 14, etc. The reason in verse 5. Now this verse I want you specially to mark, for the expression in the Hebrew, as given in our margin, is exceedingly strong: "the whole imagination," that is, the purposes, desires, and thoughts of man's heart,-were " only evil continually." Can there be any stronger language used to signify the intense wickedness of man?

In this sad state of things, there was one glorious exception: "Noah found grace in the sight of the Lord" (ver. 8); for to him the Lord says, "Thee have I seen righteous." (Chap. vii. 1.) Therefore, when the rest of the world were drowned, Noah was saved.

You know the story: how he and his three sons and their wives, eight persons altogether, alone escaped the destruction that came upon all the world. You know how they were saved: by means