astray, or to do what is sinful and unholy in the sight of God. What a grand thought, that every sabbath brings us nearer to this rest! Each sabbath is like the wave of the advancing tides of the sea, kissing the shore, preliminary to the approach of the whole weight and grandeur of the ocean. Every year that we spend, every sabbath that we enjoy, is so much of this world gone, and we are so much nearer that rest that remaineth for the people of God. Such is the rest before us. Broken-hearted

ones, there is healing for you. Rachel, weeping for your children, because they are not, there is the restoration of them for you. Ye who are weary and heavy laden with this world's burdens, there is rest for you. Ye who are sick and suffering, and know not what health is, be patient; there is an issue out of it, a glorious deliverance, a blessed rest.

Let us draw on the future for

a little sunshine in the present. You may draw from that inexhaustible capital and you will find that the present will be lightened in its load as the future comes in to cheer and to comfort you.

"Thou shalt stand in thy lot." What does this mean? I answer, first of all, that the individual Christian is here recognised as individually seen of God. This is a thought I wish each of us could realise, that God's eye, his loving eye, his careful eye, is as much upon me as if there was nobody else in the whole of Europe he cared for. There is not a sorrow in your inmost heart that has not its resounding echo in the heart of your Father; there is not an anxiety you feel, however trivial it may seem to others, that God regards as unworthy of notice.

Magnificent thought, we move in the midst of a ceaseless guardianship; all heaven encompasses us; our Father's eye is ever on us. "Go thou thy way; for thou shalt rest, and stand in thy lot." What is this lot? It is described in that passage which the poet Burns said he never could read without weeping. "Who are these, and whence came they? These are they that came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore are they before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple; and he that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat. For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters; and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes." That is the lot; in that lot, in that shining lot, Daniel and we shall stand. But perhaps there is something more specific still in the promise, "Thou shalt stand in thy lot." There are degrees of glory; the right of entrance into heaven is for all Christians; but there are heights in heaven, there are thrones, and degrees of glory. If I were to put a vessel that holds a pint, and a vessel that holds a quart, and a vessel that holds a gallon, into the ocean, they would all be full; but the one that holds a gallon would contain more than the one that holds only a pint. So when all Christians go to heaven, they will all be full of happiness, but one has a larger capacity than another, and is capable of a greater amount of felicity. Daniel himself says, "They that turn many to righteousness

shall shine as the brightness of the firmament, and as the stars for ever and ever." Daniel was to be numbered in that lot. He had been a successful preacher, a faithful martyr, and he will therefore be in the goodly fellowship of the prophets; others in the noble army of martyrs; others in the glorious company of the apostles; and others in thy holy church throughout all the world.

6

LECTURE XXVIII.

THE ENDURING WORD.

"Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away."-MATTHEW xxiv. 35.

I

I HAVE explained these words, "This generation shall not pass away, till all these things be fulfilled.” showed, first, by references to the usage of the words; secondly, by facts that are legible along the whole path of history for eighteen hundred years, that one great nationality, which is the meaning of the word, has not passed away; and gives token still by its existence, its influence, its insulation from the mass, and yet its command of all the wealth almost of the world; that the Jewish race, so ill treated, insulted, and reproached, but so mistakenly so, shall exist until the close of this dispensation; and then, like a streamlet that has pursued its course for eighteen hundred years, shall mingle and mix with the endless main of a redeemed and regenerated people. The word rendered "pass away," here used to describe the duration of the Jewish race, is also applied to the word of God, Christ's word; heaven and earth shall pass away, but it shall not pass away. We have seen that various physical phenomena, moral calam

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ities, great changes and convulsions in the physical constitution of things, will precede the winding up of that magnificent drama of which angels are the spectators, and men the solemn and responsible actors. All these earthquakes, famines, darkening of the sun, shaking of the heavens, distress of nations, perplexity, the sea and the waves roaring, are the tokens of nature's sickness, the evidences of her increasing disease, and advancing decay, foretokens, according to their depth and multiplication, that her death is near; when the old earth, weary with the sobs of her children, sick of being a grave for her offspring, torn and ploughed by war, convulsed by earthquake, shall at last die, but only to rise again a new and more beautiful earth. But, says our Lord, this heaven and this earth may pass away, but something shall outlive them all; and draw its nutriment, and the elements and growth of its victory from all; that word which lasts forever: the most magnificent of created things being transient; the least word that Christ has spoken eternal and enduring for ever. What word is this? The answer is, "My word." Who spoke this word? Jesus Christ the Savior. Must not He be God who could fling upon the winds such a prophecy as this, and be sure of its everlasting success? The man of sorrows, He who was acquainted with grief, He who accomplished that mysterious tragedy which ended in a cross on earth, but culminates in a crown in heaven; He who had nowhere to lay his head, He who was marching to a grave, says, seated on the Mount of Olives in the midst of a few fishermen, "My word shall never pass away." He that said so was either a fanatic, or He was the living