A Goodly Heritage

  The righteous, and the wise, and their works, are in the hand of God. In the hand of God This is the sober second thought of a wise man who has been sorely troubled in his mind by dwelling on the mysteries of Providence. But the darkness begins to disappear as soon as he allows his mind to rest on the thought of God and of His work in eternity, the end of which no man can see. The first thought suggested is the negative one that “the righteous and the wise and their works are in the hands of God,” and, therefore, withdrawn from the sight of men. It is of great importance for our peace of mind firmly to grasp the thought that we cannot at all infer what God thinks or intends concerning any person or his works from the outward circumstances we observe. Is this man prosperous in the world? It does not by any means follow from this that God regards him with special favour (Luk. 13:1-5). But there is a positive truth also in the words of the text--“The righteous and the wise and their wo

  The uncertainty of life.   Autumn, with its tinted leaves, its slanting shadows, and brief sunshine, points out the same truth as the text. Man is powerless--much as he might wish it--to check the fast falling shower of faded foliage, or to throw back the shadows of the sundial. The fortune of the world could not procure a moment’s respite from that silent and regular work of decay which is going on in the surrounding world. So, likewise, “No man hath power over the spirit to retain the spirit.” Each one of us must gradually pass away from the visible universe. When that solemn moment arrives, there will be those who would long to retain us by their side--those who have yet to learn that the “communion of saints” is not broken by the accident of death. And yet it cannot be; we must let go our hold of the departing soul. Others will long and vainly struggle to remain behind themselves. As we contemplate the prospect of death, a new stimulus should be given to duty and action. For it h

 Here attention is directed to God, to His general formation of all things, and to the arrangements which, in that creation, He has unquestionably made. God is the universal Creator. Yet philosophers, ancient and modern, have always been trying to find another maker of things than God. Wherever there is existence, there the hand of God has been put forth in conferring that existence. God has made everything just as a Being absolutely perfect ought to make it. Though God made man upright, He did not make man a sinner. Man has made himself a sinner. God made all things for Himself. He is the origin, and He is the end. There are, indeed, subordinate ends, but they lose themselves, as it were, in God, the great end of all. In saying that the Lord “made the wicked for the day of evil,” we must recur to His foresight. He allows some sinners to go on in their guilt till death finds them ready for eternal destruction from the presence of the Lord; and therefore, at every stage in which these w

T. De Witt Talmage. God, who has determined that everything shall be beautiful in its season, has not left the night without a charm. The moon rules the night. The stars are only set as gems in her tiara. Now, says my text, "Who is she, fair as the moon?" Our answer is, the Church. Like the moon, she is a borrowed light. She gathers up the glory of a Saviour's sufferings, a Saviour's death, a Saviour's resurrection, a Saviour's ascension, and pours that light on palace and dungeon, on squalid heathenism and elaborate scepticism, on widow's tears and martyr's robe of flame, on weeping penitence and loud-mouthed scorn. She is the only institution to-day that gives any light to our world. After a season of storm or fog how you are thrilled when the sun comes out at noonday! The same sun which in the morning kindled conflagrations among the castles of cloud, stoops down to paint the lily white and the buttercup yellow and the forget-me-not blue. What can r

  Who is she that looketh forth as the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners? Song of Solomon 6:10 The dawn of a better day, celebrated in sacred song F. W. Brown. There is a beautiful upward gradation indicated, a progression towards a glorious climax; there is the dawn of a better day seen by the wise man's prophetic eye, and we will prayerfully consider the prophetic inquiry as foreshadowing the mission of Christ, and the nature of His glorious kingdom. "Who is she that looketh," etc. Apply these words: I.  TO THE HISTORY OF CHRIST. Christ looked "forth as the morning" in the first promise made to our first parents in Eden. The Mosaic dispensation may be considered as daybreak, dim and hazy, the prophetic age may be regarded as "fair as the moon," it was brighter than the former, and it shone, as the moon shines with light borrowed from the unseen Sun. When the fulness of time came, and Jesus was born in B

Consider the estimate here made of man's character and its cause. The language of the text is not that of David only, but of Christ, concerning the world around us. Man's transgression possessed a language which spoke to his heart, and what it said was this, "There is no fear of God before their eyes." Christ knew what the fear of God was, for "He was heard in that he feared"; not, indeed, with the selfish, slavish fear of punishment, which is incompatible with love, and impotent to secure obedience; but that holy, filial fear which is inseparable from love, and which is a comprehensive term for all that constitutes real religion in man. We know the power of this in man's character, its practical power in giving man victory over the world, and therefore when he saw the transgressions of men he knew that the cause was — "There is no fear of God." Then he goes to the root of the disease; he puts forward none of the plausible excuses which men mak

The subject of our inquiry to-day will be — "What practical effect ought the doctrine of the Lord's second coming to have on you and me, living when and where and as we do?" On the certainty of that coming, I need, I suppose, say very little. On the manner of that coming, we possibly may not be agreed; the time of it is expressly and purposely concealed from us. Two things, therefore, seem to me to have a right, as elements, to influence our practice in this matter; the absolute certainty that the day will come, and the absolute uncertainty when it will come. In fact, in both these respects we are in much the same situation as we are, when in health and strength and the prime of life, with regard to the day of our death. We know that it must be; but no sign appears of its immediate approach. And from this example, so common and so well understood, we may perhaps be able easily to deduce our duty in the other case. The wise course with regard to the inevitable day of one&#

  On patience H. Blair, D. D. The possession of our souls is a very emphatical expression. It describes that state in which a man has both the full command, and the undisturbed enjoyment, of himself; in opposition to his under going some inward agitation which discomposes his powers. Upon the least reflection it must appear, how essential such a state of mind is to happiness. He only who thus possesses his soul is capable of possessing any other thing with advantage; and, in order to attain and preserve this self-possession, the most important requisite is, the habitual exercise of patience. I know that patience is apt to be ranked, by many, among the more humble and obscure virtues; belonging chiefly to those who groan on a sick bed, or who languish in a prison. If their situation be, happily, of a different kind, they imagine that there is no occasion for the discipline of patience being preached to them. But I hope to make it appear, that, in every circumstance of life, no virtue is

To rightly “preach the Word” there is demanded a far-reaching preparation. Not for a work like that of the old alchemists and astrologers whose locks and beards grew grey as they bent over their crucibles or gazed at the stars, in the vain hope of solving mysteries. We have little to do with mysteries. It is for the simplicity of the gospel we search, and that leads us to heights and depths. We are to so think and pray and live that we may show to men plain paths for their feet. This makes the minister a student, but none the less a man. It is manly to follow the lead of heavenly lights over rough ways and into clouds. The richest ores and gems of Nature are guarded by her fortresses; so is it with truth, and no man but the sluggard complains that a full soul, like a full purse, comes through toil and trial. Newton was once asked, “How do you make your great discoveries?” His reply was: “I keep the subject constantly before me, and wait till the first dawnings open slowly, by little an

The ministry of the Word Preaching is God’s great ordinance now, as it has been in the past. Its source and substance is the Word. The truth you are to preach is a Divine revelation, a written system of truth. Your teaching is not the tradition of men on the one hand, or their mysterious speculations on the other, but the revealed Word of the living God. You are not the inspirer or discoverer of truth, you are only its interpreter. It is no light matter to represent with freshness and force the truth when reached. Much work goes to that, not to elaborate but to simplify. The test of clear thinking is clear expression. Let the teaching of Christ be your pattern--words clear and simple as the light of heaven--thoughts deep as eternity. Have faith therefore in hard work. But labour is not enough. The mere interpreter can see but a little way into religious truth. The heart sees best. The rays of truth, that shine down into the closet, are the brightest and the best. Have faith in prayer a

Dean Vaughan. Miracles of our Lord are parables. Because the record is literally true that it is spiritually instructive. The terms success and failure have a large range in human life. Some men are born, we say, to succeed. Nothing that man possesses can, however, guarantee results. Circumstances which man controls not, changes which he cannot foresee, have a wide operation, and under their influence it is seen again and again that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong. Failure comes where success was certain; success where every one foresaw failure. If a man has found heaven he may bear to have lost earth. But is it not true that failure has place also in spiritual things? Is there no such thing as a toiling all the night and taking nothing in the matters of that world which is of the soul and of eternity? The history of the Church of Christ is full of answers to that question. What long dark nights has it had to toil through! But of this we are sure, that t

Launch out into the deep." I.  This Divine counsel comes, first, to all those who are paddling in THE MARGIN OF BIBLE RESEARCH. My father read the Bible through three times after he was eighty years of age, and without spectacles; not for the mere purpose of saying he had been through it so often, but for his eternal profit. John Colby, the brother-in-law of Daniel Webster, learned to read after he was eighty-four years of age, in order that he might become acquainted with the Scriptures. There is no book in the world that demands so much of our attention as the Bible. Yet nine-tenths of Christian men get no more than ankle-deep. Walk all up and down this Bible domain! Try every path. Plunge in at the prophecies, and come out at the epistles. Go with the patriarchs, until you meet the evangelists. Rummage and ransack, as children who are not satisfied when they come to a new house, until they know what is in every room, and into what every door opens. Open every jewel-casket. E