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come upon him' (v. 13). We may disguise our sin before men, refuse its full recognition to ourselves, cloak our shame, but there comes the time when we can dissemble and conceal no longer, when all the hidden things of our heart shall, with anguish, be revealed. 'Ephraim shall say, what have I to do any more with idols?' All the false images are to be cast out. 'Idols of wood and stone,' sympathy with grosser forms of evil; idols of silver and gold,' the inner worship of power and wealth and rank; the carved images,' tolerance of exalted forms of evil which have been consecrated by taste and genius; the molten images,' which flow from the glowing furnace of passion; the teraphim which seductively wear 'religion's imprint and devotion's air '-all, all must go, not hidden in burial, but annihilated in cremation. It is for us to claim in its fulness the grand promise: "Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness and all your idols will I cleanse you.'

The Apostle writes to the Romans, 'ye are dead to sin.' How completely this idea cuts us off from the world of evil! how utterly it separates us from all godlessness and wickedness! We once heard a converted Persian relate that when he was converted to Christianity his angry kindred considered him a dead man, and celebrated his funeral obsequies accordingly. They were not far wrong. When one is converted to Christ he has absolutely renounced sin, the world may

justly count him dead, and all the vices follow his bier. Passion is there gnashing his teeth; loathsome Lust weeps to lose a child; Mammon mourns a slave who has slipped his golden fetters; Pride stalks along in grief because the dead eye can no longer be charmed with palm or purple; Falsehood lays aside his mask, and sincerely grieves the loss of a peer; Selfishness is sorely smitten and bereaved; whilst Pleasure, with all her daughters, cast their poison flowers into the dust. The devil is there as the chief mourner, and all the rabble of the vices wildly wail the loss of one 'dead unto sin but alive unto God.' So they bury 'the old man with his lusts,' and let us take care that the grass grows over him, and that he has not the ghostliest resurrection. 'How shall we who are dead to sin live any longer therein ? '

XI.

THE WEALTH OF LIFE.

'My cup runneth over.'-PSALM xxiii, 5.

THE overflowing idea is everywhere.

I. Our cup of natural blessing is not simply sufficing, but redundant. We see this :-

In the beauty of creation as opposed to mere utility. The sad philosopher of antiquity confessed: 'He hath made everything beautiful in His time'; and the poet of to-day rejoices: All things have more than barren use.' Some modern cynics have roundly abused nature and tried hard to show the seamy side of the rainbow, but the loveliness and grandeur of things are too much for them, and the poet's vocation is not yet gone. Our natural belief also in the spirituality and transcendence of the beautiful and sublime is too profound to be uprooted by the utilitarian, however ingeniously he may argue on the material and physiological. Everywhere we see nature passing beyond utility into that delightful something we call beauty, glory, grandeur. Sounds harmonize into music; colours glow until the round world seems a broad, unwasting iris; cries blend into songs; the earth breaks into blossoms; the sky kindles

into stars. However the utilitarian may urge his sordid story, we cannot look at the superb dome of manycoloured glass above us, or ponder the vast panorama of earth and sea, full of pictures, poems, and symphonies which human art at best only darkly mirrors, without feeling that life inherits riches far beyond all material uses. The gorgeous garniture of the universe at which the mere physicist stumbles, and which generations of metaphysicians fail to explain, is simply the overflow of our royal cup.

In the abundance of. creation as opposed to mere sufficiency. Thou preparest a table before me.' And how richly is that table furnished! We have a school of political economists tormented by the dread of population outstripping the means of subsistence, and which is ever warning society against the awful peril. What confusions of heart and understanding do all these ominous vaticinations betray, seeing we dwell in a world so rich and elastic! At one period of his life John S. Mill was distressed by the apprehension of the exhaustibility of musical combinations, but he came to see that the possibilities of original harmony are practically infinite. It would be a blessing if that school of economists with which Mill is identified could be brought to perceive that the possibilities of the world on every side are practically infinite. It is true that many suffer sad lack, but this is the consequence of human vice and folly, improvidence and misgovernment, not of God's pro

visions or arrangements. Let man be wise and good, and, however thronged 'the habitable part' of the earth, there shall be no complaining.' The legend tells us that in olden times the ear of wheat extended the whole length of the straw, and it was through the sin of man that the ears of corn spring as as we see them now. Truly this legend reflects the truth of all times, that the exuberance of God has been marred by the folly of man. But if reason, virtue and gratitude should resume their sway throughout the earth, will not the wheat once more grow all down the straw? Or to drop the imagery, has not God many margins yet left for meeting the needs of every living thing'? Nay, in presence of the suggestions of modern science, would it not be more nearly correct still to say that hitherto God's margins only have been touched, and the vast storehouses of nature with their manifold and bursting treasures are reserved for the Millennium's golden years? The earth is full of His riches' ; riches for the swarming millions richly to enjoy.

II. Let us remember the superabundance of our cup of social blessing. God setteth the solitary in families.' He has constituted society that the joy of life might be full. See the precious clusters which through this gracious arrangement are pressed into our cup! First, perhaps, to strike the eye amongst the clusters of our Canaan is Home-the father's reason made silken by affection; the mother's voice sweeter than any music; the kindly strength of the brother; the fond