thoughts of life than just to be successful in their business, and honest and fair in their relations to others, grow, as their years advance, so hard in character, so uninteresting, so impervious to generous impulses, so narrow in sympathy, so unconscious of all the meanings and mysteries of life. Its occupations and activities, not being sweetened and elevated by any higher thoughtfulness, by any periods of spiritual retirement and communion, by any abiding consciousness of God and of the infinite and unseen, have hustled the life of the spirit aside, pushed it into the background, and left it there to die alone.

How much better would our work be done, how much more thoroughly our duty, how much healthier and more satisfactory would our worldly business be, if we could realize that that which is earthly can only bear beautiful blossom or rich fruit, when watered by the rains that fall from heaven; that the life must grow hard and barren which is cut off from its spiritual root; that Christ is ever calling us, amidst all our cares and engrossments to keep ourselves from being carried away on the flood of these, by preserving our personal fellowship with Him, and to come apart from the bustle of the world, into the silence and seclusion, where we may meet Him, and in the consciousness of His presence "rest awhile."

While this should be realized at all times, it should be realized specially at those times when we are called

to meet any crisis in our life, to do any special work, to suffer any special trial. It was at such a time-a time of great activity and of successful missionChrist spoke these words to His disciples, "Come into a desert place and rest awhile." He saw the danger of their getting excited, and carried off their feet by their success, and the popular wonder and applause that had attended their mission. He saw that they would soon be tempted to think more of themselves— the mere agents in the work-than of Him, and of the Father who had given them the work to do and fitted them for it: He saw how soon the very interest of the duty appointed them might draw them off from their friendship with Him, in whose spirit alone the duty could be truly done and the trust fulfilled; and so He took them aside to be with Himself, that beside Him and learning of Him they might grow humble as they compared themselves with Him, and might be calmed as His words led them away from the turmoil of the world, into the pure regions of spiritual communion with the Father.

So would He deal with us, if we will but be led by Him, at all such crises of our life, when life is more than usually busy or engrossed, or filled with either care or anxiety, or uplifted by success. So too, at all times when life is more than usually depressed or weighed down with trouble. At such times the very trouble often brings with it an amount of occupation

that engrosses the attention, and, as it were, crowds the mind, so that it finds it difficult to give itself to quiet meditation. And when this is so, it is good to realize the call of Christ, to go apart with Him for silence and repose; and to understand, at all such times, when God sends us anything that specially engrosses our life and fills it with activities, either joyful and healthful, or saddened or weighted with gloom and pain, that His design is not that we should let ourselves be wholly taken up with the bustle, the work, the excitement, whatever its cause may be-but that we should from time to time shake off the grasp of these and move aside from their pressure, and seek rest and strength in quiet reflection, and in thoughtful and prayerful communion with our Lord. Only then can we learn the lessons that in all His dealings with us God has to teach. Only then can we keep the balance of our life even; the balance between the natural and the spiritual life, the life of toil and the life of thought, the life of outward activity, and of inward communion, of work and of faith: for we are not meant on the one hand to be mere labourers, even in the Master's vineyard, drudging at our labour, or on the other to dwell in a solitary and unfruitful region of religious meditativeness and self-inspection; but to live the well ordered life in which the visible works rise out of the invisible faith, and the daily labour is animated by earnest thought, and the deeds we do

and the words we speak are witnesses to the existence within us of that diviner life which is "hid with Christ in God."

The holy sacrament of which we partook last Sunday is the most sacred emblem of that communion with Christ, by which that diviner life is sustained, and of that call to turn aside from the world and to be with Him which He utters to His people; but as He dwells not in temples made with hands, so that communion and that call are not of necessity linked to any outward season, or place, or ordinance. The access to His presence is ever open; and at all times when the world, or our appointed works and duties, or the trials and losses and griefs which are our lot, seem to be overmastering us, if we will but listen we may hear His voice calling us to rise up and come away from that, whatever it be, which threatens to entangle us and to hurt our higher life, that we may renew that life at its eternal fountain, and find our rest in Him.

And to Him be all glory in the Church, world without end. Amen.

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XVIII.

THE ONE MEDIATOR.

There is one Mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus. -I TIMOTHY ii. 5.

“IT

T is good for me," said the Psalmist, "to draw near to God." It is the idea of all true religion that it can be nothing but good to get near to God-the nearer the better; that he who gets near Him finds peace, blessing, satisfaction of all wants; that away from Him is darkness and unrest. And, looking at what God has revealed to us of Himself, we see that His object is always to bring us nearer to Himself—not to keep us at a distance, but to bring us nigh, and to impart to us more and more of that good which is hidden in Himself. So that a "Mediator between God and man"—that is, one standing between God and man-stands there for the one purpose of bringing God and man together; and whatever he does is done with the one design of removing any bar that may hinder this

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