home and starve it, but if you do so you will sit down to a pauper's crust when you might revel at the banquet of a king. What are you going to do with that imagination of yours? He that sinneth against that wrongeth his own soul. "Why," say you, "I intend to take in the whole material universe." Do you? What is the whole? There, you see, I bring you straight to a wall which you cannot scale and you cannot penetrate. What do you mean by the whole? How do you know that when you have reached the end of your line it is not the beginning of another and a longer line still? "Well, but," you reply, "I am going to keep my imagination within that line." Then you are going to prevent it enjoying its widest liberty. The moment you call it home you interfere with its functions, you endanger its life, you withdraw it from the sun and the light, which are the necessary elements of its very existence. But suppose now you could find out the whole material universe, and say, standing on some central star, "I see all the constellations, all the planets, all the asteroids, all the material creation;" even then that marvellous imagination of yours has not scope enough-it feels the bars and says, "I see daylight beyond; what is this which falls upon my eye, that assails my ear, that challenges me further still-what is this?" Aye, what is that? and if you say you will not go out of the cage when the door is open, and the greatening universe sends you still larger and more hospitable invitations, then you wrong your own soul. The whole material universe, as you call it, or as it is conceivable by us, is a bird's small cage compared with the infinite resources of him who fainteth not, neither is weary, and of whose understanding there is no searching. Whoso sinneth against me, wrongeth his own soul, belittles himself, trivialises his own nature, wastes his powers, shuts himself up in a cell, when he might be enjoying the liberty of an ever-expanding firmament.

You have a profound moral nature; what are you going to make of it? "Well," some one will say, "I am going to do right." What is right? Are you going to do the infinite right or your own notion of rectitude? What is your standard-to what do you appeal? Your right may be wrong to me, and I may be able to prove it to be wrong to you; right is not an

affair of terms, is not a metaphysical distinction between one word and another-it is an eternal quantity, it comes to man first by intuition, and secondly by revelation. Before, therefore, you can satisfy me on that side of the argument, you must give me distinctly to understand by what standard you determine the absolute right. "Well, then," you may perhaps reply, "I am going to do the best I can." Do you say so? I give you time to recall the words, and modify them. If you insist upon that form of words, I hasten with a reply, bright as lightning, cutting as a sword-Who is to be judge of the best you can? Whoever did the best it is possible for him to do? One young man thought he had done so, when he had kept the commandments in the letter. Whoever imagines that he has kept the commandments has reached the very consummation of self-deception; they cannot be kept, they grow upon the man who tries to keep them. He realises his first conception, and then that conception broadens, enlarges, heightens, and says, "Further still." "Thou shalt not kill." The man says, "I have not killed; I have kept that commandment at all events," and the commandment says, "No-perhaps not; it may be thou art a murderer, though no red-hot blood ever fell upon thy trembling hand." "Whoso hateth his brother, or is angry with his brother without a cause, hath committed murder in his heart." Who then is to be judge of the best you can do? You cannot be your own judge, otherwise we should have millions of standards, and various heights and various qualities; there must be one law, one judge, one commandment, one faith, one Lord, one baptism. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord. Ah, I find that your protestations and propositions of moral behaviour will not bear cross-examination; they shrivel under scrutiny because there is no real life in them.

So this is the hold God has upon us: "He that sinneth against me wrongeth himself." You do so physically. Do you imagine that you can do as you please physically and escape all consequences? God makes you possess in your bones the effects of your moral action. Once a man came into a new experience, and abruptly exclaimed, "Thou makest me to possess the iniquities of my youth." He thought he had escaped these-he

was fifty years away, mayhap, from boyhood and early manhood; but at seventy his old sins caught him—and they always will do so. A man says, "Surely I can devote what hours I please to business." You cannot without moral consequences. You cannot turn up a gas lamp after a certain hour without Nature standing over you and marking down something against your account.

You imagine that you have been proceeding comfortably, successfully, triumphantly, and making a fortune, while, in fact, you have so used your brain as to entail upon that little boy of yours and that little girl paralysis of the highest powers, a life-long disability and manifold discomfort. Do you imagine that you have got the keys of the universe at your girdle and can do as you like? If it were a question of metaphysical morality, and you were to be told that there is an account against you above the blue sky, you would laugh at the speaker as a sentimentalist, and, therefore, God comes right down and works in your bones, so that one day will find you a tottering old man, saying, "I have not only injured myself, but my poor children. I so wrought my brain as to leave them a legacy of the most painful kind." Therefore, God does not give up life-the Lord still brings us to practical judgments, to distinct personal consequences of our action, and we who would shrink from any merely metaphysical Divinity, from any philosophical conception of right, are bound to feel in our own flesh and blood and bones that we have done wrong. What are you going to do? The good man makes the best of his powers; the Christian man gets the best out of himself; righteousness makes a man realise the grandest of his powers, the widest of his capacities, and imparts to him as he goes along such instalments of heaven as are consistent with a life upon earth.

If you want to sleep well, be good. If you want to do your business well, be good. If you want to enjoy your holiday, be good. If you want to make a penny go furthest, be good. If you want a happy home, be good. That is where God has his terrific hold over us if we insult him in what we suppose to be the sentimentalities and metaphysics of nature, in all those concerns which lie immediately within the range of our present experience.

Chapter ix.

"Wisdom hath builded her house, she hath hewn out her seven pillars: she hath killed her beasts; she hath mingled her wine; she hath also furnished her table. She hath sent forth her maidens: she crieth upon the highest places of the city, Whoso is simple, let him turn in hither: as for him that wanteth understanding, she saith to him, Come, eat of my bread, and drink of the wine which I have mingled. Forsake the foolish, and live; and go in the way of understanding. He that reproveth a scorner getteth to himself shame: and he that rebuketh a wicked man getteth himself a blot. Reprove not a scorner, lest he hate thee: rebuke a wise man, and he will love thee. Give instruction to a wise man, and he will be yet wiser: teach a just man, and he will increase in learning. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding. For by me thy days shall be multiplied, and the years of thy life shall be increased. If thou be wise, thou shalt be wise for thyself: but if thou scornest, thou alone shalt bear it. A foolish woman is clamorous; she is simple, and knoweth nothing. For she sitteth at the door of her house, on a seat in the high places of the city, to call passengers who go right on their ways: Whoso is simple, let him turn in hither: and as for him that wanteth understanding, Ishe saith to him, Stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant. But he knoweth not that the dead arc there; and that her guests are in the depths of hell."

WISDOM AND FOLLY.

'WO women make their appeal in this chapter. One is Wisdom, the other is the foolish woman. So the broad distinction between wisdom and folly is consistently sustained. There are no half-wise people, no half-foolish people; the virgins are wise or foolish, bad or good, angels from heaven or spectres from hell.

Wisdom has a festival prepared. We have seen in Exodus xxiv. that when the elders of Israel were favoured with the vision of the Almighty "they did eat and drink." To the animal man these are but bodily exercises; to the spiritual man they are sacramental acts. When the Saviour would represent the glory

and abundance of his house he spreads a banquet, sets forth the marriage of the king's son, prepares a supper, and sends forth messengers to say that all things are ready. If our interpretation of the latter part of the eighth chapter is correct, Christ may be regarded as Creator, and in this chapter he is the Sustainer of mankind. Men are to eat his flesh and drink his blood. He is the bread of life sent down from heaven. He is the answer to the world's hunger. All the details as to the feast of Wisdom would seem to be but so many anticipations of the parables and appeals of Jesus Christ. The idea of "building her house" runs through the Christian writings. "Upon this rock I will build my church;" "Built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets;" "Built up a spiritual house." We may speak of the house of Wisdom as we speak of the house of God. It is a sanctuary, a home, a centre of union, a bond and symbol of friendship. The invitation of Wisdom is the invitation of Christ: "Behold, I have prepared my dinner: my oxen and my fatlings are killed, and all things are ready: come unto the marriage." All we have to do is to go; we take with us nothing but our hunger; the feast is Christ's, the invitation is Christ's, the house is Christ's; the hunger alone is ours, and a blessed hunger it is if we feel that only Christ can satisfy it. Wisdom mingles the wine and flavours it with choice spices, and sends forth invitations rich with the music of hospitality: "Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price,”come and do what otherwise would be impossible; claim as a right what is given as a grace, and treat as a purchase what is bestowed as a gift.

But to do all this there must be an abandonment of past preferences and associations-"Forsake the foolish and live." No man can live in both houses. "Know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God." "Ye cannot serve God and mammon.” To leave folly is the first step towards wisdom. But there must be progress, the soul cannot Hence the sixth verse continues: "Go in the way of understanding." Emancipation must be followed by

live on negatives.