sight numbers and weighs contingencies. Logical thinking leads to logical acting. The person who is destitute of foresight multiplies the difficulties of other people. He never carries an umbrella, but is willing to share that of his thoughtful companion; seldom has any change, so must have a beggar's stomach without a beggar's name; was going to bring something but forgot it, and therefore must share the oil of the wise virgins!

Solomon sends all such men to the ant, an insect which has "no guide, overseer, or ruler." Some spiritless people require guides, overseers, and rulers. They will not do anything except under the whip. Such people are never to be trusted. If men will not work without being watched, they will watch the watcher and sleep when they can. A true worker needs no watching. The darkness and the light are both alike unto him. He works because it is right. He is his own critic. His spirit is in harmony with the divine and absolute, and in his conscience is the tribunal before which his life is constantly arraigned. The man who requires watching is a thief. He may not have stolen money, but he has a thief's heart, and may one day have a thief's hand.

What is the action of the ant which is to be suggestive to men of the sluggard's mould? She "provideth her meat in the summer, and gathereth her food in the harvest." That is to say, she makes the best of her opportunities. Opportunity! Let the young think of that word; it is full of meaning. The bridge gives a traveller an opportunity of crossing the river; the ladder gives a man an opportunity of descending or climbing; the spring gives the farmer an opportunity of sowing seed. Now write it on the youngest memory; stamp it on the opening brain; set it before you as a lesson never to be forgotten,-every life has opportunities; every life has a summer! A summer! The ant provideth her meat in the summer; how wise, how well! No year has two Junes. May never comes twice in the same year. Only once! Once the summer binds the milliontinted coronal around her blushing temples; once she charms the landscape into beauty, and the forest into song, and the orchard into fruitfulness; once she waves her wand, and angels of celestial loveliness beautify the garden and shed the fragrance

of heaven through the tainted air of earth! Only once! The ant, without "guide, overseer, or ruler," knows this, and makes the most of it. Go to her, ye sons of folly, "consider her ways, and be wise."

The child has opportunities. Make of them opportunities to accumulate information; to lay the basis of pure and exalted habitudes; to take on the outlines of the only beauty that is immortal!

The young man has opportunities. His employers mark his conduct, calculate his capabilities, and adjudge him accordingly. Always be qualifying yourselves for something higher. "Aim high; he who aimeth at the sky shoots higher far than he who means a tree." Wait. He who waits often wins. Impatience is a sign of weakness. The weak twig trembles, the strong root is unmoved.

As every life has a summer, so every life has a winter. The ant, without "guide, overseer, or ruler," knew this, and consequently provided accordingly. Many men endeavour to remember this fact in secular life, and they do well. There is a money-making period in human life, and men should avail themselves of its privileges. No man of health who possesses reasonable opportunities for laying by a provision for what has been well termed a "rainy day" should spend all he makes, and throw himself upon society as a pauper. Remember that you will not always be so strong as you are now. The sun shines, make your hay! If you have only twenty shillings per week, save a few of them. Believe that debt is disgrace, and avoid it as you would flee from a serpent. You are to take a broad view of human life; to strike averages; to calculate contingencies; to institute inquiries, and balance antagonisms. This will afford a substantial basis of action. The summer and the winter will be looked at together; the morning and the evening will interpenetrate. If you fail to operate upon this plan; if you think the whole year will be summer, and that one day will be as advantageous as another; and that you are master of all circumstances, -then "shall thy poverty come as one that travelleth, and thy want as an armed man." See what comes of setting natural

law aside! Poverty and want are sent of God to chastise neglect of life's summer! Beware how you treat that sunny messenger of God! She comes laden in order that you may unburden her for your own advantage; she comes with a warmth which you may so use as to cause it to penetrate the whole year. But neglect it, and you perish! Poverty is behind her, and if you refuse riches you shall have want.

In thus recommending preparation for life's winter we are far from advocating penuriousness. Covetousness is an affront to God! The penurious man turns summer itself into winter, and if he had all the wealth of Golconda he would be as poor as the barren rock. Let there be no mistake then. "The liberal soul shall be made fat." "There is that scattereth, and yet increaseth; there is that withholdeth more than is meet, and it tendeth to poverty." Aye! covetousness tends to poverty as well as neglect. Strike the golden mean. Be prudent, yet be generous; be zealous for thine own interests, and then love thy neighbour as thyself!

Are we, then, fully at one upon this subject of foresight? Do we agree as to its desirableness, its value, its expediency? Does the mother turn to her daughter, and say: "Child, remember these things, and do them"? Does any father turn to his son, and say: "He that doeth these sayings shall build his house upon a rock"? I so, it is well! But I add to all this: if we are agreed up to this point, there is a point beyond to which we are irresistibly driven! If foresight is good in one department, it is good in another; and those who have tested its value should be the most eager to extend its application. Let us go from the less to the greater. Here is a person who prides himself on his foresight. He bears a high repute for range and intensity of vision in all secular concerns. Yet by the very sweep and clearness of his foresight I brand him as a fool! He never missed a train, yet he was never in time for public worship; he never failed to keep an appointment with man, yet he never made an appointment with God; he was never too late for the post, yet he is in danger of being too late for heaven; he never failed to see gold in any bargain, yet he has turned away the fine

gold of the gospel! He has foreseen everything but the chief thing he has seen the shadow, not the substance; he has made a covenant with the servant and let the king pass by! Here is folly in the very midst of wisdom; and if the very wisdom be folly how great is that folly,-if the light be darkness how terrible is the gloom!

Here is a woman who also prides herself on her foresight, yet the mark of folly is on her forehead! "She seeketh wool, and flax, and worketh willingly with her hands," yet her soul is naked; "she riseth also while it is yet night, and giveth meat to her household," yet her heart pineth with hunger; "she layeth her hands to the spindle, and her hands hold the distaff," yet she rejects the robe woven by the atoning Saviour; "she eateth nothe bread of idleness," yet she does not work out her own salt vation! Wise in the little, but foolish in the great! She saves the copper, but gives up the gold to the burglar. Is this a foresight to be proud of? Is it not in very deed a fool's sagacity? Christ simply requires of us what we willingly yield to others and ourselves. He says, Prepare, watch, be ready, trim your lamps; this is exactly what men do in the affairs of daily life, yet, while they deem themselves sagacious, they regard God as unjust! "I speak as unto wise men, judge ye what I say." "O that men were wise, that they understood this, that they would consider their latter end!" Remember that to have foreseen everything but the day of death is to have lived a life which shall, in the words of Holy Writ, be "buried with the burial of an ass."

Chapter vi.

ON SURETYSHIP THE "NAUGHTY PERSON"

SEVEN THINGS HATEFUL TO GOD.

"My son, if thou be surety for thy friend, if thou hast stricken thy hand with a stranger, thou art snared with the words of thy mouth, thou art taken with the words of thy mouth. Do this now, my son, and deliver thyself, when thou art come into the hand of thy friend; go, humble thyself, and make sure thy friend. Give not sleep to thine eyes, nor slumber to thine eyelids. Deliver thyself as a roe from the hand of the hunter, and as a bird from the hand of the fowler" (vers. 1-5).

TH

HERE is no necessary reference here to modern commercial usages. The passage may be easily misunderstood and misapplied. The case is well put in Bishop Ellicott's Bible: "When the Mosaic law was instituted, commerce had not been taken up by the Israelites, and the lending of money on interest for its employment in trade was a thing unknown. The only occasion for loans would be to supply the immediate necessities of the borrower, and the exaction of interest under such circumstances would be productive of great hardship, involving the loss of land, and even of personal freedom, as the insolvent debtor and his family became the slaves of the creditor (Neh. v. 1-5). To prevent those evils, the lending of money on interest to any poor Israelite was strictly forbidden (Lev. xxv.); the people were enjoined to be liberal, and to lend for nothing in such cases. But at the time of Solomon, when the commerce of the Israelites had enormously developed, and communications were opened with Spain and Egypt, and possibly with India and Ceylon, while caravans penetrated beyond the Euphrates, then the lending of money on interest for employment in trade most probably became frequent, and suretyship also, the pledging of a man's own credit to enable his friend to procure a loan." The rest is easily imaginable. The text may be accepted as a distinct exhortation to ourselves. Have nothing to do with suretyship. If you can afford to give anything, give it, and there let the matter end.