has sounded in the ears of this people? To thy name be all the praise. O for a trumpet voice, on all the world to call. O that I could point this whole assembly to the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sin of the world. Those arms of love that compass me, would compass all mankind. May the Son make us free that we may be free indeed! ΑΜΕΝ.

CHRISTIANITY REASONABLE IN ITS DOCTRINES AND

DEMANDS.

BY REV. JOHN C. GRANBERY, A. M.,

OF THE VIRGINIA CONFERENCE.

"Then he which had received the one talent came, and said, Lord, I knew thee that thou art a hard man, reaping where thou hast not sown, and gathering where thou hast not strewed: And I was afraid, and went and hid thy talent in the earth lo, there thou hast that is thine."-Mat. xxv, 24, 25.

I do not purpose to comment on the crime and punishment of the servant who buried his talent. There was little committed to his trust a single talent; he is charged not with throwing it away or spending it sinfully, but merely with failure to improve and increase it Nevertheless, he is condemned as wicked and slothful; the one talent is taken away, and he is cast into outer darkness, where there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Fearful warning to every unprofitable servant! Friend, have you received the grace of God

in vain, or are you growing therein? Are you doing anything with your talents, five, two, one; or lie they idle? God grant that you may be a good and faithful servant-commended and rewarded as such in the day of reckoning!

But I will not now pursue that line of thought. I quote the servant's vindication of his own conduct as substantially agreeing with the excuse you often make for the neglect of duty, viz: the severity and even impracticability of the Divine exactions. You recoil, I grant, from the daring profanity of calling God a hard Master; when tried by His word and found wanting, you may not be so bold and so blasphemous as to assert your own innocence, and impeach Him of injustice in His requirements; you may refuse to utter such words, or