earnestly entreat that He would speak to each one of our souls His words of omnipotent power, and of inconceivable love-" Behold, thou art made whole : sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee."

Prayer.

Он blessed Lord Jesus, Whose tender mercies are a great deep, whose meat and drink it was to do Thy Holy Father's will, in doing good to the souls and bodies of men, we come to Thee on behalf of this Thy servant, who is suffering under the stress of sickness. Grant him Thy heavenly grace, we beseech Thee, that, with pious confidence, he may entrust his case into Thy gracious hands. Except Thou bless the medicines and the remedies that are being used to promote his recovery he cannot be healed. Oh grant that, with every application of these remedies, he may be drawn by Thy Holy Spirit to supplicate Thy blessing upon it. May he rest in Thee as to the issue of his sickness, and so shall he not be confounded. Especially grant, oh merciful Lord, we beseech Thee, that this sickness may be good and profitable to his soul. Do Thou not only bring about, if it be Thy holy will, his perfect recovery, but fill his soul, both now and evermore, with the graces

and blessings of Thy Holy Spirit. Dwell within him as a restraining power against sin. Help us all to crucify the flesh with its affections and lusts. Grant unto us all the comforting assurance that Thou hast saved us from the wrath to come. Say unto our souls-" Behold thou art made whole: sin no more, lest a worst thing come unto thee." Oh have mercy upon us, gracious Lord, Divine Physician, even as Thou hadst mercy upon the poor paralytic. Pity the weakness of our mortal nature. Be Thou our strength that we may serve Thee as we ought to do. And hasten, oh blessed Lord, the glorious time of Thine appearing, when Satan shall palsy our souls and bodies no more. Hear us, we beseech Thee, Almighty Lord, for thy precious merits' sake, and to Thee, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, be all honour and glory, world without end. Amen.

XVIII.

THE VANITY OF EARTHLY GOOD.

ECCLESIASTES ii. 1—11.

It would be impossible to find a more deeply impressive, a more instructive picture of the vanity of all earthly good than this. Its value consists in the fact, that it is the testimony of a man who had been allowed by God's good providence to mount to the dizzy elevation of the highest pinnacle of human greatness. In honour, none could equal him; he was the sovereign of a people beloved of God, dreaded by other nations, and in the zenith of their national prosperity. In riches and wisdom he was confessedly greater than all who had gone before him. Provided thus with brilliant talents, and having all that can be conceived of earthly happiness within his reach, he soon became lost for awhile to all thought or care about the salvation of his soul, in the intoxication of debasing pleasures. He lived safely for awhile, in no danger, except the greatest and most dreadful of all—that of losing his immortal soul-in "the palace without a background." Every

resource was open to him; every pleasure at his beck and call. If, in the midst of his delirious dreams, unwelcome thoughts intruded themselves, that whispered to him of the unsatisfying nature of earthly delights, of the labour there was in them, the wear and tear of body and mind which they involved, of their wearisome lack of novelty, he was, for awhile, able to turn deaf ears to them, to prosecute his search again after something new, with fresh vigour, to put off yet a little longer the time when he must fully awake to the sense that all his happiness, without exception, had been that proceeding from "a dream, an empty show." His was that wild, senseless laughter, born of revel, which, as a talented modern authoress has said, is "sadder still than tears."* His was the vapid mirth, that passed away quickly, as "the crackling of thorns under a pot,” and whose emptiness the royal jester must have discovered as often as he indulged in it. He tarried long at the wine-cup, and found that to be worse than vanity. In a word, he prosecuted an eager search after that which he might pronounce to be really and permanently "good for the sons of men," which should prove of so satisfactory a nature, that they might do it "under the heaven all the days of their life." From senseless and wicked pleasures, this powerful monarch turned his attention to the

* Madame de Gasparin.

more intellectual pursuits of architecture, and the cultivation into all forms of beauty and fertility, of which they were capable, of the royal lands. He increased very largely his establishment, he heaped up a vast superfluity of goods, in cattle, "silver and gold, and the peculiar treasure of kings and of the provinces." He yielded himself a captive to the witchery of music, instrumental and vocal. He assures us that he denied not his heart in anything. And the sad climax of all is: "Then I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, and on the labour that I had laboured to do: and behold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit under the sun.".

Such must ever be the verdict of those, my brother, who are "lovers of pleasure, rather than lovers of God." The heart of man is far too large for any portion this world has to give. Though he should crave after the whole world, and should have all his cravings satisfied, Solomon's example and confession prove to us, that he would be as far from happiness as before. Yes, for God alone can satisfy the soul which He has formed for Himself. It may truthfully be said of those who have made earthly pleasures their highest good, and have obtained them :66 Hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted in them." But how differently circumstanced are those who, from the conviction that this world not only cannot