can only be one other. Under whatsoever guise or array — whether it be the powers of the world, or the laws of nature, or the agencies of men, or the gifts of intellect, or moral force, or those faculties which seem most our own, that is, our very self, it is no other than he who, on the top of the mountain, said, "All these things will I give Thee, if Thou wilt fall down and worship Self is but the subtilest array and the nearest approach of his presence. When we worship

me."

ourselves we worship him.

And this leads to one or two plain reflections.

One is, that the highest apparent success in this world is often the most real and utter failure. By accepting of its offers, many men have in reality lost all. There is something very fearful in the uniform success which seems sometimes to attend on wicked men. All winds and tides, and outward influences, and conjunctures of unlooked for events, seem to befriend and to wait upon their will. They are carried up to the head of their callings, and to the lead of their professions; to the summit of kingdoms, and to the pinnacle of Churches; and wealth pours itself at their feet, and men seem fascinated by their tongues, and give way to their plans and schemes, and offer themselves for tools to carry them into effect. All this seems the favour of

Providence, and the countersign of the Most High, owning and declaring their acts as the will of Heaven. God's servants are often perplexed at these things, and are in doubt whether, after all, they have not "cleansed their heart in vain, and washed their hands in innocency." It seems, for a time, either that right and wrong are artificial and conventional usages, or that the laws of God's providence are out of course. "Until I went into the sanctuary of God; then understood I the end of these men; namely, how Thou dost set them in slippery places, and castest them down, and destroyest them." It is the Divine indignation which bids them prosper. The world loves its own, and heaps its gifts and honours on those that are likeminded with itself. They that have most cunning to advance its interests, touch its sympathies, flatter its weaknesses, soothe its disappointments, and sustain its self-esteem, are its surest favourites. And, under the supreme control of the Divine Providence, which orders the universal scheme of the world and disposes all its issues, there is a vast body of inferior powers left in the hands of men, whereby to reward and enrich the servants of the world. So that there are always at work two administrations, a lower and a higher, a human and a divine: the human busying itself in 1 Ps. lxxiii. 16, 17.

details that are visible, proximate, and imperfect; the divine ordering those laws that are final, perfect, and supreme. Men make beginnings, but God ordains the endings; so that the same man, at one and the same time, may both succeed and fail. He may win all in the lower world of human action, and lose all in the higher order of divine rewards. He may be both most exalted and most abased, most prosperous and most baffled, most mighty and most powerless, most cherished by men and most cast off by God. Set him on the throne of the world, with all creatures at his foot, and his name blotted from the book of life. "What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul ?”

Therefore, when success wafts men onward, they have reason to fear and to look with a twofold scrutiny into their aims, employments, and alliances. There is something suspicious in the favour of many men, in general popularity, worldly reputation, and the concurrent applause of those who are morally divided. It savours of the woe "when all men shall speak well of" us, and of the kiss that was given in Gethsemane. How many men who have begun well, in great fervour and fidelity to God, have had their active powers warped, and the warmer affections of their hearts

stolen away, by the greetings, gifts, and flatteries of life! High place, great friendships, open avenues to elevation, daily approaching success, have been the ruin and utter loss of thousands. From a simple and saint-like temper, they have become subtil, designing, and secular. Their worldly powers and their personal endowments have been every day developed and multiplied so as to win a double measure of admiration and a perpetually increasing name; while in the eye of God they have withered and fallen away from the very root. Prosperous men are seldom devout; religious men generally suffer by success; high characters sink as their worldly reputation rises; and moral principle deteriorates as men obtain advancement in the world. They gain their point, but in gaining it lose all that makes it to be desired. They win places of power, but by means which make them powerless when the place is won. Under their seeming success there is the deepest failure. They forfeit the kingdom of God for the baits of this false and fleeting life; or, for a few years of honour in a fallen world, they lose a high place in the orders of heaven, and are even “saved so as by fire."

Another remark we may make is the reverse of the last; I mean, that seeming failure is often the truest success. It was He that spurned the tempter when he offered Him all the kingdoms of the world

who afterwards said, "All power is given unto Me in heaven and in earth." They that forsook houses, brethren, sisters, father, mother, wife, children, and lands, for His name's sake, received all these an hundredfold, and the heritage of eternal life. Though they had nothing, yet they possessed all things.'

So it has ever been with the Church. When she forsook all, then she was most richly endowed in heaven; when most overcome, she overcame all. Such has been the secret history of saints. Their great powers in the world were the reward of their perfect deadness to it. Because they refused its offers, therefore they became its rulers. Because they had no desire, nor love, nor appetite for it, therefore they were set to dispose of it. Because they shunned its titles and exaltations, therefore they were honoured and lifted up to the thrones of power. They were true followers of Him who, when He perceived that the people "would come and take Him by force, to make Him a king, departed again into a mountain Himself alone." They ran counter to it, and yet won its willing obedience; they were unpopular and unpalateable to the men of the world, and yet they were followed and obeyed by them; they deprived themselves of its powers and gifts, and did things the

1 2 Cor. vi. 10.

2 St. John vi. 15.