ECCLESIASTICAL.

Otago Witness, Issue 1959, 10 September 1891, Page 42

ECCLESIASTICAL.

THE PRODIGAL'S RETURN.

A Sermon Delivered on Sabbath Morning, February 7, 1858, by the Eev. 0. H. SptjbQEON, AT THK MUSIC HALL, KOYAL SUBBEY CrABDBWS.

" But when he was yet a great Way off, bis father saw him, and bad compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck» and kissed him."— Luke xv. 20.

All peraons engaged In education will tell you that they find it far more difficult to make the mind unlearn its errors than to make It receive truth. If we could suppose a man totally ignorant of anything, we should have a fairer cbaoce of instructing him quickly and effectually than we shsuld have had if his mind been previously stored with falsehood. I have no doubt you, each of you, find it harder to unlearn than to learn. To get rid of old prejudices and preconceived notioas ia a very hard struggle indeed. It has been well said, that those few words, " I am mistaken." are the hardest In all the English language to pronounoe, and certainly it takes very much force to corhpel us to pronounce them: and after having done so, it is even then difficult to wipe away the slime whioh an old serpentine error has left upon the heart. Better for us not to have known at all than to have known the wrong thing. Now, I am sure that this truth is never more true than when it applies to God. If I had been let alone to form my notion of God entirely from Holy Soripture, I feel, with the aisistance of his Holy Spirit, it would have beeH far more easy for me to understand what he is, and how he governs the world, than to learn even the truths of his own Word, after the mind had become perverted by the opinions of others. Why, brethren, who is it that gives a fair representation of God ? The Arminian slanders God by acouiing him (not in his own intention, but really so) of unfaithfulness ; for he teaches that God may promise what he never performs; that he may give eternal life and promise that those who have it shall never perhb.and yet they may perish after ail. He speaks of God as if he was a mutable being, for he talks of his loving man one day and hating them the next $ of his writing their names in the Book of Life one hour and then erasing their names in the next. And the influence of such an error as that is very baneful Many children of God, who have imbibed these errors in early youth, have had to drag along their poor wearied and broken frames for many a day, wheieas they might have walked joyfully to heaven if they had known the truth from the beginning. On the other hand, those who hear the Calvinistio preacher are very apt to misinterpret God. Although we trust we would never speak of God In any other sense than that in whioh we find him represented in sacred Scripture, yet we are well aware that many of our hearers, even through our assertions, when most guarded, are apt to get rather a caricature of God thau a true picture of him. They imagine that God is a severe being, angry »ud fierce, very easily to be moved to wrath, but not so easily to be induced to love ; they are apt to think of him as one who sits in supreme and lofty state, either totally indifferent to the wishes of his creatures, or else determined to have his owa way wi< h them, as an arbitrary Sovereign, never listening to their desires, or oompflsjionating their woea. Oh that we oould unlearn all these fallacies, and believe God to be what he is 1 Oh that we could come to Soripture, and there look into that glass which reflects his sacred image, and then receive him as he is, the allWiae, ths all-Just, and yet the all-Gracious and all-Loving Jehovah 1 I shall eudenvour this morning, by the help of God't Holy Spirit, to represent the lovely character of Christ ; aod if I shall be happy enough to have some in my audience who are in the position of the prodigal son in the parablecoming to Christ, and yet a great way off from him —I shall trust that they will be led by the same Divine Spirit, to believe in the loviag kindneas of Jehovah, and so may fiad peace with God now, ere they leave this home of prayer. " When he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had companion, and ran, and fell on hii neck, and kissed him." First, I Bhali notioe the po.ition intended in the wordt, " a great way off " ; secondly, I shall notice the peculiar troubles which agitate the mind of those who are in this condition ; and then, thirdly, I shall endeavour to teach the great loving kindneas of our own adorable God, inasmuch as when we are " a great way off "he runs to us and embraces us in the arms of his love. I. First, then, what is the position signified by being " a great way off ? " I muat just notice what is not that position. It is not the position of the man who is careless ai*d utterly regardless of Goa ; for you notice that the prodigal is represented now as having come to hitnßelf, and as returning to his father s house. Though it be true that all sinners are a great way off from God, whether they know it or not, yet in this particular instance, the position of the poor prodigal is iutended to signify the oharacter of one who has been aroused by conviction, who has been led to abhor his former life, and who sincerely desires to return to God. I shall not then, this morning, speoially address the blasphemer and the profane. To him there may be some inoidental warning heard, but I shall not speoiallv address suoh a oharaoter. It is another person for whom this text is intended : the man who has been a blasphemer, if you please, who may have been a drunkard, and a swearer, and what not, but who has now renounced these things, and is steadfastly seekJS? after Christ, that be may obtain eternal life. That is the man who is here said to be, though oomiog to the Lord, " a graat way off." Once agaiu, there is auother person who ie not intended by this description— namely, the very great man, the Pharisee who thinks himself extremely nghteouK, and has never learned to oonfess his sin. i2 v ' « n your a PP re aenslon, are not a great way off. You are so really in the sight of God ; you are as far from him as light from darkneis. as the east is from the west; but you are not spoken of here. You are like the prodigal ion, only that instead of spending your life righteously, you have run away from your Father and hidden in the earth the gold which he gave you, and are able to feed upon the husks which swine do eat, whilst by a miserable economy of good works you are hoping to save enough of your fortune to support yourself here and in eternity. Your hope of self-salvation is a fallacy, and you are not addressed in the words of the text. It in the man who knows himself lost, but desires to be aaved, who is here declared to be met by God, and received with affectionate embraces. And now we come to the question, Who is the man, and why is he said to be a great way off ? For he seems to be very near the kingdom, now that ha knows his need and Is seeking the Saviour I reply in the firet place, he i« a great way off In his own apprehemions. You are here this morning, and you have an idea that never wai man so far from God as you are. You look baok upon your past life, and you recollect how you have slighted God, despised his Sabbath, neglected his Book, trampled uDon the blood of sprinkling, and rej-cfced all the invitations of his mercy. You turn over the pages of your history, and you remember the sins whioh you hive committed-the sins of your youth and your former transgressions, the crimes of your manhood, aud the riper tins of your older years ; like black waves dashing upon a dork shore, they roll in wave upon

tove, Upon your poor troubled memory. Tnere cdraes a little wave of your childish folly, and over that there leaps one of your youthful transgressions, and over the head of thit there comes a very Atlantic billow of your manhood's transgression!. At .the Bight of them you stand astonished and amazed. ' O Lord my God, how deep is the gulf whioh divides mo from thyself, and where is the power that can bridge it ? lam separated from thee by league* of sin, whole mountains of my guilt are piled upwards between me and thyself 0 God, Bhoukht thou destroy me now, thou wouldst be just ; and if tbou dost ever bring me to thyself, it must be nothing Icbb than a pow«r as omnipotent as that which made the woj ld which can ever do it. Oh I how far am I from God 1 " Some of you would be •tartled thi* morniug if your neighbours were to give you revelations of their own feelings. If yonder man standing there in the orowd could come inio this pulpit, and teil out what he now feeU, you might perhaps be horrified at his description of his own heart. How many of you have no notion of the way in which a soul is out and hacked about, when it is undbr the convictions of the law I If you should hear the man tell out what he feels you would cay, "Ahl he is a poor deluded enthusiast) men are not so bad as that " ; or else you would be apt to think he had committed some nameless orlme whioh he dare not mention that was preying on his conscience. Nay, sir, he has been as moral and as upright as you have been ; but should he describe himielf as he now discovers himself to be, he would shock you utterly. And yet you are the same though you feel it not, and would indignantly deny it. When the light of God's grace oomes into your heart, it is something like the opening of the windows of an old cellar that has been shut up for many days. Down in that oellar, whioh has not been opened for many months, are all kinds of loathsome creatures, and a few siokly plants blaneberi by the darkness. The walls are dark and damp with the trail of reptiles j it Is a horrid filthy place in which no one would willingly enter. You may walk there in the dark very aeourely, and except now and then for the touch of some slimy creature, you would not b9lieve the place w*s to bad and filthy. Open those shutters, clean a pane of glass, let a little light in, aud now Gee how a thousand noxious things have made this place their habitation. Sure, 'twas not the light that made this place so horrible, but it was the light that, showed how horrible it was before. So let God's grace just open a window and let the light into a man's soul, and be will stand astonished to see at what a distance he is from God. res, «ir, to ; day you think yourself second to none but the Eternal; you fancy that you oan approach bis throne with steady step , it is but a little that you have to do to ba saved; you imagine that you can accomplish it at any hour, and snve yourself upon your dying bed as well as now. Ah I sir, if you could but be touched by Ithuriel's wand, and made to be in appearance what you are In reality, then you would see that you are far enough from God even now, and ao far from him thatunless the arms of his grace were stretched out to bring you to himself, you must perish in your sin. Now, I turn my eye Again with hope, and trust I have not a few in this large assembly who oan say, " Sir, I feel I am far from God, and sometimes I fear I am so far from him that he will never have mercy upon me ; I dare not lift io much as my eyes towards heaven ; I smite on my breast and say, ' Lord have meroy upon me, a sinner.'" Oh i .poor h eart. here is a comforting passage for thee : " When he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion on him." But, again, there is a second sense in which lome now present feel themselves to be far off from God. Oomoienoe tells every man that if he would be saved he must get rid of his sin. The Antinoraian may possibly pretend to believe that men oan be saved while they live in sin; but conscience will never allow any man to swallow so egregious a lie as that. I have not one person in this congregation who is not perfectly assured that if he is to be saved he must leave off his drunkenness and his vices. Sure there is not one here so stupified with the laudanum of hellish indifference as to imagine that he oan revel in his lusts, and afterwards wear the white robe of the redeemed in Paradise. If y« imagine ye can be partakers of the blood of Christ and yet drink the cup of Belial j if ye imagine that ye oan be members of Satan and members of Christ at the same time, ye have less sense than one would give you oredit for. No, you know that right arms must be out off, and right eyes plucked out— that the most darling sins must be renounced if ye would enter into the kingdom of God. And I have a man here who is convinced of the unholiness of his life, and he has striven to reform, not because he thinks reformation would save him, for he knows better than that, but beoause he knows that this is one of the first fruits of graoe— reformation from sin. Well, poor man, he has for many years been an inveterate druukard, and he struggles now to overcome the passion. He has almost effected it ; but he never had suoh an Herculean labour to attempt before; for now some temptation domes upon him so strongly that it Is as much as he cm do to stand against it; and perhaps sometimes since his first conviction of sin he has even fallen into it. Or perhaps it is another vice, an<l you, my brother, have set your face against it; but tbere are many bonds and 'fetters that bind us to our vices, and you find that though it was easy enough to spin the warp and woof of sin together ; it is not so easy to unravel that which you have spun. You cannot purge your house of your idoh ; you do not yet know how to give up all your lustful pleasures. Not yet can you renounce the company of the ungodly. You have out off one by one your most intimate acquaintances, but it is very hard to do it completely, and you are struggling to accomplish it, and you often "fall on your knees and cry, " O Lord, how far I am from thee I what high steps these are which I have to climb I Oh 1 how can Ibe saved ? Sure, if I cannot purge myself from my old iim, I shall never be f»ble to hold on my way ; and even should I g-t rid of them, I should plunge into them once more." You are crying out, •• Oh, how great my distance from God I Lord, bring me near 1 " Let me present you with one other aspeot of our distance from God. You have read your Bibles, and you believe that faith alone oan unite the soul to Christ You feel that unleis yon oan believe In him who died upon the cross for your sins, you can never see the kingdom of God ; but you can say this morn»'g. ' air, I have striven to believe; I have searched the Scriptures, not hours, bnt days together, to find a promise upon whioh my weary foot might rest ; I have been upon my knees many and many a time, earnestly supplicating a divine blessing ; but though I have pleaded, all in vain have I urg^d my plea, for until now no whisper have I had of grace, no token for good, no sign of meroy. Sir, I have striven to beheve, and I have taid : " ' O oould I but believe ! Then all would easy be ; I would, but cannot — Lord, relieve, My help must come from thee 1 ' " I have used all the power I have, and have desperately Btriven to cast myself at the Saviour's feet and lee my sins washed away iv his blood. I have not been indifferent to the story of the oross • I have read it a hundred times, and even wept over it ; but when I strive to put my hand upon the scapegoat's head, and labour to believe that my sins are transferred to him, some demon seems to stop the breath that would breathe itself forth in adoration, and something checks the hand that would lay itself upon the head that died for me." Well, poor soul, thou art Indeed far from God. I will repeat the words of the text to thee. May the Holy Bplrlt repeat them in thine ear! "When he was yet a great way off, bia father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and hiiaed him." So shall it be with thee if thou hast come thus far, though great may be the distance thy feet shall not have to travel it, but God the Sternal One shall from his throne look down and visit thy poor heart, though now thou tarriest by the way afraid to approach him. 11. Our aeoond point is the peculiar troubles whioh agitate the breasts of those who are in this position. Let us introduce to you the poor ragged prodigal. After a life of ease he is by his own vice plunged into penury and labour. After feeding swine for a time, and being almost starved, he Bets about returning to his father's house. It is a long and weary journey. He walks many a mile until bii feet are sore, and at laßt from the summit of a mountain he views his father's house far away In the plain. There are yet many miles between him and his father whom he has neglected. Oan you conceive his emotions when for the first time after bo long an absence be sees the old house at home ? He remembers it well in the distance ; for though It is long since he trod its floors he has never oeased to recollect it ; and the remembrance of his father's kindness, and of his own prosperity when he was wttb him, has never yet been erased from his consoiousuess. You would imagine that for one moment he feels a flash of joy. like some flash of lightning in the midst of the tempest, but anon a black darkness comes over his spirit. In the first place, it is probable he will think, "Oh! suppose I could reach my home, will my father receive me ? Will he not shut the door in my face and tell me to begone and spend the rest of my life where I have been spending the first of it ? " Then another suggestion might

arise i " Surely, the demon that led me first astray may lead me baok again before I salute my parent. " Or mayhap," thought he, " I may even die upon the road, and so before I have received my father's blessing my soul may stand before its God." I doubt not each of these three thoughts has croiaed your mind if you are now in the position of one who is seeking Gnrist, but mourns to feel himself far away from him. First, you have been afraid lest you should die before Christ has appeared to you. You have been for months seeking the Saviour without finding him, and now the blaok thought comes, " And what if 1 should die with all these prayers unanswered ? Ob 1 if he would but hear me ere I departed this world I would be content, though he should keep me waiting in anguish for many years. But what If before to-morrow morning I should be a corpse ? At my bed I kneel to-night and cry for meroy. Oh 1 if he should not send the pardon before to-morrow morning, and in the night my spirit should stand before his bar I—"I — " What then ? " It is singular that other men think they shall live for ever, but men Convinced of sin, who seek a Saviour, are afraid they shall not live another moment. You have known the time) dear Christian brethren, when you dared not shut your eyes for fear you should not open them again on earth ; when you dreaded the shadows of the night lest they should darken for ever the light of the sun, and you should dwell in outer darkness thioughout eternity. You have mourned as eaoh day has entered, and' have wept as it has departed, because you fanoied that your next step might precipitate you into your eternal doom. I have known what it is to trend the earth and fear le»t every tuft of grass should but coyer a door to hell ; trembling leßt every particle, and every atom, and every stone, should be so at league with God against me as to destroy me. John Bunyan says that at one time in his experience he felt that he had rather have been born a dog or a toad than ft man ; he felt so unutterably wretched on account of sin ; aad his great point of wretchedness was the fact, that though he had been three years seeking Christ, be mijjht after all die without finding him. And in truth this is no needles* alarm. It may be perhaps too alarming to some who already feel their need of Christ, but the mass of us need perpetually to be startled with the thought of death. How lew of you ever indulge that thought I Because ye live, and are in health, and eat, and drink, and sleep, ye think ye shall not die. Do ye ever soberly look at your last end? Do ye ever, when ye come to your beds at night, think how one day ye shall undress for the last slumber? And when ye wake in the morning, do ye never think that the trump of the arobangel shall startle you to" appear before God in the la»t day of the great assize, wherein an universe shall stand before the Judge ? No. " All men think all men mortal but themselves " ; and thoughts of death we still push off. until at last we shall find ourselves waking up in torment, where to wake is to wake too late. But thou to whom I specially speak this morning, tbou who feelest that thou art a great way off from Christ, thou shalt never die, but live and declare the works of the Lord ; If thou hast really sourfit .him thou shalt never die until thou hast found him. There was never a soul yet that sincerely sought the Saviour who perched before he found him. No ; the gates of death shall never shut on thee till the gates of graoe have opened for thee ; till Christ has washed thy sins away thou shalt never be baptised in Jordan's flood. Thy life is seodre, for this is God's constant plan— he keeps his own elect alive till the day of his grace, and then he takes them to himself. And inasmuch as thou knowest thy need of a Saviour, thou art one of his, and thou shalt never die until thou hast found him. Your second fear is, " Ah, sir ! lam not afraid of dying before I find Christ, I have a wone fear than that ; I have had convictions before and they bave often passed away ; my greatest fear to-day is that these will be the same." I have heard of a poor collier, who on one occasion, having been deeply impressed under a sermon, was led tp repent of sin and forsake his former life ; but he felt so great a horror of ever returning to his former conversation, that one day he knelt down and cried thus unto God, " O Lord, let me die on this spot rather than ever deny the religion which I have espoused, and turn baok to my former conversation " ; and we are credibly told that he died on that very spot, and so his prayer was answered. God had rather take him home to heaven than suffer him to bear the brunt of temptation on earth. Now, when men come to Christ, they feel that they had rather suffer anything than lose their convictions. Scores of times have you and 1 been drawn to Christ under the preaching of the Word. We can look back uoon dozens of ocoasions on whioh it seemed just "the turning point with us. Something said in our hearts, '• Now, believe in Christ, now is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation." But we said, " To-morrow, to-morrow " ; and when to-morrow came our convictions were gone. We thought what we said yesterday would be the deed of to-day ; but instead of it the procrastination of yesterday became the hardened wickedness of to-day: we wandered farther from God and forgot- him. Now you are orying to him for fear, lest he should give you up again. You have this morning prayed Before you came here, and you said, " Father, suffer not my companions to laugh me out of my religion ; let not my worldly business so engross my thoughts as to prevent my duo attention to the matters of another world. Oh, let not the trifles of to-day so abiorb my thoughts that I may not be preparing myself to meet my God—

" ' Deeply on my thoughtful heart, Eternal things impress,' and make this a real saving work that shall never die out, nor he taken from me." Is that your earnest prayer? O poor prodigal, it shall be heard, it shall be answered. Tbou shalt not have time to go back. To-day thy Father views thee from his throne in heaven; to-day he runs to tbee in the message of his gospel ; to-day he falls upon thy neck and weeps for joy ; to d»y he says to thee, " Thy sins, which are many, are all forgivea "; to-day, by the preaching of the Word, he bids thee come and reason with him, " for though thy sins be as scarlet, they shall be as wooJ, though they be red like crimson, they shall be whiter than suow." But the last and the most prominent thought wbioh I suppose the prodigal would have, would be, that when he did get to his father, he would say to him, " Get along with you, I will have nothing more to do with you." "Ah 1 " thought he to himself, " I recolltct the morning when I rose up before daybreak, bsoause I knew I could not stand my mother's tears ; I remember how I crept down the baok staircase and took all the money with me, how I stole down the yard and ran away into the land where I spent my all. Oh I what will the old gentleman say of me when I come back ? Why, there he is 1 He is running to me. But he has got a horsewhip with him, to be sure, to whip me away. It is not at all possible that if he comeß ha will have a kind word for me. The most I can expect is that he will say, ' Well, John, you have wasted all your money, you oannot expect me to do anything for you again. I won't let yon star re ; you shall be one of my servants; there, come, I will take you as footman '; and if be will do that I will be obliged to him ; nay, that is the very thing I will ask of him ; I will say, ' Make me as one of thy hired servants.' " " Oh," said the devil wifchin him, " your father will never speak comfortably to you : you had better run away again. I tell you if he gets near you, you will have such a dressing as yon never received in your life. You will die with a broken heart; you will very likely fall dead here ; the old man will nevei bury you ; the carrion crows will eat you. There is no hope for you : see how you have treated him. Put yourself in his place : what would you do if you had a son that had run away with half your living, and spent it upon harlots ?" And the son thought if he were in his father's place he should be very harsh and severe ; and possibly he almost turned upon hit heel to run sway. But he had not time to do that. When he wai just thinking abont running away, on a sudden his father's arms were about bit neck and he had received the paternal kiss. Kay, before he oould get hi* whole prayer finished he was arrayed in a white robe, the best in the house ; and they bad brought him to the table, and the fatted calf was being killed for his repast. And, poor soul, it shall be so with you. Thou sayest, "If I go to God, he will never receive me ; I am too vile and wretched : others he may have pressed to hit heart, but he will not me. If my brother should go, he might be saved ; but there are such aggravations in my crime; I have grown so old since; I have done suoh a deal of mischief ; I have so often blasphemed him, so frequently broken his Sabbaths; ah! and I have so often deceived him ; I have promised I would repent, and when I have got well I have lied to God, and gone back to my old sin. Oh, if he would but let me creep inside the door of heaven ! I will not ask to be one of his children ; I will only ask that he will let me be where the Syro-Phccnician woman desired to be— to be a dog, to eat the crumbs that fall from the Master's table. That is all I ask ; and oh ! if he will but grant it to me he shall never hear the last of it, for as long as I live I will Bing his praise ; and when the world doth fade away, and the sun grow dim with age, my gratitude, immortal as my soul, shall never cease to blbr his love, who pardoned my grossest Bins and washed me In his blood." It shall be bo. Come and try. Now,

•inneri, ary your tears j let hopeless sorrows cease j look to the wounds of Christ, who died ; let all your griefs now be removed, there is no farther oause for them : your Father loves you ; he accepts and receives you to his heart. IK. Now, in conclusion, I may notice how these f eara were mcc hi the prodigal's case, and how they •hall be met in ours If we are in the same condition. The text says, - The Father saw him." Yei , and God saw thee just now. That tear whioh was wiped away so hastily -as if thou wast asbamed of it— God saw it, and he stored it in his bottle. That prayer whioh thou didst breathe just a few moments ago, so faintly, and with suoh little faith— God heard it. The other day thou wast in thy obaraber, where no ear heard thee ; but God was there. Sinner, let this be thy comfort, that God sees thee when thou beglnnest to repent. He does not fee fchee with hie usual gaze with which he looks on all men ; but he sees thee with an eye of intense Interest. He has been looking on thee In all thy sin, and In all thy sorrow, hoping that thou wouldst repent; and now he sees the first gleam of grace, and he beholds it with joy. Never warder on the lonely castle top saw the first grey light of morning with more joy than tbat with which God beholds the first desire in thy heart. Never physlolan rejoiced more when he saw the first heaving of the lungs in one that was suppoied to be dead, than God doth rejoice over thee, now that be sees the first token for good. Think not that thou art despised, and unknown, and forgotten. He Is marking thee from his high throne in glory, and rejoicing in what he sees. He saw thee pray, be beard tbee groan, be marked thy tear; he looked tipon thee and rejoiced to see that these were the first seeds of graoe in thine heart.

And then the text says, "he bad oorapassion on him." He did not merely see him, but he wept within himself to think he should be in such a condition. The old father* had a Very long range oi eyesight; aad though the prodigal o^uld not tee him in the distance, be Could *=c the prodigal. And the father's first thought when he saw him was this—" O my poor son, O my poor boy I that ever he should have brought himself into such a state as this 1 " He looked through his tel-ocope of lo?e, and he saw him, and said, " Ah 1 be did not go out of mv home in suoh a trim as that. Poor creature, hii feet are bleeding ; he haa oome a long way, I'll be bound. Look at his face jhe doesu't look like the same boy that he was when he left me. His eye that was so bright has is now sunken in its sookec ; his cheeks that ones' stood ont with fatness, have now become hollow with famine. Poor wretch, I can tell all his bonea, he is so emaciated." Instead of feeling any anger in hii heart, he felt just the contrary ; he felt suoh pity for his poor sou. And tbat is how the Lord feels for you — you that are groaning and moaning on account of sin. He forgets your siDs ; be only weeps to think you should bave brought yourself to be what you are : " Why didst thou rebel against me, and aring thyself into such a state as this ? " It was just like that day when Adam sinned. God walked in the garden and he missed Adam. He did not ory out, "Adam, come here and be judged I" TXoi with a toft, sorrowful, and plaintive veloe, he said, " Adam, where art thou ? Oh, my fair Adam, thou whom I made so happy* where art tbou now ? Oh Adam thou didst think ro became a God ; where art thou ( Thou hast walked with me) dost thou hide thyself from thy friend? Little dost thou know, O Adam, what woea hast thou brought on thyself and thine offspring. Adam, where artthou ?" And Jehovah's bowels yearn to-day over you. He is nob angry with you; hii anger is passed away, and bis hands are stretohed out still. Inasmuch as he has brought you to feel that you bsve sinned against him , and to desire reconciliation with him, there is now no wrath in his heart. The only sorrow that he feels is sorrow that you should have brought yourself into a state so mournful as that in whish you now are found.

But he did not stop in mere compassion. Having bad compassion, "he ran, and fell on his neok, and kissed him." Ibis you do not understand yet ; but you shall. As sure as God is God, U you "this day are seeking him aright through Christ, the day shall come when the kiss of fnll assurance shall be oa your lip, when the arms of sovereign love shall embrace you, and you shall know it to be so. Thou mayest bave despised him, but tbou shalt know him yet to be thy Father and thy Friend. Thou mayest have scoffed his name ; thoo shalt one day come to rejoice in it as better than pure gold. Thou mayest have broken his Sabbaths and aeiplsedlhi* Word ; the day is coming when the Sabbath »ball be thy delight, and his word thy treasure. Yes, marvel not; tbou mayest have plunged into the kennel of sin and made thy olothes blaok with iniquity ; but thou sbalt one day stand belore his throne white as the angels be ; and that tongue that once cursed him shall yet sing his praise. If thou be a real seeker, the hands that have been stained with luit shall one day grasp the harp of gold, and the head that has plotted against the Moßt High shall yet be girt withgeld. Seemeihit not a strange thing that God should do so much for sinners ? Bub strange though it seem, it Bhall be strangely true. Look at the staggering drunkard in the ale house. Is there a poisibility that one day he shall stand amongst the fairest s ins of light ? Possibility ! ay, certainty, if h*t he repents and turns from the error of his way*. Hear you yon curser and swearer? See you the man who labels himself as a servant of hell, and is not asbamed to do to ? Is it possible that he shall one day share the bliss of the .redeemed? Possible!' Ay, more, it is sure, if he turnetb from his evil way*. O sovereign grace, turn men that they may repent 1 " Turn ye, turn ye, why will ye die, O house of Israel." " Lord, do thou the sinner turn, For thy tender mercies take l "

One word or so, and I have done. If any of you to-day are under conviction of sin, let me solemnly warn you not to frequent places where those conviotious are likely to be destroyed. A correspondent of the New York Christian Advocate furnishes the f ollowiag affecting narrative : — " When I was travelling in tne State of Matachusetts, 26 years ago, af ter.preaohing one evening in the town of , a very serious-lookiog youDg man arose, and wished to addrets the assembly. After obtaining leave, he tpoke as follows :— ' My friends, about one year ago, I set out in aompauy with a young man of my intimate acquaintance, to leek the salvation of my soul. For several weeks we went on together, we laboured together, and often renewed our covenant/ never to give over seeking until we obtained the religion of Jesus. But all at once the young man neglected attending meeting, appeared to turn his baok on all the means of graoe. and grew so shy of me that I .could scarcely get an opportunity to speak with him. His strange conduct gave much painful anxiety of mind ; but still I felt resolved to obtain the salvation of my soul, or perish, making the publican's plea. After a few days a friend informed me that my young companion had received an invitation to attend a ball and was determined to go.' I went immediately to him, and, with tears in my eyes, endeavoured to persuade him to change his purpose, and to go with me that evening to a prayer meeting. I pleaded in vain. He told me, when we parted, that I must not give him up as lost, for after he had attended that ball he intended to make a business of seeking religion. The appointed evening came, and he went to the ball and I went to, the prayer meeting. Soon after the meeting opened it pleased God, in answer to my prayer, to turn my spiritual captivity and make my soul rejoioe in his justifying love. Soon after the ball opened my young friend was standing at the head of the ballroom, with the hand of a young lady in hia hand, preparing to lead down the danoe ; and, while the musician wai tuning his violin, without one moment's warning, the young man sallied back, snd fell dead on the floor. I was immediately ;sent forito assist in devising means to convey his remains to his father's bouse. You will be better able to judge what were.the emotions of my heart when I tell you that that young man was my own brother.' " Trifle not, then, with thy oonviotlons, for eternity shall be too short for thee to utter thy lamentation! over Buch trifling.

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