the devastation of passion. For many years progress is at an end.

It is the same with other things. Our love of honesty of soul, of truth to our own convictions-we are ready enough to make our boast that the spirit of the world cannot touch these things. Possibly it cannot, as we are now. But if a sudden change take place-if fortune should smile in a moment upon us, or reputation come in an instant-our self-confidence is but poor protection. Suppose all we want in life, our highest aim, that position in which we think we can do most good and carry out the ideas of a lifetime, were offered us to-morrow, if we would but modify a few principles and forfeit a few convictions-are we prepared for that? Not so, unless we have realised and loved day by day, with prayer and humility, the truth above all things and I know that the love we bear to truth is firmest when it is borne to One who died as its witness -to One who is the truth, and therefore can give the truth to men; to One who has promised as the Truth to be with us always, even to the end of the world.

It is not too much to say that in middle age, if the spirit of the world gets hold of a man and he is false to God and his own soul, he is fixed in degradation for many years; or the agony with which he is redeemed exhausts life, and he is to the end a broken

man.

It is a wonderful drama this life of ours, and it is infinitely strange to separate ourselves at times from ourselves and look on as a spectator only at our own little kingdom. It has its beginnings, its rightful

kings, its hours of mob-rule, its battles for existence, its revolutions, its reorganisations, its usurpers, its triumphs, and we tremble for its safety as we gaze. Will it get out of all its trouble and change, into order and peace at last? At first we cannot tell. We rush back and unite our thought to ourselves again, and it seems that nothing can be done in the darkness and the anarchy of life. It is our hour of depression. The chamber of the soul is hung with pain and dreams,' and we ourselves feel like wafts of seaweed swept out to sea on the strong tide of fate into the midnight.

But stay-are we so alone, so unhelped, so forgotten, so feeble, such victims of blind fate? Not so, if a triumphant humanity has lived for us-not so, if Christ has been in our nature bringing into it the order and perfection of Divinity, not so if these words have any value: Lo! I am with you always;' for then, we are in Him, and to be in Him is to be fated to progress passing into perfection, for we are Christ's, and Christ is God's.

Take up then your life this year, through catastrophe, through joy, through change, with the courage of children of God; with the resolution of kings who wear the crown, and assume the responsibilities of selfconquest; with faith in that immortality of ours in Christ, the awful inspiration of which dignifies, impels, and chastens life; with the ineffable comfort of the sympathy and strength of Him whose divine Manhood is with us and all our brothers always, even to the end of the world.

THE MID-DAY OF LIFE.

THE TRANSITION FROM YOUTH TO MANHOOD.

'Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them.'-Eccles. xii. 1.

THERE are some summer days which after a clear morning pass through a season of gloom. The sun hides itself behind a veil of cloud; depression falls on animals and plants. All things retire into themselves, as if defrauded by the morning brightness. The day itself seems to feel that it has not fulfilled the prophecy of its dawning, and lies heavily upon the earth. it is only for a time. Just as the manhood of the day has come, it conquers its early sullenness-the clouds disperse, the sun breaks out, the birds resume their song, a new youthfulness runs through the trees.

But

It is the image of one who, having in later youth passed through much trouble, and lost during it the use, and joy, and naturalness of youth, recovers these in the midst of manhood.

There are other summer days when the freshness has been more or less constant, when the sun has never altogether hidden its light, when the morning breeze has gone on blowing even during the heat of

noon, when noon retains so much of moisture that the trees do not droop in the heat, nor the animals take to shelter. Afternoon and evening come, and this short stage of freshness passes away, but it has been there.

It is the image of one who has entered on manhood or womanhood, and yet has retained much of the fervour, restlessness, and breezy life of youth.

There are other summer days in which the progress is neither broken by any cloud, nor yet delighted by any continuance of freshness. When mid-day comes, it absorbs the morning and all its elements. It is dusty noontide, warm, full of work, making all things drink its good, passing naturally and steadily on to the afternoon and evening.

It is the image of those who have absorbed all the elements of their youth when they enter upon manhood or womanhood, and who settle down steadily to the work of life.

These, then, are three examples out of many of the way in which we pass from youth into the first half of middle age, and through the porch of the temple of manhood and womanhood, enter into the nave. It will be our work to-day to consider them, their temptations, and the lessons which belong to them.

1. There are certain characters which in youth lose part of their youth. Something has stepped in which has spoilt life. Sorrow or overwork has taken the edge from enjoyment by taking away physical health; a gloomy home has repressed enthusiasm; a wilful self-repression, born of religious asceticism, or of the demands of exacting friendship, has driven so deep the

springs of natural feeling that with all their innate force they cannot rise to refresh the surface of the heart. Sometimes these characters never recover: the process has gone too far, and they will never taste of youth again till they go home to God. Sometimes they turn to fanaticism and become the curse of the earth; but God, who knows the weakness of men, will be just to them-victims of fate-and remember that they are but dust. Sometimes this repression, especially when inflicted by religious parents, has its result in a reaction against the tyranny done in the name of God, and nature crushed in its natural, breaks out in unnatural channels. The man becomes a blasphemer and a profligate. The woman flies into the dissipation of the world, or meets a sadder though often a less sinful fate -the easy victim of one of those men who make the murder of womanhood their vile trade and viler pleasure.

But the case we speak of first is a happier one than these. It is of those characters who after repression, and when the time of youth is past, grow young again. Some blessed circumstance, some new affection, some happier climate of life pierces through the crust to the spring of youth beneath, and, like the waters of that artesian well which, coming from their snowy home. among the mountains, were at last struck in the midst of the American desert and surging upwards turned the wilderness to a fruitful field, so now, in such characters, the waters of a hidden life of youth rush upwards, the more abundant from their long suppression.

It comes on man or woman with a shock of exquisite surprise. They feel as a plant might feel, which, never