heart and will rebel. We find nothing in our passions to explain the precept. Here they shed none of their light. All the impulses of our depraved nature are averse and hostile to the wisdom that sanctifieth. Divinely instructed reason has to walk the deep sea, and breast the stormy waves, of dark emotion which is earthly, secular, selfish, sensual. Oh how difficult to understand what opposes our heart's propensities! None so blind as those who will not see. "When I would do good, evil is present with me," &c. "The flesh lusteth against the Spirit," &c.

II. WHY ARE THE DETAILS OF PROVIDENCE IN SCRIPTURE, CALLED DARK SAYINGS"?

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First Because the specific designs of Providence are concealed. A man knows not whether in any enterprise, though he has scrutinized his motive and implored Divine direction, he is to fail or succeed. Through his failures may come his truest successes. "No man knoweth good or evil by anything that is before him." Hence how dark the details! Secondly. Because the aim of Providence is overlooked. (see Eph. iii. John ii.) We fix our eyes on outward things, and call prosperity and adversity after them. That is a bright providence wherein these abound, and a dark one whereby these are smitten. Now God looks at our souls ;-their liberty from earthly fetters; their confidence in divine support; their formation and sustenance of holy purpose; their culture and maturity of moral character. These all lie below the surface, and far back behind the glare and pomp of things which are seen. This prosperity of soul may necessitate the desolation of secular glory, the crushing and burning of our earthborn hopes, &c. Therefore such details are "dark sayings."

Thirdly Because the dispensations of Providence inflict pain and distress. What a dark passage leads to conversion! "The pains of hell gat hold upon me: I found trouble and sorrow. Then called I upon the name of the Lord." Through what a succession of dark roads we walk, before we arrive at the full assurance of faith, confidence, hope, triumph, &c.

As every year in digging our garden plot, our spade cuts up many a beautiful weed, and cuts through many a writhing earth-worm, so does God's.

III. WHY MAY A CHRISTIAN OPEN THESE UPON THE HARP?

First Because God has put a harp into your hands. It would be ungrateful not to use this. Do you ask what this is? I reply,-The gospel in all its plenitude of mercy, remedy, promise, prospect. But let us look at its strings.

(1) Redemption. Now this is the greatest good;-comprehending all good for the guilty and defiled. "He that spared not his own son, but delivered him up for us all how shall he not with him also, freely give us all things? This assures us that all God's dealings shall be subordinated to its consummation. How sublime in instruction to angels must a Christian patient in his sufferings be! In active Christians they see but fellow laborers in the kingdom of God. This is to them a common sight. But how inferior to themselves are the noblest men both in their sphere, energy, devotion, and zeal! But when passive, they see no similarity, no parallel. They never suffer, because they have never sinned, yet they look down and see in that room a sinner, writhing in penitential agony, or in physical pain, or in the grasp of death, while God is throwing the sun-light of His countenance full on that soul. The eternal arm bearing up a dying man. The most just God sustaining a guilty man. The holy God wip ing the tears from a defiled man, and lifting a crushed worm out of the mire and healing it. They hear no complaint but the prayer; "O God only give me strength to suffer. Keep thou close to me! Let me be but patient, let me only glorify thee in the fires." There is nothing like this in heaven;-for patience is a stranger there. There is nothing like this in hell, for she is a stranger there. In the blessed world she is not wanted. Into the world of woe she will not enter. Angels above and angels below have to look to earth, to the soul in its sorrows, in order to learn how a just Saviour can

support and how a mortal sinner can endure and sing in the furnace. Perhaps this is to them a standing miracle;-a bush burning with fire and not consumed; yea rather growing, flourishing, blossoming in the hot flames, and all the more for the flames. Shall I not sing then of this? Shall not its glory throw its lustre over the dark scenes of my life? Yes, I will say, "My soul wait thou only upon God, for my salvation cometh from Him." (2) Special Providence. What a deep tone has this string in it, and shall I not bring it out? Think what special providence is! "All things work together for good to them," &c. I may be sure of this in all God's administrations; and though I cannot demonstrate every, or any, problem by which the grand result is wrought out, I know God can and will. Some event has occurred in my history, which has changed all my future, and will be the prominent feature in it. Perhaps too, at a period when more than at any other I acted for myself, this event became the leading fact in my life. It changed everything. Out of it grew a thousand inconveniences, cares, regrets, and griefs; but I have no one to blame but myself, and to disembarrass myself now is impossible. I must be what I have made myself and endure the lot which I have chosen, without hope of change or deliverance or solace. Solace did I say? No; there is solace, and that of the richest kind for me. God can turn the evil into a positive good to me;- -a good too which I could have in no other way. He can turn the shadow of death into the morning, and bring out of the curse which my own folly entailed on me, a blessing which His own grace alone knows how to bestow. In my weakness is His strength. His grace is sufficient, and I, if my heart and soul seek Him, shall glory in my very infirmities. Here is special providence. "When men are cast down, thou shalt say there is lifting up." (3) Proximity of light. (See ver. 14, 15.) How few the hours before the darkness passes away! Zech. xiv. 6, 7. If light be so near, so sure, so bright, so endless, shall I not strike this string of my harp and now what harmony we are beginning to hear! These three strings thrill our hearts

already ;—but let us touch another. (4) Examples from history. Here we find many dark sayings ending in sunshine. It was a dark saying to Moses' parents when he was floating in the Nile, but oh! how bright all became when this had led to the throne! It was a dark saying when he was an exile in Midian, but its solitude prepared him for Sinai. It was a dark saying to Jacob, when he handled the coat of many colors dripping with blood, but, &c. Joseph had his dark saying in the prison, where the iron entered his soul, but, &c. Job had his dark sayings, Daniel his; the three Hebrews theirs; Peter and Paul in prison theirs; and above all Christ ;-but oh! what brightness of joy came of all! Now this history is our property; "that by patience and comfort of Scripture we might have hope," &c. Here then Christian, are four strings to your harp :-the full chord in music-the basis of all harmony. Will you not touch these strings in your sadness? And remember this harp is strung and tuned not by men, not by yourself, not by angels, but by God. Oh let it not lie silent. Let not your tears fall upon its strings. Teach your fingers to play! Teach your lips to sing! &c.

Secondly: Because your dark sayings ARE thus opened, i.e. they become clear and plain. Devotion illuminates the mind. While you are musing the fire kindles and burns. You do not rise from devotion, as you bend down. The heart becomes elevated and expanded-its sacred passions purify and illumine the intellect. The understanding lights its lamp at the heart's glowing altar, &c.

Thirdly Because every true prayer is a prophecy. The evils it deprecates will assuredly pass away. The awful or glorious burdens with which it labors will certainly and soon be born. Your dark saying on the harp is the earnest expectation of the creature waiting for the manifestation of the Sons of God. Every heaven-inspired petition is a heaveninspired prediction, and carries the vital germ of its own fulfilment in its bosom. As the clod swells and rises, that the seed beneath may come up and cover it, so does the darkness

of the devout soul tremble and heave with the seeds of light which are sown in it, and must soon burst into full day. Yes my brother "unto the upright there ariseth light in the darkness." Your aspirations which bring visions of supernal glory round your spirit will all be realized; your devotion is not extatic by poetic fiction, but pregnant with future fact. Aye, and the reality will transcend the vision; for it is now, in its sublimest mood, but a pillar of fire by night, which will soon become a pillar of cloud by day. "Eye hath not seen, nor

ear heard," &c.

(1) Christian, learn what to do with your dark sayings. (2) Unconverted man, what can you do with yours? You have such, but where is your resource! Many fly to the pistol, the razor, the rope, the river, the intoxicating cup, &c. But no relief in these, no opening to the darkness there. Death,-judgment,-hell, are darker sayings to come; you must hear these; and I ask, Where is your resource? Oh! "this outer darkness"! "This weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth"! This "blackness of darkness for ever"! Here you despise the harp,-there its tones are never heard; but eternity is one wild, distracting wail, and the worm of its anguish dieth not.

Stroud.

W. WHEELER.

SUBJECT:-The Twofold Development of Godliness.

"If thou prepare thine heart, and stretch out thine hands toward him; if iniquity be in thine hand, put it far away, and let not wickedness dwell in thy tabernacles. For then shalt thou lift up thy face without spot; yea, thou shalt be steadfast, and shalt not fear : because thou shalt forget thy misery, and remember it as waters that pass away: and thine age shall be clearer than the noonday; thou shalt shine forth, thou shalt be as the morning."—Job. xi. 13—17.

Analysis of Homily the Five Hundred and Thirty-sixth.

ZOPHAR agrees with the other two friends of Job-Eliphaz and Bildad—in assuming that Job was a great sinner because he was a great sufferer. But though Zophar agrees with the