and, though they know change must come, so much has gone from them, that it is no longer with exultation, but with a kind of dread, that manhood prefiWe fear the loss of interest gures any change of life.

in existence, the decay of intellect, the coming of satiety, the long disease of age. We fear still more the possible approach of uniformity, of day after day the same, of the burden and apathy of decay. We fear change for the losses it may bring if it shatter us too much, yet we fear the absence of change still more.

But why should we fear when He is with us always, even to the end? We nourish no longer, as in youth, a proud self-dependence. We have a spiritual Presence within us whom we have made our own, and whose dearest work is our development. We know Him who went from change to change and in whom the ideal life grew ever brighter to the close. All change when He is present is advance. One after one we lose the mortal and the visible, but we gain the immortal and the invisible. The mountain-side we climb grows ever more and more alone—still more desolate of the things we once loved so dearly-but we are nearer at every step to heaven, and One waits us on the highest peak who will renew our strength. The landscape of our youth lies far below, and the shadows fall around it. We see but faintly now our childhood's home, the meadows where we played, the river we passed in boyhood, the path through the trees where we began to climb the mountain. These things seem centuries ago, dead in the dead past. It is a feeling not without its touch of bitterness; but let us but have heroism of heart to go

on alone, and trust in our brother Christ enough to lean upon his secret sympathy, and we shall hear his voice give answer to our heart: Be not afraid, it is I. Lo! I am with you always, even to the end of the world.’

Yes, middle age has come upon us, and we need a higher help than our own will to meet the change and chance of mortal life. They must come, and the solemn question is, shall we be able to conquer their evil, have we divine life enough in the spirit to make them into means of advance? For it is wise to remember that any change may be our overthrow.

It is time, then, to examine into our readiness for temptation. Our passions-are they under our command? There is in many persons a curious sense of unawakened capability of passion-and a fear of its being awakened in a wrong direction. They have lived a peaceful, self-restrained life for years, but sometimes— in a moment—what has been felt as a dim possibility becomes a reality. A torrent force of passion, in some hour of change, sweeps over life and for a time masters and enslaves the will.

Is our will in order ?-have we habituated it in the power of Christ, and by a great love. to his holiness, to conquer daily the motions of sin, the minor impulses of a passionate nature, the common temptations of a nature apparently cold? It is this habitual and prayerful preparation which is the only sure one, for we know not what one day of change may bring forth. We may lose in a week the fruit of the efforts of years. And it is terribly hard in middle life to get right again; it is a weary struggle then to redeem

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. 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.

The

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. But 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.

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