constant affection and hearty love of a Christian child to an unworthy parent;-refusing to believe unworthiness wherever it is possible to disbelieve it, and where it is impossible not to know it, still loving on and serving on for Christ's sake, and winning, if it may be, by such sweet service, a parent's soul to repentance and salvation.

And, brethren, when we read that the clergy now occupy the place of Elijah in preparing the way for the return of the Lord upon the earth, we cannot doubt that this must be one chief way in which they must discharge their mission. They must warn the people that the hearts of the fathers must turn more wholly and more religiously to their children in all loving, holy discipline and care, and the hearts of the children more thoroughly in duty and obedience to their fathers, lest when the great and dreadful day of the Lord come, the earth should be smitten with a curse.

It is the very root of the matter. Would Would you love God your Father whom you have not seen? How stands it with your love to your own father and mother upon the earth whom you have seen? Remember what St. John says in the like case. He does not scruple to call all such love a falsehood and lie, which does not begin and base itself upon the love of those who hold these

relations to us on the earth, the brothers, the fathers, the masters whom we can see.

And where shall we see such love better or more fully shewn than in our Holy Lord Himself? Think who He was the very Son of God Himself: eternal, almighty, whom no sin nor evil could possibly touch. And yet He lived all the years of His boyhood, of His youth, yes, and of His early manhood, in filial and loving subjection to His mortal mother, and to him who was called His father. There is the true model for sons and daughters, and I think if young men and women would oftener think of that model, they would be in many ways a good deal different from what they are, and would be happier and better, and please God better, and be more in the way to meet the second coming of Christ as He would have them meet it.

When that dreadful day will be-when the Lord will appear again in judgment, and the course of this world be over-none can tell.

Foolish people have sometimes ventured to predict it. An hundred times nearly it has been prophesied by bold men that in such and such a year it would surely be but the year has come and passed, and the end is not yet.

And these predictions and prophecies have done in the end nothing but harm. At the moment many have

been frightened, and have turned to all sorts of imaginary helps, and taken up with any sort of teaching or fancy which seemed to promise comfort. They have been like men suddenly thrown into the sea, and amid the waves catching at any straw which floated by. But when the panic terror has passed where are they? Alas! the fright soon goes off when the prophecy turns out to be a fable, and the quiet orderly usages of religion are apt to be forgotten as well, and the cause of true faith and true holiness—for never forget, brethren, that true faith and true holiness can never be separated from each other to have lost ground on the whole,—to have lost ground, unmistakeably and lamentably, by the fable and the fright.

No: sober-minded men must not be led by fables. The sacred scriptural truth is before us. By this we stand. To this we cling.

The Lord will surely return. When, we do not know. To us, His return will practically be when we die. For this, whenever it comes, we must by God's grace prepare. We must put our whole trust and confidence in Christ, our most merciful Redeemer and Saviour. We must repent of our sins. We must pray for grace and help to serve Him better. And, as one very special way of serving Him better, we must take to heart the warning of the Prophet Elijah,—the parents

turning their hearts in true affection and holy discipline to their children, and the children turning their hearts in real filial duty and love to their parents, lest the Lord at the last should smite our land or our families with a curse.

Thou shalt see them no more for ever

EXODUS xiv.

13. The Egyptians whom ye have seen to-day, ye shall see them no more again for ever.

THESE

HESE words were spoken by Moses at a moment of terrible danger and fear.

The Children of Israel were at last set free from Egypt. Plague after plague had been sent upon Pharaoh and his people before they would let them go. But at last the terrible night when the angel of God smote all the first-born in the land of Egypt, from the first-born of Pharaoh that sat upon his throne to the first-born of the captive that was in the dungeon, and all the firstborn of cattle-that awful night, and the great cry that rose up from every home in the land, prevailed; and the people of God were thrust forth in haste. A mighty company, six hundred thousand on foot that were men, besides children, they set forth that night, with all their flocks and herds, from Rameses to Succoth.