many things,-about the table,-the farm,-the merchandise, -about the work that is highest, as well as the work that is lowest; we shall be selling doves in the temple, which, however pure and innocent, must be cast out. If we are to go forth in the Spirit into the outer walks of life, His influence pervading the works of our hands, He must dwell within the temple of our hearts by faith,—He must give us clear and spiritual views of the things that are eternal, that we may place in their right position the things that are temporal.

In concluding these homely hints, we must note some pitfalls in the Lord's vineyard, because of which the deceitful hearts of the vine-dressers may halt and stumble. You may make an idol of your work, dear friend. If you are over-anxious for success,-elated by it when it comes,—desponding when it is withheld; if you refuse to believe that others will rise up in your room, as well or better fitted to carry on the work; if your soul cleaves to it till you are unwilling to hear the summons to your home, to your rest ;-then there is reason to fear that you are worshipping the work of your own hands, "bowing down to your own net, and sacrificing to your own drag."

On the other side, you may be weary,-weary of the labour, -weary of the struggle,-weary of the long slumbering of the seed within the earth; and, like the prophet under the juniper-tree, you may be ready to say, "It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life;" but he replies, "Not so; arise, and eat; the journey is long, and the burden is heavy, and the labour is great; but strengthen and refresh thyself in the Lord, and be not weary of well-doing." "Are you not wearying for our heavenly rest?" said Whitefield one day to an old clergyman. "No; certainly not," he replied. "Why not?" was the surprised rejoinder. Why, my good friend," said the old minister, "if you were to send your servant into the fields to do a certain portion of work for you, and promised to give him

rest and refreshment in the evening, what would you say if you found him languid and discontented in the middle of the day, and murmuring, Would God it were evening!' would you not bid him be up and doing, and finish his work, and then go home and get the promised rest? Just so does God say to you and me."

XIV.

REWARD OF WORK.

"Be ye strong, therefore, and let not your hands be weak; for your work shall be rewarded."-2 CHRON XV. 7.

"Thy works and alms, and all thy good endeavours,

Stayed not behind, nor in the grave were trod ;
But as Faith pointed with her golden rod,
Followed thee up to joy and bliss for ever.

Love led them on, and Faith, who knew them best,
Thy handmaids, clad them o'er with purple beams,

And azure wings, that up they flew so drest,

And spake the truth of thee on glorious themes
Before the Judge; who henceforth bid thee rest,
And drink thy fill of pure immortal streams.'

MILTON'S SONNETS.

CONSCIOUS as we are of having owed a vast debt which we cannot pay; conscious of having been forgiven that debt fully and freely, the idea of reward for the sin-stained services of the poor debtor, is at first intensely painful, and seems to introduce a lower motive and an unworthy element into our work. Yet we have no right to turn away from a truth so clearly revealed in Scripture. Like all parts of Jehovah's Gospel plan, it is composed of interwoven wisdom and love; for the doctrine of reward of work, when fully understood, only lays the forgiven and the rewarded soul more humbled and more adoring at the feet of his Master. The acceptance of our poor broken services, so stained by wrong motives, by ignorance and by faithlessness, seems wonderful condescension; but to reward them is like returning good for evil, thus heaping coals of fire on our

success

heads. "Fourscore years," says Polycarp, "have I served God, and found him a good Master ;" and this will be the experience of all the Lord's people, who, while often neglecting what they can do, are, even when they have done all, unprofitable servants. God often rewards in this life, by large measures of -the reaping time will surely come, though it may seem to tarry, and the precious seed sown in tears, will in all certainty be changed into golden sheaves. Frequently He rewards by a fulness of blessing, returned upon the worker's own soul. The heart that is drawn out to the hungry and the afflicted, will be guided and satisfied by the Lord Himself. He that cultivates all social and relative love for the sake of Jesus, will be more and more transformed into His Divine and loving image. He that has led a soul to the Truth will know it more convincingly in his own soul. Those who have given their youth to the service of God, will be like the green cedars, for long life and strength, and like the palm-tree, that yields clusters of fruit in its old age. But it is not only such rewards that the believer is promised in the Word of God. For allhouses, lands, children, parents, wives, brethren-forsaken for His name's sake, there shall be an hundredfold in the everlasting kingdom. For all grief and warfare, there shall be a double of rest and blessedness. For the many souls won to righteousness, there will be crowns of rejoicing, and a radiance like the stars of the firmament. For the food to the hungry,-for the drink to the thirsty,-for the clothes to the naked,—for the consolation to the captive, for the cup of cold water to the disciple as given to the King himself, there will be an additional joy on the right-hand thrones. Even as one star differ eth from another star in glory, so will those whose works are as gold and silver, upon the true foundation, differ in brightness and enlargement from those whose "wood, hay, and stubble" must be burned, though they themselves "are saved as by fire.” Oh how the thought of this stupendous love will prostrate each redeemed one before the rainbow throne! How gratefully the crowns will be cast at the Saviour's feet! How rejoicingly the voices will mingle in the new and adoring song!

XV.

FUTURE WORK.

"His lord said unto him, Well done, good and faithful servant; thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord."-MATT. XXV. 23.

"His servants shall serve him, and they shall see his face."-REV. xxii. 3, 4.

"Thy Master calls thee, good and faithful servant;
Long hast thou served on earth with spirit fervent.

Go hence to yonder temple filled with glory,
There shalt thou praise thy Lord in song and story;
There shalt thou see his face instinct with beauty,
There shalt thou serve with all delightsome duty."

It has been beautifully but untruly said, that

"All we know of saints above

Is that they sing and that they love."

We know more than this.

Though the river is wide, we can see in clear weather something of the scenery on the other side ; though the veil is thick, we can catch glimpses of what is passing behind it; though the voices and the music are too distant to be distinctly heard by mortal ears, yet some words, some harmonies, come faintly to us when the Bible opens the door of those glorious but invisible dwellings. We know that the servants of the Master are to serve him and see his face,we know that it is to be an active service, for they are to serve him resting not, day and night, in his temple, we know that they are to judge, and to rule, and to have power over the nations. We know not, indeed, what manner of service that of the servitors in the upper temple is to be; whether, like the angels, they are to be ministers to the heirs of salvation in other worlds, whether they are to be watchers and warners of the tempted, the sinning, and the penitent,-whether they are to fly swiftly, bearing the Lord's messages, and rejoicing with those who do rejoice. Into the realms of conjecture we dare

not venture; but this we may know, as surely as if we had been caught up into the heavens to see with our own bodily eyes, that among the prepared things of the prepared home, for the prepared people, there will be blessed and congenial service appointed for each, for which all that has gone before of waiting, and longing, and struggling, and working, has been but the preparation,—-a service combining, indeed, the joyfulness of praise, and the sweetness of rest, but in its very nature possessing the active, useful, and progressive elements of WORK. "Surely the idea is inadmissible that an instrument wrought up at so much expense to a polished fitness for service, is destined to be suspended for ever on the palace walls of heaven, as a glittering bauble, no more to make proof of its temper." Trained in a school, purified in a furnace, loved with a love which the seraphim and cherubim have never known and never needed; instinct with yearnings and strivings after the high, the beautiful, and the immortal, we cannot doubt that the service of the Lord's redeemed, accompanied as it is to be with the sight of that blessed countenance, the veiling of which is the believer's greatest sorrow upon earth, will be yet higher and nobler than the services of the happy and glorious, but unfallen and unpurchased angels.

XVI.

COMBINED WORK.

"Nevertheless they shall be his servants; that they may know my service, and the service of the kingdoms of the countries."-2 CHRON. Xii. 8.

"Christian works are no more than
Animate love and faith, as flowers are the animate spring-tide.
Works do follow us all unto God: these stand and bear witness,
Not what they seemed,-but what they were only."

THE CHILDREN OF THE LORD'S SUPPER.

WE have taken it for granted, hitherto, that those who have accompanied us in quest of a few useful hints belong decidedly * Isaac Taylor's Natural History of Enthusiasm.