gle, thy whole body shall be full of light. But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If, therefore, the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!"

There seems to be no immediate connection of this passage with that which goes before. The connection is gen

eral. We are to remember that this is not a consecutive sermon, and we are not to look for a logical connection, every part with every part. According to the history given by the evangelists; our Master, after a day of wonderful miracles, went up into the mountain, and spent the night there with his disciples. In the morning, descending part way, he met the crowd, and seeing a great multitude, he turned back and went part way up the mountain, and sat with his disciples; but the crowd thronged about him; and he began to preach and to teach them according to the method that he pursued, which was this: when he announced a topic he was questioned by the people; and he answered their questions. There were interpolations among his remarks. We have no record of the interruptions and questions, but we have indications of them. We know that this was the method not only of our Saviour, but of the Rabbis in whose school he received his method of teaching. The questions and interpolations, which gave rise to many expressions, are dropped out. So there seem to be disconnections. There were disconnected passages in the progress of the discourse, but they all had a general connection with the line of thought.

Here the injunction is, Let the purpose of your life be simple and single. The great end and aim of your life is the development of the divine nature in yourselves. As when the physical eye is put out the whole body is dark, so when the spiritual vision is gone, how great is the darkness of a man's soul !

"No man can serve two masters."

Yes he can. Many a man does it.

in every family.

There are two masters

"Either he will hate the one, and love the other, or else he will hold to the one and despise the other. He cannot serve God and mammou."

Ah! there is the explanation. Two masters that shall represent opposite principles no man can serve. If one rep

resents lies and the other truth, you cannot serve both of them. Of two masters, if one represents justice and the other injustice, if one represents benevolence and the other selfishness, if one represents the carnal and the other the spiritual side, you cannot take them both. You can choose between one and the other; but if you take truth and spirituality and honor and justice, you must give up their opposites.

"Ye cannot serve God and mammon."

You can serve God and make mammon serve him; you can serve God and use riches in serving him; but you cannot take the essential, worldly, selfish, sordid, avaricious spirit that is called mammon, and be rooted and grounded in that, and at the same time be rooted and grounded in spirituality.

"Therefore, I say unto you, take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall driuk; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?"

If you take this at its face, and give a literal interpretation to it, it will traverse and oppose the whole providence of God and the whole experience of civilized humanity. Take no thought? Take no foresight? Is, then, sagacity bad? Is forethought mischievous? Is it true that a man should undertake to live heedlessly in respect to food and raiment? Is there such an economy that a man may say, "I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and therefore I will have no trade; I will follow no industry; I will not go to the market; I will not go to the tailor or to the shoemaker; I will eat nothing but what God's providence sends to me, and wear nothing except what God's providence sends to me"? What sort of a world would we have if men undertook to carry that out literally?

There have been such things attempted; and if they do not come too often and make too much pretension, as specimens they are very interesting. There are institutions that are said to be supported by faith.

A man opens an asylum for consumptives. He has no money, but he prays. He says, "If I look up in faith to Christ, he will supply all that I need." By and by he publishes an annual report; and what do we find? The man

has received enough money to pay the rent of large buildings. He says, "I let it be known generally that I had such an institution, and patients flocked to it." In his journal he makes this statement: "On such a morning a bill of three hundred dollars came in for food and various other necessaries, and I had no money; but my soul dwelt in perfect peace. I spread my wants before the Lord, and rose up and went forth without a trouble; and that afternoon I received by mail, from unknown persons, money-from one twenty dollars, from another one hundred and fifty dollars, and from another four hundred dollars. So I had all that I needed, and I paid the bill, and my steward was in amazement.'

Now, let us test this a single moment, because it has all the appearance of following literally the face of Scripture. If there is such a provision as this we ought to know it. I am exceedingly anxious to build me a nice house on my farm, and I am exercised to know how I shall do it; and if I can do it by praying, if there is a faith by which I can go on and build, and have money that I have not earned sent me from north and south and east and west, and I can be assured of it, I will go forward and build.

A man wants to build a banking-house. Is it safe for him to retire to his closet and pray, and then go on building without knowing where the money or the material is coming from? And if you can build one house in that way, why not a whole street? And if houses can be built so, why not ships? If you can do such things by praying, and without thinking or doing anything yourself, why can you not carry on the whole work of civilization in that way?

I do not undervalue prayer and faith; but I believe that the vast achievements which we witness in life are the results of human thought and will and intuition. The secret of men's success in life lies largely in themselves. Certainly there was never a wiser adaptation of means to an end than we find to exist in regard to this very outward influence.

Suppose I should go into the street and limp with very great suffering, and, instead of taking a staff to walk with, should pray in faith, and a friend, seeing me, should run to my side, and say, "Let me help you!" Under such

circumstances I might think that my prayer of faith had brought me succor; but suppose every man should limp, then what? If prayer is good for one, why not for all?

I say that where there are results there are causes. Take the case of an asylum. In the first place there is an appeal to universal sympathy. If a hospital is established, and pains are taken to let it be known throughout all the length and breadth of the land that it has no regular support, but that it depends upon what comes to it casually by way of voluntary contributions, that fact is a cause which may account for the support which it receives. I think one institution during a generation in a nation might be supported in that way. But was there ever a net more deliberately spread to catch contributions than advertising that they are expected for such a good purpose? It is not prayer that brings in the money; it is the adaptation of a means to an end. It is the use of causes to produce a result. It is a wise appeal to the known sympathy of the human soul.

I believe in prayer, and in the prayer of faith; but I do not believe that God ever would make a tree forty feet high in an instant in answer to any amount of praying, I believe in the prayer of faith, but I do not believe that it will subsoil my farm, nor drain the wet places on it. I do not believe the prayer of faith is meant to be a substitute for our own endeavors, or that it is meant to be a premium on laziness, as it would be under such circumstances.

You are children of God. In fact, this passage says you are to develop in yourselves the godly nature. This is the great end of your life; and in doing this, in the full exercise of your power, you are not to be anxious. Taking thought is not the true rendering of the original verb. The correct translation is, Take no distracting thought; take no worrying thought; do not be anxious. The declaration is this (and certainly it approves itself to the judgment of every one) you are under the divine providence; you are seeking, as the great end of your life, the development in yourselves of the noblest manhood-namely the pattern

that is in Christ Jesus. Now then, in carrying this out do not fret yourselves, nor worry unduly in respect to externals, bodily comforts, food, raiment and the like. It is not that you are not to work for them, and think of them, appropriately, and that you are not to put such emphasis on them that fear for want of them should take away the comfort of your life. That is not where you live.

"Behold the fowls of the air; they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; and yet your heavenly Father feedeth them." There is an illustration; and how strangely people employ it! They say, "Yes, God feeds the birds and he'li feed us;" but did you ever stop to think how he feeds them? Did you ever stop to think whether he does not make them feed themselves? Did you ever see a robin bring up a brood of young robins? Do you suppose a robin gets on the edge of its nest, and says, "O God, feed my little ones." No, it sends them to hunt worms; and out they go, and work in the turf as hard as any creatures of their size should work. When the sparrows are fed by God, he sets them hopping through the hedges where seeds are, and along ways where insects burrow or hide. When he feeds birds he feeds them according to their nature. He has a providence which takes care of them in accordance with the nature of birds. Let us take the next illustration that is given here:

"Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature? and why take you thought for your raiment?"

Which of you by worrying can add anything to your stature? Suppose you are homely, and are discontented, and wish you were handsome, can you by worrying grow handsome? Suppose you are short, and are at a disadvantage for that reason, and you would like to be taller, can you by worrying make yourself taller? Who can change an immutable law? Who can change the absolute facts that exist about him?

Then comes another illustration:

Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin."

That is certain. They do not work at the plow, nor at the anvil, nor at the loom, because lilies do not want the