fully bear God's will are honoured among the best of His servants.

This is the sum of what I have said to you—the tabernacle teaches you three great lessons: thou hast sinned, thou mayest be saved, and thou shouldest serve. These are the three great lessons of the whole Bible. God's good Spirit write them upon our hearts and lives! Amen.

CHAPTER VI.

DAVID'S EVERGREEN.

“And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper."-Ps. i. 3.

THE banks of the Jordan near Jericho are lined with oleanders (a flower of which surmounts this page), whose bright blossoms and dark green leaves give the place the appearance of a garden bordered by a plain which rears only scraggy brown shrubs. It is natural to fancy that the object-lesson in the

first Psalm was suggested by the oleanders on the brink of the Jordan. I say suggested, for the Psalmist's evergreen, unlike the oleander and our evergreens, is a fruit-bearer. To a Jew the Jordan was the river of rivers, and the sight on its banks at the spot nearest Jerusalem is one not likely to be forgotten, as the beauty of the evergreens here is greatly heightened by the barrenness of the neighbouring plain.

Your friends wish you to get out of life all the good you can, and to be among the best men and women under heaven. They wish each of you to be like David's evergreen, firmly rooted at the river's brink, always fair, and always flourishing. I want to show you how, by God's blessing, you may succeed in life; and I shall speak to you about both the homeliest and the highest things.

Success in life is our subject, and it has two parts—

I. The secret of success. II. The crown of success.

I. The secret of success.

It is, I believe, threefold: Shun strong drink, love your work, follow Christ.

1. Shun strong drink as a beverage, shun it with your heart, shun it till your dying day. Thousands in our land began life as hopefully as you are doing, but, by reason of strong drink, they died miserably on a stair, or at a dyke back, or in the poorhouse; and

others in wealthy homes have had as sorrowful deaths. Our national intemperance may be likened to the Yellow River, which is called "China's Sorrow." Having no banks, it eats away the soft soil, and carries desolation along its course. The love of strong drink

has made the lives of millions utter failures.

I can scarcely speak too strongly about what I have seen with my own eyes. It fares with the victim of strong drink as it does with the opium-eater. De Quincey

the

was quite sure, as he tells us, that he could give up opium whenever he wished. He felt like one who had wandered a little from a palace, whose open gates would welcome him back at any time. But here is his description of his effort to return-"I saw through vast avenues of gloom those towering gates of ingress which hitherto had always seemed to stand open, now at last barred against my retreat, and hung with funeral crape." He also likens himself to a man caught in a whirlpool who is carried away by a current from the centre, but suddenly finds that this current is but an eddy, wheeling round upon the maelstrom, and hurrying him into the jaws of destruction.

A friend and I were walking along the high cliffs in the north of Scotland. "Is that road safe in front of us?" we asked a herd-boy. "No," he replied seriously; "the farmer here was coming along it one day last year; he was tipsy, and he fell over, and was drowned." Pointing to a turnip-field, he said, "It will be safer for you to go by the end of the neaps there.” Keep away from the precipice over which so many

E

millions have fallen: keep on the broad, solid, safe field.

summer day, was

He took off his The butterfly flew

I was also told that a boy, one chasing a butterfly in these fields. cap, and grew warm with the chase. out towards the sea, and the boy, heedless of all else, ran on, fell over the cruel cliffs, and was drowned.

Many a young man is like that boy. The butterfly he chases is miscalled pleasure, and he foolishly hopes to find pleasure in strong drink. It is easier to chase the butterfly than to catch it; and the moment you catch it, its charm, and even its life, is gone. Hatred of strong drink will in many ways help you to success in life.

A youth called on me the other evening. Ten months ago he began as fourth engineer on board a steamer: now he is second engineer. "That's quick promotion," said I. "Yes," said he; "two of the engineers above me had to be dismissed for drinking."1

That sort of thing is going on everywhere: intemperance is always creating vacancies for the temperate. Our national intemperance is a scandal to man, and enough to make angels weep. If David had lived in

1 On the afternoon of the day on which I preached this sermon, this story was reported to a young man, who at once sent me a note, and requested me to repeat the story at a young men's meeting in the evening which I was to address, and he to attend. He wrote that he too was a fourth engineer on board a steamer, and that two of the officers above him lost no time in making themselves drunk whenever they reached a harbour. At the close of that meeting I was asked to take an interest in three young men, each of whom had brought himself to the edge of destruction by intemperance.