enable you the better to remember all the way which the Lord your God has led you, and that his mercies may be to you new every morning." This is an admirable little book-an exquisite present for a keepsake.

SABBATH EVENING LECTURES. BY GEORGE CRON. Glasgow: Thomas D. Morrison.

THE subjects of these lectures are :--The Devil's Creed, The Working and Counsel of God, The Potter and the Clay, God's Connection with the Sale of Joseph, The Philosophy of Temptation, Daniel and the Lions, God and the Heathen, The Valley of Dry Bones, A Triad of DutiesRepentance, Faith, and Prayer, Three Grand Universalities. These are subjects touching the vital parts of our faith, and many of them divinely revealed in interesting biographies and poetic metaphors. They are here discussed with great ability, spiritual earnestness, and noble catholicity. Though some of the lectures are very controversial, there is not a particle of acrimony in any—a generous love overflows the arguments. It is a book admirably suited for the young men of the age, and as such we heartily commend it. It abounds with noble thought, much close reasoning, and manly eloquence.

LIFE PROBLEMS ANSWERED IN CHRIST. Six Sermons by LEIGH MANN. Preface by ALEXANDER MACLARen, B.A. London: Hodder and

Stoughton, 27, Paternoster Row.

THIS Volume contains six sermons, the subjects of which are:-" Christ and Suffering; Christ and Death; Christ and Faith; Christ and the Law; Christ the Cup of Blessing; Christ and Destiny." They are no commonplace productions. The Author not only thinks for himself, but thinks vigorously and devoutly. Hence there is much that is fresh and quickening in every page, and many passages of spiritual grandeur and exalting

strain.

WORDS IN SEASON. BY HENRY B. BROWNING, M.A. London: F. Pitman, 20, Paternoster Row.

WE cannot say that we endorse all the views propounded in this work; yet we can speak highly of its spirit, aim, and ability. It contains somewhere about forty short discourses on scripture-texts, each one concluding with a short prayer. It deserves a large circulation, for it is admirably adapted for usefulness on an extensive scale. We shall be glad to hear that it has passed through many editions.

ROMANCE OF MODERN MISSIONS. By MISS BRIGHTWELL.

Religious Tract Society.

London:

THE sketches of mission life contained in this book appeared for the most part in the pages of the "Sunday at Home." This little book contains incidents that cannot fail to be interesting to the young.

A HOMILY

ON

The Sleep of Jonah, and the Sleep of Christ.

"But the Lord sent out a great wind into the sea, and there was a mighty tempest in the sea, so that the ship was like to be broken. Then the mariners were afraid, and cried every man unto his god, and cast forth the wares that were in the ship into the sea, to lighten it of them. But Jonah was gone down into the sides of the ship; and he lay, and was fast asleep." (Jonah i. 4, 5). "And, behold, there arose a great tempest in the sea, insomuch that the ship was covered with the waves; but He (Christ) was asleep." (Matt. viii. 24.)

แ

UR Lord Jesus Christ has taught us to associate His name with that of Jonah. In the history of the weak and faithless prophet He has shown us a type and illustration of His own career and work. Had not Christ Himself instituted such a comparison, it is very unlikely that we should have thought of doing so. We should have looked for types of Christ and of His work exclusively in the grandest names and most heroic deeds of ancient story. But Christ has taught us how to find high teachings in that which is outwardly mean and insignificant. This case of Jonah is one of many in which our Lord has shown us the mysteries of His kingdom, and of His work enfolded in unpromising coverings.

Christ having thus set His own history and the history

VOL. XXVII.

of Jonah side by side, we may be permitted to observe an incidental resemblance between them, which appears to be fruitful of suggestion. There is an outward similarity between the two cases, described in the passages cited from the prophet and the evangelist, which suggests comparison and reflection. Here are two journeys by sea. Both ships are overtaken by a storm, and we see them staggering beneath the raging wind, and imperilled by the boisterous waves. In each ship there is an anxious, frightened crew. In each ship there is a solitary sleeper-sleeping on, through all the shrieking of the wind and the thunder of the tempest, until aroused at length by the urgent call of His excited and alarmed fellow-voyagers. There is a study for us here, in this sleep of Jonah and this sleep of Christ.

1. This common sleep reminds us, first of all, of the familiar but significant fact, that the physical conditions of human life are the same in all cases-in the case of the good and of the bad. There is one law which makes sleep a necessity for all.

In both these cases the immediate cause of sleep was, without doubt, bodily weariness and exhaustion. Jonah was wearied, and so was Christ. The prophet, who had fled in hot and ignoble haste from God's summons to a painful and disagreeable duty, and had thought, by change of scene and circumstance, to get rid of the imperious demands of the office he sustained-and the Son of Man and Son of God, who counted it His joy to spend His strength in the service of the Father, and in the teaching and relief of humanity-both came to the limit of their bodily strength, and both sank wearily to rest. One had toiled in glad fulfilment of a ministry of love and sorrow; the other had angrily refused to obey the voice of the Lord. But both slept.

And thus we see illustrated the check which the uni

versal and mysterious law of sleep puts upon every form of human activity. The good man-nay, the highest and best of all—is not exempted from the common law. His bodily energy is soon exhausted, and demands a suspension of all labour, even the holiest and most delightful, until the waste and wear of life are made good again. And this limitation of bodily energy puts its restraint on human wickedness. It enforces a perpetually recurring pause in the activities of the sinful, the thoughtless, the worldly. It stops, with regular interruption, the feverish haste with which men rush through their span of life. We are glad of that, for in this calm which God sends ever and anon upon the reckless, tumultuous ocean of man's vice and misery, we think we can see a prophecy of hope for the world.

But, alas! we sometimes cry, that the activities of the noble and the good should thus be stopped. Alas! that these must lay aside so often and so soon their toils, their consecrated tasks, their questionings, their search for Truth. And in discouragement and distress, the Christian man at times longs for some exemption from the general law. They are, at best, but broken fragments-brief snatches of service-which we can render to God in this life. And these enforced pauses, these constant demands of the body for repose, this weakness and weariness, this poor, limping service, all remind us perpetually of the imperfection of our present state. But we may take heart again when we see Christ asleep. He sleeps, and His works stand still. And "He knoweth our frame; He remembereth that we are dust." He bids us also exult in the anticipation and assurance of the children of God, that one day this corruptible shall put on incorruption, and this mortal shall put on immortality. "The earthly house of this tabernacle" shall be changed, and "our house which is from heaven" shall be filled with the activity of

unbroken service, and we shall not weary of the unshaded light of God.

2. This sleep of Jonah and this sleep of Christ remind us that there are instances of peril in which physical causes conduce to the absence of alarm, both in the case of good men and bad.

Now that Jonah was "fast asleep," he was as untroubled by the threatening fury of the storm as Christ Himself. Sleep shut out the consciousness of danger, and the sense of alarm. There is something terrible in this power of physical causes to produce in men unconsciousness of, or indifference to, perils which if actually perceived and considered might well excite the keenest apprehension and concern. Sleep does it, and so do other conditions of the body.

Sometimes how often!—the vigour and robustness of a man's bodily constitution contribute largely to indifference to dangers, which, if he regarded them, might fill him with dismay. You meet him buoyant, cheerful, quite at ease, as untroubled apparently by any apprehension or alarm as a Christian man; and yet you know, and he knows, that he is living a prayerless, an unconsecrated, a godless life. But the fulness and energy of his bodily vigour enable him to throw himself into the occupations or amusements of the passing day, and to dismiss the thought of wasted talents, of selfish indulgence, of misused gifts, of a neglected Saviour, of a forgotten God. He is a strong man; he can eat, and drink, and sleep, and leave terrors, tears, and prayers to the sickly and hypochondrical. Here, then, is a physical cause largely helping to make a man altogether indifferent to the awful peril of irreligion. The Christian is enabled to maintain his cheerfulness and serenity; but so is the man of sound health and superabundant energy. Christ is able to sleep in the storm; but so also is Jonah !