tells of the twelve gates of the city (to which I wish especially for a moment or two to refer tonight) made of pearl, so that "every several gate was of one pearl," and it is at each of these gates-says the Bible-that an Angel stands.

And the first thing I want you to notice about these Angel-Gates is their position. They are not all built facing one way, nor do the Angels all look one way. The 13th verse describes their position. "On the east three gates; on the north three gates; on the south three gates; and on the west three gates." Here is a beautiful illustration of that true saying, that "Truth is many-sided." One Angel looks towards the east; another towards the north; another towards the south; and another towards the west. Truth, whether in Heaven or earth, is the same, it is ever "many-sided." But on earth, owing to our sin, and our partial knowledge and ignorance, we love to distort its many-sidedness. Every sect has, so to speak, its own Temple, just as it is said in figure, that every man lives in a little world of his own.

And we are too prone to make our Temple with one Gate, and to put not an Angel there, but some favourite preacher, or pope, or religious leader. To the Wesleyan the Temple is all Wesleyan; to the Baptist it is a Baptist Temple; to the Congregationalist it is a Congregationalist Temple; and there, at its one narrow gate, stands Whitefield, or Bunyan, or some other well-known Sectary of his day. Or there is the great Roman Church, with her proud history, and her long roll of canonized Saints. She has built in her mind the idea of this one Temple, with one glittering gate, looking in one direction, out towards the grey Italian hills, having her home, ultramontane, beneath "the deep glowing blue of Italy's skies." But not to weary you with examples which it would be easy to multiply, let me say, that human nature is prone to build its own separate, ideal temple, and to place at its one gate the Angel-preacher, or teacher of its love. But the Temple above, where there is no imperfection, either in knowledge, or in understanding, has twelve gates surrounding the city, and

at these twelve gates the twelve Angels stand. But in the fact of three of these Angels looking northward, three southward, and three towards the east, and three towards the west, I see the universality of the Love of God. I see in it the Spirit that breathes in such a wellknown text, as "God so loved the world, that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have Eternal Life." On earth, in our temples, we too often make the twelve gates one, and the twelve Angels one. We too often do what the verse of one of our most beautiful hymns tells us we do

"We make His Love too narrow,

By false limits of our own;
And we magnify His strictness
With a zeal He will not own."

For instance, our temple has but one gate, and it only looks towards the North. And we look out upon our Northern prospect with the most complete satisfaction. We see nothing but redeemed lands, and chosen pastures before All the inhabitants are elect and precious,

us.

and are a chosen people and a royal priesthood. But as for those southern lands or people, those eastern or western souls, we turn our back upon them. They are no part of the royal heritage. We doubt their citizenship, if not their Salvation. And we leave them, with no gate to look out upon them, and no Angel to be standing with his face towards them, in the ideal temple of our love. But the Temple which the Bible, in this Chapter describes, has gates all round it, looking everyway, and the loving gaze of Ministering Angels, is seen to be directed everyway. There is a gate and an Angel looking towards England, despite her pride, and her Pharisaical sin. There are gates and Angels looking towards"Greenland's icy mountains, And India's coral strand, Where Afric's sunny fountains Roll down their golden sand."

The Light of Love, that shines from every gate like some great ray from the sun, falls every way. There is light all round the Temple!

But if I were only to speak of this earth itself, my view, I think, would be a narrow one.

It may be that the Angel at each gate of the Temple may be the Guardian Angel of some great world, or constellation of worlds. There is no Doctor of Divinity that will ever make me believe that this is the only inhabited world, and that all those myriad stars and planets that I see over me, are nothing more or less than so many rushlights to light me to bed. And it is no mere fancy or poet's dream to think that earth itself may have its special Guardian Angel, standing at one of the Temple's twelve gates. And that those beautiful worlds above us, that sparkle in our midnight sky, have each their special Guardian Angel. In that striking Poem, so full of beautiful ideas, I mean " Festus," a work which ought to be more read by thoughtful men and women, this idea is well worked out. How earth, in its childhood's day, was given its Guardian Angel, and how that Angel loved it, and is made to say to God

"Let me not then have watched o'er it in vain,
From age to age, from hour to hour, I still
Have hoped it would grow better-hope so now:
'Tis better than it once was, and hath more
Of mind and freedom than it ever had,