first two great commandments. Let us all keep hoping, then, as Simeon did; let us be expectant and on the outlook to the end; and let us remember that that glad and helpful temper is only possible when we are just and devout.

NEXT we see that God's performance is greater than His promise. There is an old legend that Simeon had stumbled over the words in Isaiah vii. 14. And as he prayed and wrestled with his doubts, it was revealed to him that with his own eyes he would see the virgin's Son. All that he dared to hope for was a glimpse—' a brief glimpse' and 'a passing word' would have sufficed him. He lived in expectation of the hour when some one would say to him, 'Behold Messiah!' Now the expected moment has arrived—and is it merely a glimpse of Messiah that he wins?-he takes the child of all his hopes up in his arms (v. 28). No wonder that he broke forth into such glorious praise; he had got more than he could ask or think. God's promise had buoyed him through many a weary day; but the performance was greater than the promise. We should all remember that in entering the New Year, and when we speak about the promise of the year. God has a royal way of doing things, and His cups have a happy art of running over. The devil is a most lavish and tireless promiser, but how the promise is performed let our own past days tell us. God's promises are very many and very great; but to a living and prayerful faith as Simeon's was, the performance is greater than the promise.

AGAIN we remark that Simeon and Anna saw Jesus

in the Temple. The shepherds had seen Him lying in the manger; there, too, the wise men from the East had seen Him. But it was not in the manger that He was seen by these two devout souls; it was in the House of God. Now there is a sense in which we

all must find Christ in the manger, we must discover Him under life's lowly roofs. In places which were never consecrated, but where the daily drudgery is done, there must we waken to the presence of Jesus. But on the other hand it is equally true, that we shall miss Him if we do not go to church; and we must never enter a place of worship without the prayer, 'Sir, we would see Jesus.' Columba got his Gaelic name, 'Colum of the churches,' says an old Irish Life, because as a boy he was so devoted to church-worship; like Simeon, he saw Jesus in the Temple.

LASTLY, we learn that till we have seen Jesus we are

not ready to die (vs. 29-32). Children do not dwell much upon death; God did not intend that they should do so. But sometimes, even to children, comes the thought, 'When is a person ready to die?' Well, length of years has little to do with it, although all young people think that it has. We are not ready to die when we are seventy; we are ready when we have seen Christ as our Saviour. Have the children of the family seen Him so? Are the fathers and mothers praying for that end? A little girl dearly loves to hold the baby. Get it from Simeon's arms, and give it her.

THIRD SUNDAY

Morning

CAIN AND ABEL

Passage to be read: Gen. iv. 1-16.

E should first learn from this sad story that God had not forsaken man. The scene that meets

us in this chapter is very different from that of the garden. Sin has entered into the world, and the happy innocence of Eden is destroyed. Cain is born, and the word Cain means possession; Abel is born, and the word Abel means vanity. Was it beginning to dawn thus early on mankind that 'man at his best estate is altogether vanity'? The curse is beginning to work out to its fulfilment, and men are finding that the wages of sin is death. Yet even now God is not far away. He has not withdrawn Himself from human life. He has not lost hope nor heart in the mysterious being who had so lately been made in His own image. He moves across this field of sin and murder, no less evidently than He did in the garden of Eden. Let us not forget, then, that though this is a tragic chapter, there is a gleam of sunshine through the storm. We begin to find here what we could not find before-the patience and long-suffering of heaven. For we must remember that what we have in Genesis is the first unfolding of God's redeeming purpose. It is not a compendium of universal history; it is the record of the saving will of God. Already we have had the promise to the woman, 'Thou shalt bruise his heel'; now we have tokens of a

deep solicitude, and of a great forbearance in the heart on high; and all this is like the pathway through the heather, that shall soon broaden into a highway of the Lord, and lead in the fulness of the time to Calvary, and to a blood that speaketh better things than that of Abel.

WE

E should next learn that God values the gift according to the spirit of the giver. Abel was a keeper of sheep; Cain was a tiller of the ground-he was wresting a blessing from what God had cursed. The discipline of work had now begun, and in the sweat of their face the brothers ate their bread. Then the day. came when they began to offer sacrifice; they were no longer children around their father's altar. They had grown to manhood now; they had realised themselves; they had become conscious of the need of personal communion. So Abel brought of the firstlings of his flock, and Cain brought of the fruit of the ground; the one was a shepherd and the other a husbandman, and they did wisely and well in bringing of their own. Yet the Lord had respect unto Abel and his offering; but unto Cain and his offering the Lord had not respect. How the two brothers perceived the difference of God's favour we do not know, for the Bible does not tell us. It may have been that fire fell on Abel's altar; it may have been that the one smoke rose heavenward and the other crept and curled along the ground; or perhaps there was only an inward witness in their hearts-a peace and joy in Abel's, a loneliness in Cain's-that told them silently how things stood with God. But if we do not know how they read God's differing looks, we do know the divine reasons for the difference. It was unto Cain and his offering that the Lord had not respect-it was the spirit behind the gift that made the difference. Had the heart of Cain been as the heart of Abel, the fruits of the ground would have smelled sweet

B

in heaven. But Cain, for all his energy, was faithless -it was by faith that Abel offered a more excellent sacrifice; and Cain had not been living like righteous Abel-he slew his brother because his deeds were evil. Clearly, therefore, we come to apprehend that the spirit of the givers made the difference; God knew the story of the brothers' lives, and in the light of their lives were their sacrifices treated. What a lesson there is in that for all of us! It is not the amount of our service that is pleasing, it is the motive that inspires and animates it. It is not the sacrifice in itself that heaven looks to; it is the heart that throbs behind the sacrifice. Would not Jesus have us leave our gift upon the very altar, if we have a grudge against our brother at the time? It was that truth which began to dawn on men in this accepted and rejected offering.

AGAIN, this is a memorable instance of how small sins

open the door to great ones. I do not think when Cain and Abel were children that Cain ever dreamed that it would come to this. If you had told him that he would be a murderer one day, he would have scorned the bare suggestion of such evil. Probably the brothers had never got on too well; their tempers were too different for that. The active and strenuous tiller of the ground would have a lurking scorn for the meditative shepherd. Then came the morning of the rejected sacrifice, and the brooding scorn flamed into bitter anger. It is so hard to find that heaven is smiling on the people whom we have long despised. But even yet, Cain had no settled purposes; he only knew that he hated his brother Abel; and every sign of faith he saw in Abel, and every trace and token of his goodness, was like added fuel to the flame. Then came the fateful hour of opportunity; the brothers were alone, out in the field together, and all the passion and bitterness of years leaped out from the wild and wayward heart of Cain