his customary place at this relaxing hour; he had been there yesterday, he would be there to-morrow; and it was in that familiar and unromantic spot, with the common sounds of tent-life in his ears, that the angels of the Almighty came to him. Let us learn, then, that the messengers of God are not reserved for our heroic moments. It is not only in our greater hours that the best is sent to us by the Eternal. Under the shadow of the house we dwell in, and amid the voices and the songs of home, where we catch the rustle of familiar garments, and hear the light footfall of the friends we love, there God will send to us His choicest ministers, as He sent them to Abraham in the tent-door at Mamre. Note, too, the time of day when they drew near. Could the children form a Bible-clock for heavenly visitors? It was very early in the morning, in the garden, that Mary Magdalene saw the risen Christ. It was late at night, in the season of deep sleep, that Daniel had his vision of Jehovah. It was in the cool of the day that the Lord walked in Eden. It was in the heat of the day that the angels came to Abraham.

NEXT note how the messengers of God disguise themselves. There is a noble picture by Doré, in his Doré Bible, which shows us these three figures at the tent; Doré has given them wings, clothed them in light, and decked them out with true angelic radiance. But no such radiance was visible to Abraham; it was not three angels he saw, it was three men; it was just because they were tired and dusty wayfarers that his hospitable and generous heart was touched. Whence had they come and whither were they going? Abraham knew not, and did not choose to ask. It was enough for him-a strangerthat they were strangers, and so he entertained angels unawares. I think, then, that what God would have us learn is the usual disguise that angels wear. They do not come to us with snow-white pinions, they come to us

as common men or women. How many a boy has lived to say of his mother, 'She was the minister of God to me!' How often a friend or a brother or a sister is the messenger in the heat of the day to us! Mr. Spurgeon, in one of his letters, wrote of his wife, 'She has been as an angel of God to me.' It is in that disguise God oftenest sends His angels. It is in the ministries of human love and helpfulness. They wear the garb of ordinary mortals, but they shall make life different to us for evermore. For it is not in any gleaming of white wings that the true mark of the angel-nature must be looked for; it is in swift obedience to the will of God, it is in making audible His voice, it is in making visible the love and joy and purity which are the life of all who live around the throne.

LASTLY, mark how the wicked may be indebted to the good. Sodom and Gomorrah came to a tragic end; all unexpectedly their doom was hurled upon them. How little the men of Sodom ever dreamed that Abraham had been praying and pleading for them. But the point we can never meditate upon too deeply is the condition on which God would have saved the city. The doom would be revoked, said the Almighty, if ten righteous men were found in Sodom. Now, think for a moment of the wonder of that. Think of the power of these ten good men. Sodom was plunged in all kinds of bestial wickedness, yet ten good men would have saved it from its doom. There was not a child who played in Sodom's alleys, there was not a merchant in any of Sodom's bazaars, there was not a mother who crooned to her loved babe, not a bride, not a bridegroom, not an old man, in Sodom, but would have escaped the hour of desolation, for the sake of ten good men within the city walls. Do you see, then, the far-reaching effects of righteousness? Do you note the blessings that may come to others through it? The scoffer and the jeerer and the mocker

may be more indebted to God's children than they know. And certain it is that if we are true to God, and strive to do His will in all humility, we shall convey some blessing to the lives of others, and perhaps be used to avert impending ruin, though of all this we may never hear a whisper, till we wake in the love and light of Abraham's God.

EIGHTH SUNDAY

Evening

THE MIRACLE AT CANA

Passage to be read: John ii. 1-II.

HEN a man has set his hand to some stupendous

WH task that can only be achieved through years

of suffering, there are two seasons when the strain is sorest. One is when the great work is but begun, and the difficulties of it are coming into view; the other is when the work is well nigh ended. At these two times, when the strain is most intense, the heart recoils from the common intercourse of life. It is very notable that at these two periods we should find Jesus seated and happy at a feast. When other men are fevered, He is feasting. When others cannot brook the common talk, He joins the converse of the happy board. Could you have guessed, seeing that quiet stranger at the table, that but a week before, alone and in the wilderness, He had been tempted so fiercely by the devil? Could you have thought, seeing Him at the Last Supper with His own, that in a few days He would be crucified? The marriage feast at Cana, and the closing banquet in the upper chamber, not only tell us of His great love for men, they fill us with everdeepening surprise at the wonderful serenity of Christ.

FIRST, then, let us observe that in this first miracle we have a counterpart to the first temptation. In the difference between Jesus' action then and now we have the first glimpses of His glory (v. 11). Alone in the wilderness there came the whisper, 'There is no bread; command that these stones be made bread.' Now at the marriage feast there comes the whisper, 'There is no wine,' and Jesus turned the water into wine. Both acts would have called for equal power; they were identical if regarded outwardly, yet Jesus saw in the former a snare of evil, and by the latter He began to show His glory. Do you see the difference between the two? In the one, His power would have been employed upon Himself; in the other, it was at the service of His friends. He turned the water into wine for others; but for Himself He would not turn the stones to bread. He saved others, Himself He would not save. He came not to be ministered unto, but to minister. It was the golden dawn of a self-forgetful service that won its crown on Calvary.

AGAIN, in this first miracle we have the first fore

shadowing of the surpassing excellence of Jesus' handiwork. The home at Cana was a humble home; but at a marriage, an Oriental home, however humble, found ways and means to have the choicest wine. It was its very excellence which proved fatal to it-had it been worse, it might have lasted longer. Then Jesus wrought, and the six waterpots of water became wine, and when the chairman tasted it, not knowing whence it came, he cried that this was the best wine of all. When the company sat down there was wine upon the table. Christ's vintage challenged comparison with that. No wine could match the quality of that wine which was introduced into the feast by Christ. Now, is not that a mystical foreshadowing of the abiding glory of the Lord? Are there not many things which Jesus brought

to the world, the same in kind as the world had always had, yet overtopping them all in worth and excellence? I see the table of the world when Jesus came. There is the cup of love on it, and the beaker of joy; there is the wine of hope, and of peace, and of human character. But when I compare the hope and love and joy that Jesus found, with the hope and love and joy that Jesus gave; and when I place the highest pagan character with the noblest character that Christ has fashioned, I cry with the chairman, 'This is the best of all'-no wine can match the wine of Christ in quality.

ONCE more, in this first miracle we have a first glimpse of the divine prodigality of love. Did you ever think how much these waterpots contained, when the servants had filled them, perhaps in quiet humour, to the brim? They held about a hundred and twenty gallons. One twentieth part of that would surely have been ample to satisfy the largest marriage-company. But I hardly think that Jesus stopped to count whether the waterpots were six or twelve. Had He consulted His mother or the servants, they could have told Him exactly what was needed; but He consulted none but His own heart and God—and all the six are wine. Now turn to the wilderness again, and to the first temptation. There, for Himself, Jesus would not turn one single stone into a loaf. Here, in the service of His neighbour, there is no bounty that can be too great. He gives with a lavishness that is sublime, because it is the lavishness of love. Do you not think that as John looked back on this, he saw in the prodigality Christ's glory? I think he would recall this opening scene at Cana when the whisper went round, 'To what purpose is this waste?' It was Christ's glory to lavish His all upon the world. It was His glory to die upon the cross. In the uncalculating lavishness of dying love, John saw the spirit that had made the water wine.