the weaver removes one web from the loom to make room for another. How important to improve the fleeting moments, and to live as if we were soon to see the rapid shuttle flying for the last time." How fleet is life! Jacob speaks of his days, at the age of 130, as "few and evil.” Life is a chariot whose wheel never stops till it dashes over the precipice, and is destroyed. It is a vessel that never anchors. Nay, more fleeting, more unsubstantial than these; a flower, a vapour, a shadow, a watch in the night.

"Like the snow-fall in the river,

A moment white,-then melts for ever;
Or like the rainbow's lovely form,
Evanishing amid the storm."

HOMILY No. XVI.

JOB'S REPLY TO THE FIRST SPEECH OF ELIPHAZ.

(4.) A CRY TO HEAVEN. (a) INVOCATION.

“O remember that my life is wind: mine eye shall no more see good." &c. -CHAP. vii.. 7-10.

EXEGETICAL REMARKS.-Ver. 7. “O remember that my life is wind" (a breath). "This verse and those that follow to the end of the chapter, are so evidently addressed to God that it was not thought necessary by the speaker to name Him."-Dr. Bernard. He speaks of his life here as "wind," to indicate his sense of its frailty and fleetness. "He remembered that they were but flesh," says the Psalmist, "a wind that passeth away, and cometh not again.' "Mine eye shall no more see good." "No more look on prosperity." Delitzsch. In the margin, "not return to see good." His impression was he would never come back again to enjoy this life. The language is somewhat like that

of Hezekiah's: "I shall behold man no more with the inhabitants of the world."

Ver. 8.-" The eye of him that hath seen me shall see me no more." The idea is, "I shall be cut off for ever from all I know, my connection with my race will be ended." "Thine eyes are upon me, and I am not." Some read, "Thine eyes shall look for me, but I shall not be;" others, "Thine eyes shall seek for me, and I shall be gone;" but our version seems on the whole to be correct. He seems to feel that under the blaze of the Divine glance he was melting away. "I am not," or, as in the margin, "I can live no longer." What can stand before the flash of the Divine

eye? The universe will melt away one day before it (Rev. xx. 11).

Ver. 9.-" As the cloud is consumed and vanisheth away: so he that goeth down to the grave shall come up no more." To-day the sky teems with fleecy clouds, some larger and more dense than others. All have shapes endless, grotesque, and constantly shifting. To-morrow the sky is azure. Where are the clouds? They are gone, never to appear again.

To Job these clouds

were like his life. When it ended, and he went to his grave, he would never return. 66 'He that goeth down to the grave shall come up no more."

Ver. 10.--" He shall return no more to his house, neither shall his place know him any more." Some say this means, he shall come up no more in the present order of things; others, however, consider that they refer to an utter extinction of existence.

HOMILETICS. These words are a part of Job's cry to Heaven. The whole cry extends to the end of the chapter, and maybe arranged under three general heads :-Invocation, extending from verses 7-10; Expostulation, extending from verses 11-16; and Interrogation, extending from 17-21. In the verse before us we have the cry of invocation: "O remember that my life is wind." In his anguish he turns away from his so-called friends-turns away from himself and all his soliloquizing, and looks to Heaven and cries: "Oh, remember." The idea of the disruption which his death would effect was that which now so possessed his mind and distressed his heart as to prompt the prayer. He regarded this disruption as an evil

I. VERY DISTRESSING. It seemed to sting him like a serpent, and to madden him into agony. And is not this one of the most painful, if not the most painful, ideas connected with death? Through nearly the whole of our lives here we are weaving ties that fasten things of this earth around our very hearts. We are constantly deepening old roots in the world, and striking new ones farther out. Death, with its ruthless axe, cuts these, and severs us from all. The farmer leaves his fields, the mechanic his shop, the merchant his counting-house, the artist his studio, the student his library, the preacher his pulpit, and the king his palace. All leave their homes, their avocations, and their friends. This certain disruption that awaits shows us two things:-First: The folly of worldliness. How unwise is he who spends his whole life in merely forging

links that must be broken, forming root-holds from which the whirlwinds of death will hurl his tree. It shows, Secondly: The wisdom of spirituality. How wise is the Christly soul, who is forming alliances with the invisible. and eternal. Such alone are prepared to welcome the final hour. He regarded this disruption as an evil—

II. EASILY ACCOMPLISHED. "Thine eyes are upon me, and I am not," or "I can live no longer." What is easier than a look? There is no effort in the glance of an eye. There is effort even in the movement of the hand, in the shake of the head, in the utterance of a word, but no effort in a look. Job felt that God had only to look upon him and he was gone. His death did not require the employment of any force to accomplish it. The slightest thing could do it; a breath of air, a microscopic atom, would be enough; nay, a look. How easily God accomplishes His works. "He looketh on the earth and it trembleth, He toucheth the hills and they smoke." Before one glance of His eye the whole fabric of nature will dissolve. Though easily accomplished, it is some consolation to know that it is not fortuitously produced. It is under the eye of God. Though insignificant, we are objects of His notice; and though we die as He looks at us, we die assured that He who observes us has the deepest interest in our destiny. "He knoweth our frame, He remembereth that we are dust." He regarded this disruption as an evil

III. NEVER REMEDIED. "He shall return no more to his house." The earthly connections broken at death will never be renewed. Of all the millions who have gone during the past sixty centuries, not one has returned to renew his connections on earth. Kings return no more to their people, lawyers to their clients, merchants to their customers, ministers to their churches, congregations to their pews, parents to their children, masters to their servants. All over for ever and for ever.

There is an overwhelming sadness in this idea; to step down into the dark abysses of mystery, and never come back to the known. How overpowering the thought! What is

H

Let us do the work we have to do on earth while we are on it. What is that? First: Cultivate a character that shall meeten us for eternity. Secondly: Promote Christliness in the world.

"Beyond the flight of time,
Beyond this vale of death,
There surely is some blessed clime
Where life is not a breath,
Nor life's affections transient fire,
Whose sparks fly upward and expire."

HOMILY No. XVII.

JOB'S REPLY TO THE FIRST SPEECH OF ELIPHAZ.

(4.) A CRY TO HEAVEN. (6) EXPOSTULATION.

"Therefore I will not refrain my mouth; I will speak in the anguish of my spirit; I will complain in the bitterness of my soul." &c.—CHAP. vii. 11-16.

Ver. 15, 16.-" So that my soul chooseth strangling, and death rather than my life. I loathe it; I would not live alway: let me alone; for

my days are vanity." "My soul chooseth strangling, death, rather than these bones."-Dr. Samuel Davidson.

HOMILETICS.-These words are a continuation of Job's cry to Heaven. In these verses we have what may be called a cry of expostulation. His expostulation is grounded on two facts; on the fact

I. That God should afflict him AT ALL. "Am I a sea, or a whale, that Thou settest a watch over me?" The language implies three things.

First: The recognition of the law of restraint in the universe. Job takes it for granted that God had set a "watch" over the "sea" and the "whale;" that the tumultuous waters and ravenous monsters of the deep were under His restraining hand. The existence of this restraining law is undoubted, and everywhere manifest in the material universe. All the elements and forces in the inorganic departments of nature-lightnings, winds, volcanoes, pestilences-are kept within their bounds: He has set a "watch" over them all. So are the organic. The tiniest insects and the largest monsters are alike kept in their proper sphere; God holds all the elements, forces, objects, existences of material nature in restraint. The language implies

Secondly: A consciousness of the restraining force upon his own individuality. "Am I a sea?" All men are subject to this restraining law. This is obvious from the fact that they are prevented from the full gratification of their desires, and the full execution of their plans. God restrains man by (1) the force of public sentiment, (2) the power of conscience, and (3) the lack of capacity. Circumstances occur when men are made deeply to feel this restraint: losses, afflictions, bereavements, death, moral conviction. Lost spirits feel themselves "bound in chains of darkness." The language implies—

Thirdly: A perplexity of judgment in consequence of this felt restraint. He seems to say, Why should I be thus watched? Am I as tumultuous as the ocean, or as dangerous