husks, seeing that we have left our father's house,-that we live on the crumbs that fell from the tables of the men who once did hold communion with their God for themselves, and who once realised the grand old truth, that God is not in the fire or the tempest, not in the excited crowd, or the swelling ritual, or the militant sect, but in the still small voice of conscience and the soul.

Hence it is that the Old Testament is full of this very thing, full of persuasives to the soul to be itself, to be by itself, and to be still: and for nothing are these old writings so valuable as for this very lesson. Here is one psalmist crying,-"Oh, how great is thy goodness, which thou hast laid up for them that revere thee; which thou hast wrought for them that trust in thee before the sons of men! Thou shalt hide them in the secret of thy presence from the pride of man: thou shalt keep them secretly in a pavilion from the strife of tongues." Here is another rejoicing in God,-"For in the time of trouble he shall hide me in his pavilion: in the secret of his tabernacle shall he hide me; he shall set me up upon a rock." Here is another who sings of dwelling "in the secret places of the Most High" and of abiding "under the shadow of the Almighty;" and another who seems to know the secret of peace, and strength, and goodness when he says, "Commune with your own heart, and be still." Why cannot we come to this? The world never more needed it than now.

One effect of taking this course would be to give us grander and calmer thoughts of God;—a great necessity, and never more needed than now. We need the lesson

that everything, as far as the eye, and the reason, and the very imagination can penetrate, is calm, orderly, unalterable, geometrically regular even to the throne of the Almighty, mathematically true even to the heaven of the fabled New Jerusalem. We need to calm the soul in that grandest of all thoughts,-that there is a revelation of God in Euclid at least as real as the revelation of Him in the psalms of saints or the rhapsodies of seers, that the mighty lines sweep on, inflexible, into infinite space, suggesting the supremacy of law, the stedfastness of sequences, the stately march of an eternal purpose, the illimitable sweep of eternal harmonies,-that the God whom seraphs adore and cherubs praise, is not only the God of a burning splendour, of a fathomless love, but the God of passionless geometry, and unswerving order, and exact science: and that the unseen world is not a world of fantastic transformations, of tragic horrors, and theatrical glories, but a world of order, and law, and progress, and science, compared with which this is phantasy and chaos.

Another effect of this personal communion with God would be to steady and strengthen our faculties of will and thought and conscience, to leave us less at the mercy of circumstances; a consummation devoutly to be wished in these exacting, exciting times. We call God 66 our Creator," ," but we daily need to rescue ourselves from the hands of His creatures.

"The world is too much with us; late and soon: and we too readily yield ourselves to the stress of circumstances or the forces of evil. The salvation we need is simply to resume possession of ourselves, to loyally ask

for the will of God, and to confess-" our wills are ours to make them thine." This is equally true in relation to our religious faith, We are too much at the mercy of a majority, too easily swayed by emphasis and assurance. Amid the conflicting clamours of theological schools, it is a veritable salvation to be alone with God, to shut the door upon all human authorities and finalities, to hear the voice of the Father in the soul, and to know that what Jesus said is true;-"The kingdom of heaven is within. you."

But this retiring into the quiet fortress or inner temple of one's self is good for every event in life. It throws the human being back upon itself: it trains the mind to distinguish between itself and its circumstances: it teaches the man to distinguish between himself and the things that cannot hurt him except through himself: it accustoms the spirit to hold its own whatever may happen, to be master of itself-itself unchanged whatever may come or go. It is, therefore, good for every event in life. Are you glad? Thank God; but stand ready to shut your door about you, and to be calm and strong should the joy depart. Are you sad? Learn the strength that may come to you through self-control, and self-reliance, and selfquietude. And surely in time of trouble nothing is needed more than ability to gather one's self together and to be alone. In some times of trouble all external consolations are useless: they may even exaggerate and prolong the agony. O well for you at such a time, if you have learnt to be independent of outer voices and outer services,-if you can take your cross, and say:—

"The star of the unconquered will,

He rises in my breast,
Serene, and resolute, and still,

And calm, and self-possessed.
O fear not, in a world like this,

And thou shalt know ere long,—
Know how sublime a thing it is
To suffer and be strong."

So, too, with the inevitable loss of sympathy, and that failure to be understood, which at times is sure to come even to the best of us, and which is to so many a life-long burden. Or, again, with that sense of unrequited rectitude which is one of the hardest things to bear :-to mean well and to do well, and yet to be kept away there in the cold shadow of neglect or suspicion; to have every blossoming good intent nipped with the chill East wind of distrust; or to be simply ignored and neglected; it is a misery. At such a time, how good it is to hear this word, the sweetest, the loftiest, and the mightiest that ever broke from the trusting soul,-"Delight thyself also in the Lord; and he shall give thee the desires of thy heart. Commit thy way unto the Lord; trust also in him; and he shall bring it to pass. And he shall bring forth thy righteousness as the light,and thy judgment as the noonday." "Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for him;"—"and wait patiently for him!"

Or if we have not been faithful,-if, not in rectitude, but in unrighteousness we suffer, the same remedy avails. In truth, no one needs solitude with God more than the sinning soul. Go into that solitude in the hour of remorse, and there, away from all false standards and cheating voices and deceptive lights, see thyself as thou really art.

G

There, in the wilderness, carry on thy holy war with the evil thing, as Jesus did; and come forth, at last, to face the work of life,—a conqueror.

For all the doubtful things of life, the same help may here be found. Amid the clashing interests and insidious temptations of life we are apt to be deceived-nay, to deceive ourselves. We glide into doubtful transactions, and move by easy gradations into wrong-doing. The customs of the world, the allurements of success, the mere ardour of the race, tend to mislead us, and we need the inner voice to save us, to put us in possession of our better selves, to make us, not slaves or dupes, or “dumb driven cattle," but womanly women and manly men; so that the

clamorous world shall not have all its own way with us, and

defraud us both out of ourselves and God.

So in the anxious race of life, and with the exaggerated value set upon gain. God only knows the misery that has grown out of this. If people would be more moderate in their ways of living; if they would pay less respect to wealth as wealth; if they would be content to accumulate less rapidly; if they would have simpler tastes; if they would school themselves to put many things before riches, and to hold these other things with stronger hand, what a happier world it might be! O happy they who, when the fever of life's anxiety is on them, hear and obey the warning, winning word,-who leave the hot arena, and calm and steady their souls by meditation, resolution, and prayer!

And surely, in relation also to the great concern for what is called "the salvation of the soul," we urgently