nal life, which is given us in our Saviour Jesus Christ.

O Book! infinite sweetness! let my heart Suck every letter, and a honey gain, Precious for any grief in any part

To clear the breast, to mollify all pain.

5. We must reverence God's work.

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The advancement of His kingdom is not committed to one class or another, but is a duty on all. God's work at home and abroad. Every Christian has his part in the great work, and by the baptismal vow to be Christ's soldier and servant to his life's end, he is bound steadily and faithfully to fulfil it. We honour or dishonour God's name in proportion as we set a good or bad example, as we help or cause brother to be offended, as we obey or disobey what is His known will. Human life which brings us into connection with each other, wherein the ties of family and friendship and intercourse, constitute what is called society, and what is our happiness, is God's means for calling out our best energies, and our best will in His service. We are members one of another, and being so, our work is relative. We must not forget this, nor that God's missions, the advancement of the everlasting Gospel, and the extension of His kingdom, are imposed on

all, are a work in which none can say that they ought not to take interest. And we must watch with loving and thankful eyes God's work in individual souls. There is ever a spirit of scoffing at the profession of a religious life, and at greater strictness which offends the general laxity of an age, there is a too ready suspicion of the work of conversion, and the reclaiming of the lost. He eateth with Publicans and sinners, is virtually said often now, as it was once, and for much the same reason. That a soul should become conscious of sin, that that soul should gladly hail the means offered of help and relief, that after being spiritually a wanderer among the tombs, he becomes, by Christ's power, healed, clothed, and in his right mind, should gladden the heart, or that any who feel the world and life as it presents itself to them, to be unsatisfying, and desire to give it up, and adopt a certain severe discipline, and devote themselves either in a sisterhood, or otherwise to some work of God, should be to cause the true disciple of Christ to rejoice because therein he sees the hand of a wise master builder, the moulding of the great sculptor who taketh the rude clay as it is, and fashioneth it to be a vessel to honour in His service. Let us recognise all efforts, whether done as we think best or not, which are done for the great end, the

salvation of souls, and believe, and pray as we do believe, that when all work shall be made manifest at the great day of reckoning, there will be found a reward for every, even the smallest, act which has been done for His name's sake.

There are sins forbidden by this commandment

1. The sins of perjury, whereby God's majesty is treated with contempt, and the terrors of His judgment defied. The court of justice is the type of the court of Heaven. and when He is called in to witness to a lie, His name is taken up for a falsehood. Jer. xix. 12; Zech. viii. 17; S. Matt. v. 33.

2. Profane language as well as the use of His name in common talk. The sins of all cursing and oaths. S. Matt. v. 84-37; S. James v. 12; Rom. iii. 14.

Alas! one trembles to think how much sin is committed of this kind. Sin, too, which is rarely held weighty enough for strong repentance, nor when the passion is over with the remembrance. Yet has He not said, "By thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be judged," and he clothed himself with cursing like as a raiment; he loved not blessing, therefore it shall be far from him, it shall come into his bowels like water, and like oil into his bones. Time was when heavy cursing like deep drinking was a

fashionable vice; the character of society has changed, and the work of Christ through His Church has made itself felt where it was unfelt before, still the vice remains and hangs about like a pestilential vapour, blighting more or less all ranks of society. There would seem to be, moreover, about this sin, a want, which other sins have not; there is no pleasure to gratify. Impurity, drunkenness, and the like, gratify lust; they who commit such things can say that they gain a certain pleasure, however short-lived, and however dearly bought; but here there can be none. The swearer casts upwards the stone which returns on his head to crush him. Why commit it then ? Why must the Lord say of so many in this and other Christian lands (for all nations have their oaths), "My name is continually every day blasphemed." Is. liii. 5. Because there is an absence of fear. There is no sense of the Dearness, and no awe of the majesty of the Almighty, therefore no dread at the free and profane use of that name, "at which every knee should bow, of things in Heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth.' "Heaven and hell,their Creator's and Redeemer's name and attributes, the vengeance of God upon themselves and others,-the torments of hell,-the misery of the damned,-how

fearful is the catalogue! These are the thunders which men will toss about, saying with the deceiver of old, 'Am I not in sport ?'" (Nixon.) We cannot be too

severe on this hateful vice; we cannot think too sadly of the future as well as the present consequences of giving unbridled freedom to the tongue which at best is an "unruly evil." What more shocking than to hear the child catch up words of blasphemy from the parent's lips ? What more awful than the prospect in store for those who, when they should have taught prayers and blessings, have only given curses, the woe for causing a little one to offend ? And scarcely less shocking is it to hear the aged, just dropping into the grave, blend his curses with his common talk, and at the least irritation, blaspheme the name of his God. Again we say that it is the absence of holy fear that makes men accustomed to this vice. We must press on those we teach, as well as make it a household word for ourselves, what David says, "I have re membered Thy name, O Lord, in the night season, and have kept Thy law." God's name was his comfort in time of trial, and his warning voice in the hour of temptation, and, "Who is among you that feareth the Lord, that obeyeth the voice of His servant, that walketh in darkness, and hath no light P let him trust in the name of the Lord, and stay upon his God."

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