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Do they meet with a new minister? According to them, he is all that could be desired. What sermons he preaches, to be sure! How original, yet how orthodox; how intellectual, yet practical! It is the very kind of preaching to be useful! What ease and dignity there is in his manner! His action is free from stiffness, his pronunciation is faultless, his voice most agreeable. What a fine character he has! So fearless, so judicious, so amiable. He is as admirable out of the pulpit as he is in it. toral as well as didactic labour is his delight. Thus they speak and think so long as the minister is a novelty: only so long. You meet with them a few months afterwards, and find that they are tired of their rabbi. They can get no good from his preaching, and are constrained to go to some other chapel for their" food,"as they call it. Do they meet with a new magazine? It is a model magazine! Others are nothing: it is everything. The articles are so racy, there is such wonderful variety, the illustrations are so well sketched, and, to crown all, the price is so low. A few numbers are thus eulogized, and then -ichabod. You are told that the lately-praised serial has "fallen off very much," and "is not what it used

to be." Do they meet with a new shop? There is none like it! How fashionable are the articles exposed in the windows, and how remarkably cheap! There surely never was such a shop. All their "kith and kin" are besieged in its behalf, and teased to patronize it. But presently the reaction comes. If you encounter them in the street and ask about the said establishment, they will inform you that they have given up going to it because the proprietor does not keep such" nice things" as he used to do!

Unhappily, when these persons come under the influence of religion, they carry with them into the church their insane love of the new. As a natural consequence, they soon weary

in well-doing. So long as the school, the tract district, the Bible-class, or the visitation of the sick and the poor, is a novelty, they are all right. But when the bloom is rubbed off the fruit, good though that fruit may be, they leave it untouched or throw it away.

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2. Others are weary of well-doing because they are weary of well-being. Outward indolence is often the result of inward declension. greater our love and zeal for God, the greater will be our love and zeal for our fellow-creatures' good, and vice versa. If you see a man giving up first one and then another means of usefulness; abandoning his class at the Sunday-school, then absenting himself from prayer-meetings, then reducing or withdrawing his subscriptions to religious and benevolent institutions, you may well mourn over him. Why? Because these are the sad indications of decline in the soul's health. In nine cases out of ten, such is the case. Look at yonder wall. Cracks, wide and long, disfigure it. In certain places gaping fissures extend from the top to the basement. Mark what those cracks show. They tell a sad tale. Before ever they appeared the foundation had given way. They prove that there is something wrong beneath. In like manner, when the building of benevolence gets weak, when a man's efforts for others grow less, it usually shows there is something wrong beneath. The foundations of piety have given way.

What a memorable instance of this does the apostle give! "Demas hath forsaken me. He has forsaken me! and my work. Once we laboured earnestly together, once he was my joy and help, once he toiled faithfully by my side in the great moral harvest field. But now he has left me!" To Paul the reason of this was apparent enough:-"Having loved this present world." Love to God was gradually undermined by love of the world, and

the speedy consequence was his abandonment of spiritual work. My 灣 readers, make this a matter of selfexamination. If you are weary in well doing and are giving it up, find out the cause. Go down into the depths of your soul, and do not rest until you discover whether or not a process of decay has gone on there.

3. Others are weary in well-doing because they do not think that they are wei-doing.

They believe that their efforts are in vain. They do not see the results of their work, and they conclude that there are no results.

Good done to the mind is not by any means so easily and quickly visible as good done to the body. If a benevolent and opulent man builds a hospital, he soon beholds the beneficial results. When he hears of an accident, and gazes at the poor workman carried to the place in which he will have medical aid and efficient nursing, he sees that he does good. If another erects a row of alms-houses, he is not long before he witnesses the real help which they afford the needy. When he marks the old men and aged women hobbling to and fro in their small but trim gardens, sunning themselves on a warm July day at their doors, or sitting on a cold winter's night by the cozy fireside, he sees that he has done good. But benefits conferred on mind are not thus readily and speedily visible. If you aid in establishing a free library, a working man's institute, or an artisan's club, you must not be impatient of results. For some time, it may be, you will see no great change in those whom you thus seek to benefit. Their dress, occupations, habits, manners, will be the same. It is only after a lapse of time, and when you come to visit them in their homes, that you find out the excellent issues of your endeavours to educate them. Talk to them on social, political, and philosophical questions, then you discover the gradual eleva

tion in thought, refinement in feeling, and improvement in judgment which has occurred. The consequences of your work do not lie on the surface, patent to all, and easy of observation. They are, for the most part, hidden, being revealed only after awhile.

Nor is it otherwise spiritually. Much of the good we do, we never see. When we do behold the fruits of our labour, it is usually after we have laboured long. A minister preaches a sermon, and goes home, perhaps, to weep over it; he fears it is a failure. "Who hath believed our report?" he cries. And yet that very discourse may have been blessed by God to the welfare of many. One, who was tempted, has derived strength from it; another, who was troubled, has found consolation in it; a third, who was perplexed, has been guided by it; best of all, a fourth, who was careless, has been anxious about his salvation. This ignorance concerning the issues of our prayers and efforts is a prolific source of weariness. "Thou knowest not which shall prosper, whether this or that ;" and because we do not know we often get disheartened.

II. WHY WE SHOULD NOT BE

WEARY IN WELL-DOING.

Touching this, arguments crowd upon the mind fast and thick. Manifold are the inducements to persevere in Christian labours. Only a few can now be noticed.

1. Christ was not weary in welldoing.

"Consider Him who endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds." What formidable difficulties he had! His disciples were often hard of heart, and dark in mind. Some of his plainest teachings were lost upon them by reason of their intellectual dulness and their moral obtuseness. His enemies were many and cruel. Comfort, character, life, were plotted against. The num

ber of those who heartily and steadily co-operated with him was very small. Yet he was not 66 weary." "Not weary," for "very early in the morning" he was in the temple teaching; "not weary," for midnight was not too late for him to receive and converse with inquiring Nicodemus; "not weary," for when he sat down athirst on Jacob's Well he could talk to the dissolute Samaritan of the

things which pertained to her peace; "not weary," for when wishing for repose he said to his disciples, “Come ye here apart, and rest awhile," and the multitude found him, he went forth again to teach and feed them ; "not weary," for even when hanging on the accursed cross he stooped down and said, "Mother, behold thy son; Son, behold thy mother."

lf, therefore, as the avowed followers of Christ, we would be like him, we must not be " weary in welldoing." Our model never was, therefore we should not be. But it may be objected, "The cases are not parallel. We are situated very differently from Christ. He foresaw the ultimate and glorious results of his sufferings and toils; we do not. Little wonder that he was not weary in well-doing,' when, with prophetic vision, he looked forward and beheld the future triumphs of his kingdom. When he foresaw Peter's memorable sermon on the day of Pentecost, ending in the conversion of thousands; when he foresaw Saul, the bitter foe, transformed into Paul the fervent apostle, who laboured more abundantly than they all;' when he foresaw, in more remote years, St. Bernard, like a good angel, descending into the stagnant waters of human thought, and, by God's blessing, impregnating them with healing power; when he foresaw Luther arousing the world from its sinful sleep and superstitious slumbers; when he foresaw the sainted Wesley and the seraphic Whitfield, in the spirit and power of Elias,' 'turn the hearts of the fathers

to their children, and the children to their fathers,' he might well not be weary. But we do not see the future results of our endeavours." No; but you may be as certain of them as if you did. God has promised that in due season ye shall reap," and that promise is as good a guarantee of ultimate success as actual foreknowledge ever could be.

2. Weariness in well-doing is of no

use.

A poor, forlorn mother, weeping over her dead baby, cried in her agony, "I can't bear it, and I won't!" "Well, ma'am," said her minister, "what do you propose to do?" You are weary in well-doing, my brother, and you say that you will give up well-doing. But what do you propose to do, then? Shall you better yourself? Shall you be a wiser, happier, nobler man thereby? No. Then of two evils choose the lesser. Say, if you will, that it is an evil to work for Christ, and yet see no success; that is surely easier to bear than the condemnation of conscience which follows a craven shirking of your duty. Depend upon it, you will only involve yourself in greater perplexity if you give up. What a miserable creature a deserter is! Cold, hungry, and ragged; skulking behind hedges, sleeping fitfully under hayricks, starting at every sound lest it should end in the appearance of the sergeant and his soldiers with their loaded rifles; poor wretch, he is a pitiable object indeed. So is the spiritual deserter. When he sees his late fellow-workers toiling in the face of formidable difficulties, and he remembers that he is doing nothing to help them; when he sees them victorious, and he remembers that he might have shared in the joys of conquest but for his unfaithfulness; when he sees the sin and sorrow of the great world, and he remembers that he is doing nothing to lighten its load,-he cannot be other

wise than shame-stricken and unhappy. When Elijah fled to the cave of Horeb, he added neither to his comfort nor his dignity.

3. Our weariness will make others reary.

If earnestness and courage are contagious, so are their opposites. Timidity creates timidity; indolence gives birth to indolence. A flying soldier will put a whole regiment to rout. It is quite true that half-a-dozen zealous Christians will often be the means of infusing a spirit of devotedness into a whole eburch. Alas, it is equally true that half-a-dozen laggards and drones will speedily spread the infection of their lukewarmness. If, because the harvest has not come so soon as I expect, I throw down my sickle and leave the field, on looking back I shall be almost sure to behold some one following my example. If, building at the temple of benevolence, I lay aside my trowel, leave my post, sit down on the scaffolding, and begin to whimper and wail because I do not get on faster, 1 shall very likely dishearten my fellowworkmen. How often do we find that one man's idleness is made the excuse of another's! "I do as much as others." Such is the plea put forth in answer to fervent appeals for greater effort on behalf of the world's salvation. Therefore, as a warning and a safeguard against weariness in well-doing, let us remember that if we give way to discouragement and become lethargic, we shall lead others to do the same.

4 The very thing that makes us weary should make us the more

earnest.

Why do we grow weary ?_Usually because of non-success. In other words, because men are so heedless about religion, so indifferent to their salvation, so worldly and hardhearted. But this is, in fact, the very reason why we should be increasingly zealous. The less sinners

care for themselves, the more we should care for them. Our concern should increase with their unconcern. This is how we act in reference to things secular. A medical practitioner visits a patient and finds him worse than he has been. What does he do? Does he give up calling upon him? No. He doubles his attention. He calls twice instead of once. If that invalid's condition becomes more dangerous, he goes thrice instead of twice. Take another case. A philanthropist visits

a low, degraded district in a certain city. He proposes to civilize and Christianize it. He talks of erecting lodging-houses, baths, schools, chapels, and sending missionaries and Bible-women to labour there. While he thus schemes, some one tells him that bad as the neighbourhood may appear to him, it is even far worse in reality. How would that philanthropist act when he heard this? He would not abandon his plan because of the new difficulties, but, on the contrary, would thereby be stimulated to greater effort. Is it so?" he would say. "Then I will endeavour to double the number of places and persons by which I seek to accomplish the work of reformation." On the same principle let us act in reference to our fellow-creatures' eternal good. Their lethargy should only call forth the more fervour on our part.

He

Away, then, with doubt. Begone all our fears. God is with us. has promised his blessing. "Be not weary, toiling brother,

Good the Master thou dost serve!
Let no disappointment move thee;
From his service never swerve;
Sow in hope, nor cease thy sowing;
Lack not patience, faith, or prayer;
Seed-time passeth, harvest hasteth,
Precious sheaves thou then shalt bear."

Yes, "precious sheaves thou then shalt bear."" Precious," indeed, will they be. All the more so because they have been long waited for,

THIS question was addressed to the people of Israel by the prophet Elijah, when he had gathered them together with 450 of the prophets of Baal, and 400 of the prophets of the Groves, in the presence of King Ahab, to justify the Lord God before his enemies, as well as before his professed people. The land had suffered a grievous famine in consequence of rain having been withheld for upwards of three years through the prayer of Elijah. Ahab accuses the prophet of troubling Israel; but the prophet charges that evil upon Ahab and his father's house, because they had forsaken the commandments of the Lord, and asserts that he had acted simply in accordance with the Lord's directions.

But now God is about to punish the false prophets; but he is also about to speak in mercy to the people of Israel, and to restore the tokens of his goodness and blessing to the land by sending fruitful and abundant rains upon it.

Before

doing so, however, he will work a mighty miracle to prove that Baal is no God; that he cannot hear those who call upon him, and cannot deliver those who trust in him, and that the Lord he is God alone. The prophet therefore appeals to all, saying, "How long halt ye between two opinions," and urges them to decide either for God or against him. "If the Lord be God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him."

There are, blessed be God, many to whom, through Divine grace, this question as to the great principle of decision for God does not apply. They

have heard and obeyed the great command, "Come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord." They have heard and responded to the appeal, I beseech you by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service." But there are very few, if any, even amongst Christians, to whom the question has no application; few indeed, if any, who can say that they never hesitate or halt between two opinions, when they should be decided on the Lord's side; that there are no compliances with temptation; no conformity to the world; but that with every affection of the heart, and every act of the life, they are fully and entirely decided for God.

But there are doubtless many professing Christians who have the form, but manifest little of the power of godliness: who, like some members of the Church in Sardis, have a name that they live, but are dead, whose works are not perfect before God. To these the question should come home with peculiar force, "How long halt ye between two opinions?"

There may be some of my readers whose fears have been awakened by being convinced of sin; who, like Felix, tremble when the subjects of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come, are brought before them; but who yet say, "Go thy way for this time, when I have a convenient season I will send for thee." To you is this question sent," How long halt ye between two opinions ?"