eveloped by the successful pursuit of gain. Not that pride cannot well with extreme poverty, for that it can; but none can deny at pride draws nourishment from secular prosperity. And, still more, lishness may be expected to accompany this desire. There are many noble zeptions, in which generosity keeps pace with prosperity, and the more is tten the more is given, and the princely income is dispensed with a rinely hand. But this is far from being the rule. Generally, as riches Erase, liberality either stands where it did or declines; as the money gents, so augments the love of it; and the nearer the time comes when it antall be relinquished, the more tightly it is grasped. Thus, "they that ill be rich fall into many foolish and hurtful lusts." Side by side with he intense desire for gain, there spring up states of mind and feeling which inconsistent alike with reason and religion, and are destructive to happies and injurious to moral character. Ent this is not all. "They that will be rich fall into temptation and a are"-into a thousand temptations and a thousand snares. There is the emptation to act oppressively; and this, though in our country greatly estricted by the law, and still more restricted by the manly and independent pirit of the people, produces in other parts of the world the crimes and orrors of slavery. Even amongst ourselves, however, the passionate love of in leads men to adopt the short-sighted policy of getting work done at the ty lowest scale of remuneration. Perhaps a good deal of nonsense is uttered but low wages and low salaries; perhaps in an open labour market every an gets about as much as he is worth; still, that man is not to be envied , in his love of gain, will take every cold-blooded advantage of the poor the distressed, and, while himself rolling in riches, feels no pity for those with great difficulty contrive to maintain a miserable existence. And is the temptation to act dishonestly. A man determined to be rich is to make this his maxim,-that, anyhow, money must be made; and if he how, by some fraudulent course, he can obtain it in large amounts, the ptation, favoured by circumstances, proves irresistible. Still greater, haps, is the temptation, when a man has, by his recklessness, involved mself in difficulty, and sees that, by some crafty and dishonourable ick, he can extricate himself, it may be to the loss and ruin of those who fide in him. Indeed, it has come to this pass, that by multitudes who will be , truth and honour are laughed at, are regarded as exploded superstitions; men who have dexterously evaded the law in the perpetration of crimes inst society, compared with which some which send poor wretches to son are but trifles, such men, as destitute of all sense of shame as so many victed burglars, hold their heads as high as ever; and the fact that ey can do so without being shunned, scorned, scouted, only shows hat is the moral tone of the society in which they so freely move. or those that will be rich there is many a snare set in these days-snares well bated with great names and great promises-snares which lead to ter ruin, and from which extrication is impossible, excepting to those who set them, who, knowing exactly when the trap will fall, get out in e, mercilessly carrying with them the plunder taken from And the ignorant unwary fools, who, impatient of the drudgery of plain industry, a "in haste to be rich." And these foolish and hurtful lusts, these temptations and these snare drown men in destruction and perdition,-destruction in regard to th world, and, very often, perdition in the world to come. The destruction, may be, of their fortunes, and happy is the man of whom it may be said the that is his only or his greatest loss. Better, in commercial failure and distres to lose that, than, in ever so much prosperity, to lose character, to lose tegrity, to lose a sacred regard for truth and a delicate sense of honour; f whether it be in the failures or in the successes that attend the desire a determination to be rich, the loss of character, the loss of truthfulness, indeed, perdition. We have seen these miseries resulting from an ill-re lated desire for gold. We all know that it is a matter of common occ rence for a man, overwhelmed by commercial disaster, to become despera and commit suicide; and, perhaps those who succeed in the world are in still worse plight, if the success has been not honestly but dishonestly tained. To this description of those who will be rich, Paul appends these wor "For the love of money is the root of all evil." There are many fool people who try to raise some fun out of these words, and probab think that Paul was a great fool to utter them. And certainly, apa What he sa from all irreverent feeling, it may be said that the love of money scarcely the root of all evil; that there are some evils indeed, su as idleness, and pauperism, and debt, which, in many cases, sprin from a man's not having enough of the love of money. But Pa has been misunderstood--has, I think, been mistranslated. is this: "The love of money is the root of all the evils;" and the artic prefixed to the word evils seems to show that he is referring here to the ev of which he has been speaking, the temptations and snares, the foolish a hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition; of these ev the love of money is the root, or, as we might read the apostle, "a root What he affirms is not that every evil springs from the love of money, that this passion is the root, or a principal root, of the evils which he h spoken of. Let him deny this who can; men who know anything of t world, and especially of the world in its commercial aspect, know that wh Paul says is terribly true, and that if he had been, not a Christian preach of the first century, but an English merchant of the nineteenth, he cou not, in so few words, have set forth more faithfully the tendency and th results of the love of gain. The apostle goes on to speak of this evil as it affects professedly Christi men--" Which, while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, a pierced themselves through with many sorrows." It is an evil from whi professedly Christian men are not exempt. Men who have erred from t faith are men who once were in the faith. Paul evidently rel to professing Christians. And, as a matter of fact, what see is this that covetousness is, of all others, the sin that m besets professedly Christian people. To be frank upon this matter, not a fact that, of all the parts of Christ's teaching, that which we are ost reluctant to accept is what He says about worldliness? Christ is very brious when He tells us that He has redeemed us with His blood, and that will give us eternal life; but what a chill comes over us when He says, Take heed and beware of covetousness; ""How hardly shall they that have ches enter the kingdom of heaven; Lay not up treasures on earth; Ye cannot serve God and Mammon; ""Take no thought for the morrow; Whoso forsaketh not all that he hath cannot be my disciple." There is ething like consistency in the infidel who rejects Christ's words together; we make a very sorry business of it, with one hand clinging to the doctrine of the Cross, with the other putting from us as far as we can this doctrine concerning the love of the world. The apostle says that some, having given way to the love of money, have erred from the faith." Now, by erring from the faith we generally derstand a departure from some matter of orthodox belief. To deny the Deity of Christ, or the sacrificial character of His death, or the imputation of His righteousness, or the work of the Holy Spirit; to be unsound upon election, to be doubtful as to the eternity of future punishment, to tamper with the inspiration of the Scriptures; this, or something of this sort, is what we mean by erring from the faith. Now, for once, let Paul teach us that to love money is as certainly to err from the faith as to embrace any form of what we consider doctrinal error. Of course hristians who act thus "pierce themselves through with many orrows;" with more sorrows, indeed, than those who are not Chrisans. To both classes, it may be, that the chances of secular life re about equal; both may experience success, both may be overwhelmed by ilure; but, in the case of the man who is not a Christian, the felicity of sucess is not marred by any uncomfortableness of conscience, and the misery failure is not embittered by spiritual remorse. As long as there is any Christian life in the professor of Christianity, who gives way to the love of money, his highest prosperity, like his deepest adversity, is accompanied by an uneasy consciousness that he has been living in a frame of mind altogether inconsistent with Christian character; and the sorrows of an accusing concience are added, and are no small addition, to the ordinary sorrows of this thangeful world. Well may the apostle say, "But thou, O man of God, flee these things, and follow after righteousness, faith, love, patience, meekness." Men of God, this idolatry of wealth is not for you. The world itself acknowledges, in this time of reflection, that it has gone mad in its thirst for gain, and in its belief that to amass riches, and to amass them quickly, is the great object of a man's existence. The events of the last few months are a far more powerful commentary upon this text than any which the preacher has to offer; and the present state of things has brought home to many a sad and fearful heart the truth of the apostle's words. Let us read the lessons which this vast violation of financial and, in many instances, of moral law capable of teaching us. Let us resolve to be wiser for the time to come; Lot only more prudent in the management of our affairs, but also more con cerned about spiritual life and progress, more desirous of having in ever creasing abundance that blessing of God which maketh truly rich, and which no sorrow is added. And, for the rest, the sensible advice of # father of modern philosophy may not be out of place, Let us only seek s worldly wealth as we can get justly, use soberly, distribute cheerfully, an leave contentedly. Liverpool. "QUIT YOU LIKE MEN."* BY THE REV. J. W. LANCE. It is usual, I think, on these occasions, for the preacher to select hi text either from the pastoral epistles or from our Lord's words to H apostles and ministers. I depart from this custom, not because I suppose those fields of thought to be exhausted, or in the least likely to be so, but because this text has, in some way, earnestly impressed itself on my own heart, as suggesting the pattern and principle on which I would shape my own life. Indeed, I am not sure but what Paul may have intended these words more especially for the elders of the Corinthian Church. They occur at the close of the epistle, and are surrounded by references to Timothy, to Apollos, and to the household of Stephanas, ministers of the Word. Be this, however, as it may; assume, if you will, that the exhortation is addressed to all; yet with how much more force does it apply to those who are to be leaders and guides of others. If the soldiers in the ranks of Christ's army must needs be valiant, how much more they who stand in the fore front of the battle! In your position, above all others, courage is a virtue, and strength a duty, which you owe alike to God and man. guage of the New Testament, as w as in the Latin tongue, there are t words to signify "Man." The mes ing of the one is a man, not a brut the other, a man, not a woman or child. It is out of the latter of the two that the thought of the te springs. So that our theme this mort ing is, Manliness in the life and wo of the Christian ministry-" Quit y like men"-"Be strong." 1. You are to be preachers-q you like men in the work of the p pit. Be strong in preaching. We sor times hear of ministers much t loved by their flock because they such "" good men out of the pulp In this, as it seems to me, howev kindly spoken, there lurks a late sarcasm, to which we hope none you will ever expose himself. Goo ness out of the pulpit is, of cour indispensable; but, to a preacher. seems also eminently desirable a t pulpit. A teacher, who is wise out his class: a sea captain, whose talen are most notable on shore: a soldie who is valiant on parade: these a not greater anomalies than a preach whose chief merit is that he is "a go man out of the pulpit." Be you stre in it. And to this end-assuming ti ndations of devout enthusiasm and atural gifts to be already laid-one the great conditions will be enring work. If it be true, as Thoas Carlyle has said, and as the paraof the talents seems to imply, that nius consists mainly in the faculty persistent work, then we trust at every one of you will make full of of his genius. Among the rocks nd quicksands on which some eachers have made shipwreck, is the de they entertain of what they call ample preaching." Now in the true, and good sense of that term, "simple preaching" can never be too much admired; but if by is meant preaching that involves diligent search and research, no anxious thought, no hard work, no sweat of the brain, then the less we have of "simple preaching" the better. But it is a mistake to suppose that the simple is easy—at least to him that makes it so. On the contrary, it is often very hard. Any one can be obscure, but simplicity is comparatively a rare gift. And let no one imagine that because he has to preach to simple people therefore he can use Sple preaching in the sense condemned. The more ignorant the people, the more pains must you take to that they clearly understand that your trumpet gives no uncertain sound. "One has never so much need of his wits," says the proverb, when one is dealing with a fool." The Puritans were painful preachers because they took pains themselves, and so spared their hearers from a great deal of pain. There is an elaboration, partial and crippled, that tends to obscurity; but there is also an elaboration, complete and strong, that tends to simplicity, and this it is that we commend to you this morning. But I should be sorry, indeed, to leave one moment upon your minds the impression, that strength in the pulpit consists wholly in mental preparation. There is a moral preparation-a preparation of the heart -a sympathy-much more difficult. The baptism of the heart, even more than the process of the intellect, is needed to make one strong in preaching. If while we are musing the fire burns not, it will scarcely kindle, or at least but feebly, even under the excitement of a present audience; and for the absence of fire no light will compensate. That preacher, concerning whom the hearer, as he listens to his exposition, clear and cold, can say with truth "'Tis Athens' owl, and not Mount Zion's dove, The bird of learning, not the bird of love" that preacher has mistaken his vocation, or at least has failed to make either his calling or his election sure. For the devout preparation of the heart, as well as for the wise answer of the tongue, let us meditate upon the greatness of our work. We are ambassadors for Christ. Our aim is to bring men's wills into harmony with the Divine will; and so of heaven and earth to make a gracious unity. For a work than which no greater filled the hands of the Son of God Himself, let us be furnished. Like Apollos, mighty in the Scriptures; like Peter, tender in all hallowed memories; like Paul, familiar with the weapon called All-prayer. As to this last, see how Paul's prayers are interwoven with his epistles; how many of your choicest texts and happiest sermons have been gathered from this source. He who in prayer like a prince prevails with God, will, in preaching, like a prince prevail with men. Quit you like men-be strong." II. You are to be pastors-quit you like men in this relationship. The pastor is to rule in the church; of this the following scriptures give ample proof: "Remember them which hav the rule over you, who have spoken unto you the word of God."Heb. xiii. 7. Obey them that have the rule over bringing oneself into high and holy you, and submit yourselves: for they |