not more familiar than true; and in nothing is its truthfulness more strikingly illustrated than in God's righteous visitations for sin. As events, they are almost invariably unexpected.

It was so with the Flood. Though clearly predicted beforehand and forcibly used to stir up repentance, yet when it came in the end, it was in no man's thoughts; and as none heeded the warning, so none escaped the judgment, save Noah and his household. "They did eat," our Lord tells us, "they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noe entered the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all."

Equally unexpected were the judgments which befell the Cities of the Plain. When the fire came down and consumed them utterly, not one of the inhabitants ever dreamt of such a thing or sought to flee from it, save Lot only.

John, in the Apocalypse, tells us that there will be a like experience at the predicted fall of Babylon. Notwithstanding manifold warnings, so far from expecting such a thing, she will be saying in her heart, "I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow." Yet what is added? "Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death, and mourning, and famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire: for strong is the Lord God who judgeth her."

So in the end will it be with the coming of the Lord. Though prophets have clearly predicted it, and good men have all along expected it, and many concurrent signs will immediately precede it, yet through the intensity of men's unbelief, down to the very day of the Lord's advent, the conviction will be general and assured that

the whole thing is a mere dream of superstition, an idle myth, to which no man of sound mind would give the least heed. It will thus, at the last, come on the world as the most terrible of all surprises; for, "when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape."

The realization of all this should not only increase our own watchfulness, but quicken and intensify our every loving effort to save the perishing.

Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil.-ECCLES. viii. 11.

Despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance? -ROM. ii. 4.

He, being full of compassion, forgave their iniquity, and destroyed them not: yea, many a time turned he his anger away, and did not stir up all his wrath.-Ps. lxxviii. 38.

то

February 15.

OUR EVER-LIVING HEAD.

O all believers Christ Jesus is not the helper only, but the great and sole Head of all authority, power, and saving grace, on whose presence and loving favour everything depends. "The husband," says the apostle, "is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church and he is the saviour of the body." So intimate is this relationship to his redeemed people, that he is Head to them individually; for it is expressly written, “The head of every man is Christ."

There is much to encourage in this, for sometimes his

people are apt to fear that their individuality may be lost in the vastness of their numbers. But no; each and every believer has direct and immediate access to Christ, and can personally commune with him, and continuously draw from his overflowing fulness. Nay, so closely and tenderly are they related to him as members, that their sorrows are his sorrows; their cares, his cares; and to touch them is, he says, to touch the apple of his eye. From being so united to him," says an old writer, "they cannot but be his Father's Jedidiahs, Beulahs, and Hephzi-bahs, dearly accepted in the Beloved. They are to him as a seal on his arm, a signet on his right hand. He carries their names on his breast continually."

But besides being the Head of each believer, the Lord Jesus is the Head of the Church at large, yea, also the Head for his Church over all things and over all persons. In ordinary life the headship sometimes given to men is merely honorary. They may have the title in full and all the insignia of office, but it is not their hand but another's that has the power and uses it. It is otherwise with the Lord Jesus. His Headship is no mere thing of title only, but real, supreme, and eternally abiding. Were we oftener to remember this, and that the government is on his shoulders and not on ours, instead of yielding to despondency, we would, even in darkest and most perilous times, be able to lift up our heads with joy; indeed, not unfrequently it is by those very events we deem the most adverse he is most effectually carrying out the grand and glorious purposes of his love.

Christ is the head of the church,......and loved it, and gave himself for it; that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot,

or wrinkle, or any such thing but; that it should be holy and without blemish.-EPH. v. 23, 25-27.

He is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the pre-eminence.-COL. i. 18.

IN

February 16.

OUR BITTER THINGS.

N this vale of tears there is no day in which there is not bitter weeping somewhere. Sicknesses have largely to do with this, and disappointments in life, and fruitless struggles, and straitened circumstances, and, above all, the sore and crushing bereavements that finally sever us from those nearest and dearest to our heart's affections. Yet, in the riches of his grace, out of all such bitter God often brings a marvellous sweet. Samson said, in his riddle to the Philistines, "Out of the eater came forth meat, and out of the strong came forth sweetness." And so is it here. If through faith in his Son we become really his, the Lord will not only lovingly sustain us in our trials, but so graciously overrule them as to make them yield the very choicest fruits of righteousness. This was so fully realized by David in his own experience, that his pen, as one says, never wrote more sweetly than when dipped in the ink of affliction. It was so with Luther. "I never knew," he said, "the meaning of God's word until I came into affliction: I have always found it one of my best schoolmasters." Yes; truly "affliction under this divine teaching explains many a hard text, and seals many a precious promise."

On one occasion a beloved brother said to an eminent

Puritan minister, when much depressed through varied persecution and trial, "Son, son, when affliction lieth heavy, sin lieth light." This saying, by reminding him how God could make affliction minister to sanctification, gave him great comfort; and he was wont to say afterwards that sanctified afflictions are spiritual promotions. Thus the Lord ever and again, in the riches of his grace, sweetens the bitter Marahs of his people, and makes sorest trials choicest mercies.

Blessed is the man whom thou chastenest, O Lord, and teachest him out of thy law.-Ps. xciv. 12.

The Lord will not cast off for ever: but though he cause grief, yet will he have compassion according to the multitude of his mercies. For he doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men.-LAM. iii. 31-33.

Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.-HEB. xii. 11.

February 17.

GOLDEN OPPORTUNITIES SHOULD INSTANTLY BE TURNED

TO GOLDEN ACCOUNT.

HEN on one occasion the men of Gennesaret found

WHE

that Jesus was in the midst of them, straightway they sent to the diseased on every side, and urgently pressed them to come at once to the Great Physician. It was a rare opportunity, and they were lovingly determined to make the very most of it for the good of others. So should it be with us when we feel promptings within us of a similar but higher kind. Happily the Great Physician still is near; and as the spiritually diseased and perishing abound on every side, it is at once our duty and