work? What comes at last of this vaunted constancy? What, after years of labour and drudgery is the intrinsic worth of fortune, of fame, or power, won at the expense of ease, perhaps of health? In the language of the ancient satirist-how many pounds of dust have these great single-minded leaders of the world left behind them in the tomb ?

Such a question, brethren, forces us on, from scenes which afford no real and lasting scope for the vigour of a fixed resolve, to prospects beyond the grave. For true it is that neither the respect commanded by stedfastness of character, nor the selfsatisfaction which it boasts, can justify themselves fully to the common sense of mankind on any narrower basis than that of an existence prolonged beyond this transitory life.

Viewed as acting for eternity, the single mind and the constant will, do indeed assume incalculable importance. They become capable of being truly great. They invite every one to aim at possessing them by the only argument which weighs with every one, that it will be for his real happiness. This is the chord, I say, which will alone be found to vibrate in every bosom. Convince me that there is something which would make me happy for ever, and that I can attain to it if I will, and let me be of what manner of spirit I may, however mutable and however infirm, here is a spell potent enough to fix the wandering eye and draw me forth, by God's help, a man of another mould, in the stable attitude of a settled purpose and a single mind.

Look, brethren, to the confessed working of such a mind in one of its noblest examples. Observe the ruling motive, the ever-cherished aim, in the single mind of the apostle Paul; the grounds on which he said, "I press forward to the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus." You will find Paul's prize to be this, "If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead." Yet mark how it was that this mighty object raised the Apostle's constancy to so lofty a pitch, as to seek it through "the fellowship of Christ's sufferings," and in being made "conformable to His death." Paul, brethren, was no gambler in the chances of life eternal; his constancy was not built on conjectures; he was intimately convinced that God had given him the means of attaining to a blessed resurrection; he was fully confident that he had found the way to it "through the righteousness that is by the faith of Christ;" he "knew in whom he had believed."

Shall we say then that this knowledge of eternal life, this belief that God has granted us the means of attaining to it, and this conviction that the means are "the righteousness that is by the faith of Christ"-shall we say that such persuasions are powerful enough to assure to all who entertain them the constant purpose, the perpetual effort, to press forward and to realise to them that singleness of mind which is the greatness of the spiritual man and the title deed of eternal life?

Alas! brethren, alas! it is not so. These are indeed the persuasive grounds on which the Gospel cries to us "Cleanse your hands ye sinners, and purify your hearts ye double-minded;" and in such persuasions it puts before you no unstable, no mock motive to form within yourselves that single mind. But yet to purify one's own inmost heart, so as to press into singleness its double folds, to be re-born as it were into a simple oneness of nature, this is a labour, this is a travail, yea a struggle between discordant elements within, not to be triumphantly concluded by the bare perception even of those momentous truths.

It is for you to consider, brethren, each for himself, if such intestine war strives in your own breasts, how you may best bring it to an issue. Only till the victory be won, till that which overrules all other thoughts in you is the thought of eternal life, till that which really governs you is the simple minded spirit of conformity to the will of God, let no man flatter himself that his "foot standeth in an even place :" "Let not the waverer think that he shall receive anything from the Lord."

When a man, at length, can say-by God's graceI have shaken off the native doubleness of my own mind; I am become as one man; "I so run, not as uncertainly; so fight I, not as one that beateth the air" this is the runner who "obtains" the race; this the gladiator who conquers in the fight; this the "one that receiveth the prize," even the glo

rious prize to which Paul looked, prize of the "incorruptible" crown.

Rare as such a blessed singleness of character may be, it is a state of mind, brethren, to which the weakest by God's mercy may attain, but which the strongest will never otherwise reach, than by devoting his thoughts, and all his endeavours especially to that one object of the world to come, and often pondering in his own secret meditations that "as the double-minded man is unstable in all his ways,' so, in particular, singleness of mind in regard to things spiritual is the only means of attaining to the resurrection of the dead.

Christ the Shepherd.

York Minster. Winter Assizes, 1843.

ISAIAH xl. 11.

"HE SHALL FEED HIS FLOCK LIKE A SHEPHERD."

HEN the oracles of God announced the future

WE

Redeemer of his people, and the first notes of preparation for his coming were sounded in Zion, they spoke of him as the deliverer of men wearied by the conflicts of the world, as a reviver of the hearts of the contrite, and a herald of pardon and peace to sinners. "Comfort ye, comfort ye, my people, saith your God, speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem; and cry unto her that her warfare is accomplished, her iniquity is pardoned." It was in the desert places of the earth that a voice was to be heard-" Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight." It was the low valleys that were to be exalted, and the high hills that were to be laid low; the crooked to be made straight, and the rough places plain; the good tidings were, that one should come to reclaim the wanderers from the wilderness, and to gather the lost sheep into the fold; "O Zion that bringest good tidings, get thee up into the high mountain ! O Jerusalem, that bringest good tidings, lift up the voice with strength; lift it up,