has reached his meridian; then not, like the sun, to decline in the west, but to remain a glorious and beautiful fixture for ever. What a blessed day will that be, when there shall be no cloud or shadow, and none needed, but ceaseless, unsuspended, unclouded sunshine! At present there are only patches of sunshine with deep dark valleys, broad shadows and jungles, between; here and there a tree of righteousness, but an undergrowth of noxious and rank vegetation near it; but, in that better day, all will be trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, flowers will grow that never wither, and fruit will ripen ever sweet. Glorious day! and the little we feel of it in this spring-time of the world should only make us the more earnestly long for the full, cloudless, and unceasing summer.

While considering the sun as a symbol of our Redeemer, let us recollect what an eclipse is. It is not the sun losing his light, or becoming darker than he was, but the moon coming between the eye of man and the sun in the firmament. What is it that keeps off from us the full influence of the love, assurance, peace, and happiness, which spring from union and communion with the Lord Jesus Christ, the Sun of righteousness? It is not that He has parted with His brightness, but that a something, a child, an estate, science, art, study, or passion, or money-something of the earth or the Church, of man or the priesthas come between us and Him, the Sun of righteousAn object of the size of a shilling put before

ness.

man's eye serves to shut out the most beautiful landscape; so a very little thing laid upon man's heart can intercept the light, warmth, and love of the Sun of righteousness.

Were the sun not to shine at all upon this world, what would be the effect? The ocean would become solid ice. We speak of waters as if a natural thing, but the truth is, ice is the natural, and water the artificial state. It is so much caloric, as chemists call it, or heat, added to ice, that makes it water, and therefore water is as much an artificial thing as the hot water in the tea-urn. If there were no sun to shine upon this earth, the ocean would become one solid mass of ice, all vegetable life would die, every sound, sign, and symptom of life would be extinguished, and death would live, and nature breed "perverse, all- monstrous, all - prodigious things." The loss of the Sun of righteousness in the moral world would be more disastrous still. The little morality that is in the world, that does not recognize the Bible, has its birth in the indirect light and heat of the Sun of righteousness. Take away that Sun and the Bible-the mirror that reflects his light and warmth-quench Christianity, extinguish truth, and very soon all morality would perish. What basis is there for any sort of morality, except in this blessed book? Man's conscience can be drugged, stupefied, and bribed, and his intellect enfeebled; but where this book is read a power and virtue go forth upon the world. Just as the sun

gives all its brilliancy to the diamond, all its verdure to the grass, all its colours to the rainbow; the Sun of righteousness, the only Saviour, the Source of all that makes society cohere, gives to all alike beauty and purity and price.

The sun in the firmament not only sends forth light, but he also influences by attraction. What is it that makes the sea come rolling up our rivers, and float vessels that could not otherwise be floated to the main? The attraction of the sun and moon together. Now, our blessed Lord has told us, " I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me." Wherever He is recognized, there His attractive influence is felt; wherever He is believed on, there His power is realized. We cannot take Him for light, and fail to feel His influence as an attraction. He, therefore, who believes on Him is not only made wiser, but he is drawn towards Him, made like Him, and becomes holy. Yet the same sun that softens some substances hardens others. Some things the sun shines on are dissolved-other things on which his rays impinge become hardened. The preaching of the truth, or the exhibition of Christ, the Sun of righteousness, is a savour of life to some, subduing, softening, sanctifying, but a savour of death to others, hardening, repelling, and making worse: it is the cause of the good that is done, it is the occasion of the evil.

The sun, by the very intensity of his beams, very often draws up fogs and mists so dense, that they

threaten to obscure his brightness, and to consign the earth to darkness; but by-and-by the same intensity that drew them up dissolves them, and the fogs and mists that threatened to obscure the earth are dissolved into rains that water and refresh it. It has been the very splendour of the Sun of righteousness that has drawn up clouds of sceptics and cavilling infidels; but the very same Sun, against whom they rose in enmity and antipathy, has dissolved them, and raised up faithful men who have replied to them; and what seemed to darken His splendour has in the issue only served to reveal more completely His brightness, and to show that the Sun of righteousness, unlike the sun in the firmament, has no speck or flaw in Him.

This Sun is called by a suggestive name, "the Sun of righteousness;" and also a Sun "with healing in his wings; " or, as it might be rendered, "in his beams." He is first of all called "the Sun of righteousness.' This has its best commentary in such passages as these: "The Lord our righteousness;" "He is made unto us righteousness;" "He hath made him. to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him." In other words, we had forfeited our right to everlasting happiness, and we had merited a right to eternal misery: Jesus by His death has taken away the forfeit, and by His obedience He has substituted another right, even a right to everlasting joy. He has destroyed the first, and He has replaced the second by a better. Sprinkled

with His beams, we are altogether righteous; shining in His glory, we are to be presented unto himself a glorious Church, without spot, or blemish, or any such thing. The darkest object in nature shines beautifully beneath the beams of the natural sun; and the poorest sinner will be made all glorious within, and all righteous without, through that righteousness which is the distinctive gift, ever given, never withheld, of Christ, the Sun of righteousness.

'He is not only the Sun of righteousness, but He has healing in His wings. By our interest in His righteousness we are justified; by our reception of His healing we are sanctified. As the Sun of righteousness He gives us a change of state; as having healing in His wings he gives us a change of character. Because He is the Sun of righteousness, I am judicially right in God's sight; because there is healing in His wings, I have all my moral diseases cured by His blessed influence. He heals me through the instrumentality of His Word-" He sent forth his Word, and healed them." He heals us by His own precious blood-"By his stripes," that is, by His sufferings, "we are healed." He heals us, above all, by His Holy Spirit, the Sanctifier, whom the risen Christ gives to them who look to Him, and seek that Holy Spirit from Him.

Thus righteous in the righteousness of that Sun, thus healed through the influence that emanates from Him, it is said, "we shall go forth." That means that we shall have perfect freedom. We