accustomed to speak with men,-homely, commonplace looking men and women,-who have in them the spirit of martyrs ;-aye, and who are exercising that spirit, too. And let me tell you, if you fall behind the very chiefest of the Apostles,-if you do not display the faith of Paul and the love of John and the mind of Christ,-it is not because you have not the opportunity it is not because you might not, living in this town, and working at your daily toil, and mingling with your daily companions, show it all. We might, my brethren, every one of us,—we have God's own word for it ;—we might, every one of us, "wherein we are called, therein abide with God!"

Such, then, are some thoughts upon this precept of St Paul, which I have already so often repeated: and now, as I draw another Sunday's sermon to a close, it seems to me as if this text cast some light upon another sentence uttered by that same great Apostle, when he said that he had "learned, in whatsoever state he was, therewith to be content." I suppose it sometimes seems strange to some of you, when thoughts come back on you of fancies and anticipations of early days, which experience has sobered down. I suppose there is hardly one of us here, who is now in just such a position as he or she fancied and looked forward to in childhood's visionary days. I suppose that when we look round upon the fields and the waters of "the school-boy spot, we ne'er forget, though we are there forgot,"

there may come, like fragrance from roses dead, or like music from strings long since mouldered,—some reminiscence of days when we fancied how we should startle the world with the echoes of our fame, or dreamt dreams of an unclouded happiness in the society of those who have passed away from this earth, amid scenes over which there spread a light such as never was on land or sea: and it may seem strange enough now to look round on our commonplace lot, with its perpetual fretting cares, and its ever-recurring toil, and so intensely matter-of-fact as it is and then to compare it with these early fancies. But yet, if it be true, that lowly as our lot may be, we may therein "abide with God:" if all these ceaseless cares are meant to school us for eternity: if in all we do and bear we may have the Saviour for a sympathising and ever-present friend; and testify our faith and love towards Him by every hour of our life: if in any lawful vocation whatsoever we may cultivate and display every Christian grace: and if a humble believing life in this place or in any place may be the portal to that glorious home we call Heaven: if there is nothing in our outward circumstances to keep you or me from believing in Jesus as strongly as St Paul did, and loving Him as deeply as St John did and winning a crown as bright as theirs ;-then, brethren, in God's name, "let every one of us, wherein we are called, therein contentedly abide with God!" NEWTON-ON-AYR, July 24, 1853.

XXIII.

THE PERPETUITY OF THE WORDS OF .

CHRIST.

"Heaven and earth shall pass away; but My words shall not pass away."-ST MATT. xxiv. 35.

T would have been a strange thing to have looked

I would have a have

contrast was great between His lowly aspect and surroundings, and the daring tone of what He says. They would have been bold words, or else the words of small experience,—if they had been spoken by the highest of mankind, in the hour of his chiefest exaltation. But how it would have startled a chance bystander, whose ear might have been caught by the high-sounding sentence, just to have turned round, and seen what manner of man it was that said it! There He is, such as on earth He was: not seen, as we see Him, in the glory of all we know: merely human in look, in dress, in weariness: aftergenerations set the aureole round the Head which wore none here: lowly in what could be learnt of the manner and scenes of His childhood's growth, of His

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manhood's occupations: and meanwhile homeless and poor. Yet listen to the words; and mark the contrast with His appearance. The lowly wanderer speaks but they are not lowly words that come from His lips: They are confident and lofty words: never did man speak more confidently or loftily. "Heaven and earth shall pass away;—but My words shall not pass away."

You remember the place and time: we know them accurately. He is sitting on the green slope of the Mount of Olives: and there, across the narrow vale, stretching over its hill, stands in its beauty the sacred and renowned Jerusalem. Gleaming white against a sky of brighter blue than we know here, with its ⚫ mighty foundations and its glittering pinnacles, rises God's Temple. We know the season: the beautiful and hopeful Spring. We know the company: it is but a little band of humble men that listens, as the Redeemer foretells the doom of the city and temple; and, taking a farther prospect, solemnly indicates farther and more awful things. And now, as seeing perhaps some shade of doubt falling upon the faces of those who heard Him; He says, as repressing the first signs of it, and asseverating all He had said before,— “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but My words shall not pass away!"

Now here we have a fair and bold comparison of two things: one which seems the slightest and most evanescent you can think of; another which seems

the very ideal of all that is substantial and durable. Here are on the one side a few words, and on the other side the great solid world. What more fleeting, we should say, than a few articulated syllables, vibrating each on the earfor its second,and then dying away: what more everlasting than this gigantic world we live on? Yet the Saviour dares the comparison. He looks upon the ancient hill on which He sat, with its massive foundations round which the Kedron flows: He looks abroad over fair Judea, with its vine-clad hills and fruitful vallies He carries His view beyond its frontiers over the breadths of the wide world. And then, turning from this earth, He looks upon the immensity above, peopled with innumerable orbs amid whose hosts this earth is like a grain of sand: and thus measuring the limits of creation, He speaks the words that make my text. He invites the comparison between the endurance of the words He utters; and the endurance of the stars, the earth, and the ocean.

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There is no doubt that the words which our Saviour had specially in His mind, were those of the prophecy which is given in the earlier part of the chapter in which the text stands. That prophecy refers immediately to the destruction of Jerusalem: and there are expressions in it whose fulfilment must perhaps be sought in the final Judgment of the world. But the declaration which Christ makes in the text is one whose meaning we may extend much farther than that. We may understand the verse in its literal meaning: