determine whether you are or are not wanting in fitness for heaven, and in real Christian character.

In the next place, they are wanting when weighed in the scales of the sanctuary, who do not aid the cause of Christ and its extension through the world by their prayers, their efforts, their means, and their exertions. If you be a Christian, you must be a missionary. I doubt if it be possible to be a Christian oneself and not to be consumed by an absorbing desire to make all the world Christians too. I ask, then, if, when you hear that there are minds unenlightened by the glorious gospel-that there are children uninstructed in the things that belong to their present and their everlasting peace-that there are Bibles needed, that there are missionaries to be sent, in order that the blessings of Christianity may be advanced, however poor your means may be, however inadequate to the demands and exigencies of the case, can it then be said of you, as was said of the woman in the gospel, "She hath done what she could?" If you were poor, or hungry, or thirsty, or naked, would you call him a friend who refused to give you food, and water, and raiment? But Christ identifies himself with all the needy upon earth, when he says, "Inasmuch as ye did it unto them ye did it unto me." There cannot be the supreme love of Christ within you unless there is corresponding sympathy with God's people without you. It is thus, then, that I have asked you to weigh your own condition against what seems to be the characteristics of a Christian, and to ascertain if, in the sight of God, you are of those who are "made meet for the inheritance of the saints in light," or among those who give obvious evidence that they have no lot or part in this matter. I may apply the same great truth to official personages. Let me apply it to a minister of the gospel. Such an one may be gifted, eloquent, versed in theology, outwardly moral, laborious in all pastoral duties; and yet, weighed in the scales of the sanctuary, he may be "altogether wanting." Gifts need not be graces of the Spirit of God. There may be the eloquence of the gifted tongue without the unction of the consecrated heart. There may be the ordination of the bishop or the presbytery, but not the consecration which God's Holy Spirit alone can give. He may have all gifts, all eloquence, all theological knowledge, all polite learning-yet, if

wanting in singleness of eye, unity of purpose, earnest devotedness to the true end of his office, the conversion of souls, and the glory of God, however he may be applauded by the tongues of men, weighed in the scales of the sanctuary, he too is "altogether wanting."

So I may apply these words to a church. It may have all that Cæsar can give-able ministers, a splendid literature, the rich and the great in its audience, and yet it may be wanting in all that constitutes the church of Christ. The architect can build a glorious cathedral; Christ's presence alone can make it a church. The builder may raise a magnificent edifice, the queen's presence alone can make it a palace. The orator may preach so that the crowd may be thrilled with his oratory, impressed with his reasoning, riveted by his appeals; but he may not be a minister, and that crowd may not be a church :-" Where two or three are gathered together in my name'"-that is the essential-"there am I in the midst of them." No presence can compensate for the absence of this. No patronage can be a substitute for this. Laodicea said, “I am rich and increased with goods, and have need of nothing;" and at the very moment when she was saying so, Christ was weighing her in the scales of the sanctuary, and he pronounced of her, "tekel;" thou art weighed in the balances; "thou knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked.”

In the same manner I may apply these words to a nation. It was applied in the passage on which I am now commenting to a nation-namely, to that great kingdom over which Belshazzar reigned. A nation may have brave soldiers, hardy sailors, gifted legislators, eloquent senators, prosperous trade, thriving agriculture, all the splendour and power, all the material strength of Imperial Rome, all the glory and the literary fame of Athens, and yet that nation, when weighed in the scales, may be altogether "wanting." Its aim may be territorial aggrandizement—its sole passion may be ambition-its eloquence, its efforts, its arms may all be exerted in favour of conquest and aggression-it may not be seeking the glory of its God, but the supremacy and the immortality of itself. Never forget that a nation's sinews are its Christians; its battlements are its principles; its guide is, or

ought to be, the word of God. Real principle running through a land, pervading every institution, giving its tone to all its varied. national crystallization-not expediency-is power, and strength, and immortality. A nation has not done its duty when it builds jails; it has not done all it ought to do, when it pays a police. There is something higher, nobler, more precious than all this; and if it fail here, when weighed in the scales it will be found to be "tekel;" and its doom is written, "Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin;" its years are numbered; it is weighed in the balances, and found wanting.

Such then, are some of the practical thoughts arising out of the words I have now read. Let me ask you now, in closing my remarks, to examine yourselves. Is there any thing wanting in your title-any thing deficient in your fitness for heaven? Forget not, my dear friends, that it is possible to be "almost a Christian," and not to be saved. It is possible to reach nine points of Christian character, and to perish because you have not. the tenth. To be almost saved, is only to be condemned with a more terrible judgment. The very height from which you fall renders that fall the more disastrous.

And, in the next place, let there be, after the examination of our hearts, deep humility. All that is in us is fitted to humble. us; and the man that knows himself best will feel most humbled in the sight of God. All present will have some share in the common inscription upon the greatest and the lowest: "Tekel; Thou art weighed in the balance and found wanting."

And let us recollect, in the next place, that if, under a deep sense of the pressure of that perilous condition, we cry with our whole heart unto God, that he will save us-if conscious that we have not a farthing to pay we ask him frankly to forgive us all— if conscious that, when weighed against this law, we must kick the beam, and be found altogether wanting-let us fly to that righteousness which alone can justify us, let us seek shelter in that City of Refuge in which alone we can be saved-let us appeal to that cleansing blood which alone can wash away the inscription "tekel," and that righteousness which alone can constitute our title as 66 accepted and beloved." Each minute as it passes carries us nearer to the burial-place of the dead, and to the

judgment-seat of the living. A few more years, and those faces that are now looking, I trust, with anxious thoughts, will be numbered with the dead, and our souls, those live sparks that never can be quenched-those great and sacred "bundles of responsibilities" which can never die, will have to stand at the judgment-seat of God, either shivering and looking into that unknown, unfathomed abyss of wo, or rejoicing, clothed in the righteousness of Christ, and anticipating that joy, that inheritance, that blessedness which is incorruptible and fadeth not away. My dear friends, deal honestly with yourselves; have done with church, with ceremony, with sign, with sacrament, till you have settled this question, Am I a child of God, or am I not? I believe that nine-tenths of the controversies of the day are the devil's delusions to prevent men from settling God's great controversy, "Are we the children of God, or the children of the wicked one?"

193

CHAPTER XIV.

THE PRIME MINISTER.

"It pleased Darius to set over the kingdom an hundred and twenty princes, which should be over the whole kingdom; and over these three presidents, of whom Daniel was first: that the princes might give accounts unto them, and the king should have no damage. Then this Daniel was preferred above the presidents and princes, because an excellent spirit was in him; and the king thought to set him over the whole realm. Then the presidents and princes sought to find occasion against Daniel concerning the kingdom; but they could find none occasion or fault; forasmuch as he was faithful, neither was there any error or fault found in him. Then said these men, We shall not find any occasion against this Daniel, except we find it against him concerning the law of his God. Then these presidents and princes assembled together to the king, and said thus unto him, King Darius, live for ever. All the presidents of the kingdom, the governors, and the princes, the counsellors, and the captains, have consulted together to establish a royal statute, and to make a firm decree, that whosoever shall ask a petition of any god or man for thirty days, save of thee, O king, he shall be cast into the den of lions. Now, O king, establish the decree, and sign the writing, that it be not changed, according to the law of the Medes and Persians, which altereth not. Wherefore king Darius signed the writing and the decree. Now when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went into his house: and his windows being open in his chamber toward Jerusalem, he kneeled upon his knees three times a day, and prayed, and gave thanks before his God, as he did aforetime."-Daniel vi. 1–10.

WE read in the previous chapters that great Babylon, the excellency of the Chaldees, had passed away, and that on the very night when the mysterious fingers wrote the long inexplicable inscription on the plaster, Belshazzar, the king of the Chaldeans, was slain, and Darius, the king of the Medo-Persian empire, mounted its forsaken throne and received the reins of government. It was after this, and on the crumbling ruins of Babylon, that the Medo-Persian empire rose to splendour, and occupied its brief space in the history of the world. Darius, who was appointed to be king, was, of course, a heathen; but, heathen as