generations, it shows no sign of waste or want; and when I have watched the rise of the sun, as he shot above the crest of the mountain, or in a sky draped with golden curtains, sprang up from his ocean bed, I have wondered to think that he has melted the snows of so many winters, and renewed the verdure of so many springs, and painted the flowers of so many summers, and ripened the golden harvests of so many autumns, and yet shines as brilliant as ever, his eye not dim, nor his natural strength abated, nor his floods of light less full for centuries of boundless profusion. Yet what are these but images of the fulness that is in Christ? Let that feed your hopes, and cheer your hearts, and brighten your faith, and send you away this day happy and rejoicing. For, when judgment flames have licked up that flowing stream, and the light of that glorious sun shall be quenched in darkness or veiled in the smoke of a burning world, the fulness that is in Christ shall flow on throughout eternity in the bliss of the redeemed. Blessed Saviour, Image of God, divine Redeemer! in thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore, What thou hast gone to heaven to prepare, may we be called up at death to enjoy!

THE RECONCILER.

And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself.-COLOSSIANS i. 20.

THE salutations that pass between man and man differ in different countries. Boaz, for example, goes out to see his reapers. The field is flashing with sickles; the tall corn is falling to the sweep of young men's arms, and to maidens' songs; and gleaning on behind them come widows, and orphans, and little children, all made welcome to share the bounties of providence and the fulness of a good man's cup. A busy, joyous, crowded harvest-field, where brown labour plies her healthful task in a bright autumn day, is one of the most pleasant scenes a man can look on; though now-a-days we not only miss the gleaners, but also that kindly, pious intercourse between master and servants which lent a peculiar charm to Bethlehem's harvests. Boaz moves on from band to band, and, as each stops to do him reverence, he says, The Lord be with you, and, meet reply to such pious and courteous language, they answer, The Lord bless thee. Without undervaluing the progress which the world has made since then, in arts and science, in wealth and the more general diffusion of the

pleasures and comforts of life, surely it has not been all gain. It is difficult to look back without some regret on those happy days when children played, and no ragged orphans pined, in the streets, when manners were simple, and people were guileless, and the rich were kind to the poor, and the poor did not scowl upon the rich, and nobody was trodden on or neglected, and no wide yawning gulf separated the highest from the lowest classes of the community.

The ordinary salutation of the East, however, was one of peace. It is so still. Seated on his fiery steed and armed to the teeth, the Bedouin careers along the desert. Catching, away in the haze of the burning sands, a form similarly mounted and similarly armed approaching him, he is instantly on the alert; for life is a precarious possession among these wild sons of freedom. His long spear drops to the level; and grasping it in his sinewy hand he presses forward, till the black eyes that glance out from the folds of his shawl recognise in the stranger one of a friendly tribe, between whom and him there is no quarrel, no question of blood to settle. So, for the sun is hot, and it is far to their tents, like two ships in mid-ocean, they pass; they pull no rein, but sweep on, with a "Salem Aleikum," Peace be unto you. Like their flowing attire, the black tents of Kedar, the torch procession at their marriages, this salutation is one of the many stereotyped habits of the East. Throughout the Holy Land and the neighbouring countries, the modern traveller hears the old salutation, fresh and unchanged, as if it were but yesterday

that David was a fugitive in the wilderness of Paran, and sent this message to that rude, surly, niggard churl, with whom Abigail, "a woman of good understanding, and of a beautiful countenance," was unhappily mated, Peace be both to thee, and peace be to thine house, and peace be unto all that thou hast.

Beautiful as this custom is, like the fragrant wallflower that springs from the mouldering ruin it adorns, it sprung from an unhappy condition of society. Why peace? Because frequent wars, sudden irruptions of hostile tribes, made the people of these lands sigh for peace. Hence their habit of expressing their kindly feelings to each other in the wish that they might have peace; a blessing which many had not, and which they who had might not long enjoy. War does not take us unawares. We see the black storm-cloud gathering before it bursts; and by prudent policy we may avert it, or, if it be inevitable, prepare bravely to meet it. But this curse of humanity, this dreadful scourge fell on the villages and cities of these countries with the suddenness of the seasquall that strikes the ship, and, ere time is found to reef a sail or lower a boat, throws her on her beam-ends, and sends her, crew and cargo, foundering into the deep. Look at the case of Job; camels, cattle, sheep, and servants gone, he is reduced in one short day from affluence to the most abject poverty. One morning the sun rises in peace on Abraham's tents; and ere noon or nightfall they are ringing with cries to the rescue; in wild confusion children are crying, women are weeping, and men are arming; there is hot haste to mount and

away; and, with two hundred retainers at his back, Abraham scours the country, raising it as he goes, to deliver Lot and his family from the hand of the spoilers. Three days ago, David and his followers left Ziklag, sweet peace brooding over the quiet scene; and where is Ziklag on their return? They come back, but not to happy homes; they are silent, a mass of smoking ruins; no wife hastens to embrace her husband, no child runs to climb its father's knee; the red-handed spoiler has been there; their mountain nest has been harried; and, appalled at the desolation, these stouthearted men burst into frantic grief, weeping till, as the Bible says, they can weep no more. Looking at these scenes, it is easy to understand how the most kind and common greeting in such countries was, Peace be unto you."

Though the practice would ill accord with our conventional manners, that have often more of art than of nature, I think, considering the day, the place, the purpose of the assembly, it were a beautiful and appropriate thing, when ministers and people meet in the house of God, to meet after the manner of Boaz and his people; the minister, on appearing in the pulpit, saying The Lord be with you, and the people responding The Lord bless thee. Our vine and fig-tree are good laws, a free government, a home around which the sea throws her protecting arms, and a stout people who fear God and honour the king. Thus preserved from the fears of those countries, we have not learned their fashions. Yet when we ransack these sunny lands for gay flowers