of armies, by the overthrow or reconstruction of the greatest empires of the world. And God be praised for it. Pain and storm, strife and anguish, birth and death, are for time; order, beauty, life, are for eternity. The sun shines gaily on the morrow of our anguish, and we writhe under it; but the sun shines on, and we come to delight in it, and we bless the constancy which brings it forth morning by morning exulting out of its chamber, to prophesy to us of the world where the sunlight is eternal.

And Nature is right. She will not bewail our calamities, as though they were irreparable. She smiles and sings as she reweaves for us the threads of our broken purposes, or heals the bleeding tendrils of our hearts. There is infinite solace in Christ for the most burdened sufferers. "Our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen, for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal." Why should Nature weep and moan, and stay her benign and beautiful process, when she knows that the stroke which we think is crushing us, is a benediction, and that we have but to stretch forth the hand of faith to grasp the earnest of eternal glory?

Nature is so constant because God is so constant; so constant in His purpose to transmute our suffering into glory, our moans into songs. There is boundless hope for us and for mankind, in all that He has laid up for us in Christ. "Eye hath not seen,

nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him." And of this the sunlight and the garden, and the calm procession of the seasons, are His witnesses. He suffers them not to be moved by our changes, for He is not moved; nor are we moved, if we have faith, from Him. He sees the end to which they all are working; the far off harvest of tears and pain which they assure. He saw through the gloom which gathered around Calvary, the brightening morning of the Resurrection. The burst of heavenly music, to His ear, was already cleaving the darkness of the tomb, and pealing around the triumphal train, that attended the victim of Calvary to the throne which awaited Him on high; Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever, a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of Thy kingdom. Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated iniquity, therefore God, even Thy God, hath anointed Thee with the oil of gladness above Thy fellows."

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3. Consider of how much that garden around the Cross was symbolic, in relation to man and to the Lord.

Alas!

"He was delivered into the hands of men." that this should mean, He was delivered to wounds and to death! The first crime was one with the last crime-fratricide, the shedding a brother's blood. His brethren they were who had been raging around Him, filling the air with their mad outcries, and dragging the Prince of Life to the cross and to the

tomb. But around, above, all was calm, nay triumphant. There were worlds on worlds, sphere beyond sphere, which held on their way more surely as the hour of His final triumph drew near. The plains of heaven were glowing in a more vivid sunlight, the harps of heaven were swept to a more exulting strain The great ones of the past put on their glorious forms, and pressed through the veil to greet Him. The very dead beneath the sods in which the cross was planted, stirred as His footsteps pressed them, and bursting from their tombs prepared to join the train which He would lead up on High.

There was joy, an awful joy, through the universe when that cross was uplifted. All beings in all worlds won something through the prophecy, "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto Me." Should the flowers then droop and exhale corruption, when all beings in all worlds were struggling into a new and more glorious life? No! "In the place where He was crucified there was a garden." And it spread forth all its brightness, and shed forth all its fragrance, as the Lord passed on to the cross, which was His pathway to His throne. And it blooms still, and will bloom on till the death day of Creation. Then the tree of life will be seen, planted by the everlasting river. Its leaves shall be for the healing of the nations, and flowers shall gleam and fruits shall glow with unfading splendour, in those bright homes which Christ hath won for us, where "they shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more, the sun shall not light on them, nor any heat. But the

Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them. He shall lead them to living fountains of waters, and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes."

The homes which Christ hath won for us! Around the Cross there was a garden, by the Cross the garden was saved. The death of Christ was the life of all things. Order, beauty, hope, joy, life, were all saved by that cross from ruin, saved for the new heaven and the new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness for evermore. Saved by the Cross. "God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of my Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world." Does the tongue stammer as you try to repeat the confession? Do the lips tremble? Does the heart shrink? Are you passing with averted eye by Calvary? Stay, stay! by the way you are treading lies the gate of death. No Cross, no crown, no throne, no radiant home among the redeemed in the new Creation. No Cross, no Christ, no God, no hope, no life, for man or for the world. Bend then before the Cross the willing captive of mercy. Learn the lesson of self-renunciation. Take up thy cross and follow, patient, the Master's footsteps, and then wait, wait, wait, until He shall lift thee to a bliss and a splendour which shall eclipse thy most daring dreams!

XIV.

OH! THAT I HAD WINGS LIKE A DOVE!

'Oh, that I had wings like a dove! for then would I fly away and be at rest. Lo! then would I wander far off, and remain in the wilderness. I would hasten my escape from the windy storm and tempest.”—Ps. lv. 6–8.

How many captive souls have breathed forth this exclamation in their anguish; how many weary pilgrims of life, with aching limbs and bleeding feet! But, alas! the wings await us only when we have fought out our battle, and have trodden the path to the edge of the dark river. Two only of our race, we are told, have been lifted, in one bright moment, out of the very midst of the pain and the strain of life into serene celestial regions, where "the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest"-in another sense than that which was present to the mind of Job, when he uttered that terrible malediction on life. So when we have made our moan we must grasp our pilgrim staff again, and face the danger and roughness of the way. The wings, to bear us to the homes we dream of, where the light is for ever shining, whence the tears are for ever banished, where the soul gathers around it its elect kindred with no dread of change or death, we shall find, if