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"acceptable year of the Lord." We have had many prognostics, many skirmishes at the outposts, as the leaders of our opponents have themselves said. Therefore I am pressed in spirit, as I have so long seen this danger coming, and now behold it hastening on us faster than I could have believed possible. I feel I am bound to do all that in me lies to turn away the threatening danger.

An "acceptable year"—a glorious day-may be coming, yea, in any case, shall come; but whether we must pass to it through a day of darkness and woe, or whether our way to it may be smoothed and hindrances gently removed, remains yet to be seen, and in some measure may depend on our own actings.

In the manufacturing world and in industrial life it becomes every day more evident that great businesses can only be carried on by associations, in which each member must do his part. So every year we have more of companies, combined for every imaginable purpose. Single men are no longer able to undertake the large concerns which are needed in order to carry on business prosperously.

Now, if those who thus work together did but understand the love of Christ in their hearts-if they had learned that we are all but stewards for the benefit of our fellow-men, each according to the endowments which God has given him; and if those who stand at the head of such concerns were animated by the spirit of love if they were willing ever to put themselves last, and to be first only in serving others, so that all their fellowlabourers must feel that their leaders do not desire to lord it over them, do not seek only their own advantage, but desire to serve others, and have their temporal and spiritual well-being ever before their eyes-then the stumbling-block against which the workman continually kicks, the feeling of his being a dependant, would be removed. It would become every day more clear to him that he is a fellow-labourer with those at his head, and as such loved and valued; that he is not an oppressed dependant, but free, and that freedom and order must ever go together.

In the small business concerns of old days the relations of man to man did not disappear, as in the great hives of industry of our times. Masters and journeymen stood in quite a different relation to each other

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from what they do now; they were more like a family. But just in the measure that those who are at the head of large industrial concerns are true Christians, willing to serve the best interests of their workmen, to love them, to bear them on their hearts before the Lord, just in such measure will the human relations be re-established which threaten to vanish from industrial life. In the path of full and devoted Christianity alone is there help in this matter, and through that it seems to me still possible that the fearful enemy who confronts us may be overcome. But for this purpose it is needful that more hearts should be ready to enter on the service of love.

One hears it constantly said now-a-days that capital must cease, that it must pass into the hands of the working-classes, either by the interposition of the state, or, if it is not possible in that way, by revolution. But this much have I learned by my own experience in our institution, that if men stand together, and are true to each other, and devote their strength to the service of love, they can acquire capital for themselves.

Yes, real workers may and must acquire it, if they are Christians and act as Christians; but it must be real Christians, whole-hearted entire Christians, such as the Saviour desires us to be, and not half-in-half. If others, who have only their selfish interest at heart in their business, give themselves the greatest trouble, and labour early and late, in order to attain the largest amount of gain possible, why may not I, for love of outcast children, for love of the poor, seek to make as much as possible; and if we work as truly, are as circumspect, as attentive, as prudent, as diligent as those others, then why may I not expect as great returns? And a great deal would be gained and a great danger averted if it could thus be proved to demonstration that it is not necessary to wrest capital from its possessors. No, with the working-man himself lies the possibility of acquiring what will maintain him in a noble existence.

This is all possible if Christianity be developed in her full might and glory.

It may be that there are many among us who feel inclined to try to do good. Let me remind them that our times are such that results and victory can only be reached if we practise Christ's commands in the fullest sense of the words.

B. W.

A

THE ENEMY IN-DOORS. BY THEODORE L. CUYLER, D.D.

FEW Saturday evenings since, Boston locked up her great warehouses, and went home to get ready for the Sabbath. No external danger alarmed her. No hostile fleet lay off her harbour; no enemy's batteries threatened her from Dorchester Heights. But a little secret seed of fire was nestling under one of her own roof-trees,

which soon sprang into a horrible harvest of conflagration. Boston's enemy was within.

This is the physical illustration of the moral truth— a truth that quotes itself to me oftener than almost any text in the Bible-that "a man's foes shall be they of his own household." This truth has a thousand applications. It applies literally to the domestic household.

Where do most men find their greatest help or their greatest hindrance to success in their business? At home! Frugality there commonly means prosperity. | Extravagance there commonly means vexation, temptation to business gambling, and to eventual ruin. Half the married men who practise swindling are pushed on to it by an extravagant wife and family. A man's wife is either his best friend or his worst enemy.

Where lies the sorest sorrow that disturbs the heartpeace and spoils all the lustre of worldly gains or promotions? It is in the worm at the root of the home-life. It is nothing to a man to be prosperous in his store, or his office, or even in his pulpit, if he is wretched at his own hearth-stone. Nor does the neglect or the social injustice of a whole neighbourhood cut so deeply as the treachery or neglect of those nearest and dearest to us. A wife can bear to be ignored by all her neighbours, if her husband is only loving, and her children are affectionate and obedient. But a husband's unkindness is a dry sorrow that drinks her very heart's blood. Our severest wounds are often inflicted by the hands which ought to clasp our own the most closely. The betrayal of family secrets, the starting of damaging rumours, often proceed from some long, loose, limber tongue in our own household.

There, too, lurks the most frequent stumbling-block to religious improvement. The Divine Teacher spoke about fathers being at variance with their own sons, and about mothers striving to keep their daughters out of his "kingdom." Well, it is just as true now as it was then, that one's spiritual "foes may be they of his own household." A parent's piety is often reproduced in his children. But so are a father's bad habits or downright irreligion. Saying nothing about the hereditary taint of drunkenness and licentiousness, which often goes in the blood, there is a legacy of sin bequeathed by a father's example. In looking over my circle of acquaintance, I find that, while several good parents have bad children, there are not many prayerless, ungodly parents who have converted sons. The pull of the parents downward is too strong for the upward pull of the pulpit and the Sabbath school.

If the father chiefly talks "money, money" at home, he generally rears a family in the worship of the almighty dollar. If he talks mainly horses, games, and races, he breeds a batch of sportsmen. If fashion is the family altar, then the children are offered up as victims upon that altar. If a man makes his own fireside attractive, he may reasonably hope to anchor his own children around it. My neighbour Q- makes himself the constant evening companion of his boys. The result is, that his boys are never found in bad places. But if a father hears the clock strike eleven in his club-house or the play-house, he need not be surprised if his boys hear it strike twelve in the gaming-room or the drinking-saloon. If he puts the bottle on his own table, he need not wonder if a drunken son staggers in by-and-by at his front door. When the best friend that

childhood and youth ought to have becomes their foe, the home becomes the "starting-post" for moral ruin. A godless house is a poor school to train up souls for Heaven.

What is true of the domestic household is equally and even more true of that inner household, the heart. The Word of God likens a human being to a "tabernacle," a "temple," an "earthly house," &c.; and it is no violence to compare the inmates of our own hearts to a "household." What a curious family of faculties, thoughts, and affections is living inside of every one of us! An unconverted heart is a habitation of the Evil One, with his brood of unholy desires, tastes, and passions. Conversion is a spiritual house-cleaning. A genuinely renewed heart is a reformed household, with Christ dwelling in it and controlling it. Out of the heart are "the issues of life;" yes, and of death. The only enemies that we ever need to be afraid of are within ourselves.

Did you ever know a good man or a pure woman utterly ruined by outside attacks upon their reputation? I never did. The abuse of a good man is commonly the head-wind that fans the fire of his own furnace and gives him the greater headway. No true man was ever put down and kept down while he was true to conscience and to God. When character is destroyed, it is never murder; it is suicide. Kind reader, the only person in the universe that can put you down is one that lives in your own heart-house. If the living Jesus lives there and rules there, you are safe. You will be kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation.

If your safety is from an indwelling Christ, so is your danger from indwelling sin. The "world" never harms a Christian so long as he keeps it out of his heart. Temptation is never dangerous until it has an inside accomplice. Sin within betrays the heart to the outside assailant. The reason why Joseph did not fall was because he kept the sin out of his soul. The reason why David did fall was that the sin within him ignited at the view of a wicked opportunity. The inward lust conceived and brought forth death.

There is a pretty sharp practical sermon in that old familiar fable of Æsop about the countryman who discovered the frozen snake in his field. There was no danger from that benumbed serpent while left out in the cold. But the foolish man carried it into his own house and laid it beside the fire. He domesticated it. And as soon as the reptile thawed out, it began to slide about among the children, and to shoot in its deadly fang.

Ah! it is the snake that we bring into our hearts and warm there that stings us! Sin without us is harmless. Sin within us poisons and kills. Our foe is of our own household. This is the scriptural way of putting the homely aphorism that "every one is his own worst enemy." This truth often comes to my door in the person of a broken-down creature, whose ill-flavoured garments and bloated face are hanging-out signals of

distress. I knew him in his better days. He has a doleful story about "losing his situation," and "having no friends," and "everybody turning against him." Poor victim of his own sin, he may well say that he has no friend, when he is his own deadly enemy. His Almighty Friend in Heaven cannot help him so long as he determines to be his own destroyer. Even the loving Saviour of sinners will keep no man out of Hell so long as he keeps a hell in his own depraved heart. Oh! there is no more pitiable spectacle on Earth than that of the person who has exiled all his best impulses and

all the best teachings of childhood, and has driven away the Spirit of God, and given up his soul to the dominion of the devil. Of such an one it is awfully true that "his house is left unto him desolate."

Beware of yourselves-watch your own heart-door! When you are tempted, imagine that you hear Satan trying at the latch. Slide in the bolt of prayer. The devil is harmless while locked out; it is only the in-door enemy that destroys the house. That heart alone is securely guarded for all eternity that has the Lord Jesus Christ dwelling within it and keeping the keys.

he Lessons of Grace in the Language of Nature.

BY THE EDITOR.

II.

THE ANCHOR OF THE SOUL.

"Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and stedfast, and which entereth into that within the veil."

HEB. VI. 19.

N the margin of the ocean that surrounds and laves our island home, an object of absorbing interest may often be observed,—a ship riding at anchor near a lee shore in an angry sea. She has drifted, ere she was aware, too near a rockbound coast: the wind is blowing direct on shore: there is not room to tack: whether she should point her prow north or south, she will strike a projecting headland ere she can escape from the bay.

One resource remains,-to anchor where she is till the wind change.

There she lies. Stand on this height and look down upon her through the drifting spray. I scarcely know in nature a more interesting or more suggestive sight. The ship is dancing on the waves she appears to be in their power and at their mercy. Wind and water combine to make her their sport. Destruction seems near; for if the vessel's bulk is dashed by these waves upon the rocks of the coast, it will be broken into a thousand pieces. But you have stood and looked on the scene a while, and the ship still holds her own. Although at first sight she seemed the helpless plaything of the elements, they have not overcome-they have not gained upon her yet. She is no nearer destruction than when you first began to gaze in anticipation of her fate.

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onset of wind and wave. blast and every billow. tossed aloft on the crest of a wave, and the next she sinks heavily into the hollow. Now her prow goes down beneath an advancing breaker, and she is lost to view in the spray; but anon she emerges, like a sea-fowl shaking the water from her wings, and rejoicing in the tumult. As she quivered and nodded giddily at each assault, you thought, when first you arrived in sight, that every moment would prove her last; but now that you have watched the conflict long, it begins to assume in your mind another aspect, and promise another end. These motions of the ship now, instead of appearing the sickly movements of the dying, seem to indicate the calm, confident perseverance of conscious strength and expected victory. Let winds and waves do their worst, that ship will meet them fearless, will hold her head to the blast, and maintain her place in defiance of their power.

What is the secret of that ship's safety? No other ship is in sight to which she may cling: no pillar stands within reach to which she may be moored. The bond of her security is a line that is unseen. The ship is at anchor. The line on which she hangs does not depend on the waters, or anything that floats there; it goes through the waters, and fastens on a sure ground

The ship seems to have no power to resist the beyond them.

Thus, though the ship cannot escape from the wild waters, she is safe on their surface. She cannot, indeed, take the wings of a dove and fly away so as to be at rest; but the sea cannot cover her, and the wind cannot drive her on the beach. She must, indeed, bear a while the tempest's buffetings; but she is not for a moment abandoned to the tempest's will. The motto of that ship is the motto once held aloft in triumph by a tempted but heroic soul: "We are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed" (2 Cor. iv. 8, 9).

An immortal creature on this changeful life is like a ship upon the ocean. On the strength of that obvious analogy the apostle intimates, by a bold yet perspicuous figure, that we have " an anchor of the soul." The soul, considered as a passenger on the treacherous sea of Time, needs an anchor; and an anchor "sure and steadfast" is provided for the needy soul.

In many respects the world, and human life on it, are like the sea. Itself restless, it cannot permit to rest any of the pilgrims that tread its heaving, shifting surface. At some times, and in some places, great tempests rise; but even in its ordinary condition it is always and everywhere uncertain, deceptive, dangerous. Currents of air and currents of ocean intermingle with and cross each other in endless and unknown complications, bringing even the most skilful mariner to his wit's end-making him afraid either to stand still or to advance. On this heaving sea we must all lie. Even our Father in heaven does not lift up his own, and Christ the Son does not ask him so to do: "I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world; but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil." The best that can be done for them, in this world, is to preserve them from sinking or striking on the shore. The soul is tossed by many temptations; but the anchor of the soul is sure and steadfast within the veil. Without are fightings, within are fears,―all these are against us; but one thing will over-balance and overcome them—"Our life is hid with Christ

in God."

Hope sometimes signifies the act of a human spirit laying hold of an unseen object, and sometimes the object unseen whereon the human spirit in its need lays hold. These two significations

may be combined together: they are so combined here. "The Hope set before us," is Christ entered for us now within the veil; and the hope that "we have," is the exercise of a believing soul when it trusts in the risen Redeemer. These two cannot be separated. The one is the grasp which a believing soul takes of Christ, and the other is the Christ whom a believing soul is grasping. These two run so close together that you cannot perceive where the joining is. "I am the vine, ye are the branches." Even so, Lord; and what human eye can tell the very line which marks where the branch ends and the vine begins? Christians are members of Christ,— of his flesh and of his bones. "As he is, so are we in this world." "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?" "Which hope we have." If you ask me, whether does he mean, by hope, the Christ on whom his soul is leaning, or his own act of leaning on Christ? I answer, both. You cannot have one of these without having both. The branch has the vine; but it has also its own living growth into the vine. And if it had not that living growth into the vine, it would not have the vine. So the soul has Christ, and also its own living faith in Christ, wanting which it would have no Christ.

Mark well here what it is that renders a disciple safe and firm as he floats on the rushing tide of Time. It is not terror of the Lord in his conscience. Such terror may awaken a slumberer, and make him flee to that which will keep him; but the terror itself cannot keep him. Fear repels: it is hope that holds ;-blessed hope!

The anchor must not be cast on anything that floats on the water, however large and solid it may seem. The largest thing that floats is an iceberg. But although an iceberg does not shake like a ship, but seems to receive the waves and permit them to break on its sides as they break on the shore, it would be ruin to anchor the ship to it. The larger and the less would drift the same way, and perish together. Ah! this stately Church-this high-seeming and high-sounding ecclesiastical organization, woe to the human spirit that is tempted in the tossing to make fast to that great imposing mass! It is not sure and steadfast. It is floating: it moves with the current of the world: it moves to an awful shore!

Not there, not there! Your hope, when you stretch it out and up for eternal life, must enter "into that within the veil, whither the Forerunner is for us entered."

Nor will it avail a drifting ship to fix its anchor on itself. It would be very childish to try this method; but I have seen full-grown people betake themselves with great energy to this foolish shift. When a boat on a stream broke adrift with a few unskilful people on board, I have seen them in their alarm grasp the gunwale and bend themselves and draw with all their might in the direction of the shore! In spite of their drawing, the boat glided with them down the stream. In the concerns of the soul such childishness is even more common. Faith in one's own faith or charity is a common exercise among men. Beware! Hope must go out for a hold; even as the ship's anchor must be flung away from the ship. The eye is made for looking with, not for looking at. Away from all in ourselves, and out through all that floats like ourselves on this shifting sea, we must throw the anchor of the soul through the shifting waters into Him who holds them in the hollow of his hand.

Mark, further, that hope in Christ is specifically the anchor of the soul. Here, like draws to like spirit to spirit. God is a spirit, and they that worship him worship him in spirit. There is no anchor that will make our temporal possessions fast. Wealth, and friends, and even life, may drift away any day on the flood; and no power on earth can arrest the movement. These bodily things may or may not abide with a Christian; but his anchor does not hold them. It is only an anchor of the soul, not an anchor of the body. We must not expect from the Lord what he never promised.

There are contrivances not a few in our day for fixing material property, so that it shall not drift away in the currents of time. The system of assurances both on life and property has reached an enormous magnitude. Amidst its great and manifold branches, the wicked have of late years, like wild beasts in a forest, found cover for various crime. Things are now made fast which our forefathers thought essentially uncertain, like the currents of the ocean. Treasures are insured while they cross the sea in ships, so

that, though the vessel go to the bottom, the importer gets his own. The food and clothing of a wife and children, which formerly were left to float on the uncertain waters of the husband and father's life, are made fast by insurance to an anchor which holds them, although that life should glide away. Taking up the obvious analogy employed in the Scripture, one of the insurance societies has adopted the anchor as its

name.

But the action of these anchors is limited to things seen and temporal. They cannot be constructed so as to catch and keep any spiritual thing. They may hold fast a wife's fortune, when the life of the bread-winner falls in, but they cannot maintain joy in her heart, or kindle light in her eye. Far less can they insure against the shipwreck of the soul. With these things they do not intermeddle. All the world may be gained for a man, and kept for him too, and yet he is a loser, if he lose his own soul. Only one anchor can grasp and hold the better part of man and that is the hope which enters into the heavens, and fastens there in Jesus.

The anchor-in as far as it indicates the object which hope grasps-the anchor is "sure and steadfast." The expressions are exact and full. The words are tried words. They are given in order that we might have strong consolation who have fled for refuge to the hope set before us.

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There are two cases in which one's hope may be disappointed: the support you lean on may be unwilling or unable to sustain you. In the one case it is deception; in the other, weakness. A Christian's hope is not exposed to either flaw; it is both " sure and steadfast; that is, the Redeemer, who holds them is willing and able. He will not falsely let you go, nor feebly faint beneath your weight. He is true and strong-for these are the words. He both will and can keep that which we commit to him against that day.

With the same meaning, but by means of another analogy, Christ is represented elsewhere in Scripture as a foundation; and it is intimated that the foundation is a tried one. It has been put to the strain, and has stood the test.

In modern practice great importance attaches to the trying of an anchor. Many ships have been lost through accident or fraud in the manu

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