up the seventh time he had left his leprosy in the last plunge. The flesh came to him as with that leper in. the New Testament to whom Christ said, "Be thou made clean, and immediately he was made whole.”

says:

And his dry palms grew moist,

As the poet

And the blood coursed with delicious coolness through his veins ;
And on his brow the dewy softness of an infant stole,

His leprosy was cleansed, and he fell down

At Jesus' feet and worshipped Him.”

That is the Gospel for lepers, Old Testament or New. I am sorry, in one way, that my time is up; but I do trust that, although our time is up, we have had sufficient time to come near to the cleansing fountain, and that all of us here, ere we go hence, are, in absolute abject simplicity, plunging into it.

"There is a fountain filled with blood."

Not long ago that hymn was severely objected to, and scornfully criticized. It was said that this was a religion of gore and of the shambles, unfit for ears intellectual and polite. Still, let me preach it. If it angers you at first, that may be just the road to your salvation.

"There is a fountain filled with blood,

Drawn from Emmanuel's veins ;

And sinners plunged beneath that flood
Lose all their guilty stains."

I trust I have read a book or two. I hope I know a little about philosophy. I trust I know a little about science. I went for eight winters to a college and a divinity hall, and I was lectured and taught by the most cultured and eminent men of the day. But if to-morrow I am upon my deathbed, and if you want to come and give me a parting word, come, and I will tell you before you come what you may say. Do not mention this nineteenth century; do not mention these new gospels, which are no gospels. If you have

no word, and if you have no text, that old hymn that I have quoted will do, and especially the verse that I am going to quote now :

"The dying thief rejoiced to see

That fountain in his day;

And there may I, though vile as he,

Wash all my sins away."

Ah, my lad, you may despise this old Gospel, but your mother died rejoicing in it. So did your father; and if you are ever to see them and meet with them; if you are ever to sit down with the truly refined people, you must be washed in the blood of the Lamb. May the Lord, the Spirit, graciously plead His own cause, and ere we go hence, may all of us come to the simplicity of faith in Jesus Christ, who died for our sins, and rose again for our justification!

Henderson & Spalding, General Printers, Marylebone Lane, London, W.

THE FARMER WHO FED HIS SOUL WITH CORN.

A Sermon

DELIVERED IN REGENT SQUARE CHURCH ON SUNDAY, APRIL 13TH, 1890, BY THE

REV. JOHN MCNEILL.

LUKE Xii.-Read from the 13th verse to 21st.

THE PARABLE OF THE RICH FARMER.

THE key to this parable, as Matthew Henry would say, hangs at the door. It is meant to rebuke covetousness; it is therefore a parable of widespread application. Who among us to-day can say, "My heart is clean from covetousness?" None of us. No specific form of sin, perhaps, is more common in the thoughts and actions of men than covetousness. "I had not known lust," says one whose outward life was blameless, except the law had said, "Thou shalt not covet." "Take heed," says Christ-the very emphasis of His tone is meant to waken us up to the lesson-"Take heed, and beware of covetousness." The rich need beware of it, the poor need beware of it; those who are too rich, those who are too poor, and the mass of the middle folk lying between. I do not need to take time to prove this. Those among us who belong to the various classes menNo. 23.

tioned will, I am sure, frankly admit that the parable has meaning and force, and that there is need for it in the case of all us. These hearts of ours, because of sin, are hot, hungry, and restless. In their lustings and longings and breathings they go out everywhere; after every conceivable thing, except for that intense desire which would be no sin, but would satisfy every wish of the immortal soul. Oh, that we may earnestly covet the best gift! "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son." May our hearts to-day be smitten with covetousness for God's great gift-Jesus Christ! Then shall we be rich toward God.

"A man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things that he possesseth," and contrariwise, a man's death consisteth not in the dearth or absence of material possessions. I may be miserable when corn and wine abound; and I may live and enjoy good days with God's blessing on bread and water.

See, then, how our Lord, by bringing before us a well-todo, prosperous Jewish farmer, would rebuke covetousness, would set us right, would deliver us from the down-dragging power of this world, and would so succour us that even when this world flows in upon us, we shall be helped to use it without abusing it; we shall be able, when our hands are filled, to keep their palms as open and level as though there was nothing in them.

"The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully." It looks as though the Lord would emphasize, in putting the case so, that greed, selfishness, and covetousness- -a heart that lusts after material abundance, and seeks to find its satisfaction therein, is here particularly, specially, horribly out of order. A farmer, a man whose

wealth comes out of the soil, is peculiarly dependent upon a thousand and one things over which he has no control.

What a lesson there ought to be for those of us here whose trade depends on clouds or want of clouds; a lesson to farmers, and those whose wealth, for example, comes by the way of the sea-shippers, and seafaring folk generally If such are making money and getting substance beyond what they actually need, how peculiarly thankful to God Almighty they should be! For there are some ways of making money, such as all that modern juggling and financing in stocks and shares, that I scarcely understandbut concerning which I do not wonder that men should lose sight of God, and not see precisely where God comes into their business.

But here, in this kind of merchandise, the thought of God ought to be in the farmer's mind all the year round, and ought to animate his dreams at night; he is so fairly and squarely, so nakedly dependent upon Him. Says the Scripture just to emphasize this "The farmer is a man who puts his precious seed into the earth, and sleeps and rises night and day, and the seed springeth up, he knoweth not how." If he were to tear out his hair by handfuls he could not bring a drop of rain, supposing it was wanted, while he could not keep a drop away if too much were to come. If the heavens were to be like brass, and the earth beneath his feet like iron, what could he do? God has the farmer in a vice. If any man ought, at the close of a prosperous season, to be fairly bubbling over with thankfulness to God, surely it ought to be a farmer. And yet, that is the kind of man used to exemplify the sin of covetousness, and to make it gross, awful, and hideous. Christ, in this inimitable way of His, shows us a prosperous Jewish farmer