last opportunity. Oh, now, now I spoil the harmony, the continuity of my text. I trample upon its thoroughgoing exegesis, and I bring in the Cross, and Him who hangs upon it, and lift Him up before you. Sinner, backslider, thou whose heart has gone aside from the living God, the Lord Jesus Christ, the great Sin-Bearer, stands again among us, and He says to us, “I, even I, am He that blotteth out thy transgressions, and will not remember thy sins. Return, oh return unto Me."

May the Lord plead His own cause, and may the hearts of not a few be opening, and may the hidden silver, and the hidden gold, the hidden lusts, the hidden vanities, the mockery, the hypocrisy, the malice, the guile, the hate, the envy, may they be dug out and poured out before the Lord. Then shall the valley of Achor be a "door of hope"; and our strength be as the strength of ten because our heart is pure."

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

THE BURNING BUSH.

A Sermon

DELIVERED ON SUNDAY MORNING, DEC. 22, 1889,

BY THE

REV. JOHN MCNEILL.

"Now Moses kept the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian: and he led the flock to the backside of the desert, and came to the mountain of God, even to Horeb. And the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush: and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed. And Moses said, I will now turn aside, and see this great sight, why the bush is not burnt. And when the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called unto him out of the midst of the bush, and said, Moses, Moses. And he said, Here am I. And He said, Draw not nigh hither: put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground."-EXODUS iii. 1-5.

How naturally, and yet how supernaturally, the God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob revealed Himself to His servant Moses, for Moses' own sake, and for the sake of his oppressed countrymen. Moses one day-shall I say one afternoon?—was keeping his sheep, attending them just as he had been doing for long years—just as we, during the past week, have been attending to our secular and worldly affairs, with all their natural tendency to No. 7.

engross us and to swallow us up.

Moses was not engaged in any unworthy work, or any career of sin. He was tending the flock of his father-in-law, and he led the flock to the backside of the desert, and came to the mountain of God. Here, perhaps, he had been often before, but as he led the flock along that familiar track, suddenly there came to him, in the calm and quiet of that lonely place, this wonderful sight, this wonderful revelation of the Lord, which became a point of departure in Moses' own heart and history, and in the history of the people of God. So, I say, that which makes life worth living is this-we will come to the point at once the great glory of our life is that God comes into it and reveals His presence; that God opens our eyes to see that there is more in the world than simply our daily calling, our flock of sheep, and our temporal interests; that life is more than a day's work, no matter how diligently and conscientiously performed, and a night's sleep. God, the personal God, is here to greet our own eyes with the kindling glory of the manifestation of His own presence. He will change our life, its whole current, its whole outcome. Let us open our eyes, and see that this Sabbath day and every Sabbath day-but the past Sabbaths are gone, and coming ones are not here-but let us see that this Sabbath day, which has come, may be to us a time when, like Moses, we are round at the back of the desert. We have come to the mount of God, we have come to this calm and quiet, this solemn and holy place. Oh, may God lift Himself up, and reveal Himself to us!

And I would like at the outset to waken up an expectation in those who are rather apt to think that the day is gone

by for them either to expect or to receive such visions and revelations of the Lord. My friends, Moses was an old Therefore let not those grow

man when this took place. ing old, either in years or in cares, give in or sink down. Many a long day and year Moses had trudged about this very region, when suddenly one year, one day, one hour, one particular moment, he lifted up his eyes, and, as we all know now, Lo! there was God. And out of that occurrence came new life and new days for Moses, and for a great mass of people in connection with him. Now, my friends, business men, business women, middle-aged folk, elderly folk, you have often been to Church, and have gone a long way through life, and you are beginning to say. "Well, I must have missed it! Life is not turning out to me what I expected when young. I must have gone past the place. The show is all gone; I have seen and been through it all, and I begin to get, if not exactly sordid and sodden, at any rate down to the level of the world, and of the world's work and swing and routine." Ah, my friends, say not so! Especially say not so, those among us who have never yet seen the sight of sights-God revealing Himself as a personal God, as a personal Saviour, to our own heart and understanding. For there may be such here. There may be people in Regent Square Church this morning who have been here for forty years, and yet it is possible that I am interpreting your own thoughts.

when I repeat what I said a moment ago, "I have missed it!" "Yes," you say, "that is just it. I begin to fear that I have missed it-the glory, the glory! There is no glory in my life," you say, "in me, in my church-going. There is diligence and faithfulness and steady plodding, as in all other departments of my work on week days; but, preacher, the glory, that is where I challenge you. Man, there is no glory in my life, there is no glory in my soul, there is no heavenly wonder in my heart or on my face." I thought that; and that is why I said it so plainly, and perhaps I am speaking to myself while pointedly talking to you.

Now, let us turn to this subject, for I see no reason why the glory may not come to-day. I see no reason why the vision may not come to-day to some; and be vividly renewed to others, to whom former revelations have been fading into the light of common day. Let us begin where Moses began. "And the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush: and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed. And Moses said, I will now turn aside, and see this great sight, why the bush is not burnt." Well, it seems to me that the way by which, ordinarily, we travel straight into the secret place of the tabernacles of the Most High is a very ordinary way, at the beginning. "I will now turn aside and see," said Moses. The knowledge of God as my own God, and the God of my fathers before me, the Saviour and Redeemer of His people; God the invisible, the eternal, the uncreated God, the personal Friend, speaking