never been deserted by Him who remembered Noah, and has always remembered us. As with Noah, many a fair possession may have been swept away by the waves of 1852; like Noah, we may have to deplore many a green field laid below its flood, many a fair fabric shattered by its throes; like Noah, we may have to weep for many a near and dear one snatched away, and buried beneath the floods of the past; though we can cherish, what he could not perhaps concerning many he knew, the hopes of a sure and a certain resurrection. We may have to deplore many bright lights that once gladdened the horizon now quenched and extinguished for ever; we may have to lament gaps in our homes, vacancies in the circle of our friends, heavier hearts as the years put upon them their increasing load; but still, if we be under the overshadowing wings of God, the wave that has swept away what we most loved, has only carried us, as it bore Noah, nearer to the God that took them. And every shock that we have felt has been paternal, it was the wave, not the rock, and every anxiety we have felt has been unfounded, and every dispensation has been mercy. And who does not feel, that our most anxious moments have been our most sanctifying moments? so that we can say, in our sober and solemn moments, that affliction was bitter indeed while it was borne, but it was good for me nevertheless that I was afflicted; and though no tribulation for the present seemeth joyous, yet it has been working out the peaceable fruits of righteousness, unto us who have been exercised thereby. And have we not discovered long ago, what we all find sooner or later, and what we are so reluctant to believe until we do find it, that all things work for good to them who love God? I believe that if every true Christian were to speak his mind, he would say, in taking a retrospect of the past, There is not one thing that has occurred in it, however bitter it tasted at the moment, how

but

ever painfully I felt it, however much I repined, I would wish to be left out of my lot; or one single thing to be reversed in the way of suffering or bereavement, of losses or crosses, in God's good providence. And what is this, the human heart uttering the testimony from its silent and its solemn depths, that "all things work together for good to them that love God, and are the called according to his purpose;" and when we said, all these things are against us, as thought the patriarch when he first said it, we little knew all these things were working directly for us.

I have thus looked at Noah's offering, closing a world that was gone, and commencing a world that has come, as eucharistic or thanksgiving offering. But it was more than that. If it had been merely a thanksgiving offering, he would have taken of the fruits and the flowers of the earth, and offered them to God; but he took of every clean beast, and offered it to God, and that was an evidence that it was an expiatory or atoning sacrifice. And did Noah need such? Do we need it? That is the right way to put the question, and if our own hearts condemn us, God is greater than our hearts, and knoweth all things. Noah recollected sins in the past, misgivings in the present; many a fear that he had entertained, many a doubt that he had spiritually had. He recollected how often he had said in his heart, when some huge billow swept past, or some great wave made his frail bark vibrate with its shock, or reel and stagger, how often he had said, as he felt that shock, God hath forsaken me, and my God hath forgotten me; and like the Israelites in another case, It had been better for me and mine, that we had perished with the rest of the antediluvians in the Flood, than to be thus subjected to fears and fightings without, and only to perish in the end. When he stood on Ararat, and recollected all his doubts of God, all his misgivings, all his suspicions, all his fears, his first

feeling was, I need the cleansing of a blood that will cleanse from all sin; I need to flee to an atonement in which alone there can be forgiveness for the past, and through which alone I can have strength, and peace, and confidence for the future. When we look back upon the year that has passed away, have we not similar recollections? I do believe, that not the least sin that Christians commit is that of suspecting God. The last thing that we let go it is a very strange thing, but it is so after grace has changed the heart, is that innate suspicion of God, which is just the projected shadow of Adam's falling from God, and repeating itself among the traces of the primal ruin, in the 19th century, in the hearts of mankind. We go too often to the throne of grace, as to that of an avenging Being, whose wrath we have to deprecate; we go to a communion table with fears, and doubtings, and misgivings, feeling that it is a very awful and terrible thing; and we listen to the gospel as if it were a dreadful thing; so much so, that in our counting-houses, in our shops, in our various professions, the idea of God coming vividly before us would be felt by many to be a very intrusive thing. Now I ought to feel, when about my business, as I should when I am praying, or preaching, or reading. The service of God is not simply prayer, praise, reading. These are the nutriment of what constitutes the service of God. The service of God is behind the counter, in the warehouses, in the parliament, in the law courts. There man is to show himself the servant of God; and in the sanctuary he obtains and gathers that manna on the one day of the week, which forms strength and nutriment to him during all the days that follow. But is not our idea of God too often that of dread? And hence our feelings towards him are those of suspicion; and when we find things turn out better than we expected, when we find that what we feared in

criminal distrust comes to be the greatest mercy that dawned upon us, we are justly ashamed, for never do we see the shadows of sin so sharp and clear in their outlines, as when they are seen in the light of unmerited and unexpected goodness. It is when we stand on the Ararat where God's goodness has placed us, that we see how sinful were our past misgivings, how grievous were our short-comings. A man never repents most heartily, until he repents of sin, amidst the enjoyment of unexpected mercy. Man will not repent aright on Mount Gerizim, he will not repent heartily on Mount Ebal; but when he kneels on Calvary, and sees his sin in the light of God's transcendent benevolence and love, he looks up, and, like Peter, goes forth and weeps bitterly. Many a time, during the year that has passed away, have we mistrusted God. Something happened to you -you put a bad construction upon it. Some unexpected dispensation overtook you - you instinctively said, This is wrath, not mercy. Some trial you were perhaps placed in, and during it you had recourse to every thing and any thing, and anybody, except God.

We must say of 1851, "We have left undone what we ought to have done, and we have done what we ought not to have done, and there is no health in us. Enter not into judgment, O Lord, with thy servants; for in thy sight no man living can be justified. But there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared." There is pardon for the past, complete, entire, irreversible; there is peace and hope for the future, because thou art the same yesterday, today, and for ever.

Thus I have shown, that Noah's sacrifice was not simply eucharistic, but expiatory, "Without shedding of blood there is no remission of sin." Far more privileged are we than Noah; he had his sacrifice to slay, we have our sacrifice already slain; he had to make atonement, through which he

looked for forgiveness; we have only to accept an atonement already perfect and complete. In other words, Noah had to prepare his sacrifice; we have to thank God for one prepared; and to hear, echoing along the centuries, incapable of being spent or silenced, those grand words with which the great sacrifice closed, "It is finished." And if we have a sacrifice near to every one; if it costs us nothing, is accessible to all, available to all; it will be much more criminal, if, on this, the Ararat between the years, as Noah's was between the worlds, we do not have recourse to that only sacrifice, and seek forgiveness for the past, and guidance for the future. Let Christ, the Altar, be our Ararat for 1853; let his atonement be our plea; let his mercies be our trust; and let his all-prevailing intercession be the smoke and the incense of that sacrifice, ever available for us, and even for the chiefest of sinners. We rest every Christmas between the years; let us pray that the past, which cannot be recalled, may be pardoned; and the future, which is yet pure, innocent, and unstained, may be charged by us, through God's grace, with a mission that shall bless mankind, and give glory to Him who is our dwelling-place in all generations. Let us enter on each coming year, as Noah entered on his new world, with praise for the past, and prayer for pardon; confidence for the future, and close walking with God. 1853 has just emerged from the waters of past years, yet beautiful, ruddy, and like a giant, ready to run its race. Let us approach it from the altar, let us enter on it by a new and a living way. Let us walk along its channels with God, as Noah walked; and at its close, if it close upon us, we shall have, like Noah, to praise and thank Him who has kept us throughout. What shall be the character of the year that comes? We cannot determine. No horoscope of man's can cast it; no penetration of political sagacity can ascend it; what new features it will