In particular three great thoughts would appear to have sustained this aged saint.

First, the remembrance of all God's unspeakable goodness from childhood till that hour. Because he could say, "O Lord God, thou art my trust from my youth," he could add, with a holy confidence which rested on a life-long experience of the Divine mercy, "Cast me not off in the time of old age, forsake me not when my strength faileth." What a reserved fund, so to speak, of trust and hope in regard to the future is theirs who can thus look back on a long life of humble Christian service! Therein lies the soothing power and beauty of such a Psalm, for instance, as the twenty-third. "Thou hast made me to lie down in green pastures. Thou hast anointed my head with oil. Thou hast restored my soul." This it was which enabled David to say with a thankful and happy mind, "Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life." And as there so here also, the Psalmist's anticipation is founded on a retrospect. The God of his youth was with him still. And would be with him alway. "This God is our God for ever and ever."

Further, he was sustained by the fact that, though old and feeble, his opportunities of usefulness were not yet ended. "O God, forsake me not until I have showed thy strength to this generation, and thy power to every one that is come." He wished to be helpful and serviceable to the last. He felt that he could teach lessons of reverence, patience, humbleness, and piety to the generation following, lessons that would be all the weightier because enforced by the experience of years of dutiful obedience and labour. Very sad and unlovely is old age when it is disfigured by peevishness, niggardliness, or vice, but most beautiful and attractive when it teaches such lessons as it alone can teach effectually to a younger generation. Let no one say, "My day is over. I cannot any more be of use to others." Every season of life has its own opportunities of usefulness; and while we are here we can serve God.

Lastly, he was sustained by the hope of final deliverance from all the sorrows and troubles of his pilgrimage. "Thou shalt quicken me again, and bring me up again from the depth of the earth. Thou shalt increase my greatness, and comfort me on every side." Is it fanciful to read the hope of immortality into this language? Certainly it appears to point to something better than mere temporal deliverance.

At all events, we can now read it in the brighter light which shines upon our own path. How unbearable would be the sense of ever-accumulating infirmities, how dismal beyond all expression the approach of old age without the Christian hope to illumine the great darkness! But the faith of Christ crucified and risen again, "The same yesterday, to-day, and for ever," can make the old age as it can make the youth of every believer serene and happy, and when the end comes it can irradiate even the closing scene with the brightness of a dawning glory. Let us not then look too sadly on the passing years. "The autumn has its beauty as well as the spring; there is a joy of him that reapeth as well as of him that soweth; and while the blade and the ear are for the present world, the ripe corn is for the garner of God in heaven."

SECOND SUNDAY.

Read Isaiah xl. 27-31, and 2 Cor. iv. 16.

LIGHT AT EVENING TIME.

In our last reading we considered the possibility, through Divine grace, of a lifelong piety. It may not be inappropriate now to turn our attention to the secret of that undecaying power by which the true Christian is enabled to go on, often from early childhood to old age, from strength even unto strength. Such is the power that is inherent in the spiritual life. Sooner or later every other form of life must languish and die. This alone has in it, by reason of the ever-renewed strength which accompanies it, the "promise and potency" of endurance. He that hath this life shall have it more abundantly. When all else, youth itself, shall have passed away it abides in joyous fulness.

In those wonderful verses which occur at the end of the fortieth chapter of Isaiah two pictures are presented, by a few masterstrokes, to the mind's eye. One is manhood's prime, youth clothed in its fairest and most charming colours, when all the powers of the body and all the faculties of the mind have reached their maturity, when joy is poured into the heart by every avenue of sense, and reason and affection, emotion and imagination,—

"That time when meadow, grove, and stream,
To us did seem

Appareled in celestial light,

The glory and the freshness of a dream."

The other is the picture of nature's decay. Now the glory of the day is fading. The evening shadows have begun to fall. The radiance of youth has fled. The decrepitude of age is creeping on apace.

"Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall." How sad it is to observe in those nearest and dearest to us on earth the fast-accumulating tokens of failing energy and enfeebled powers! The step, once nimble as the roe, becoming shorter and more uncertain year by year. The intellect, once so clear and vigorous, on all whose judgments we could implicitly rely, becoming dim and clouded, and the strong man is bowed and the inevitable hour all too plainly hastening on, when the "silver cord must be loosed and the golden bowl be broken at the fountain." This, if it is one of the commonest, is assuredly one of the most painful of our experiences.

"Whither is it gone? the visionary gleam.

Where is it now? the glory and the dream."

But for us who believe in Christ, life is more than vigour of limb or health of body. It is more than the enjoyment, however keen, of the things of time and sense-more, even, than immortality. Life is character. It is the growth of the soul in goodness and truth, in wisdom, holiness, and love. In short it is the possession of God, and of all things present or to come, in God through Christ. Where there is life in that sense, there have we the sure pledge and earnest of a youth which can never never pass away. Sickness may come, and the glow of health fade from the withered cheek. Disease may draw its rough lines o'er the fairest form. Suddenly or by slow degrees the frail tent which is the home of the deathless spirit may be taken down. But what of that? Have we never seen that as the "outward man" perished the "inward man was renewed day by day? We have seen it again and again. We have seen the aged believer, in the hour of his departure, upheld by an invisible power, which made him more than a conqueror over physical weakness. We have seen young sufferers manifesting on the bed of languishing a heroism of faith which shone forth all the brighter, and diffused a fragrance all the sweeter, because it was accompanied by the evident tokens of decay. And seeing these things, witnessing this triumph of the spirit over the flesh, have we not thanked God in our hearts that there is a life over which neither time nor change, nor death itself, has any power, a life which is eternal, as the life of Him who is without beginning of years or end of days?

This is a thought that should be especially consolatory to those who are far advanced in the journey of life. Too little do the young

XXVIII-60

and middle-aged sympathise with the labour and sorrow which are the frequent, though not perhaps invariable accompaniments of declining years. True, none but He who is the "Ancient of days" can fully enter into their feelings or fulfil to them His own promise, "And even to your old age I am He and even to hoar hairs will I carry you.' But a younger generation can bear patiently with their infirmities, and soothe them by gentle ministries of helpfulness and affection. Above all they can point them forward and upward unto Him in whose life our life abideth, ever new and ever strong. For what dearer solace can be imparted to the Christian old and travel-worn than is found in the conviction that, his life being hid with Christ in God, there has been set upon his brow the seal of an everlasting youth, so that, albeit he is tottering to the grave's brink he can say, "Though my heart and my flesh fail, God is the strength of my heart and my portion for ever. The outward man' perisheth. It must perish. But what of that? The 'inward man,' my very self, is renewed day by day. Though the gladsome joys of my youth have passed away, the future I know has better things in store for me than any of which time and change have robbed me.' "O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is now thy victory?"

But why is spiritual life thus undecaying? What is the secret of its permanence? It is found in the living communion of the soul with its Father in heaven. They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength."

In particular there are two hindrances which beset spiritual life, from both of which we are delivered by simply waiting upon the Lord in the exercise of a living faith and the humble and diligent use of all the means of grace. One is despondency. Another is presumption. No doubt there is much which if viewed alone has a tendency to cloud and depress the mind. The passing away of youth with all its joys; the flight of time, brought home to us in these weeks when the sands of the dying year are running low; the sense of failure which cleaves to us; our broken vows and resolutions these and a thousand other things may occasion this feeling. But whatever causes of disquietude may overshadow us there is no way of escape, no possibility of strength ever renewed, and with strength renewed of fresh courage and hope, save in waiting upon the Lord from whom cometh our help, our life, our all.

And as from despondency, so too from presumption, there is opened up to us a path of escape as we thus wait upon God. "When I am weak," cries the Apostle "then am I strong." It was not until God had emptied him of the spirit of presumption that he felt himself uplifted above the weakness of mental and physical suffering, by a new power-Christ's power resting upon him. And we too must learn the meaning of these words, "He that glorieth let him glory in the Lord," would we be filled with the joyous sense of an ever-abiding and happy youth. We too must be taught that when we are weak then are we strong, not in self but in God, who giveth power to the faint, and to them who have no might who increaseth strength. Then and then only shall we be able to appreciate at its true worth the indescribable charm of such a passage as the one on which we have been meditating, so tender in its recognition of our utter helplessness and at the same time so hopeful in its tone, lifting us far above all discouragement, weakness, and decay, into that clear and sunlit atmosphere in which our merciful Father in heaven would have His own children always to dwell. We shall then "run and not be weary, we shall walk and not faint." At evening time it shall be light.

THIRD SUNDAY.

Read Job xxxv. 10, Luke ii. 8-15, and Acts xvi. 25.

SONGS IN THE NIGHT.

How often in the long history of His Church on earth has God given songs in the night! Best and sweetest of all is that song which comes to us at this blessed Christmas time. Borne through the night of ages it falls once more on the listening ear of faith, softened and hallowed by distance, but unchanged in its divine and matchless melody. By night, as they kept watch over their flocks, the shepherds first heard it; and now again, in this night-time of the year, when all nature lies dead, and wintry winds sigh and shriek around our dwellings, we hear it as of old, now blending with that triumphant song of salvation which waxes louder and louder as it ever ascends unto God "out of every nation and kindred and people and tongue." Sometimes as we look abroad over the face of this sinful and sorrowful world, we feel appalled by the darkness and mystery of the night through which we are passing. But as we listen to the angels' song, Glory to God in the highest, on earth peace, good-will to men," we are reassured. In the Babe wrapped in

swaddling clothes and laid in a manger we behold "God manifest in the flesh." The story of the Holy Nativity, bound about our hearts by a thousand gracious memories and associations, gives us such a sure pledge of the love of God, "Who spared not His own Son but delivered Him up for us all," that we are enabled in perfect calmness and in perfect peace to await the issue of events, being well assured that "though weeping may endure for a night, joy cometh in the morning," and "if God be for us, who can be against us?"

It has been said that mankind may be divided into two classes, those who look on the bright side, and those who look on the dark side of things. Now whatever may be said of our attitude in relation to the common incidents and concerns of life, it is to be feared that there is a very general disposition, even among Christian people, to look too exclusively on the darker side of things. We see pain, suffering, and misery on every side, and half incredulously we ask, Is there indeed an all-wise and loving rule of God upon this earth? Is God our Father? Does He care for us, His poor helpless children struggling through the night? These questions might prove too strong for faith, unless we were upheld by the songs which come to us from Bethlehem's plains-ay, and from the experience of many "a night of the Lord to be had in remembrance." Be the darkness which enshrouds us ever so great, are there no songs in the night? What is the word of prophecy, that light which shineth in a dark place until the day dawn? What is the Gospel of pardon and salvation? What are God's promises? Was there ever a night so dark that His faithful servants could hear no songs? As it is night which reveals the glory of the starry heavens, so too does it often happen that in the night of weeping mysteries of divine consolation and love are disclosed, which otherwise had been unknown. "Never," it has been said, "does the harp of the human spirit yield such music as when its framework is most shattered and its strings most torn. There is a hand which can then sweep the heart-strings and wake their highest notes of praise.'

Most of us have known how much more formidable our troubles appear when we think of them in the night watches. Cares which fly before the rising sun seem almost unbearable when the darkness is about us. Many too have found that there is no way of escape from the distressing thoughts