Great as are the evils that have come down to us from posterity, great also is the good. Whence, as a nation, came our freedom, our religious privileges, and the countless blessings of our civilisation? From the men of the past. Like a goodly ark, richly freighted, our national enjoy ments came floating down to us on the surging waves, crimsoned with the blood of bygone centuries. Whilst groaning then under the evils that we have received from the past, let us not fail to estimate the immense good that bygone times have entailed. (4) This hereditary principle tends to restrain vice and stimulate virtue. The parent knowing, as all parents must know, the immense influence he exerts upon his offspring, and having the common natural affection, will be set more or less on his guard; he will restrain evil passions which otherwise he would allow to sport with uncontrolled power, and prosecute efforts of a virtuous tendency, which otherwise he would entirely neglect.* Secondly: The pernicious influence of a man's sin in the world may continue after his conversion. Manasseh repented of the sins he had committed, and received the favours of his God. Notwithstanding we find men here suffering on account of the sins he had committed, it would appear from 2 Chronicles xxxiii. 13 that Manasseh was a converted man,-"Then Manasseh knew that the Lord He was God."+ Genuine conversion detaches a man to some extent from the consequences of his own sins. He may, and does, ultimately overcome their baneful influences, but it does not prevent the evil consequence of his crimes flowing down to others. Although Manasseh ascended to heaven, cleansed from his sins, to mingle with the pure, the crimes he perpetrated still continue to exert their pernicious influence on the earth. What a sad thought is this!—a thought that should restrain us from all evil, and stimulate us at all times to walk in the light of righteousness and truth. * For further illustration of these thoughts, see Volume IX., page 277. + See Homilist, Volume XXI., page 1. Yet avenging Thirdly That retribution, though it may move slowly, yet will move surely. A hundred years had well-nigh passed away, and several generations had come and gone since Manasseh had gone to his grave. justice appears at last and wreaks upon others the terrible effects of his crimes. The cruelties suffered by the inhabitants during this siege were terrible beyond all description. The "Lamentations" of Jeremiah present us with vivid pictures of these. Enraged by their rebellion and vigorous opposition Nebuchadnezzar, when he took the city, "had no compassion on young men or maiden, old man or him that stooped for age." Famine had done its work before the conqueror entered; and children swooning in the streets for hunger, princes raking dunghills for a morsel, and other hideous and affecting sights showed the extremities to which the people were driven. When the Chaldeans rushed through the breach, the usual brutalities were perpetrated by the licentious soldiers. The famished fugitives were pursued with relentless fury. The Chaldeans were hounded on by the Edomites and other neighbours of the Jews, who knew the country well, and like bloodhounds tracked to the holes and caves such as had escaped from the city. Dead bodies lay piled in heaps upon the streets. Multitudes of these were mere boys and girls. Princes were hanged by their hand, enduring the slow horrors of the crucifixion. Some seem to have been consigned to subterranean dungeons, perhaps, on the shores of the Dead Sea, where Waters flowed over their head;" "A double dungeon, wall, and cave, Have made, and like a living grave Below the surface of the lake The dark vault lies wherein they lay, And there they would have smiled Seedlings. Days of the Christian Year. Luke x. 31. (Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity.) "HE PASSED BY ON THE OTHER SIDE." THESE words, repeated in the following verse, suggest— I-THAT GUILTY NEGLIGENCE FORMS A LARGE PART OF HUMAN SIN. No doubt there is a large measure of guilty ignorance in the minds of men,-perhaps larger than they think. We ought to know many things of which we are ignorant, to recognise much that is quite strange to us, to be perfectly familiar with that with which we have the slenderest acquaintance. We give no time and take no trouble to be masters of great realities and redeeming, elevating truths, when it is our sacred duty to make them matters of serious concern, of diligent inquiry, of patient and laborious pursuit. But it is also true that a large proportion of human guilt is found in a culpable avoidance of plain duty and obvious opportunity. Men "pass by" that which they know should detain them; they leave untouched that which they are well aware should occupy their time and call out their strenuous exertion. This is true in reference to (1) The public worship of God; (2) The decisive choice of Jesus Christ as the Saviour of the soul and the Lord of the life; (3) The open avowal of our attachment to Jesus Christ; (4) The redress of the wrongs (political or social or economical) which our fellow-citizens are suffering; (5) Active participation in the instruction of the ignorant and in the evangelization of the criminal, the vicious, the ungodly, &c. II. THAT WE ARE CONSTANTLY TRYING TO LESSEN OUR GUILT IN OUR OWN EYES. Both priest and Levite shrank from going close by their wronged and suffering countryman without offering to render help; so they passed by on the other side. They could leave him to himself, a little distance intervening, though they would have been ashamed to pass close by without assisting: they would not put their conscience to so severe a test as that, lest it should be too strong for their inclination. So they shirked their duty and lost their opportunity by taking a position in which the one and the other were reduced by some few degrees in their own estimation. They deliberately veiled obligation and opportunity lest these should be too palpable and too pressing. Is not this a constant, a universal habit of the sinful soul? Do we not take care to present our duty in such a form that there shall seem to be the least possible guilt in neglecting it. We do not deliberately face it and defiantly refuse it; we shut, or half shut, our eyes to it, and let it be as if we were unconscious of its presence: we 'pass by on the other side." There are many ways of minimising duty or shutting out the sight of opportunity. We know how to raise doubts as to its importance, or its urgency, or the character of our colleagues, or our own sufficiency, or the timeliness of our interposition, or the construction that will be put on our action by others, &c. We rarely say, "I will not" meet this obligation or render this service. We say, "I would, if ." We are all adepts at passing by the other side." on degree less guilty than rebellious refusal to do the one or to accept the other. WILLIAM CLARKSON, B.A. BRISTOL. Mark xii. 34. (The Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity.) "THOU ART NOT FAR FROM THE KINGDOM OF GOD." THERE are two aspects of "the kingdom of God" at which we might profitably look. First: Its external aspect, in which we regard (a) its constitution; (b) its institutions; (c) its citizens; (d) its distinctive features, which are (1) righteousness; (2) liberty; (3) peace; (4) restorative energy. Second: Its inward aspect, in which we regard (a) its principles; (b) its vitality. "The kingdom of God is within you." This is introductory to a consideration of our text which leads us to ask POSSIBILITY, WHAT THE 66 WHAT THE DUTY, "A sorrow's crown of sorrows Mark xvi. 1-8. (The Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity.) "AND WHEN THE SABBATH WAS PAST, MARY MAGDALENE, AND MARY THE MOTHER OF JAMES, AND SALOME, Hhad bought swEET SPICES, THAT THEY MIGHT COME AND ANOINT HIM. AND VERY EARLY IN THE MORNING THE FIRST DAY OF THE WEEK, THEY CAME UNTO THE SEPULCHRE AT THE RISING OF THE SUN. AND THEY SAID AMONG THEMSELVES, WHO SHALL ROLL US AWAY THE STONE FROM THE DOOR OF THE SEPULCHRE? AND WHEN THEY LOOKED, THEY SAW THAT THE STONE WAS ROLLED AWAY FOR IT WAS VERY GREAT. AND ENTERING INTO THE SEPULCHRE, THEY SAW A YOUNG MAN SITTING ON THE RIGHT SIDE, CLOTHED IN A LONG WHITE GARMENT; AND THEY WERE AFFRIGHTED. AND HE SAITH UNTO THEM, BE NOT AFFRIGHTED: YE SEEK JESUS OF NAZARETH, WHICH WAS CRUCIFIED: HE IS RISEN; HE IS NOT HERE: BEHOLD THE PLACE WHERE THEY LAID HIM. BUT GO YOUR WAY, TELL HIS DISCIPLES AND PETER THAT HE GOETH BEFORE YOU INTO GALILEE: THERE SHALL YE SEE HIM, AS HE SAID UNTO YOU. AND THEY WENT OUT QUICKLY, AND FLED FROM THE SEPULCHRE; FOR THEY TREMBLED AND WERE AMAZED: NEITHER SAID THEY ANY THING |