kingdom of God; no doubt experience of the insufficiency of earthly things to make us happy oftentimes tends to turn us to that Blessed Saviour who alone can give peace and rest to our weary souls; and in this way all worldly troubles may be used by the Holy Spirit as means for working in us that faith which overcomes the world. But it is not mere sorrow that overcomes the world; nor is it sorrow left to its own natural results. Sorrow by itself tends merely to crush us down; it brings us to the earth, rather than raises us above it. It was natural in Job, in his time of great desolation, to "fall down upon the ground"; but faith takes the further step, and raises the affections from things on earth to things in heaven. Sorrow is in itself an idle thing; it leaves us no heart to do anything; yet God's Spirit, from that unpromising source, sometimes draws forth that energetic faith, which "purifieth the heart, and worketh by love, and overcometh the world." And then, after the sorrow is gone, its happy results remain ; the Saviour, whose preciousness was found in the night of weeping, is still found precious when the night has passed away; the lesson learned under the heavy discipline of sorrow is remembered and acted upon when happier days return; and the soul, emancipated from the trammels of the world, acknowledges how good it was to be thus afflicted. A saving and permanent change, visible in the whole life, is sometimes left by the season of tribulation; and then, in

deed, the world has been overcome, when a calm resignation to all the appointments of God's good willa resignation which is calm but not apathetic-has taken the place of that feverish anxiety about worldly things to which we are all so prone. And so the parent, who has lost his beloved child, has sometimes been able to testify that a blessed lesson was taught him by that little grave; that the removal of that dear one reminded him sharply of what he was forgetting, that this is not our rest or our home; and made one tie more to that happy place where there is no

sin nor sorrow.

And now, as a practical conclusion to my discourse, let me ask each of you whether you have overcome the world. "Whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world." It is a searching test this; for it means that he who has not overcome the world has not been born of God. It means, that if a man be entirely worldly in heart and life, he can be no believer. How is it with us, then? Do we feel most interest in the things of time and sense? Do we give more time and thought to our worldly work, or to the great employment of working out our salvation? Are we more anxious to be holy, humble disciples of Jesus, than to get comfortably on through life? Ah, brethren, answer these questions to yourselves; these are matters which lie between you and God. He knows what your answer should be!

what school-boy

We read in history, my friends, has not heard of it?—of one in departed days, who fancied that he had accomplished that hard task which the Apostle John tells us can be accomplished only by him who hath been born of God. We read how he carried his victorious arms over every region of the then known earth; how he subjugated king after king, and brought nation after nation beneath his sway; and then fancied that he had "overcome the world!" We read how he felt it sad to think that his heroic task was done, and how he wept that there were no more worlds to conquer. Oh, far astray, far mistaken! There was one world to conquer yet, to which that conqueror was a slave; a world to overcome which the arms of Alexander were of no avail; a world that can enslave the man who fancies he has conquered it, can bind his soul in fetters, and hold in captivity every feeling and thought. And that world there is but one thing which can conquer. Quietly fought, and fought year after year, this battle is fought and won in the humble believer's heart: "and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith!"

XV.

THE LIMITS OF HUMAN EXPERIENCE.

"There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man." 1 Cor. x. 13.

VERY great number of people firmly believe that there never were in this world such people as themselves, and that nobody ever did what they have done, or came through what they have come through. There is in almost every human being, and in none more decidedly than the most commonplace, a lurking belief that there never was such a being as himself. You will find this especially in the narrower and less cultivated minds; and in them it often appears in forms which are irritating and ridiculous. You will find folk who really believe that they themselves, and all their belongings, are much better than other folk, and their belongings; that there never were such children as theirs; that there never were such flowers and vegetables as theirs; that there never were such toils as theirs; and even (for there is no reckoning the odd ways in which human vanity will gratify itself) that there never were such headaches and such

worries as theirs. All this comes of a morbid selfconceit. It is just the person who is below the average of the race, who will fancy that he stands above all his fellow-creatures. And all this goes rather to constitute one of those weaknesses which should be touched by the moralist, than to rank among those graver matters of doctrine and practice which are to be specially thought of in the house of prayer.

But there is a particular manifestation of the same tendency in fallen human nature, against which an apostle thought it worth while solemnly to caution his friends in an epistle inspired by the Holy Spirit, and which well deserves the most earnest consideration which can be given it upón this day and in this place. This tendency in each human soul to single itself out from the mass of mankind does not always appear in those self-conceited and unamiable forms to which we have alluded. It sometimes manifests itself in forms of feeling and belief which deserve our heartiest sympathy; it often prompts human beings to write hard things against themselves, and to esteem themselves as parted from others, not by being better, but by being worse. Every minister often meets with people who, having been deeply convinced of their sinfulness, and of their lost estate by nature, run into an extreme which for the time threatens to drive them to despair. They fancy that there never were such sinners as they are; that they have sinned beyond hope; that not even Christ's blood can wash away such sins