And then you will note that Satan beguiled Eve's understanding by the seductive avenue of an increase of Knowledge in prospect. . . Knowledge!—that first appetite of Man,—and his last!... And is not "Knowledge" good then? Yea, surely, most good: for indeed what were life without it? But like every other creature of GOD, it is good only when it subordinates to GOD's revealed mind and will.

Yet once more, and for the last time,-Death was the penalty of all; and yet,-" Ye shall not surely die," was the promise wherewith Satan sought to silence the fears of our first Mother.. .. What but that,-what but the assurance "Ye shall not surely die," is Satan's cry at this very hour to a too willing World? ... Yes, my Brethren. Satan lures each with an appropriate bait-Sensuality, whether taking the form of carnal mistrust, or any other form: Pride, whether assuming the shape of spiritual or intellectual presumption, or any other: Ambition, whether power, wealth, or worldly honours attract us most:-these, still as ever, are his snares. And his methods also are still the same as of old :—the insinuated lie,—the captious doubt, the petty quibble, — the derogatory conception of GOD,-the misrepresenta

tion of things Divine,-the impatience of authority, the prospect of boundless achievements in the realms of Knowledge,—the denial of God's Word,-the assurance that Death, the penalty of Sin, shall not be for ever!

O mystery of Sin! which, ever as the ages revolve, reproduces itself,-and still with the same hateful features; thus betraying its origin, and shewing that its parentage is still the same as at the first-when shall these weak and wayward hearts be released from the bondage of a fetter which every fresh generation of men hath been condemned to wear? Not until "this mortal shall have put on immortality, and this corruptible shall have put on incorruption." Nor even then will there be release, save to those who have hated the chains which bound them, and loathed the Tyrant by whom those chains were forged. For them, the day of release will come at last; and the eye of the soul, purged from the dross of Sin, shall indeed survey everything in universal Nature as it appears in the unerring gaze of Almighty GoD: having learned to hate entirely the things which He hates, to desire supremely everything which He approves.

Fourth Sunday in Lent.

LIFE AND DEATH.

S. JOHN viii. 51.

Verily, verily, I say unto you, If a man keep My saying, he shall never see Death.

WE cherish inveterate, deepseated notions concerning Life and Death which the plainest, the most emphatic declarations in the Gospel prove insufficient wholly to dispel. . Familiarly described, our notion of "Life" is the period of our sojourn here below: our notion of " Death," the event which ushers in the period which follows after. This is, at all events, the popular view, as reflected in our ordinary modes. of speech. Partly Jewish,-partly heathen,our method of speaking of Life and Death, (it is reasonable to suppose,) insensibly colours our cogitations: extends from the idioms of language back to the logical processes of which language ought to be the expression. In plainer words, it is reasonable to fear that our thoughts

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our manner of speaking of either. ology as "the shortness of Life, of Death" such expressions as Life," and "ceasing to be," and saying concerning a man that "he perished" in such or such a way the very formula on every tombstone," lived" so many years; "died" such a day-all this helps to confirm an erroneous notion. It conduces, cannot but conduce, to the spread, and the perpetuation of what, in our inmost hearts, we yet know very well to be all a mistake. To make the matter worse, we have been accustomed (in poetry) to hear of "urns" and "ashes" and "shades ;" and on our sepulchral monuments, we suffer bones, hour-glasses, scythes, to appear; now a broken column, and now a sarcophagus, and now an inverted torch. Such familiar sights and modes of expression require to be put away from ourselves by a strong effort, if we would open our hearts to the teaching of the Gospel. We must remind ourselves that all these are the wrecks of the Old World which still hang about us, although we belong to the New Creation, and have already inherited "new Heavens and a new Earth." In the meantime, every sad

oken of mortality;-the decay of strength and gradual loss of comeliness, the pang of dissolution and the gloomy ceremonial which follows -to say nothing of the blank which succeeds, to the survivors, and the material darkness of the grave which never passes away :-all these things help to rivet the soul to wrong notions. of Life and Death, almost irrevocably.

We hold it to be our plain duty therefore, as well as our truest wisdom, sometimes to intend our thoughts earnestly on those expressions of Him who is at once "the Way, the Truth, and the Life," which exhibit this whole matter in its true bearings. In more places of the Gospel than one, He is heard to explain to us what Life and Death really are; and certainly His sublime declarations on the subject are well calculated to elevate the soul, kindle glorious hopes,-to lift us up above the joys and sorrows of our present state, to set the whole subject of Life and Death before us in an entirely novel point of view. Let us then listen to Him who became a partaker of our Nature, "that through death He might destroy him that had the power of Death."

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"Verily, verily, I say unto you, If a man keep My saying, he shall never see Death."-The