(if you could not help it) for Where does your toleration Here is a man who comes

life. Here is a man who says,-Morality is quite a parochial term: morality is a question of circumstance; as to right and wrong, they vary with latitude and longitude; morality must be considered a variable quantity. Do you tolerate that man? Would you leave him in charge of your business for one calendar month? Would you allow him to have full control over your family circumstances for the same limited period of time? Would you trust such a man with signed cheques, the money lines of which were blank? You are lovers of toleration; you preach toleration; you would die toleration. Are you consistent ? begin? Where does it end? with a new creed, untouched by ministerial fingers, unpolluted by pulpit senility and ignorance; he says,-Weak people have no rights: strength is right: he who can get has a right to get, and the weak must go to the wall; the weak are an offence to nature they are out of harmony with the constitution of things; they must be got rid of; strength, health, force,-these are the masters of the world. Do you tolerate him? Would you like him to sit up for the nights of one whole week with your little sick child? Would you like him to take out, in its little perambulator, the pale-cheeked one of the familythe little creature whose life trembles in the balance? You love toleration; you are fond of toleration; you clap your sweltering hands in applause of infinite nothings mouthed by irresponsible speakers about toleration. toleration begin? Where does it end? welcome-a thousand welcomes to all the they touch our money, or our family, or our little ones, we say we must have the very highest references about them. Why refer? Why submit to such pointless routine? Refer!-be tolerant, be magnanimous, be trustful. You, who can afford to let a man do what he pleases with theology, ought not to be so scrupulous as to what he may do with your bank-book. Here is a man who lays down the doctrine that property is robbery. His creed is,-Share and share alike. He says he is a "democrat"; he says he will have no boundary walls, and no entails and primogenitures and rights and deeds and Chancery injunctions and decrees; he would have all equal.

Where does the We make people theology; but when

What a splendid man! What an original thinker about all things created! What an administrator! What a Daniel come to judgment ! Shall we tolerate him? Shall we be very gentle to him ?-and shall we begin by handing him over whatever we have about us? We are tolerationists! As for theology, you may turn into that field all the beasts you own, and let the quadrupeds trample the fair gardens under their hoofs; but you will not tolerate the man who says,— What is yours is mine, and I have a right to it, and I claim it now. We admire toleration: we think it is an excellent abstract idea: we believe there is a whole heaven of beauty in it, if anybody could discover it; but, in the meantime, we will have no toleration of liars, thieves, evil persons, who seek to disturb the foundations of society and property. We are "fearfully and wonderfully made."

What penalty, then, shall we inflict upon men who seek to destroy our faith? I hesitate not in my reply: Avoid them; pass by them; they would injure your soul. Wherever there is matter of mere opinion there should be the largest measure of toleration—not upon one side, but on both sides. It is a marvellous thing that the men who cry out for toleration are often the most reluctant to exercise it. There is much mockery addressed to the Christ of to-day; there is not a little penalty inflicted upon the Christian thinkers of the time; there are disallowances and disabilities and disqualifications of many kinds attached to deep religious conviction. Do not suppose that toleration is a one-sided quantity; when it is established it will operate from two opposite centres. Meanwhile, what are our religious convictions? If they are large, vital, wellreasoned; if they have borne the burden of the day; if they have sustained the heat of noontide; if they have survived the thick rains of night;—if our convictions have been potent in life, comforting in affliction, inspiring in death, he does not violate the genius of conviction who says,-Beware of any man who would tamper with those convictions, who would kill your spiritual enthusiasm, who would tempt you from the service of passion into the passivity of indolence or the uncertainty of insincere confession. We are not intolerant.

We believe, and therefore speak. Our convictions are our life. If they were mere opinions, we should compare them, compromise with others, make arrangements for the settlement of controversies; but where convictions are positive, either on the one side or the other; where they are real convictions men must abide by them, and beware of the thievish hand. This is our position; we have tested it by manifold experience.

SELECTED NOTE.

"Thou shalt stone him with stones, that he die" (v. 10).-The mode of capital punishment which constitutes a material element in the character of any law, was probably as humane as the circumstances of Moses admitted. It was probably restricted to lapidation or stoning, which, by skilful management, might produce instantaneous death. It was an Egyptian custom (Exod. viii. 26). The public effusion of blood by decapitation cannot be proved to have been a Mosaic punishment, nor even an Egyptian; for in the instance of Pharaoh's chief baker (Gen. xl. 19), "Pharaoh shall lift up thine head from off thee," the marginal rendering seems preferable-" shall reckon thee and take thine office from thee." He is said to have been "hanged" (xli. 13); which may possibly mean posthumous exposure, though no independent evidence appears of this custom in ancient Egypt. The appearance of decapitation, "slaying by the sword," in later times (2 Sam. iv. 8; xx. 21, 22; 2 Kings x. 6-8) has no more relation to the Mosaic law than the decapitation of John the Baptist by Herod (Matt. xiv. 8-12); or than the hewing to pieces of Agag before the Lord by Samuel, as a punishment in kind (1 Sam. xv. 33); or than the office of the Cherethites, ' (2 Sam. viii. 18; xv. 18; xx. 7-23), or headsmen, as Gesenius understands by the word, from, "to chop off" or hew down (executioners belonging to the bodyguard of the king); whereas execution was ordered by Moses, probably adopting an ancient custom, to be begun first by the witnesses, a regulation which constituted a tremendous appeal to their moral feelings, and afterwards to be completed by the people (Deut. xiii. 10; xvii. 7; Josh. vii. 25; John viii. 7). It was a later innovation that immediate execution should be done by some personal attendant, by whom the office was probably considered as an honour (2 Sam. i. 15; iv. 12). Stoning, therefore, was probably the only capital punishment ordered by Moses. It is observable that neither this nor any other punishment was, according to his law, attended with insult or torture. Nor did his laws admit of those horrible mutilations practised by other nations. For instance, he prescribed stoning for adulterers (comp. Lev. xx. 10; Ezek. xxiii. 25; xvi. 38-40; John viii. 5); but the Chaldeans cut off the noses of such offenders. Mutilation of such a nature amounts to a perpetual condemnation to infamy and crime. Moses seems to have understood the true end of punishment, which is not to gratify the antipathy of society against crime, nor moral vengeance, which belongs to God alone, but prevention. "All the people shall hear and fear, and do no more so presumptuously."

PRAYER.

ALMIGHTY GOD, help us to understand thy law and to do it obediently and lovingly, that we may enjoy the happy issue of such action, and find in experience a light upon many a mystery. If we do the will, we shall know the doctrine. How hard it is to do the will thou knowest. Thou understandest us altogether-in the mystery of the mind, in the peculiarity of the whole constitution; thou knowest how sensitive we are to evil suggestion, how profoundly we love the darkness, and how we love to be liberated from the restraints of law. Yet herein is our greatness as well as our infirmity. Thou hast made us in thine own image and likeness; but we have lost our uprightness and sought out many inventions, and now we are following after wind and vanity, and grasping energetically at the nothings of time. So we come before thee to mourn our fall, our personal apostasy, and to utter our personal prayer for pardon, liberty, and hope. We rejoice that there is a door standing wide open, and that within the opened home is our Father waiting to be gracious, his great love tarrying for us, his infinite compassion ready to welcome us. This is the Gospel we have heard; this is the good news which has filled our life from the very first. We have heard that God is love, God is light, God hath no pleasure in the death of the wicked, God says-Turn ye, turn ye, why will ye die?—and he stands at the door of the heart and knocks, and asks to be admitted to the guest-chamber of the soul. Behold, we delight in this Gospel: it is music to our ears-a sovereign balm for every wound. We need such speech, for the darkness is often very burdensome, and the wind so cold, and the pit-falls so many, and our readiness to go astray so eager. So we require to hear, now and again, of thy love and tenderness as revealed in the sacrifice of Christ, the oblation of the Son of God, the atonement wrought for sin. We reply to such Gospel by new vows and oaths and utterances of thankfulness; may we live this utterance in all obedient and noble life. Amen.

Deut. xv. 1–11.

"At the end of every seven years thou shalt make a release. And this is the manner of the release: every creditor that lendeth ought unto his neighbour shall release it; he shall not exact it of his neighbour, or of his brother; because it is called the Lord's release" (vv. 1-2).

THE PLACE OF BENEFICENCE.

OD is putting lines of mercy amid all the black print of the law. It would seem as if wherever God could find

a place at which he might utter some word of pity or compassion

he filled up that place with an utterance of his solicitude for the welfare of man. Loving words always look beautiful; perhaps they look most beautiful when surrounded by contrastive words of stern righteousness, of unyielding law, of severe prohibition. Flowers look lovely everywhere, but what must be the loveliness of a flower to the wanderer in a desert ? So these Gospel words are full of charm wherever we find them, but they have double charmfulness being found in connection with institutions, instructions, precepts, and commandments marked by the severest righteousness. In the midst of time God graciously puts a year of release. Time needs to be jewelled; time is an appalling monotony. What can be so dull as the days that have no business, no pleasure, no special engagement for faculties which have been prepared for specific work? How dull the time is then, without a sparkle of dew, without a glint of superior light, without a note of supernal music! But God will mark off special periods; the very boundaries shall be gold; the very limits shall glitter with diamonds. How many beautiful days (as we have already seen) has God set in the commonplace of life-the restful Sabbath, the hilarious festival, the time of family joy. Memory will supply many such dates and engagements which fill the heart with highest gladness. The poor man must have his year of release-the debtor, the slave, the servant, the disappointed heart. The rich have many friends-they can turn the whole week into a gala-day; but the poorest and weakest of mankind must have a year set amid the succession of the days to which they can look with religious expectation. It is something to know the limit of one's endurance. When no date of liberation is fixed, the heart aches because of the burdensome monotony; but when a time is appointed—a specified line laid downcourage rises: the spirit says,-Now I must be brave; every day brings the year of release nearer; I must fire my courage and heroically try again. We know what this is in various departments of life. How often have men sighed, expressing the thought, which they could scarcely put into words sufficiently delicate, that if but a limit could be assigned-say a year hence, or seven years, or ten-they could grapple with a given quantity: they could face a specific and measurable