What a temptation there is, however, to reserve something. Point to one instance in all the Biblical history in which a man actually and perfectly accomplished the divine will in this matter of destruction. A good deal of destruction was accomplished, unquestionably; but was there nothing left? "What meaneth then this bleating of the sheep in mine ears, and the lowing of the oxen which I hear?" The temptation to reserve something is very strong. Take it as a matter of old companionship. It does seem to be ruthless to cut off the old comrades as with the blow of a sword. They do not understand the process of excision; they say,-We can still be friends; you have changed your theological convictions and your religious standpoint: you attend church, you pay respect to the altar, you read the Bible with a new attentiveness,―let it all be granted; but surely there is neutral ground: there are occupations that are not directly touched by the religious sanctities; surely we need not wholly separate one from another, as if we had never seen each other's face? Such a plea is not without tenderness: there is a touch of humanity in it; but to the man who is earnestly religious before God there is no neutral ground, there is no secular occupation, there is no non-religious relation; the dew of the heavenly baptism has fallen upon all life, all duty, all suffering. "If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new." We cannot clutch time with one hand and eternity with the other, in any sense of dividing them into secular and religious; we cannot serve God and Mammon. Then take the thought in relation to old places, where we used to spend the happy evening, where the recreation was innocent and, in a sense, helpful, reinvigorating jaded faculties, and giving a new start to weary or exhausted impulses. Why not look in just once more, or now and then, -say, annually, on particular occasions, when the men are at their best and the institution is in state? It will look friendly; in fact, we may do good by some such arrangement, because we shall show that we are not Pharisees and pedants; we have not betaken ourselves to a monastic life, but we can return to old places and old associations, and breathe upon them a new spirit. The reasoning is specious: there is no doubt about its plausibility; but take care how you carry a naked candle into a high

wind; take care lest the battle should go the other way. It is dangerous for immature experience to expose itself to rooted prejudices and established habits. There is a time in the growth of some lives when a loud laugh may blow out the trembling light of a young profession. Our language, therefore, must be that of caution; the exhortation, charged with tenderness, must begin with the words, "My son," and flow out in most sacred and persuasive emotion. It is not enough to adjure, to hurl the bolt of avenging judgment: we must wrestle and reason and pray.

The words of the text are complete in their force and range. In many a life, great improvement takes place without eradication being perfected. We are not called in the Bible merely to make great improvement. That is what we have been trying to do by our own strength and wit, and which we have always failed in doing. Nowhere do the sacred writers encourage us to make considerable advance upon our old selves. The exhortation of the Bible is vital. Suppose a man should have been addicted to the meanest of all vices-the vice of lying, the vice that God can hardly cure,-that last deep dye that the blood of God's own Christ's heart can hardly get at, that defies the very detergents of heaven ;—suppose such a man should lie less, is he less a liar? Suppose he should cease the vulgarity of falsehood and betake himself to the refinement of deceit, has he improved? Rather, he has aggravated the first offence-multiplied by infinite aggravations the conditions which first constituted. his character. Suppose he should neither lie nor deceive on any great scale, but should betake himself to the act of speaking ambiguously-that is to say, using words in two senses, meaning the hearer to accept the words in one sense, whilst he construes them in another; he then becomes a verbal trickster, a conjurer in speech; he has mental reservations; he has a secret or esoteric backway by which he interprets to his own conscience the language which he uses in public and which he intends to be construed by public lexicography. Has he improved? He has gone to a deeper depth of evil. The vulgar criminal may be hopefully encountered; but the man who has twisted language, coloured and flushed with new significance terms which ought to have been pure in their meaning and direct in their intent; the

man who trifles with the conscience and intelligence of his fellow-creatures, and does so in cold blood, is no black criminal : he is a skilled artist in the devil's pay, and so far in that the divine finger can hardly touch his supposed security. So, we are not called to great improvements, to marvellous changes of a superficial kind: we are called to newness of birth, regeneration, the washing of the Holy Ghost, the renewal-the re-creation of the inner man. "Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again." There is a great work of destruction to be done which we dare not undertake. You can never reason down many of the institutions of Christian countries which are at this moment mocking the sanctuary, and secretly laughing with jeers and bitterest sarcasm at Christianity. We must use force in relation to some institutions-not the force of the arm, which is the poorest of all strength, but the force of reasoned law, righteous legislation, laws made at the altar and sanctified by the very spirit of prayer. There are institutions in every nominally Christian city that can burn up any number of tracts, blow away any force of eloquence, turn aside any dart of argument. Nothing can touch them but the mighty arm of rational-that is to say, intelligent and righteous-legislation.

Thoroughness gives confidence in all things. Take it in the matter of language. How many men know just enough of any language not to dare to speak it! How many persons know the first syllables of a word, but dare not commit themselves to a precise termination! The grammar lies where the sting lies, at the tail of the word. So, how we huddle up our terminations, broaden, or sharpen, or blur the final vowels, so that men may not know whether we have used the one vowel or the other, coming out with tremendous emphasis on the syllables about which there is no doubt. Thoroughness gives confidence. man who understands the language in and out, through and through, speaks off-handedly, freely, with dignified carelessness; he knows that he is fully master of the language, and can speak it with a master's ease. That is true in theology. If we do not believe our theology, we cannot preach it; if we do not believe the Gospel, we can only preach about the Gospel,-make complimentary references to it, set it in a very dignified place in the

The

lyceum of intellect; but knowing it, we breathe it like a great healing, purifying wind over the whole earth, saying, "One thing I know: once I was blind,-now I see." Where are the Pharisees that can frighten us, or the critics that can displace our crown? Do not go beyond your own knowledge; keep strictly within the fine of experience and living testimony; and then you will be Herculean in strength, Job-like in patience, Paul-like in heroism and courage.

Lift

If not, punishments will come. If you will not do this, "those which ye let remain of them shall be pricks in your eyes, and thorns in your sides, and shall vex you in the land wherein ye dwell;"-they will tease you, excite you, irritate you; they will watch for the moments of your weakness, and tempt you into apostasy. What keen eyes the spared enemies have! Looking upon our life, they say,-Now a malign suggestion might be effected-try it; behold, he halts,-Now speak to him, and tell him that just near at hand is a place to which he may resort for the recruiting of his strength; listen! the old emphasis has gone out of his voice: he does not speak as he used to speak: his convictions are halting, faltering,-now say unto him, but gently, -"Where is thy God?" Take him up to an exceeding high mountain: show what he might be under given conditions. him to the pinnacle of the temple, and show that it is possible for a man to hold churches and temples under his feet-to stand above them and to be more than they ;-but speak it quietly, softly, as if you had his interest at heart, and, who knows? you may prevail. Has it, then, come to a battle of skill against skill, faculty against faculty? Nothing of the kind. On the Christian side it comes to a question of character. How is that character created and established? By the Spirit of the living God. We cannot explain the process. "The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit." If we are to meet temptation by cleverness, it is impossible for any cleverness to rival the ingenuity of the devil; whenever it was a battle of words, the devil won; he is mighty in conversation, he is most excellent in speech. We can only oppose him by the higher Spirit-the divine Spirit, living in the heart, breathing in the soul, established in the character; so that

when he cometh, he findeth nothing in us,-altar everywhere, prayer in all the spirit, righteousness at the foundations, and the whole man burning with the presence of the unconsuming fire. When Satan cometh, may he have nothing in us! Let us begin the work of destruction-tear the enemy out, cut him in pieces, and never repeat the habit. Do not say you will touch with the tips of your fingers the Old Canaanitish idols and temptations: say,— Lord of heaven and earth, make me a sword, and give me an arm to wield it; may I go forth as thy warrior, sparing nothing that is impure and unlike thyself. Do not attempt to build a Christian character upon rotten foundations. That is a miracle you cannot accomplish. Do not suppose you can heap up a great pile of noble theological dogmas upon rottenness and bog. The work is foundation work, vital work, work in the heart; and until that negative, iconoclastic work is done, we cannot begin to build. Overturn! overturn! overturn !-then He will come whose right it is.

SELECTED NOTE.

The Israelites were delivered from Egypt by Moses, in order that they might take possession of the land which God had promised to their fathers. This country was then inhabited by the descendants of Canaan, who were divided into six or seven distinct nations. These nations the Israelites were commanded to dispossess and utterly to destroy. The destruction, however, was not to be accomplished at once. The promise on the part of God was that he would "put out those nations by little and little," and the command to the Israelites corresponded with it; the reason given being, "lest the beast of the field increase upon thee."

The destructive war commenced with an attack on the Israelites, by Arad, king of the Canaanites, which issued in the destruction of several cities in the extreme south of Palestine, to which the name of Hormah was given (Num. xxi. 1-3). The Israelites, however, did not follow up this victory, which was simply the consequence of an unprovoked assault on them; but, turning back, and compassing the land of Edom, they attempted to pass through the country on the other side of the Jordan, inhabited by a tribe of the Amorites. Their passage being refused, and an attack made on them by Sihon, king of the Amorites, they not only forced their way through his land, but destroyed its inhabitants, and proceeding onwards toward the adjoining kingdom of Bashan, they in like manner destroyed the inhabitants of that district, and slew Og, their king, who was the last of the Rephaim, or giants. The tract of which they thus became possessed was subsequently allotted to the tribes of Reuben and Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh.