that mere avoidance of gross falsehood, which ranks amongst the very elements of morality. It should produce that searching self-examination which detects the deceits men are apt to put on their own minds and consciences. It should make man require of himself that which God requires of him-truth in the inward parts. No fiends without have ever done so much to 'palter with us,in a double sense,' as the tempter within. There is the deep root of deception; there should be the lucid fountain of simplicity, sincerity, frankness of character. We should not shrink from avowing our real motives to ourselves; that is the way in which iniquity is found to be hateful; and man gains satisfaction in righteousness, whatever its earthly and immediate consequences.

And let no one say that, in this discourse, I am aiming at anything Utopian or chimerical. I pretend not to say by what degrees or in what precise way the world will grow more honest and individuals more transparent; nor would I underrate the virtue that exists. Enough there is, blessed be God, to redeem the name of humanity from its calumniators. My object is perfectly simple, tangible, practical, and practicable. It is only this:-do not set snares for others' sincerity, nor for your own. Do not influence sceptics to disingenuousness, by joining an outcry about damnable heresies or doubts. Do not help to pollute the springs of Christian instruction by demanding that the teacher should profess and ever adhere to the previous faith or prejudices of his pupils. Do not judge character by opinions, and assume depravity in the one on the ground of error in the other. Do not up

hold institutions and practices which legalise falsehood that would be ridiculous, but that all falsehood is worse than ridiculous. Do not take the fact in the proverb for a precept: It is naught, it is naught, saith the buyer; but when he is gone his way, he boasteth.' Do not countenance cant of any kind, interested or unmeaning, in any department,-literature, education, society. Do not praise or frighten, or suffer others to praise or frighten, your children out of the straightforward path. Heed your own example, both in its direct and indirect influence. Be true to yourself; to your inmost soul. Live in the conscious presence of

the God of truth.

These are the moral of my discourse these are practical precepts—these are, I am sure, Christian precepts; and may God give us grace to observe them. Amen.

SERMON XVI.

ON TEMPTATION.-PART I. AVOIDANCE.

PSALM CXIX. 37.

Turn away mine eyes from beholding vanity.

'A vain thing,' and 'vanity,' are terms very often put,in the Old Testament scriptures, for idols and idolatry. The prophets of Israel, glowing with the lofty conceptions of Deity which they derived from revelation, could not but think and speak contemptuously of the absurd personifications, whose figures were cast in gold and silver for the balls of wealth and hewn out of the log for the hovel of poverty, and made the objects of a noisy and degrading homage, as inefficacious as they were unconscious. Often did they portray, with a severe and dignified irony, the folly of such practices. Often did they indignantly contrast the majesty of Jehovah with the senselessness of the base things which were set up as his competitors for man's adoration. Often did they denounce the guilt of idolatry to their countrymen and warn then of the danger of drawing down upon themselves the most awful judgments. And while sometimes they dilated on this theme, with all the copiousness and gorgeousness

of Eastern poetry, at others they concentrated the host of strong emotions which it raised in them into a single word, or phrase, which they imprinted as a brand on the very forehead of national apostacy. And thus was it that, in their language, the language of divine truth, the gods of the neighboring countries, whether the meanest tribes or the mightiest empires, those of the Hittites and Jebusites, or those of Egypt and Assyria; whatever their imagined attributes, or their elevation in the hierarchy of divinities; with all their temples, and altars, and high places, and caverns of divination, and consecrated groves; and the varied attractions of their worship, and the multitude of their priests, and the millions of their adorers; were all compressed, and described, and condemned, in this one word, vanity. This, more probably than the frivolous disposition which we commonly intend by that epithet, was the meaning of the writer of this Psalm, when he offered the prayer which has just been read as my text. The connected clause is, 'and

quicken thou me in thy way.' Now, though the 'way of God' includes the sobriety of mind and lowliness of heart which are opposed to vanity; and he is ia that way who walks humbly with his God;' yet so to confine the meaning of the terms would be putting a very limited interpretation on a general expression. Or if we expound the way of God,' in its full acceptation, as the way of truth, piety, and righteousness, then 'vanity' seems neither iniquitous nor comprehensive enough to be thus placed in solitary opposition. But if we take vanity' in the sense of idolatry, that mass of error, guilt, and wretchedness; and

the way of God,' of his prescribed service, in pure worship and moral obedience; the opposition is then apparent and appropriate; and the two clauses form a prayer, whose fulness, strength, and earnestness, cannot but interest the devout mind. Turn away mine eyes from beholding vanity.'

In this prayer, the Psalmist petitions that he may not even behold idolatrous practices; lest, perhaps. he should be unawares overcome, and be surprised into a participation of the guilt which he only intended to witness; or lest, though preserved from this, he should yet, by having it familiarized to his sight, contract a culpable indifference towards it in his heart; or, if his own firmness could securely abide the trial, that his example might not lead others into dangerous situations, and plunge them into an abasement, which, unless thus practically encouraged by him, they might have escaped; or he might pray under the influence of pain and regret on account of others, who had begun with merely witnessing the celebration of those ceremonies of iniquity, and were gradually led on till they became their votaries and advocates; and it would certainly be his desire, not only that his eye should not witness these practices, but that there should be no such practices in the land for any eye to witness, but all its inhabitants, and all around them, be true worshippers of the God of truth. And with these several views and motives, we may, and should, adopt the prayer as against temptation generally. The great and easily besetting sin of the writer's time and country does not exist to us, in such relative circumstances, as to render necessary his prayer against