later." ""* All have some favourite objects which hold & supreme place in their regard. Worldly gain, or worldly pleasure, or worldly honour, or something or other which the world furnishes, is set up in their hearts as a rival of the Lord Jehovah. They fancy that they can divide them. selves between God and mammon,-that they can do for the Lord as much as he requires or expects, and at the same time indulge to the full their inclination for the world. Or the sabbath day they are in the house of God, uttering strains of piety, and appearing to seek the kingdom of God: on the week day they are running mad after the pursuits and pleasures of the world. In the morning, perhaps, they have a form of words upon their lips, in which they declare godliness to be their gain; and throughout the day they are proclaiming, in all their words and actions, that they account their gain their godliness.

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But let me call attention to another circumstance connected with the worship of the Samaritans, which proves what a mistaken one it was. They worshipped God, as it appears, out of fear. They feared the Lord." There is sense, indeed, in which God's people are said to "fear the Lord." They entertain the deepest reverence for Him who has "bought" them " with a price,"—a profound awe of all his holy attributes, an unspeakable sense of his majesty and holiness, as contrasted with their own worthlessness It is never, therefore, without solemnity that they take his blessed name within their lips; and the awful impressions which they have of him effectually prevent them from coming in a light, profane spirit to his mercy-seat. They fear him as an affectionate child would fear a tender father. Having tasted the sweet influences of the Spirit in their hearts, they are afraid of forfeiting his grace by listening to the tempter. Knowing by experience the comforts of com munion with their God, they are afraid of interrupting it by any act or thought of sin. It is thus that true believers are said to fear the Lord. And this "godly fear" is a most gracious feeling. It was entertained by Abraham and Isaac, and all the most privileged of God's saints;† and, se far from interfering with their love of God, the more they loved him, the more, in this sense of the term, they feared

him.

The fear of God, thus understood, is not unfrequently put * Eph. v. 5, and Col. iii. 5.

† See Gen. xviii. 17; xxxi. 53; xlii. 18.

in Scripture for the whole of religion. "The fear of the Lord," says Solomon, "is the beginning of knowledge." Fear God, and keep his commandments; for this is the whole duty of man."†

We are not, however, to confound this godly fear with "the fear of the Lord" which these Samaritans entertained. Theirs was a slavish feeling. They worshipped God only because they were frightened into it. They felt that he was too strong for them. Should they continue to neglect him, they were afraid that he would repeat his plagues. Although, therefore, they loved him not, and only looked upon him as a dreadful enemy, they were willing to purchase peace and safety by paying him some little honour. What was such a worship worth? It is what the Lord Jehovah "cannot away with." Come to him in this way, and "even the solemn meeting is iniquity," he is "weary to bear it." +

But does the religion of the nominal Christian arise from any better source? No, it is just the same. He attends, perhaps, on public worship,-he says his prayers,—he reads his Bible,-why? Because he knows that God can cast him into hell, and he knows that there is a day of judgment coming when his soul is to be tried, and he knows that God sees and searches everything with an intention of bringing it forward at the last day. He perceives, therefore, that it is likely to go hard with him if he leaves God's service utterly undone, and therefore he does something in the way of divine worship, just to satisfy his conscience. But suppose that there were no such place as hell, and no such day as the day of judgment, and suppose the Lord were to make no difference hereafter between the man that served him and the man that served him not, what would become of the worldly man's religion? How often would he be found within the house of prayer? How often on his knees at home? How often would he turn the pages of his Bible? In all probability, never. No," he would say, "I am at liberty to act as I please. There is no necessity for me to trouble myself about my soul. I am not obliged to spend any of my time in these dreary duties. I will not therefore waste my time in the Lord's service, when I might be getting money or taking pleasure elsewhere." Such would be the sentiments of the worldly man's heart if his fears were taken off.

* Prov. i. 7.

† Eccles. xii. 13.

See Isa. i. 13, 14.

But I have not as yet pointed out the worst feature in the false worship of the Samaritans. Observe the different terms made use of in distinguishing between the worship which these people paid to God, and that which they be stowed upon their idols: "They feared the Lord, and served their own gods." This is as much as to intimate that, after they had yielded to the one true God a cold, reluctant, heartless service, extorted from them only by their fears, they hastened joyfully to their own gods, and performed the cruel ceremonies of idol worship with heart and soul. And thus it is with those who set up idols in their hearts, and who attempt to follow God and mammon; thus it is, in short, with every mere professing Christian. He is sure to love the wrong master while he neglects and dislikes the right one; and this will sufficiently appear by contrasting the sort of service which he pays the one with that which he bestows upon the other.

Behold him when engaged in divine worship. What a weariness it is to him! How heavy does time hang! What a dry, irksome, uninteresting task does he feel himself engaged in! What a sacrifice of happiness to duty! and what a praiseworthy act of self-denial does he seem to have performed when it is done! But follow him to the scenes of business or pleasure, and you will see where his real heart's service is performed. Here he is quite another man; he is as full of interest and spirit in this work as of heaviness and reluctance in the other. The cause is plain: he is doing what he loves to do. “He fears the Lord," but he serves, and serves heartily, the idols of his own heart.

To the worship of the Lord he gives but a small corner of his time-as little as he can help. He hurries over a short prayer or two at stated times, is glad when the task is over, hastens where his heart inclines him, and puts the Lord out of his thoughts until his period of prayer returns. But the idols of his heart have hours of willing worship paid to them; time goes swiftly in their service, and he would be glad to stop it in its course, if it were possible, that he might serve them longer.

The worship which he pays to God is a dry, unmeaning form. Words flow inconsiderately from his lips, which he cares not whether he understands or not; and he often prays for things which are far removed from his desires. In the world, on the other hand, he speaks the language of his heart. There is a meaning then in what he does and

says. He is aware of what he promises and asks, and will not be lightly brought to undertake anything before he understands what he is doing. He will not take a step in which his earthly interests are anywise involved, without the most mature consideration.

In three points, therefore, the religion of the mere professing Christian may be compared to the religion of those poor Gentiles of whose practice our text speaks. They join the worship of their hearts' idols to that of the true God,— they worship him only out of fear, and, what is worst of all, they serve and honour the creature even more than the Creator.* Will the Lord accept such worshippers? Will he say to them hereafter, "Well done, good and faithful servants; enter ye into the joy of your Lord ?"† Ah! no; they call on him in vain. He who offers him this worship is as though he blessed an idol. This is no other than that blind and lame sacrifice, referred to by the prophet Malachi : 'Ye said also," says the Lord, in the passage I refer to,"Ye said also, What a weariness is it! and ye have snuffed at it, saith the Lord of hosts; and ye brought that which was torn, and the lame, and the sick; thus ye brought an offering: should I accept this of your hand? saith the Lord." "If ye offer the blind for sacrifice, is it not evil? and if ye offer the lame and sick, is it not evil?"—that is, to adapt the language to present times, "if he come to worship me with a faint, unwilling, careless heart, is it not evil ?”Offer it now unto thy governor; will he be pleased with thee, or accept thy person? saith the Lord."

The last question suggests a striking illustration of the unacceptableness of a worldly man's religion. Suppose that a very needy person had received great favours from a man in power, with a promise of still higher ones if he would only come day by day to express his obligations and signify his wants. "The person goes to his benefactor and says, "You are a hard man to expect so much of me. It is sorely against my will that I appear before you. I feel no love for you, nor any grateful sense of your benefits. But the truth is, I am afraid of you, because you have power enough to injure me. I come, therefore, to pay my forced respects—but oh! what a wearisome thing it is, and how glad I shall be when it is over!" Is such a man likely to please his benefactor by the attendance which he pays him, or to draw upon himself fresh favours? So far from it, he would be sent away * Rom. i. 25. † Matt. xxv. 21. See Mal. i. 13, and 8.

with every mark of indignation, and he would thus turn a friend into a foe. And do not the words I have supposed this man to-speak express the secret thoughts of every worldly man's heart when he approaches God? And does What, not God hear thoughts, just as men hear words? then, will the worldly man's religion do for him at the day of judgment?

THE EGYPTIAN KITCHEN IN THE TIME OF JACOB.

ABOUT 1800 YEARS BEFORE CHRIST.

THE following description of an Egyptian kitchen in the time of the patriarch is not only curious and interesting in itself, but the thoughtful reader of the Bible will find many illustrations of scriptural phraseology in these details.

"From the various kitchen utensils and dinner services in the new Egyptian room at the British Museum, it may be readily surmised that the culinary art among the Egyptians had arrived at a considerable degree of perfection, both as to the mode of mounting' an Egyptian dinner table under the Pharoahs, and as to the general cultivation of the gastronomic art.

"It appears that to the kitchens of the royal and aristocratic class were attached shambles for slaughtering and jointing the meat, and poultry yards with cages for fattening the poultry. Butchers are represented slaughtering oxen in the manner usual now, viz., by knocking them on the head with an axe, and by bleeding the jugular vein. Assistants are employed in cutting the meat into joints, while others are. occupied with carrying the joints so divided to the kitchen. In some cases men are represented selecting the fattest poultry from the poultry cages, and carrying them to the same department. Butchers appear again to be employed in the kitchen for the purpose of further dis secting the meat under the superintendence of the chief baker.' In Rossellini's civil monuments of Egypt, one of these assistant butchers is sharpening his knife upon a steel suspended from his waist, and which is exactly similar to the steels employed at the present time. Dwarfs and ridiculously deformed persons are often seen employed in the lower departments of the kitchen, as they were in the time of Roman Imperial luxury. In the same work to which reference has been made, a large stove is exhibited, near which a cook is putting a bullock's head into a caul