so it comes to pass that we have a vast number of professing Christians, church-goers and communicants, men perfectly blameless as far as moral character and fair reputation goes,--who have never even seriously inquired what the one talent entrusted to them may be, much less whether they are putting it out to interest, and securing a return from it.

Reader, if this most important question has never yet been asked, let it form the subject of your next Self-examination. Rest assured of this, that one talent you have, if not many, however deep it may have been buried by your thoughtlessness and indolence, however much, by long want of use and currency, it may have gathered a rust which has eaten away the metal. What is it? Is there any one to whom you may be useful in the way of influence, and who is continually thrown across you, but for whose good you have never yet made a single effort? Are you surrendering for objects of Religion and Charity such a proportion of your worldly goods, as a conscience, enlightened by God's Word and Spirit, dictates? Have you any, and what mental endowments? And if so, are you cultivating them with an ultimate view, though it may be a distant one, to the Service and Glory of God? All advance of human knowledge is good and acceptable, if the Father of lights have the glory of it, but contemptible, nay, mischievous, if it terminates upon the gratification of curiosity or of intellectual pride. Have you any leisure hours? and if so, are they turned to good account? A little time spent upon benevolent objects may be of more avail in promoting them than much money. Do Does your position

we ever spend our spare time so?

and state of life give you any opportunity of usefulness to others? And if so, do you avail yourself of such

opportunity? If you can do nothing else for your fellow-men, may you not perhaps console them by your presence with them, and by the mere common-place intimation of your sympathy? May you not say a word of kindness or encouragement, or bring together estranged friends, or persuade able men to the course to which God seems to be calling them? The trumpeter who stirs the spirit of the troops by a well-timed blast, contributes almost as much to the victory as those whom he animates.

Generally, in what direction is your natural ability (itself God's gift) pointing you? Look narrowly in that direction, and you shall soon see the talent with which God has furnished you. Having discovered it, you are to increase by putting it out to interest. The question must be, not simply how you may use it, but how you may use it in the most profitable manner in which it is capable of being used. Without being too ambitious--ambitious (to pursue our Lord's own figure a little more into detail) of a higher interest than can be had with security-how may the money be made to fructify most largely? If there are two good uses which may be made of leisure hours, of superfluous money and redundant luxuries, of natural parts, which of those two good uses is the best? That is generally speaking the best, which has the nearest reference to the spiritual interests of men, which most immediately subserves the good of souls. This is God's end of ends, and this therefore should be ours.

Remark, finally, how hard thoughts of God, such as the slothful servant entertained, lie at the root of all unfruitfulness in Religion. No soul was ever yet, or ever will be, generous in its dealings with God, which has not first formed a large estimate of God's generosity.

We must perforce be niggards towards Him, so long as we think Him a niggard either of pardon or grace. for a juster conception of the intensity of His love and tenderness for us, of His unspeakable willingness to give us day by day, and hour by hour, all things which are requisite for the spiritual life!

If we have ever so little sincere desire to serve Him and to be His, is it not absolutely certain, from the whole tenour of His words and deeds, that He will meet us more than half-way, and bring us on in the right path with more than a mother's tenderness? He requires from us a very arduous standard of sentiment and duty;-granted. We have not for a moment in the course of these Lectures blinked its arduousness; rather, we have striven to cry aloud in the ears of all hearers "Excelsior!" But does He demand any thing which He is not ready out of His Son's fulness to supply? Is He a Pharaoh, who, while He requires us to build a Pyramid, bids us go get straw where we can find it? Avaunt the wicked and derogatory thought! For every responsibility which we have to meet, He offers to qualify us. For every height which we have to climb, He furnishes an inward strength. So that, whatever be our faithless forecastings before we fairly come up with our burdens, it is extremely questionable whether, while we are bearing them, the heavier seems more oppressive than the lighter. For the feeling of a burden's oppressiveness must of course be proportioned to our strength. And if with a double burden the Lord supplies a double strength, it is exactly the same to our experience as if with half the burden He left us half the strength. Isaac leads a quiet life; and it is not recorded that any great revelation was made to him. Jacob is tossed with troubles, and in the midst of them,

he dreams of the great bright ladder, which spanned the distance between heaven and earth, and shadowed forth the one Mediator between God and men,-the inan Christ Jesus. The same is the law of the Christian's life; an easy pilgrimage, and no extraordinary support; a tempest-tost career, and a strong consolation. We need not faint then at any prospect before us. Progress in grace may be arduous, difficult, impossible to flesh and blood,-out of the question, it may be said, while living in the old world; but to all alleged difficulties there is one simple answer, "HE GIVETH MORE GRACE." The cruse of Grace abounds, like the widow of Sarepta's cruse, in time of dearth. And so we will march bravely onwards, assured that, if the last failure of all should begin to overtake us, there will be a pro portionally large inflowing from that cruse into the inner man.

My flesh and my heart faileth; but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever." "For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day."

CHAPTER XII.

OF THE INTERIOR LIFE.

Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins, which took their lamps, and went forth to meet the bridegroom. And five of them were wise, and five were foolish. They that were foolish took their lamps, and took no oil with them: but the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps. While the bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept. And at midnight there was a cry made, Behold, the bridegroom cometh: go ye out o meet him. Then all those virgins arose, and trimmed their lamps. And the foolish said unto the wise, Give us of your vil: for our lamps are gone out. But the wise answered saying, Not so: lest there be not enough for us and you: but go ye rather to them that sell, and buy for yourselves. And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came: and they that were ready went in with him to the marriage: and the door was shut. Afterwards came also the other virgins, saying, Lord, Lord, open to us. But he answered and said, Verily I say unto you, I know you not. Watch therefore for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh."-MATT. xxv. 1—13.

IN music, the key-note, which rules the strain, also closes it. It should be the same with compositions. Every discourse, every systematic series of discourses, should, after running its round through a variety of propositions and illustrations, at length return to the chord originally struck, or, in other words, gather itself up again into its fundamental idea. We will endeavour to give our Thoughts on Personal Religion this com pleteness, by setting before the reader, in rather a different aspect, at their close, the thoughts which originally gave rise to them.

The 24th and 25th chapters of St. Matthew form but one Prophetic Discourse, (grievously disjointed