tinues to thrust them on.

"Why take ye thought for raiment," inquires the Gospel: but the glory of Solomon has more admirers than the lilies of the field. "Take no thought for the morrow," says Christ: but, "Soul, thou hast many good things laid up for many years" is the dearer language of the Christian. "Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness," saith our Lord: seek wealth, and power, and distinction, whispers the anxious parent almost over the cradle and the infant lisps his earliest prayer to Mammon more earnestly than to the Almighty. Presently friends point out the success of frugal industry. Ambition tells him he must have wealth, to mount up to honour. Prudence bids him. amass, what will support old age with dignity. Pride prompts him to display his splendour. Hoarding avarice accumulates a store for a detested heir. The tempter sits upon the death-bed, to turn a lingering hope from heaven to earth. And even on the grave rests a pompous

monument of worldly distinctions; and the epitaph recounts the stratagems and struggles, by which the departed climbed the steps to fortune, rather than the hopes he entertained of ascending to eternal glory. Every stage of life presents the delusive objects that the world covets. Every circumstance, and friend, and inward passion, combine to establish a false estimate of human worth, and human happiness.

The vice specifically forbidden in the tenth commandment is the desire of having that which belongs to another: the virtue enjoined is contentment, to which the pursuit of an honest calling is subsidiary, and with the generality of mankind essential. Discontent is the offspring of pride, when we think that the Almighty does not bestow on us what we deserve, or what he bestows on others no more deserving than ourselves. Men are apt to measure their deserts by their desires, and, as the latter are insatiable, their estimate of the former becomes ex

travagant; they lose sight of the bounties they receive, in contemplating those, of which they deem themselves deprived; and instead of thanking God for his mercies, they complain that they are disappointed of their expectations. They continually compare themselves with a neighbour who has some supposed advantage over them, and forget the thousands whose lot is more unhappy in this world. They repine at the luxuries of a rich man's repast, and never stop to inquire how many starving souls would be glad of the crumbs that fall from their table. But, if they had the humility to form a little lower estimate of their own deserts; if they would set the blessings they enjoy beside the deprivations which others suffer; if they would not allow the things of this life to hold the highest place in their affections, but fix their best hopes and desires on a life to come: then they would " learn, in whatever state they were, therewith to be content;" and perhaps deem a great abundance of

earthly possessions to be a clog only and an hindrance in their progress to a better country.

Consider him, who gave himself to be our example and pattern, the Saviour, whose whole life was a type to prefigure the only true object of Christian ambition. A strange human glory was the harbinger of the divine. Jesus in triumph entered the earthly, as he was thereafter to enter the heavenly Jerusalem. And the multitude cut down branches from the trees, and strewed them in the way, and cried, saying, "Hosanna to the Son of David blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord." But where is the king, who is thus crowned with the shadow of his future grandeur? Where is his wealth, and pomp, and magnificence, and luxury? Shame on a world worshipping the Mammon of unrighteousness! Behold, thy king cometh unto thee, meek, and sitting upon an ass, and a colt the foal of an ass." Poor and humble, from the day that he was first

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born in a stable, until that in which he died upon a malefactor's cross.

But are we in that ample retinue, which loudly greets his coming to Jerusalem ? Alas! the meek and humble Jesus is going to be condemned. Like the proud and worldly-minded Jew, we would not a king so lowly, and naked, and who hath not where to lay his head. We follow that fickle and deluded multitude, which to-day is shouting applause and benedictions, to-morrow will condemn him to the cross, and heap curses on his head. If the lips do the homage of a subject, the life denies him in its pursuits, the heart denies him in its desires. Whither are we going, my brethren? We condemn him every day, by despising the poverty that was his. We pronounce him wrong, by pursuing the riches that he would not pursue. He gave his life for sin as an evil past endurance. But we can bear that; and give our lives rather to the attainment of wealth, which is often sinful. To be