choly on our sources of good. Sickness, we call it Jabez, though it may be sent to minister to our spiritual health; poverty, we call it Jabez, though coming to help us to the possession of heavenly riches; bereavement, we call it Jabez, though designed to graft us more closely into the household of God. O for a better judgment! or rather, O for a simpler faith! We cannot indeed see the end from the beginning, and therefore cannot be sure that what rises in cloud will set in vermilion and gold; but we need not take upon ourselves to give the dark name, as though we could not be deceived in regard of the nature. The mother of him who proved "more honorable than his brethren" may have been unable to prognosticate aught but sorrow for and from this child-so much of threatening aspect may have hung round his entrance upon lifebut she should have called him by a name expressive of dependence on God, rather than of despondency and soreness of heart.

Let us derive this lesson from the concise but striking narrative in the first verse of our text. Let us neither look confidently on what promises best, nor despairingly on what wears the most threatening appearance. God of ten wraps up the withered leaf of disappointment in the bright purple bud, and as often enfolds the golden flower of enjoyment in the nipped and blighted shoot. Experience is full of evidence that there is no depending on appearances; that things turn out widely different from what could have been anticipated: the child of most promise perhaps living to pierce as with a sword, the child of least, to apply balsam to the wound; events which have menaced ministering to happiness, and those which have come like enemies doing the office of friends. So that, if there be one duty more pressed upon us by what we might observe than another, it is that of waiting meekly upon the Lord, never cherishing a wish that we might choose for ourselves, and never allowing a doubt that he orders all for our good. Oh, be careful that you pronounce not harshly of his dealings, that you provoke him not by speaking as though you could see through his purpose,

and decide on its being one of unmixed calamity. If you are so ready with your gloomy names, he may suspend his gracious designs. If, in a spirit of repining or unbelief, you brand as Jabez what may be but a blessing in disguise, no marvel if sometimes, in just anger and judgment, he allow the title to prove correct, and suffer not this Jabez, this child born in sorrow, to become to you, as otherwise it might, more honorable, more profitable, than any of its brethren.

But let us now turn to the prayer of Jabez : there might be a sermon made on each petition; but we must content ourselves with a brief comment on the successive requests. Yet we ought not to examine the prayer without pausing to observe to whom it is addressed .It is not stated that Jabez called on God, but on "the God of Israel ;" and, unimportant as this may seem on a cursory glance, it is a particular which, duly pondered, will be found full of beauty and interest.

There are few things more significant than the difference in the manner in which God is addressed by saints under the old and under the new dispensation. Patriarchs pray to God as the God of their fathers; Apostles pray to him as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. In both forms of address there is an intimation of the same fact, that we need something to encourage us in approaching unto God; that, exposed as we are to his just wrath for our sins, we can have no confidence in speaking to him as to absolute Deity. There must be something to lean upon, some plea to urge, otherwise we can but shrink from the presence of One so awful in his gloriousness; our lips must be sealed; for what can it avail that corrupt creatures should ask mercies from a Being, all whose attributes pledge him to the pouring on them vengeance? They may tell you that prayer is the voice of nature-but it is of nature in utter ignorance of itself and of God. The savage offers his petitions to the unknown spirit of the mountain or the flood; yes-to the unknown spirit: let the savage be better informed as to what God is, let him be also taught as to what himself is, and he will be more disposed to the silence of despair than to the importunity of

supplication. We must, then, have some title with which to address God -some title which, interfering not with his majesty or his mysteriousness, may yet place him under a character which shall give hope to the sinful as they prostrate themselves before him. We need not say, that, under the Gospel dispensation, this title should be that which is used by St. Paul, "the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ." Having such a Mediator through whom to approach, there is no poor supplicant who may not come with boldness to the mercy-seat. But under earlier dispensations, when the mediatorial office was but imperfectly made known, men had to seize on other pleas and encouragements; and then it was a great thing, that they could address God, as you continually find him addressed, as the God of Israel, the God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob. The title assured them that God was ready to hear prayer and to answer it. They went before God, thronged, as it were, with remembrances of mercies bestowed, deliverances vouchsafed, evils averted: how could they fear that God was too great to be addressed, too occupied to reply, or too stern to show kindness, when they bore in mind how he had shielded their parents, hearkened to their cry, and proved himself unto them "a very present help" in all time of trouble?

Ah, and though under the new dispensation, "the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ" be the great character under which God should be addressed by us in prayer, there is no need for our altogether dropping the title, the God of our fathers. It might often do much to cheer a sorrowful heart and to encourage a timid, to address God as the God of our fathers. The God in whom my parents' trusted, the God who heard my parents' cries, the God who supplied my parents' wants-oh, there is many a poor wanderer who would be more encouraged, and more admonished, through such a remembrance of God as this, than through all the definitions of a rigid theology. There are some here-the mother did not, indeed, give them the name Jabez at their birth; she looked on them hopefully, with eyes brimful

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of gladness; but they have since sorely wrung the hearts of their parentsdisobedient, dissipated, thankless, that sharper thing, it is said, than the tooth of the serpent. There are some such here; some who helped to bring down a father's grey hairs with sorrow to the grave:" others, whose parents still survive; but if you could look in unexpectedly on those parents, you might often find them shedding scalding tears, shedding them on account of a child who is to them a Jabez, as causing only grief, whatever brighter name they gave him amid the hopes and promises of baptism. We speak to those of you whose consciences bear witness, that their parents would have predicted but truth had they named them Jabez, that is, sorrowful. We want to bring you to begin the new year with resolutions of amendment and vows of better things. But resolutions and vows are worth nothing, except as made in God's strength and dependence on his grace. And therefore must you pray to God: it were vain to hope any thing from you unless you will give yourselves to prayer. But how shall you address God, the God whom you have neglected, the God whom you have provoked, the God of whom you might justly fear, that he is too high, too holy, and too just, to receive petitions from such as yourselves? Oh, we might give you lofty titles, but they would only bewilder you; we might define him by his magnificent attributes, but they would rather terrify than encourage you. But it may soften, and at the same time strengthen you; it may aid your contrition, wring from you tears, and yet fill you with hope, to go before God with all the imagery around you of the home of your childhood, the mind's eye arraying the reverend forms of those who gave you birth, as they kneel down in anguish, and cry unto the Lord-ay, cry on your behalf, and cry not in vain; for it may be in answer to their prayer, that you now attempt to pray. Oh, we shall indeed hope for you, ye wanderers, ye prodigals, if, when ye go hence, ye will seek the solitude of your chambers and fall upon your knees, and, allowing memory to do its office, however painful and reproachful, address

gular congregation, as to those whose engine and instrument it especially is: it appeals also to strangers; for they who come hither to join in our worship, may with all justice be asked to assist us in our charities. I need not dwell on the excellences of this society. I shall venture to say, that, through the kindness and zeal of our visiters, whom we can never sufficiently thank, but whom God will reward-for theirs is the fine christian benevolence, the benevolence which gives time, the benevolence which gives labor, the benevolence which seeks no showy stage, no public scene, but is content to ply, patient and unobserved, in the hovels of poverty and at the bedside of sickness; I shall venture to say, that, through the kindness of these visit ers, a vast deal is daily done towards alleviating sorrow, lightening distress, and bringing the pastor into contact with the sick and the erring of his flock. It were very easy to sketch many pictures which might incline you to be even more than commonly liberal in your New Year's day gift. But I shall attempt only one, and furnish nothing but the briefest outline even of that. There is a mother in yonder wretched and desolate room, who has but lately given birth to a boy; and there is no father to welcome him, for, only a few weeks back, half brokenhearted, she laid her husband in the grave. What shall she call that boy, thus born to her in the midst of wretchedness and anguish? Oh, by no cheer

ful name. She feels, as she bends over him, as if he were indeed the child of sorrow: so dreary is her state, so friendless, that, were it not for the stri vings of that sweet and sacred thing, a mother's fondness for her babe, she could almost wish him with his father in the grave, that he might not have to share her utter destitution. Left to herself, she could but, like the Jewish mother, call his name Jabez, saying, "Because I bare him with sorrow. But she is not left to herself: a kind voice bids her be of good cheer; a friendly hand brings her nourishment: she looks smilingly on her child, for she has been suddenly made to hear, and to taste of the loving-kindness of God," the husband of the widow, and the father of the fatherless." Oh, what a change has passed over that lonely and wretched apartment; you will not ask through what instrumentality, but you will thank God that such an instrumentality is in active operation around you; you will do your best to keep up its efficiency. And as that suffering woman no longer thinks of calling her child Jabez, that is, Sorrowful, but rather wishes some title expressive of thanksgiving and hope. fulness; you will so share her gladness as to feel how appropriately the organ's solemn swell now summons you to join in the doxology:

"Praise God, from whom all blessings flow, Praise Him, all creatures here below; Praise Him above, ye heavenly host, Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost."