sionate struggles, which have broken forth in our day, did they not all issue from the pregnant womb of the season just past, and thence derive their nourishment? And when we now look around us, what a spectacle does the present exhibit? Is not confusion everywhere in conflict with confusion, error with error, selfishness with selfishness? Do not corruption and mischief threaten us on all sides? Do not the powers of the abyss appear to have been let loose to instigate men into irreconcilable hate and strife, one against the other? Oh, my friends, let us hide nothing from our selves; thick darkness lies over our earthly future, so that no human eye can discern it. The ship of our life, of its repose and its bliss, is every moment in danger of being swallowed up by the waves, or of being shattered upon unknown rocks.

Yet there, upon the lake of Gennesareth, the darkness begins to yield to the approaching light. The fourth watch is come; the gray of dawn appears upon those charming heights which toward the west encircle and crown the sea, while the craggy masses of rock towards the east grow blacker and darker; soon will the first streaks of the morning red glide over the lake; suddenly, and together with the twilight, lo, He suddenly appears the long wished-for Master, walking upon the sea. Wonderful spectacle! The tossing wave sustains His foot as if it were the solid ground; the insurgent billows acknowledge, amazed, their mighty Sovereign, Him who once bade them "be still," and they were still. With a firm and sure step He walks there upon the flowing element towards the distressed boat. The towering waves may sometimes, indeed, for a moment, hide Him from the eyes of His disciples, but they cannot block His path to the goal.

What then took place, Christian hearers, takes place again to-day. Over the foaming waves of agitated thought and feeling, which makes us fearful, He walks calmly as their Lord and Sovereign. They may rise against, but they cannot overmaster Him. They may sometimes conceal Him from the sight of His disciples, but they cannot check His course. They must at length own Him as their Master, and serve His will.

Upon the disciples, however, the sudden appearance of the Lord near the vessel makes an entirely different impression from what would have been expected. The circumstance, so miraculous and supernatural, appears to them, in the gray twilight, as something strange and fearful. As they see the form advancing towards them upon the waves, they cry out in terror, "It is a spirit!" and anticipate with fright the sinking of their vessel at its approach.

When He meets us as the mighty ruler of the world, as He whom the Father has made the Lord of the dead and of the living, to whom He has given power "to execute judg

ment also, because He is the Son of man"does there not often fall upon pious souls a fear and trembling before Him and His irresistible power? He always stands before them as Judge in a threatening form; and if they hear the gospel of His love, and impelled by a deep, longing desire to draw near to Him, a disquieting sense of His majesty frightens them back. They still see Him only in the dusk, therefore their fear transforms the Redeemer into a destroyer.

But is anything more needed to banish this fear from the soul than that He should come nearer to us and talk with us, and let us recognise Him, as He there talked with His disciples, and said, "Be of good cheer, it is I, be not afraid." How sweetly sound these words! How comforting their import! Yes, this is the sweet voice with which He everywhere speaks to us in the gospel. Fear not! That is the tone from the beginning to the end. So He calms the timorous hearts, and kindly allures them to Himself "Fear not, it is I." "Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." Rest for your souls, the heavenly peace which you so much need amid the dangers of this time, the divine comfort which will not suffer you to sink in the floods-this shall you find

in me.

Thus Peter thinks also-Peter, the man of fiery spirit and quick resolve. He sees the Master walking upon the sea; an urgent desire seizes him to be at His side, and to walk with Him upon the waves- "Lord, if it be thou, bid me come unto thee on the water!" And when Christ bids him "come," he steps forth without hesitation from the vessel, full of firm assurance, and strides towards Jesus. With trembling joy he perceives how the flowing element is compelled to afford him also a safe path. The waves may roar, but they frighten him not; the depths may open, but him they cannot swallow. Already does he seem to be sharing with his Master in His dominion over nature and her rebellious powers.

My friends, if the gospel of Christ presents us with sure, firm principles for estimating the movements of the present-if it intrusts to us the word that solves the riddle of our time, the word which the prudent men of the world, the obtrusive physicians of the sick generation, in vain seek for, is it not natural that a powerful impulse should be roused in ardent souls to rush with a spirit for contest into the midst of the confusion of the time, in order to help to end it? in order to dissipate the delusions of folly and passion, and rule with power over the wild waves of discordant opinions? And can we blame them for this desire? It is the example of the Lord Himself which allures them to it, as it did Peter; for Christ also did not withdraw Himself from the apparently inextricable confusion of His day; but He entered into the raging

sea of passionate strife, interfering between embittered parties, in order that by living, personal intercourse with all on every side, He might, through the divine clearness of His soul, bring light and order into the dark time and its wild movements; in order that He might point susceptible hearts to the one thing needful for founding a new, more beautiful edifice, in the impending overthrow of everything old. And it is faith in His word that empowers them for this undertaking as then it empowered Peter. This faith is the weapon with which they will contend against the resistance of hostile powers; it is the light that shall enlighten them in the darkness. And their assurance that they shall stand firm in the billowy sea, and safely advance to the goal, is grounded upon Him alone. Should we not, then, rejoice, when, with sympathetic participation in public interests, they seek to apply their excellent gifts for the furtherance of the common weal, and extend to it their pious activity? Must we not anticipate a rich blessing from their efforts? Will they not work mightily for the salvation of many? Yes, if all blossoms were to become fruits, and all fruits were to ripen! But the most beautiful blossoms of pious impulse, of noble resolve, are swept away by the storm, and the most promising fruits of enterprises well begun drop off, pierced by the worm, before they can ripen.

This, Peter, too, was obliged to experience. With a bold, confident spirit he has begun his walk upon the sea; but all at once he sees a strong gust of wind coming which rolls up yet mightier surges. Upon this he becomes terrified, his faith wavers, his courage fails: "Will not the roaring flood swallow me up ?"—and ere he has time to collect himself, he begins to sink.

At such a crisis there is only one means of rescue; it is that which Peter seized upon. When he began to sink he cried, "Lord, help me!" and he did not cry in vain. Jesus is already by the side of the sinking one, and stretches out His hand and grasps him, and punishes his weakness only with the mild reproof, "O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt ?"

And, surely, if we pray sincerely, we shall, with the disciple of the Lord, experience that He is near to all "that call upon Him in truth;" that He lovingly assists the weak, and despises not the anxious cry of the sinking. If we trustfully grasp His hand, and (in humility) commit ourselves wholly to His guidance, ready to sacrifice every gain, to suffer every disgrace, if only we can secure His approval-I say, if we do this, He will open ways for us through the raging waves of temptation, and will lead us out of the wild tumult upon a quiet and safe path. But while His help does not fail us, He yet administers to us His mild word of rebuke: O thou of little faith, wherefore dost thou doubt? Where

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fore didst thou let the victory slip when thou already hadst it in your hand? Would not a firm faith, which looks not upon the storm and the billows, but upon God, have continued to keep thee erect, as heretofore, in the struggle? Would not a child-like simplicity of heart have guarded thee yet longer from sinking into the sins and the corruption of the time? No, it was not that the temptations were not too great, but thine own faith was too small.

With the humbled and rescued Peter, Christ now enters the ship where the other disciples are. The wind lulls, the waves cease to roar; upon the peaceful surface of the sea the boat glides softly and swiftly to the opposite shore.

Yes, it is He alone who, as He can control and rule in the raging sea of the troubled time, can also quiet the very storm itself of the spiritual life. Upon His gospel and its divine power, rests all hope for the future. If rescue does not come from hence, there is no rescue for us at all. If faith does not again wax mighty in this disordered time—a faith which can quench the consuming fire of selfish passion, and teach us to honour the will and the word of God above everything else—then truly there is no help. By whatever other methods men may seek to heal their wounds, if these methods are not penetrated by the power of faith, it is all idle delusion, and can only serve to bring about the deceptive appearance of a cure, while the poison of the wound corrodes more and more fatally within. Were our hopes resting only on such means of human strength and prudence, oh then, indeed, should we be obliged to prepare ourselves for the approaching death-night of a melancholy bewilderment, and utter dissolution of all human relations; and, with a bleeding heart, we must look upon the dark future of the rising generation.

But does not the morning dawn upon the sea of Gennesareth, which bears that vessel with Christ and His disciples? Comforting picture of our time! Yes, it is the gray of morning, which appears, however, to fearful, anxious souls, as the twilight of evening. We are not approaching the night, but the daya more beautiful day-where living faith and true piety shall again thoroughly penetrate the life of the nations; where, after having once and again "hewn themselves out broken cisterns which hold no water," they shall, with deeper longing, betake themselves again to the fountain from which stream forth the waters of everlasting life.

And does it not begin to break forth? Do you not see the lofty One walking in calm majesty over the lifted waves, which are forced to crouch at His feet? Do not the rays of the morning red shine before Him, and proclaim the advancing conquest of His heavenly light over the earthly darkness? Has not His Father given Him a great mul

inexpressibly because it never fails to be mingled with a strong and crowning scent of the Rose of Sharon. Men talk of the old Puritans as sour, morose, and in their lofty aspirations after the things unseen and eternal, disdainful in all respects of the men and things of earth-the very stoics of Christianity. To name Matthew Henry is to refute the foolish representation. We can imagine him to our minds in no other character than that "of a kind-hearted old gentleman, full of wisdom and love, and mature in Christian experience, seated in an arm-chair, surrounded by his family, and talking familiarly to his children, pouring out with freedom and fluency the rich streams of a devotional and affectionate heart!"

The family of Matthew Henry, in this sense, how numerous! Generations have sat at his feet, and hung with rapture and with reverence on those lips touched with the most vivid coal from the heavenly altar. Men have accumulated since he lived a store of facts in elucidation of Scripture: history has seen her province clearly separated and distinguished from that of fable, and Providence has flashed in many a crisis of absorbing importance its own glorious interpretation on prophecy. However conscientiously Henry availed himself of all the existing learning which the times could supply, God has been good to us of later days, and much then uncertain is now fixed, much then unknown has now been brought to light, much then hid in the womb of the future has been amply unfolded. Still Henry is the Prince of Commentators. His work, breathing so much of heaven and so little of earth, will ever be regarded by the faithful of every age, not merely as a book to be bought and handled and read, but a companion in whose company we will spend the holiest of our waking hours, and with whom we will last of all shake hands in parting to rest. W. H. G.

A FIRESIDE STORY ABOUT A

MOTHER'S LOVE.

A HIGHLAND Widow left her home early one morning, in order to reach, before evening, the residence of a kinsman who had promised to assist her to pay her rent. She carried on her back her only child, a boy two years old. The journey was a long one. I was following the same wild and lonely path when I first heard the story I am going to tell you. The mountain-track, after leaving the small village by the sea-shore, where the widow lived, passes through a green valley, watered by a peaceful stream which flows from a neighbouring lake; it then winds along the margin of the solitary lake, until, near its further end, it suddenly turns into an extensive copse-wood of oak and birch. From this it emerges half-way up a rugged mountain side, and entering a dark glen,

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through which a torrent rushes amidst great masses of granite, it at last conducts the traveller, by a zig-zag ascent, to a narrow gorge, which is hemmed in upon every side by giant precipices. Overhead is a strip of blue sky, while all below is dark and gloomy. From this mountain-pass the widow's dwelling was ten miles off, and no human habitation was nearer than her own. She had undertaken a long journey indeed! But the rent was due some weeks before, and the sub-factor threatened to dispossess her, as the village in which she lived, and in which her family had lived for two generations, was about to be swept away in order to enlarge a sheep-farm. Indeed, along the margin of the quiet stream which watered the green valley, and along the shore of the lake, might even then be traced the ruins of many a hamlet, where happy and contented people once lived, but where no sound is now heard, except the bleat of a solitary sheep, or the scream of the eagle, as he wheels his flight among the dizzy precipices.

The morning when the widow left her home gave promise of a lovely day. But before noon a sudden change took place in the weather. Northward, the sky became black and lowering. Masses of clouds rested upon the hills. Sudden gusts of wind began to whistle among the rocks, and to ruffle with black squalls the surface of the loch. The wind was succeeded by rain, and the rain by sleet, and sleet by a heavy fall of snow. It was the month of May-for that storm is yet remembered as the "great May storm." The wildest day of winter never beheld flakes of snow falling heavier or faster, or whirling with more fury through the mountain-pass, filling every hollow and whitening every rock! Weary, and wet, and cold, the widow reached that pass with her child. She knew that a mile beyond it there was a mountain shieling which could give shelter; but the moment she attempted to face the storm of snow which was rushing through the gorge, all hope failed of proceeding in that direction. To return home was equally impossible. She must find shelter. The wild cat's or fox's den would be welcome. After wandering for some time among the huge fragments of rock which skirted the base of the overhanging precipices. she at last found a more sheltered nook. Crouching beneath a projecting ledge of rock, she pressed her child to her trembling bosom. The storm continued to rage. The snow was accumulating overhead. Hour after hour passed. It became bitterly cold. The evening approached. The widow's heart was sick with fear and anxiety. Her child-her only child-was all she thought of. She wrapt him in her shawl. But the poor thing had been scantily clad, and the shawl was thin and worn. The widow was poor, and her clothing could hardly defend herself from the piercing cold of such a night as this. But whatever was to become of herself, her child must be

preserved. The snow, in whirling eddies, entered the recess which afforded them at best but miserable shelter. The night came on. The wretched mother stripped off almost all her own clothing and wrapt it round her child, whom, at last, in despair, she put into a deep crevice of the rock, among some dried heather and fern. And now she resolves, at all hazards, to brave the storm, and return home in order to get assistance for her babe, or to perish in the attempt! Clasping her infant to her heart, and covering his face with tears and kisses, she laid him softly down in sleep, and rushed into the snowy drift.

The night of storm was succeeded by a peaceful morning. The sun shone from a clear blue sky, and wreaths of mist hung along the mountain-tops, while a thousand waterfalls poured down their sides. Dark figures, made visible at a distance on the white ground, might be seen with long poles examining every hollow near the mountain path. They are people from the village, who are searching for the widow and her son. They have reached the pass. A cry is heard by one of the shepherds, as he sees a bit of a tartan cloak among the snow. They have found the widow-dead; her arms stretched forth, as if imploring for assistance! Before noon they discovered her child by his cries. He was safe in the crevice of the rock. The story of that woman's affection for her child was soon read in language which all understood. Her almost naked body revealed her love.

Many a tear was shed, many an exclamation expressive of admiration and affection were uttered from enthusiastic sorrowing Highland hearts, when, on that evening, the aged pastor gathered the villagers in the deserted house of mourning, and by prayer and fatherly exhortation sought to improve, for their soul's good, an event so sorrowful.

More than half a century passed away. That aged and faithful pastor was long dead, though his memory still lingers in many a retired glen among the children's children of parents whom he baptized. His son, whose locks were white with age, was preaching to a congregation of Highlanders in one of our great cities. It was on a Communion Sabbath. The subject of his discourse was the love of Christ. In illustrating the self-sacrificing nature of that "love which seeketh not her own," he narrated the above story of the Highland widow, whom he had himself known in his boyhood. And he asked, "If that child is now alive, what would you think of his heart if he did not cherish an affection for his mother's memory, and if the sight of her poor tattered cloak, which she had wrapt round him in order to save his life at the cost of her own, did not fill him with gratitude and love too deep for words? Yet what hearts have you, my hearers, if over those memorials of your Saviour's sacrifice of Himself, you do not feel them glow with deeper love,

and with adoring gratitude?" A few days after this, a message was sent by a dying man requesting to see this clergyman. The request was speedily complied with. The sick man seized the minister by the hand, and gazing intently on his face, said, "You do not, you cannot recognise me. But I know you, and knew your father before you. I have been a wanderer in many lands. I have visited every quarter of the globe, and fought and bled for my king and country. I came to this town a few weeks ago in bad health. Last Sabbath I entered your church—the church of my countrymen-where I could once more hear, in the language of my youth and of my heart, the gospel preached. I heard tell you the story of the widow and her son"-here the voice of the old soldier faltered, his emotion almost choked his utterance; but recovering himself for a moment, he cried, "I am that son!" and burst into a flood of tears. "Yes," he continued, "I am that son! Never, never, did I forget my mother's love. Well might you ask what a heart should mine have been if she had been forgotten by me! Though I never saw her, dear to me is her memory, and my only desire now is, to lay my bones beside hers in the old churchyard among the hills. But, sir, what breaks my heart, and_covers me with shame, is this— until now I never saw, with the eyes of the soul, the love of my Saviour in giving Himself for me-a poor, lost, hell-deserving sinner. I confess it! I confess it!" he cried, looking up to heaven, his eyes streaming with tears; and pressing the minister's hand close to his breast, he added, "It was God made you tell that story. Praise be to His holy name that my dear mother has not died in vain, and that the prayers which, I was told, she used to offer for me, have been at last answered; for the love of my mother has been blessed by the Holy Spirit for making me see, as I never saw before, the love of the Saviour. I see it, I believe it; I have found deliverance in old age where I found it in my childhood-in the cleft of the rock; but it is the Rock of Ages!" and clasping his hands, he repeated with intense fervour, "Can a mother forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? They may forget; yet will I not forget thee!" -Rev. Ň. McLeod, D.D., in the Edinburgh Christian Magazine.