sures of this life; it bids them "keep under the body," and "bring it" for a season more completely "into subjection;" but, at the same time, it calls them nearer to their God. It prescribes a certain line of serious thought and meditation, of self-humiliation and prayer, whereby the mind is brought to that heavenly frame and temper, in which especially the soul is visited by God, who, far from rejecting the desire of the contrite, declares that His most favourite habitation is with the men of humble heart. Christians of this description regard AshWednesday as the commencement of the most interesting season perhaps of the Christian year, as the type, compressed into small space, of their whole Christian life. Earnestly do they pray God to guide them in their acts of devotion, strengthen them in their acts of self-denial, support them in their works of faith, enliven them in their works of charity. Earnestly do they pray to be enabled so to spend Lent holily, that, after thus taking up the cross of Christ more closely for a season, they may the more cordially and faithfully rejoice in the bright morning of the Resurrection festival that will terminate the Fast. Earnestly do they pray that so also they may live through the period of this life's trials, of which Lent is a figure, that, when they lie down to rest at the end of it, they may soon awake to the glories of that great day of the general resurrection, in which Jesus shall bring with Him to everlasting blessedness all those who have slept in Him.

SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE, LONDON.

SELF-HUMILIATION IN THE PRESENCE OF

GOD.

ISAIAH vi. 5.

"Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts."

(For the First Sunday in Lent.)

THE grand mark of our fallen condition is distance from God. His existence is admitted, but His presence is not felt. His name, even, may be on our lips, but His image does not fill our heart. Our conceptions of Him are dim-our relation to Him is forgotten. We are practically without God in the world.

And from this fundamental defect results every other evil of our fallen state. Our pride, from ignorance of God's greatness; our self-complacency, from ignorance of His purity; our carelessness and presumption, from ignorance of His retributive justice. In a word, our real character and condition. become then first perceived by us when contrasted with the character of God. It is only in the night of spiritual ignorance that men can fancy themselves fair. Let the sun arise, and in the brightness of his light the very best of us will see our dark deformity.

So felt even Isaiah, that holy prophet of the Lord. He was chosen by God to be His messenger to Israel. He was to speak to them in the name of their Divine King. But the best qualification for God's service is humility. He is most strong for God, who feels himself most weak. And therefore, for the prophet's very initiation into the sacred office, at the very outset of his mission, God revealed Himself to him in [No. 19.]

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all His majesty, overawed his spirit, brought him low before His footstool, and stirred in him that mingled feeling of sacred awe, of shrinking self-abasement, and of trembling apprehension, which broke forth into utterance in the exclamation of our text.

Nor are these other than the feelings which especially befit the holy season of Lent. Let us surrender ourselves therefore to their influence. And may God by His convicting Spirit, make them beneficial to us all I. Look, then, at the exclamation of Isaiah in our text, as the expression, first, of sacred awe.

This feeling was aroused in him by the character under which the Lord revealed Himself to him. All the imagery of the vision, which you will find in the verses before the text, had for its one object to set forth God as the Almighty King of Israel and of the world. The scene of the Divine manifestation was laid in the Temple, and that Temple was, you are aware, the emblem of God's sovereignty over Israel. It was the palace of the King of kings, in which He condescended to give His people audience; to receive their homage; to listen to their petitions; and to announce to them His laws. The ark of the covenant, which was enshrined in the holy of holies, was the throne of God. The unearthly splendour, which beamed from between the cherubims who supported the royal seat, and which penetrated by its brilliancy even the thick veil that shrouded that mysterious presence chamber, was the symbol of the Lord Himself. And the angelic forms, with which the ark was overshadowed, and the veil itself embroidered, were emblems of His ministers of state, surrounding their Sovereign's throne, and doing homage to Him. In such images, therefore, drawn from objects so fami

liar to the prophet, was there shadowed forth to him the awful majesty of Him, whose ambassador he was about to be appointed, and in whose name he was to speak to his fellow-subjects. "In the year that king Uzziah died,” he says, "I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple. Above it stood the seraphims: each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly. And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory. And the posts of the door moved at the voice of him that cried, and the house was filled with smoke:"-the symbol of God's impenetrable mysteriousness, of the clouds and darkness that enwrap His awful being.

And surely then we need not wonder at the prophet's utterance of sacred awe. You know how jealously secluded were the eastern monarchs from their subjects' gaze. You know how strictly God, as King of Israel, maintained the same reserve; appointing that there should be hung before His presence chamber that closely-woven veil, which the High Priest alone, and he but once a year, and not without solemn purification, might pass through. Conceive, then, this mystic veil removed to the rapt spirit of Isaiah; the splendours of the court of the Most High revealed to him; the dazzling light of His bright countenance playing full upon him;-and then you will feel the spirit of his exclamation, “Mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts."

Now, what Isaiah saw in vision, we must realize by faith. We are too ready to be content with wandering in the outer courts of the temple of God. At the

utmost we direct our gaze through the sanctuary towards the distant veil: we see the gleamings through it of the unearthly glory;-and there we pause. That is, we have but few and faint conceptions of the Majesty of Him who rules the world. But we need to seek a more open vision; we need to make more real to our minds the power and glory of the Almighty King; if we would feel that sacred awe with which we should lie prostrate at His footstool. God, remember, is "the King!" the King of all the earth. "The Lord is our defence," cries the Psalmist, "and the Holy One of Israel is our king." "For the Lord is our judge," exclaims the prophet, "the Lord is our lawgiver, the Lord is our king"."

And yet, after all this condescension to our infirmities, this clothing of a truth eternal in the drapery of temporal forms, do we still realize this point enough? Do we feel practically the moral government of God? We trace up all things readily to Him as our Creator. We thank Him as our benefactor. We fly to Him as our helper. But do we do homage to Him as our sovereign ruler? as all-wise in His laws? all-vigilant in His administration? allpowerful in His authority? as not only "the King," but (what Isaiah emphatically adds) "the Lord of hosts," the Lord of armies, that is, the King to whom all power is subordinated, and who wields an overwhelming force to execute His purposes, and to avenge His laws; to whom thousand thousands minister, and before whom ten thousand times ten thousand bow? Oh! the thrilling reverence which penetrates the soul, when we thus think of Him with whom we have to do! when the veil that shrouds 1 Ps. lxxxix. 18.

2 Isa. xxxiii. 22.