sadness-lo! the heavenly light reappears ;-we see the lost star of Providence mirrored in the fountain of salvation. The work and the love of Christ explain what is otherwise often inexplicable. God our Maker-God our Redeemer-giveth "songs in the night."

Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep." These words may be affirmed with reference to the veiling of the future. Standing by the mouth of that well, looking down its unsounded cavity, "The well is deep." The future, that dark, ungauged, unfathomed future, how many a thought it costs! Yet it is a vain musing, a fruitless conjecture. "Thou hast nothing to draw with." Even to-morrow has no pitcher that can be let down for a draught: thou knowest not what a day may bring forth! The past we do know about, and there are special times when it comes before us with fresh vividness. Memory follows group on group, coming through the glades of the olive-forest to draw water; some with elastic step, and ringing laugh, and joyous song; some with mouruing attire, and tearful eye, and broken pitcher; ay, some, unknown to themselves, to draw their last draught, to fill their last flagon: we lose them among the twilight shades; they are never again to return. But from the stand-point of the present, who can forecast the doings at the well's mouth? who has rope or pitcher or plumb-line to fathom the depth? Some

may now be gazing, as the writer did from the literal Well of Jacob, on golden vistas, bars of glorious amberclouds stretched across the luminous horizon, lighting up with parting radiance Gerizim, the mountain of blessing; but ere another week or month or year measures out its course, every such vista may be curtained with mist and thick darkness, Gerizim obscured from view, and Ebal alone, with its dark, gloomy basalt, meeting their eye.

But it is well for us we cannot anticipate the future. Thank God for the gracious provision, "Ye know not what shall be on the morrow." Were the morrow unveiled, this world would be hung with curtains of sackcloth; there would be fewer happy hearts amongst us. Inevitable trials, of which, by a wise and kind arrangement of Providence we are kept in ignorance, would then project their long deep shadows athwart life's bright sunshine, and make existence itself one protracted period of anticipated sorrow. It is a merciful thing, when, ever and anon at solemn anniversaries, we attempt to cast a glance down the future, to hear Him who has that future in His hand saying, "Thou has nothing to draw with, and the well is deep."

Ay, but this is our comfort. us, it is not too deep for Him.

Though too deep for
He has the rope and

pitcher in His hand; and whether, in drawing up the vessel from the unseen depths, it reach safely the well's

K

mouth, or be broken in the transit, all is appointed and ordained. "The Lord reigneth.' 'Trust me,'

He seems to say; that Well is mine. Trust me; that white, unwritten scroll of the future is mine. It will be filled up by Me, whether in gleaming letters of vermilion and gold, or with the dark lettering of sorrow.' "Although thou sayest thou canst not see Him, yet judgment is before Him, therefore trust thou in Him."

X.

The Contrast.

JESUS ANSWERED AND SAID UNTO HER, WHOSOEVER DRINKETH OF THIS WATER SHALL THIRST AGAIN: BUT WHOSOEVER DRINKETH OF THE WATER THAT I SHALL GIVE HIM SHALL NEVER THIRST; BUT THE WATER THAT I SHALL GIVE HIM SHALL BE IN HIM A WELL

OF WATER SPRINGING UP INTO EVERLASTING LIFE."—JOHN iv. 13, 14.