long? For, behold, prophets pass away; and the vo which God has specially sent to thrill and call y shall have performed its task, and no other be voud safed; and the time comes when there will be no op vision in the land for you, nor answering oracle, a character will acquire its last, mould of awful perm nence: "He that is holy, let him be holy still; and that is filthy, let him be filthy still." How long halte thou between two opinions? How long? For 1 and death hang on the decision. Like a gay ship t young life bounds over the bright waters, and t silver voice of riot fills the sunlight, and "all go merry as a marriage bell." But even now the tempe lowers; the sea shivers into foam as the wi strikes it; and the grey waves run in thunder, a break no more in ripples. Infirm of purpose, ho long haltest thou between two opinions? Knowe thou not that he who steers no course steers tl wrong course, that he who makes no decision h made the wrong decision? Dost thou not see, f

away, yet ever nearer, that belt of white foa spanned by the thunder-cloud, smitten by the ligh ning, that last harbour, the final shore of doom There is no time for delay; is Jesus with thee the little ship? The storm comes on apace, an death is near; is He who stills the waters with the now ? Now is the time; there is no other. Clai the hour; the reversion of the morrow is assured none of us. I warn you, I appeal to you, I beseed you, but I cannot save you. You must choose; yo

only can. Remember the words of a great writer recently in our midst, —

"This passing moment is an edifice

Which the Omnipotent cannot rebuild;"

and now, while it is called to-day, choose whom you Who this day will consecrate himself unto

will serve.

the Lord?

II.

A YOUNG MAN'S DIFFICULTIES.

"If any man will do his will, he shall know of the dot whether it be of God."-JOHN vii. 17.

I

HAVE selected this text, but I do not mean to s

to it. I shall use it later on as an illumina principle for those in intellectual difficulties. V

I have been led to choose this subject is briefly this have recently received a remarkable letter from a yo man entirely unknown to me, in which he details intellectual difficulties. As his identity is not lik to be revealed by anything I may say, I think it be no breach of confidence if I take the main poi of his letter as difficulties common to-day among m thinking young men, and say what I can about th Leaving out certain portions of this letter whic regard as sacred, the case presented is this: unknown correspondent says that until three ye ago he was quite orthodox, but that since that t he has read certain works which have utterly und mined his faith. He names Matthew Arnold, Rén Huxley's "Life of Hume," Spencer's "Sociology," a various articles on Biblical criticism, and books Buddhism. He adds that he has also read the Bil "The Imitation of Christ," Wordsworth, Tennys

He finds he

Shakespeare, Kingsley, and Robertson. does not believe in a "God who thinks and loves," in Jesus Christ still living as God, or in the supernatural. He does still believe in a vague "First Cause," the Source of life and power, and that Jesus was a sublime Teacher, who lived an ideal life, taught noble truths, died gloriously, and whose memory he loves and venerates. Certain dogmas-e.g., original sin and eternal punishment-he never could believe in. Then there is the difficulty of Buddhism; if Christ was God incarnate, why not Buddha, and may not another man arise who shall live as perfect a life as either? And there is the difficulty of the pain and sorrow of the world, which seem inconsistent with the existence of a God of love. Finally, he adds pathetically that he is not in despair, duty is his law of life, and if there is any help outside ourselves he wants to find it. This letter has deeply moved me, because it is obviously the sincere utterance of an honest soul in difficulties; and because they are typical difficulties with young men, I will do what I can to help you to their solution.

DOUBTS AND DOUBTERS.

Now, doubt is sometimes the crotchet of a feeble mind, sometimes the disease of a developing mind. It may be the evidence of sincerity or the outcome of inconsistency, the grim Apollyon with whom the true soul must grapple before the green pastures are reached or the haunting fiend invoked by the repudiation of moral obligations. Many men reject Christianity be

cause they have already rejected Christian mora and, having thrown away the law of conduct, they it necessary to invent a theory to justify their re Polygamy existed in Mohammedanism before polys was justified by Mohammed, just as slavery exist Christian lands before men ransacked the Bible texts and arguments in its support. In other w it is common among men first to live as though was no God, and then to persuade themselves the no God. The philosophy does not produce the life the life produces the philosophy.

But there is another class of doubters to whom strictures do not apply, and my correspondent is a them. Like the young ruler who came to Christ, seek eternal life, and seek it honestly; but they the quest beset with difficulties. We live in an when the very foundations of religion have been bare, and the reason of man has claimed sup domination and right of decision in religious as other spheres. A great world of new facts, of w our fathers never dreamed, lies open to us; and currents of thought and tendency stream round and touch the mind on every side. Science has lite annexed new heavens and a new earth; Biblical cism has quarried deep into the débris of b centuries, and has brought up from the depths of solemn and far-reaching importance; the stud other religions has revealed to us elements of n ness in systems of thought which our fathers sca regarded as worthy of more than passing conte