may catch the last whisper from the hero's lips before they are still for ever: "I am dying, but I have kept the colours!" Faithful unto death! Brethren, God gives you a banner that it may be displayed because of the truth. Through evil report and good report, in the breach and in the battle, you are to bear it. However allured, however frightened, however outnumbered, you are to be "valiant for the truth upon the earth.” It is your Captain's order that you keep it, and you dare not let it go. Hurt by the archers, bleeding from many wounds, exhausted with the toil of the conflict, you are still to grasp that banner, that so your latest effort may be to transfer it into other hands, torn, but not dishonoured, and to cry, apostle-wise, in dying: "I have kept the faith: henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me in that day." And, thus faithful unto death, the crown shall not be withheld. You shall stand in the joy of a fulfilled mission before God-waited for at the gate by some loving converts who have gone home before you-and as, in meek and thankful humbleness, you give as the account of your stewardship, "Behold I, and the children whom thou hast given me "-you shall hear the voice long listened for, whose melody is present heaven: "Well done, good and faithful servant, thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy Lord."

XXXIII.

THE SPIRITUAL WANTS OF THE

METROPOLIS.

"In the second year of Darius the king, in the sixth month, in the first day of the month, came the word of the Lord by Haggai the prophet unto Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Josedech, the high priest, saying, Thus speaketh the Lord of hosts, saying, This people say, The time is not come, the time that the Lord's house should be built. Then came the word of the Lord by Haggai the prophet, saying, Is it time for you, O ye, to dwell in your ceiled houses, and this house lie waste? Now therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts; Consider your ways. Ye have sown much, and bring in little; ye eat, but ye have not enough; ye drink, but ye are not filled with drink; ye clothe you, but there is none warm; and he that earneth wages earneth wages to put it into a bag with holes. Thus saith the Lord of hosts; Consider your ways. Go up to the mountain, and bring wood, and build the house; and I will take pleasure in it, and I will be glorified, saith the Lord. Ye looked for much, and, lo, it came to little; and when ye brought it home, I did blow upon it. Why? saith the Lord of hosts. Because of mine house that is waste, and ye run every man unto his own house. Therefore the heaven over you is stayed from dew, and the earth is stayed from her fruit. And I called for a drought upon the land, and upon the mountains, and upon the corn, and upon the new wine, and upon the oil, and upon that which the ground bringeth forth, and upon men, and upon cattle, and upon all the labour of the hands. Then Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, and Joshua the son of Josedech, the high priest, with all the remnant of the people, obeyed the voice of the Lord their God, and the words of Haggai the prophet, as the Lord their God had sent him, and the people did fear before the Lord. Then spake Haggai the

Lord's messenger, in the Lord's message unto the people, saying, I am with you, saith the Lord. And the Lord stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and the spirit of Joshua the son of Josedech, the high priest, and the spirit of all the remnant of the people; and they came and did work in the house of the Lord of hosts, their God, In the four and twentieth day of the sixth month, in the second year of Darius the king."-HAG. i.

ALL Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and

the same divine Spirit who inspired it makes it mighty still. We may find, if we look earnestly and thoughtfully even into those parts which seem barren of teaching for us, guidance in our endeavours to ascertain our duty, rebuke for our slothfulness, or comfort in our trouble. But there is, doubtless, a special fitness in certain parts of Scripture to certain church needs and occasions of particular duty. We are in danger of supposing sometimes that it is from the New Testament that we are to draw all our obligations and motives. Certainly, the supreme prompter in every Christian heart should be the love. of Christ; and where there is a due sense of what we owe to him, this will be the motive which transcends all others in its power. But the same Spirit has recorded the Old Testament histories and examples, and we are bound to listen to their teaching. In some sort, it is more proper for us to hearken to the prophets than to the evangelists and apostles, for their times were more like our own, and the condition of the people to whom they ministered was more like also. The churches at Philippi, and Corinth, and Ephesus were composed of converted Pagans-to whom many habits of their olden systems clung-who had come

straight out of darkness into light, who might be expected to bear about with them traces of their ancient error, and who needed to be warned to put off the deeds of darkness, and to be taught, from the beginning, the requirements of the Christian life. The state of those to whom the prophets were sent was very different. They had known the Scriptures from childhood. They had an established church, a ritual appointed by God and honoured by timewritten counsel and living teachers on every hand. They did not need, therefore, to be instructed in the wherefore of a duty-to them the elements of truth were clear, the principles of obligation and of obedience were as readily accepted as they were broadly laid down, and it needed but the prophet to remind them that they had failed or sinned, and to scorch them with his rebuke, as with a flame of fire. Our circumstances are the same. We have a church, sanctuaries, ministers, Scriptures, order, life; and, though it is not to rebuke that we are gathered tonight—and if it were, he who speaks has no prophet's authority-it may be that we cannot better serve the high purpose of our meeting, than by an endeavour to bring out in exposition the principles which are suggested in the chapter before us, and then apply them to our present work and need.

With the historical connection of the chapter you are familiar. In the third chapter of the Book of Ezra we have the account of the foundation of the second temple. You remember the mingled feelings with which the stone was laid; how, amid the singing. and the shouting of the young-full of hope, and

living in the future, as it is the wont of youth to dothere were sad memories among the chief of the fathers, "because they had seen the first house;" and it was only when the passionate tears had relieved the overcharged heart, that they struggled into sympathy with the joy which the sorrow chastened, and bore their part in the service of the day. The work thus begun was hindered by the opposition of the adversaries, and a decree was obtained from the king that the building should cease. For fifteen years the house of God lay waste, during which time two-if not three-monarchs had reigned and died. The edict which forbade the work of course lost its authority at the death of the king who had issued it, yet the Jews did not resume their labours. They were perhaps discouraged by difficulty, and perhaps restrained by fear. They seem, moreover, to have been intent upon their own comfort and pleasure, for their houses were "ceiled" before God's. This is the scene which presents itself when the prophet begins his "burden"-the houses of the Jews rising up, terraced and comely; the house of God by their side, a roofless and forgotten ruin.

The prophet begins by an appeal to those in authority. He does not supersede the priest and the governor. He is a special messenger, charged with a special message. He is not to work, but to recall those to duty whose province it is to discharge it. The sin of the Jews, which he is commissioned to reprove, was that they had become indifferent to the building of the temple, and glad of any excuse to forward their own fortunes instead. Hence they said, “The time is not come, the time that the Lord's house should be