be written upon your tomb : away, I retained."

"What I kept, I lost; what I gave

And you to whom the Lord has given what was desired by the wise Agur, complain not that you cannot give what you could wish, "For if there be first a willing

but rather give what you can. mind, it is accepted according to that a man hath, and not according to that he hath not." Try hard, and you will find that you can do more, much more than you imagine. An ingenious charity will enrich you in the Lord; impracticable sacrifices will become easy; necessary expenses will seem to you superfluous; and if the rich have the advantage of offering more abundant gifts, you will have the advantage of exercising more self-denial in yours.

And finally, to you, whom the Lord has placed in the same situation in which He lived while upon the earth, to you should Christian liberality be forbidden? No, my brethren, no. Take the example of the poor widow. Have you nothing to give? She had no more than you, but a sacrificing spirit enabled her to discover in her profound poverty, an offering which excited the admiration of the Lord. Do you say that what you might be able to give would be too little to be of any service? Were the two mites of the widow lost? Have they not been more serviceable, yes, literally, more serviceable than the rich offerings that fell with hers into the treasury of the temple? These two mites have been multiplied from age to age, by the faith that offered them and by the blessing of the Lord who accepted them, and who determined that His Gospel should perpetuate their remembrance. These two mites have, from century to century, provoked sacrifices on the part of a multitude of poor Christians, who would have never known that they had anything to give, if they had not been taught by the poor widow, and who, by reason of their number, give, as has often been calculated, more than the rich. These two mites have already drawn into the treasury of the church sums immensely great, and their work is not yet done; they will continue to act "wheresoever

this Gospel shall be preached throughout the whole world ;" and if you, yourselves, decide this day to imitate the widow's charity, it will be a new fruit of her humble offering. Why should there be no fruit of yours? Be faithful only, and wait upon Him who increased the oil of the widow of Sarepta, and multiplied the mites of the widow of Jerusalem !

Lord Jesus! Thou hast come to us, to-day, saying: “Take heed and beware of the love of money." And we come to Thee saying: Save us from the love of money! Beat off, destroy this serpent that enfolds us! Faith, liberality, everything comes from thee! Bestow these upon us, so that, washed in thy blood and baptized in thy spirit, we may henceforth consecrate to thy service all that we have and all that we are; glad to offer thee a thousand fortunes and a thousand lives if we had them, and still regretting that we had not more to offer, in return for that ineffable gift whence flow our happiness and our eternal wealth!

DISCOURSE IV.

THE CONFLICT OF CHRIST WITH SATAN.

"And Jesus, being full of the Holy Ghost, returned from Jordan, and was led in the Spirit into the wilderness, being forty days tempted of the devil. And in those days he did eat nothing: and when they were ended, he afterward hungered. And the devil said unto him, If thou be the Son of God, command this stone that it be made bread. And Jesus answered him, saying, It is written, that man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God. And the devil, taking him up into an high mountain, shewed unto him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. And the devil said unto him, All this power will I give thee, and the glory of them: for that is delivered unto me; and to whomsoever I will, I give it. If thou, therefore, will worship me, all shall be thine. And Jesus answered and said unto him, Get thee behind me, Satan: for it is written, thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. And he brought him to Jerusalem, and set him on a pinnacle of the temple, and said unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down from thence: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone. And Jesus answering said unto him, It is said, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. And when the devil had ended all the temptation, he departed from him for a season."-LUKE, iv. 1-13.

MY CHRISTIAN FRIENDS:

The aspect of Scripture truth oftentimes varies, according as we regard it with the eyes of human wisdom, or with those of faith and nowhere is that difference more striking than in the page which we have just read. For my own part, I remember a time when I never met this passage without a kind of shame for my own understanding, and I might almost say for the word of God: whereas now I turn to it again and again, as to a favorite passage, where my soul finds food both grateful and abundant.

This is so because the narrative is as full of wholesome instructions for the little child who simply trusts to God's testimony, as it is of mysteries for the philosopher who assumes to judge the Scriptures, instead of consenting to be judged by them.

There is mystery in the personal existence of the devil, and in the influence which he exerts upon us. His influence is so clearly asserted in the Scriptures that we cannot deny it without doing them violence. But as to its origin, its nature, its extent -on all these points we are left in almost total ignorance. There is mystery in the power granted to the devil to lay his infamous snares for the Son of God himself. We can understand how he tempts us, for by sin we have become subject to his sway; but how can we conceive of his being permitted to tempt "The Lord of lords, the Holy of holies," him "in whom he hath nothing?" There is mystery in the nature of the temptation to which Jesus Christ was subjected. "He was tempted," and yet “without sin :" these two facts are expressly affirmed in the Scriptures but seek to take a step further, and you are hedged in on every side. How can we explain a struggle against temptation, when there is no inward propensity to sin? Yet, how can we reconcile an inward propensity to do wrong, with unspotted holiness? If it were impossible for Jesus to fall, where is the glory of his triumph? If it were possible, what becomes of his divine nature? There is mystery, finally, in the manner in which the scene here described took place. Its basis is assuredly a real fact; everything proves it, the tone of the narrative, the locality assigned to the event, the character of the book and yet the text, considered both as a whole and in its various details, shows no less certainly that the fact was beyond the limit of human experience. How can we solve this apparent contradiction ?—this conflict, of which earth was the theatre, while the actors were taken from heaven and from hell? Where did it occur? Was it in the visible or the invisible world ?—or was it on some dark boundary territory, in its nature partaking of both ?-Mysteries on mysteries!

These obscurities I do not even attempt to solve. I examine my text simply from that practical point of view which a child could apprehend as well as we, and, perhaps, better. Guided by these words of the Lord-"I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done,”-let us seek the instructions which he here gives as the rule of our life. Now, in this terrible conflict of the Son of God with the spirit of darkness, we distinguish three principal things: the conflict itself, the victory, and the weapons. Each of these three will in turn afford us instruction. By the conflict which he endured, Jesus teaches us to expect a conflict also. By the victory which he won, Jesus teaches us that we in like manner may conquer. And by the weapons which he employed, Jesus teaches us how we make certain our triumph. The subject is so vast, that I have thought proper to devote three separate discourses to its consideration. We will restrict ourselves, on this occasion, to the CONFLICT which our Lord maintained in the wilderness.

This conflict should reconcile us to that which we ourselves are compelled to maintain. It is the outward expression of the struggles of our own souls. From you who are the children of God, and who are experienced in the Christian life, I fear no contradiction in saying that its temptations confound you, and at times even threaten to prove your ruin. Upon entering the ways of the Lord, it seems to us that the devil should be kept at a distance, where it is impossible for him to annoy us. When we feel his assaults, a secret terror creeps upon us, as if the Lord were leaving us altogether. Our anxiety increases if the temptation be prolonged and rendered more fierce, especially if it happens in moments of communion with God, and, so far as we can see, answers no good purpose. In such a case, we may be driven well-nigh to a state of despair. Now, the conflict of Jesus corresponds to all this.

Jesus is tempted. The struggle you are undergoing, He underwent before you. What do I say? Your trial hardly deserves to be mentioned when compared with His. Temptations are