misjudged and misrepresented Almighty God.

at the consequence.

Now look

I will not name to-night unhappiness and distress of mind as one of the consequences of fear. If there be those, the fear is not of the character which I am going to describe. If there is distress in the fear, there is some love in it,—too much love to let the fear always continue fear. That fear is a stage,-an early stage, a very early stage, but still it is a stage in the divine life. fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom."

"The

There is an exquisite illustration of this in that picture of the prodigal, when he had made up his mind to go back, -when his home had played before his thoughts in all its early loveliness,-bringing with it an influence which he could not resist,-when he had reached far enough to say, "Father,”—still the wretchedness of the fear clung to him; he did not think that his father could ever make him anything more than a slave, he made up his mind to it, to a perpetual drudgery, he would work, but he could never have the free feeling of a child to do his work with; and yet such was his love, a life-long slavery was to that man a little heaven, "I will arise, and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son; make me as one of thy hired servants." But when he saw that father's face, and when he felt on his burning brow that father's kiss, there was no more place for fear; he could never be a slave; and that part of his proposed speech dropped quite out of his memory, and he never said it.

There are three results which appear to me almost inevitable from a hard, cold, religion of fear.

First, it is sure to make religion a separate thing from

life. The religion of that man will be a parenthesis ;— religion the act, the world the feeling,-religion a necessity, the world a delight,—religion shadowy, the world real,-religion an accident, the world the man. How striking that is in the parable! The man's buried talent lies wasting in the ground, recognized and kept, but all the while the man's life goes on as much without it as if there were no talent there. There is a wonderful compatibility of a life of worldliness, with a life of religious fear. In fact, they play into each other's hands. It is all summed up in the history of those ancient Samaritans,

"They feared the Lord, and served their own gods." I can conceive no other state of things so painful to a parent's heart. Better almost give no part at all to God, than to give all the rest to the world, and to place Him only among the fears.

Secondly, the service of fear is sure to produce cunning. I see it again in the owner of the buried talent.

66

He had

not love or principle enough to do what he was told,Occupy till I come." But there must be something for him to shew, and something for him to say, when his Master came back. Therefore he just does what costs him nothing, and makes up by stratagem for what he leaves undone. The talent which he has not grace to use, he has sagacity not to touch; and the reason which lay deep in his own selfish idleness, he fabricates as if it were part of the dispensation of his Master.

There never was a throne set up on fear which did not encircle itself with the satellites of duplicity. There never was a man who was made to obey because he was afraid, who did not become a deep and designing man. There never was a child driven to obedience, who was not made

a child artful in his character. We have seen it in some schools of religious teaching,-we have seen it in churches. that have lapsed,—we have seen it in the fallen angels,— what a horrible, serpentine thing fear is, and how terror is always the parent of severity.

And thirdly, fear paralyzes energy. It was a true chain which the man drew,-"I did nothing because I was afraid." There is an awful negativeness about fear,-a solitude, -a desolation. The fact is, we all work up towards a final idea, but if there is no final idea, what shall we work up to? Take away that final idea, and life, -life in all that is real life,-life in its immortality,ceases to be.

But there is more than is negative. There is something very positive in a fear. It is not only the absence of love. When a man is afraid, there is an image before his mind, -a real, dark image, which throws its deep umbrage, so that nothing will grow under its shade, and it poisons the very roots of life beneath it. There may be work done in this world, as man calls work, which was done from no other feeling but fear; but in that great day when everything will be called by its true name,-I doubt whether God will put that high and blessed title "work" on anything which lacked the grace of love.

O for one living ray of the pure love of Jesus! O for that sense of pardon, which, in its very nature, quickens into service! O for those honoring views of a loving Father which reproduce His image in the heart! For there is no work but that. It is work indeed, when, -feeling what we owe to Christ,—we endeavor to put Christ's cross into our cause, and to give Him back, in sweet and happy service, some interest for all which He

once expended in blood and tears, that He may give us the privilege of service.

I do not know all that that man felt, who brought back his twice ten talents. But of this I am confident, that there will be no account which any faithful servant of his Master will give, or wish to give, in that day when He appears, but this,-"Lord, it was all nothing; but I did it, for I loved Thee."

IX.

Salt without Savour.

"Salt is good; but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be seasoned?"-LUKE xiv. 34.

SALT

ALT is the great preserving element in the whole earth. It is to be detected everywhere,-small, so as to be almost invisible,-subtle, self-communicating,pervasive,—in its operations as active as it is untraceable, --known and felt only by its consequences,—but wherever it is, the secret of health, fertility, life. Few are aware how essential "salt" is to the well-being of all material things.

Therefore, God has made it a great type; it was required to be mingled with every sacrifice which every Jew ever offered,-"With all thy offerings thou shalt offer salt." Once, at least, it was used in the form of a great miracle. St. Paul employs the image to show it should be found in our daily converse,-"Let your speech be alway with grace, seasoned with salt." And three times our Lord chose the emblem ;-sometimes to denote the principle which there should be in every believer's own soul, and sometimes to teach what all believers are to be to the whole world. "Every sacrifice shall be salted with salt." "Ye are the salt of the earth." "Salt is good;