flicted on the man of understanding is of service to himself.

Reprove one that hath understanding, and he shall understand knowledge." He takes it in good part. He renounces the evil; he resolves to improve. He says, "Let the righteous smite me; it shall be a kindness; and let him reprove; it shall be an excellent oil which shall not break my head."

CONCLUSION: Brothers, wrong exists everywhere around us. Evil meets us in almost every man we meet. It is for us to set ourselves in strong antagonism to it wherever it appears. Let us feel that it is for us in our measure to do what Christ came into the world to accomplish to "put away sin."

(No. CCXX.)

FILIAL DEPRAVITY AND PA

RENTAL WARNING.

"He that wasteth his father, and chaseth away his mother, is a son that causeth shame, and bringeth reproach. Cease, my son, to hear the instruction that causeth to err from the words of knowledge." Prov. xix. 26, 27.

AGAIN and again does Solomon refer to family life and touch on the vices and virtues of home. He knew that no relationship was so vital to the race as that subsisting between parents and children. These verses give us two things.

I. FILIAL DEPRAVITY. Here is a depraved son described-First: As wasting his father. There are many ways in which a reckless and wicked son wasteth his father. Sometimes he wasteth his property. Many a son, by his expensive habits, gambling propensities,

and reckless extravagance has reduced his father from opulence to beggary, from a mansion to a pauper's hovel. Sometimes he wasteth his health. The conduct of a depraved son has shattered the health of many a father, and brought down his grey hairs with sorrow to the grave. A depraved son is described. Secondly: As repelling his mother. "He chaseth away his mother." She appears before him, perhaps with her bosom swollen with the tenderest sympathies of love, her eyes suffused with tears, and in the agony of love expostulates with him, seeking to turn him from his evil habits, but he repels her, he chaseth her away. The depraved son is described. Thirdly: As disgracing his family. "He causeth shame, and bringeth reproach." Such is the constitution of society, that a whole family is often disgraced by the atrocities of one of its members. Such is the sketch here of filial depravity. Does such a son exist? Is not this an ideal picture? Alas, such sons have always been, and they abound even in Christian England. The character was a reality in Solomon's time, it is a reality now. We talk of monsters in nature, but a greater moral monster know I not, than a son like that which is indicated here. He is "without natural affection," and the sorrows of his parents go before him as a terrible cloud to break in thunder upon his conscience in eternity.

II. PARENTAL WARNING.. Cease, my son, to hear the instruction that causeth to err from the words of knowledge." First: Children are the subjects of instruction. All children are

learning animals. They have learning instincts and capacities. Whether they go to school or not, they learn. They learn in the streets and alleys. There is a great public school which nature has established, and into which, alas, the devil instates teachers to corrupt the morals of the people. Secondly: Their instruction has a connection with their conduct. This is implied. Our first ideas root themselves in our being, and become the germs of future conduct. A bad creed must lead to vicious conduct. Hence the importance of sound doctrine, Thirdly: There is an instruction that leads to wrong. "Instruction that causeth to err from the words of knowledge." The instruction of the materialist, who teaches that there is no soul, no future life, "causeth to err from the words of knowledge." The instruction of the fatalist that teaches that all things are so settled by an eternal necessity, as that free agency and responsibility cannot possibly exist, "causeth to err from the words of knowledge." The instruction of the sacramentalist that teaches that you are to be saved by attending to rites and ceremonies "causeth to err from the words of knowledge." Such instructions as these, are rife in our England in these days. It is right therefore for the father to say to the son, Cease, my son, to hear the instruction that causeth to err," believe not every spirit, but "try the spirits whether they are of God, because many false prophets are gone out into the world."

(No. CCXXI.)

THE CHARACTER AND DOOM OF THE WICKED.

"An ungodly witness scorneth judgment; and the mouth of the wicked devoureth iniquity. Judgments are prepared for scorners, and stripes for the backs of fools."-Prov. xix. 28, 29.

THE " 'ungodly witness" is in the margin called "Witness of Belial.' "Sons of Belial is a common appellation for impious and wicked men.

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I. THE CHARACTER OF WICKED MEN. They are described here. First: As the witnesses of the devil. In their words, conversation, manners, spirit, general spirit, they represent that which is ungodly. They are witnesses. of Belial." Their whole life is one great lie, and they are of their father, who was a liar from the beginning." They are described, Secondly: As scorners of judgment. They are fools that make a mock of sin. They ridicule the most serious things. they scoff at the solemnities of death and eternity. The spirit of seriousness has forsaken them. They are irreverent and profane.. They are described, Thirdly: As ravenous after iniquity. "The wicked devoureth iniquity." Sin is the one tempting thing to them. It is that one apple in the garden of life that makes their mouths water. Their appetite for it is whetted to the highest edge, and with voracity the mouth of the wicked devoureth iniquity. What a picture is this! Alas, that it should be the life-like image of many. How many there are whose whole life is "a witness" to the false, who scoff at the serious, and whose strongest appetite is. for that upon which sacred heaven has put its interdict.

II. THE DOOM OF THE WICKED. "Judgments are prepared for the scorner, and stripes for the backs of fools." The punishment is prepared. All the anguish is arranged. The full cup is waiting. Judgment will not befall them as an accident. It is there ready. Who shall describe the judgment? Who shall number the soul-lacerating stripes that await the wicked in the penal settlements of eternity?"Our sin," saith Bishop Hall, "is our own, and the wages of sin is death." He that doeth the work earns the wages. So then the righteous God is cleared both of our sin and our death. Only his justice pays us what our evil deeds deserve. What a wretched thing is a wilful sinner, that will needs be guilty of his own death!

No. CCXXII.

AN INTEMPERATE USE OF
STRONG DRINK.

"Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging; and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise."-Prov. xx. 1. As both Dr. Wardlaw and Dr. Arnot have dealt so admirably and exhaustively with this text, our remarks shall be brief, and act as finger posts to theirs. At the outset we may observe, that the text of itself is sufficient to expose the absurdity of those who, with an ignorant zeal endeavour to show that the wine of the Bible is not intoxicating. Though of course it was not like the brandied wine of this age, it was obviously alcoholic.

I. THE INTEMPERATE USE OF STRONG DRINK IS DECEITFUL. "Wine is a mocker." It deceives men in many ways. Not

only does it deceive the drunkard by beguiling and befooling him, but it deceives others as to its advantage. First That it strengthens the system is a deception. Chemistry has shown that it contains no nourishment for the body. Secondly: That it enriches the national revenue is a deception.

It is true that the taxes on alcoholic drinks bring millions annually into the national exchequer, but how much of the wealth of the nation does it exhaust by the pauperism and the crime which it creates? Alcoholic drink is the great false prophet in England. A prophet working busily in every district under the inspiration of hell. It may be said of many a civilized community, "They erred through wine, and through strong drink are out of the way; the priest and the prophet have erred through strong drink, they are swallowed up of wine, they are out of the way through strong drink; they err in vision, they stumble in judgment."

II. THE INTEMPERATE USE OF STRONG DRINK IS ENRAGING.

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'Strong drink is raging." It excites the worst passions of human nature. Hence the quarrels, brawls, and murders that spring from it. It often kindles in men the very fires of hell. It fills our prisons with culprits, and supplies our judges with the chief part of their work.

III. THE INTEMPERATE USE OF STRONG DRINK IS FOOLISH.

"Whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise." Nothing is more foolish than to indulge in alcoholic drinks. It injures health, it enfeebles the intellect, it deadens the moral sensibilities, it destroys reputation, it impoverishes the exchequer, it dis

turbs friendships, it breeds quarrels, it brings misery into the family, it is fraught with innumerable curses. "Whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise."

"A drunken man is like a drowned man, a fool, a madman: one draught above heat makes him a fool; the second mads him, and the third drowns him.' SHAKESPEARE.

"There is no sin," says a divine

of 1662, "which doth more deface God's image than drunkenness, it disguiseth a person, and doth even unman him. Drunkenness gives him the throat of a fish, the belly of a swine, and the head of an ass. Drunkenness is the shame of nature, the extinguisher of reason, the shipwreck of chastity, and the murderer of conscience."

DR. THOMAS CHALMERS.

OF this prince of Scottish preachers a personal acquaintance wrote:

"I have heard all the greatest pulpit readers of my time, and not one of them has formed an exception to the rule. Even Chalmers, their chief and head, whose mighty ministrations Í have very frequently attended, matchless reader though he was, came most fully within the rule. That distinguished man, indeed, made no attempt to look at his audience, such as is made by a multitude of readers; the finger of either hand was never for a moment removed from the MS.; there was nothing beyond a passing flash of the eye as he occasionally darted his head upward. Once fairly in motion, he rushed along like a locomotive of the highest power at full speed, heedless of everything before, behind, or around him, with a sort of blind, though inspired fury. He could, I verily believe, have performed the magnificent feat equally well

in Westminster Abbey alone, and with the doors shut! The fires which, on these occasions, raged so strongly within him, were wholly independent of external circumstances. As a consequence of this, power, allsubduing power, was the prime characteristic of the achievement. He was generally altogether wanting in pathos, that ethereal something which, proceeding from a melted heart, has the power of melting all around it. The effect of his sublime effusion was a feeling of intense excitement, ofttimes of overwhelming admiration, from which the auditor was often strongly tempted to clap his hands and shout applause; but he was rarely visited with compunction or moved to tears. Even in his death-scenes he awakened in the assembly scarcely any emotions other than those of awe or horror; the most sympathetic even of the gentler sex seldom wept. The most striking exception I ever remember was on the occasion of

his farewell sermon on leaving Glasgow for St. Andrews. The discourse on that occasion was a sublime affair, not in its matter, for he was obviously by no means well prepared, but in its delivery; and the prayer was even more touching than the sermon. The discourse appears in his Collected Works, where it occupies but a very secondary place.

"How great soever, in a certain way, Chalmers might be with MS., he would have been incomparably greater with free speech; he was so in his partial attempts at extemporising. Nothing I ever listened to might be likened to his offhand flights, whether in the pulpit or the class-room, the social meeting, or the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. The style was then much more natural and idiomatic, much less figurative, and the matter much more simple, condensed, and business-like, and the intonation in keeping with it. It was nature perfected. On these occasions he was scarcely at all Ciceronian, ofttimes quite Demosthenic.

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Again, in the case of Chalmers, there was a most material circumstance which greatly abated the offensiveness of the MS. to the public, as well as lessened its inconvenience to himself. His discourses were written in short-hand-which he read with a facility almost miraculous-on a sheet of foolscap folded into eight pages, so that there were only four leaves to turn during the entire exercise-a process barely perceptible. One of these short-hand manuscripts а much-prized treasure-is now before me, consisting of only eight pages,

although it occupied forty minutes in the delivery.

The power of Chalmers with MS., however matchless in its own way, was, I repeat, impotent compared with the might of his extempore bursts. The difference was early perceived by discerning men. His memoirs contain a singularly interesting passage in relation to the subject. The celebrated Andrew Fuller, during one of his Scottish journeys on behalf of the Baptist mission, before Chalmers had become famous, having spent some time with him at Kilmany, laboured hard to wean him from the habit of reading. Dr. Hanna, his son-in-law, says:—

Under the very strong conviction that his use of the manuscript in the pulpit impaired the power of his Sabbath addresses, Mr. Fuller strenuously urged upon his friend the practice of extempore preaching, or preaching from notes. "If that man," said he to his companion, Mr. Anderson, after they had taken leave of Kilmany manse-"if that man would but throw away his papers in the pulpit, he might be king of Scotland.""

Dr. John Brown, of Edinburgh, thus graphically describes the preaching of Chalmers:

"The drover, a notorious and brutal character, who had sat down in the table-seat opposite. was gazing up in a state of stupid excitement; he seemed restless, but never kept his eye from the speaker.

We

all had insensibly been drawn out of our seats, and were converging towards the wonderful speaker. How beautiful to our eyes did the Thunderer look, exhausted, but sweet and pure. We went home