say? Why, in the first year of the famine, when the people came for bread, Joseph said, "I will let you have corn, but I must have your money." The next year, when their money was all gone, Joseph said, "You shall have corn, but I must have your cattle." The next year, when their cattle were all sold, they had nothing left but their bodies and their land. So Joseph bought all the land of Egypt for Pharaoh; for the Egyptians sold every man his field, because the famine prevailed over them. So the land became Pharaoh's. But, in this part of the story, there is a happy difference. When God bids us go unto Jesus, no such rigorous terms are exacted from us. We may keep our money, keep our cattle, keep our houses and lands. "Only," says God, my Son, give me thy heart.' That is all He asks; surely his yoke is easy, and his burden light:

"To thee, dear Lord, our flesh and soul

We joyfully resign:

Bless'd Jesus, take us for thy own,

For we are doubly thine.

Thine honour shall for ever be

The business of our days;

For ever shall our thankful tongues
Speak thy deserved praise."

FOR I HAVE RECEIVED OF THE LORD THAT WHICH ALSO I DELIVERED UNTO YOU, THAT THE LORD JESUS THE SAME NIGHT IN WHICH HE WAS BETRAYED TOOK BREAD: AND WHEN HE HAD GIVEN THANKS, HE BRAKE IT, AND SAID, TAKE, EAT: THIS IS MY BODY, WHICH IS BROKEN FOR YOU: THIS DO IN REMEMBRANCE OF ME.

WE are now met together to celebrate that ordinance which Christ here instituted; and every word and every action of his on this occasion is full of the most important meaning. We are come so far in our contemplation of it as when Christ took bread; and this is far enough to disappoint and disgust a great many.

"What! bread? only bread! He invited us to a feast; called it a feast of fat things, full of marrow he said even that his oxen and his fatlings were killed, and that all things were ready; and now is all this mighty preparation come to two little loaves? The table of the Lord is contemptible: we loathe this light bread; we could as soon live

upon air; and we pity those poor deluded souls, that, after eating of it, fancy themselves filled with good things, and satisfied as with marrow and fatness." So despicable do the provisions of this table seem to a carnal eye. And no wonder; for they despised Christ himself in the same manner. They could see no form or comeliness in him. "Is not this the carpenter's son? What is he a Prince and a Saviour? Will he redeem Israel? It cannot be." O, christians, let us, in our turn, pity them. We do not wish to change our Saviour, mean and despicable as they may think him; we prefer him to all their pomp and grandeur. We desire to know nothing but Jesus Christ, and him crucified. Nor would we part with our provision, light as they call it we would not change this bread for the greatest dainties in the world. Let them think nothing a feast, where there is not a large table covered with a great variety of costly and highlyseasoned dishes. We prefer our homely fare before it all; and declare, upon repeated experience, that a little of this bread is sweeter and more strengthening than all their rarities. How we admire the wisdom and goodness of our Lord in this circumstance ! He took bread, a cheap and common thing, to represent his broken body; and thereby he has let us see that he is not taken with gaudy and expensive observances, but accepts and blesses his people in duties most remote from pa

geantry and show. A little broken bread, received in faith, is more pleasing to him than thousands of rams, or ten thousand rivers of oil. Gospel worship must be pure and spiritual, and gospel worshippers must be all-glorious within. A poor penitent sinner, coming to Christ with streaming eyes and a broken heart, shall find more favour than a pharisee in all his bravery. Christ can communicate the greatest blessings by the meanest instruments. A piece of bread shall convey a whole Christ and all his benefits; but then it must be to hungry souls. Christ, in the sacrament, is that to the soul which bread is to the body. But what is the most delicious food to an overloaded stomach? What is Christ himself, with all his precious promises and privileges, to one that has no desire after him? He will be despised and rejected of such men. When manna was loathed by the Israelites, the Lord sent fiery serpents among them, and they bit the people, and much people died: and if we grow indifferent to the heavenly manna, and have no desire after Christ and his ordinances, we may fear that temporal or spiritual judgments will speedily overtake O, christians, can we say with truth, "As the hart panteth after the water-brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God." If we perceived ourselves famishing, and that our souls must starve except Christ feed them, then we should cry, fast enough, Lord, evermore give us this bread."

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Then we should open our mouths wide that he might fill them; and we being thus eager to receive, and Christ being thus forward to give, what a comfortable ordinance would this be !

Well, but is all bread so full of spiritual nourishment, or this bread at all times? No, it is Christ's blessing that gives it all its virtue; and this benediction of Christ, though it does not make a substantial alteration, it makes a relative one. Though the nature of the bread be the same, yet it is changed as to its use and office. That which was common before is now sacred, consecrated to holy purposes. That which was fit only to nourish the body is now made a means of nourishing the soul. The blessing of Christ upon the word preached, makes that, which was otherwise a dead letter, become a savour of life unto life; and so his blessing upon the bread makes it useful to convey grace and comfort. When he blessed the five barley loaves and two small fishes, they were presently sufficient to feed five thousand persons; and if he so bless those two loaves, we shall find them abundantly sufficient to satisfy all our souls, be our necessities ever so great, and our desires ever so enlarged and craving. What he blesses is blessed indeed. Whose fault is it then that we are so lean and languishing? that we have so often eaten of this bread, and yet that we have no more of Christ and his benefits? We need not ascend up to heaven