tians, I call upon you to act in the spirit of that declaration,

"Whilst with a melting broken heart your murder'd Lord you view, Raise your revenge against your sins and slay the murderer too!"

Finally, every worthy communicant will view the death of Jesus with grateful remembrance of the past and joyful anticipation of the future. Sing unto the Lord, for he hath done excellent things. This is known in all the earth. Cry out and shout, thou inhabitant of Zion, for great is the Holy One of Israel in the midst of thee. Rejoice in the Lord alway, and again I say, rejoice. We joy in God through the Lord Jesus Christ by whom we have received the atonement. It is Christ that died, yea, rather that is risen again, who also maketh intercession for us; and to them who look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation. He now this day gives you the opportunity of remembering him; you show forth his death till he come again. By this affecting rite you hand down the knowledge of a dying Saviour to those who shall come after. This day's service is one of the links in the chain that connects the death of Jesus and his second coming. But, oh, what a contrast do the two scenes present! when he who was a babe at Bethlehem and a man of sorrows at Calvary the scourged, derided, buffeted, crucified Nazarene, shall appear in his own glory and his Father's, and all the holy angels with him! Ere then, brethren, the mists of error and ignorance shall have vanished. The bow of promise shall be seen on the dark and retiring cloud of idolatry and superstition. It will be the symbol of a spirit of love, union, peace,

pervading the whole world of believers. Shade will melt into shade, and colour blend with colour, in clear distinction, yet in perfect harmony. Its ample arch shall span the whole heavens, and touch the horizon in both extremes. On the summit of its bright circumference shall be erected the sapphire throne of the Son of Man, and the shouts of adoring multitudes, who walk in its light, shall roll upwards like the thunder: "Salvation unto our God, and to the Lamb! Hallelujah, for the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth." Amen,

SERMON IX.

"So Moses the servant of the Lord died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the Lord."-DEUT. xxxiv. 5.

THERE is recorded the fact, respecting which details are given in the rest of this chapter. Arranging these details in their natural order, as descriptive of some of the circumstances which attended the death of

Moses, I remark, 1st, The death of this eminent servant of the Lord was penal; it was a special and appropriate punishment of sin. Death, indeed, is always to be considered in that light, in as much as it was sin, and sin only, which brought death into the world, and all our woe. But the abridgment of the life of Moses, and the fact of his not being permitted to enter into the promised land, were the results of a peculiar personal offence. Of this result he had been forewarned by God immediately after its commission, and he is now again reminded of it when the sentence is about to be executed. The Lord said unto him, in the language of this chapter, at verse 4, when spreading out to his enraptured sight the land of promise from the top of Pisgah "This is the land which I sware unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, saying, I will give it unto thy seed: I have caused thee to see it with thine eyes, but thou shalt not go over thither. So Moses, the servant of the Lord, died there, not in the

land of Israel, but in the land of Moab, according to the word of the Lord."

Knowing, as we do, what were the private virtues and what the public services of so great and good a man, it is painful to have to reverse the picture and mark some of his faults. But these also have been written-yes, they are written down by himself-for our admonition and for our reproof. The case was this. When, in the first years of Israel's wanderings, Moses, by God's command, smote the rock in Horeb, the water gushed out in such abundance, and with such constancy, as to form a perennial rivulet, which, in consequence of the natural declivity of the country, followed them in all their journey through that first desert, furnishing drink to the people and the flocks, and refreshment to the parched herbage. But when they had crossed the peninsula of Sinai and arrived at Ezion Geber, or Elath, situated at the head of that arm of the Red Sea, which was called from it the Gulf of Elath-the river which had so long followed them, there failed them, emptying itself into the sea. And, when they had to march thence into a new and still more arid wilderness, they began to be again distressed for water. They then, as formerly, broke out into murmurings, when Moses, repairing to the door of the tabernacle, fell upon his face, and the glory of Jehovah appeared unto him. And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, "Take the rod and gather the assembly together, and speak unto the rock before their eyes, and it shall give forth its water, and thou shalt bring forth to them water out of the rock: so thou shalt give the congregation and their beasts drink."

Moses took the rod from before the Lord as he

commanded him, but instead of confining himself, as he did at Horeb, to a simple fulfilment of the original command, he impatiently exclaimed, "Hear, now, ye rebels, must we fetch you water out of this rock?" For once he exceeds his commission. Instead of speaking to the rock by the silent but significant waving of God's rod, in God's name, he speaks unadvisedly with his lips to the people. He addresses them, not as he was wont, with calmness and solemnity, but with passion and peevishness. He does not so much as mention the name of Jehovah as the only source of the blessing-he speaks as if the water was to be made to flow from the flinty rock by his own and his brother's unaided skill; and all this display of presumption and pride he manifests in the immediate presence of the holy Lord God. Now, for that single transgression, Moses' days on the earth were shortened, and he was shut out from the enjoyment of the expected inheritance. He might have pled, as some palliation of this one instance of momentary hastiness of spirit, the constant complaints and harassing provocations of the people, and the consequent anxieties of his mind, often worn out and broken down with incessant toils. He might have appealed to his prompt repentance of the transgression, or he might have set against it the diligent and faithful services of a long life. But Moses knew that in the stern eye of inflexible justice his guilt was on the other hand greatly aggravated—because the sin had been committed in the face of a most clear and gracious promise of God that he would bestow the needed blessing -because it had been committed by one who enjoyed such familiar intercourse with Him, and who,