ous reverie-he may have evil thoughts tempting him continually to sin. My Christian brother, none knows but God how you have struggled with these thoughts, how you have battled with them on your knees, till they have seemed to rise up against you as a living, actual, personal enemy; like a sharp blade that has gone deep down even to the marrow, thrilling the nerves in living agony. They who have experienced it know well that there is no physical suffering they would not willingly receive in exchange for this; and yet take courage, my brother; be sure of this, His grace is sufficient for thee.

2. To teach us spiritual dependence. Brethren, there are two things widely different, yet often confounded togetherliberty and independence; and this confusion has done infinite mischief. Liberty is one thing-independence another: a man is free, politically, whose rightful energies are not cramped by the selfish, unjust claims of another. A man is independent, politically, when he is free from every tie that binds man to man. One is national blessedness, the other is national anarchy. Liberty makes you loyal to the grand law, "I ought;" independence puts you in a position to obey the evil law, "I will." So also religious freedom emancipates a man from every hindrance, external and internal, which prevents his right action. A man is not free who is enslaved by some lust, or who is restrained by Church thunders or by the rules of society from letting his intellect and conscience work truly. Every Christian ought to be a free man, but no Christian is or ought to be independent. As a member of a church, he is not independent of those with whom he is connected in what is called the communion of saints. He is not independent of his brethren.

What are the inspired injunctions? "Look not every man on his own things, but on the things of others." "Bear ye one another's burdens." "All things are lawful to me, but all things are not expedient; if meat makes my brother to offend, I will eat no meat as long as I live." Is that independence? There is no independence on earth; we are all dependent on the breath of God. Trial soon forces us to feel this. As well might the clouds that surround the setting sun, tinged with gold and vermilion, boast that they shone by their own light: the coming night would soon show them to be but a dim, dark, dense bank of vapor. We hang from hour to hour on God. When we know ourselves aright, we shall feel that we have nothing of our own that is goodthat we are strengthless, powerless, and must depend entirely on His all-sufficient grace.

LECTURE LX.

2 CORINTHIANS xii. 8, 9, 10. Sunday Afternoon, May 29, 1853.

OUR last subject was St. Paul's "thorn in the flesh." We considered it impossible to identify its special nature, but that it was possible to ascertain its general character. It was a figurative expression. The word "thorn" we found peculiarly suggestive of some secret sorrow; a real evil— not to be considered a good; not to be dealt with in a monkish or stoical spirit: a perpetual, incessant trial. And we found this to have been sent to teach humility and dependence. Humility-"lest I should be puffed up." Dependence -"My grace is sufficient for thee.'

We may gather from this subject some disconnected but natural inferences. They are four:

I. The sanctifying power of sorrow. "For Christ's sake," that is the main point: the apostle took pleasure in pain, not as pain, but for Christ's sake. Sorrow is not naturally sanctifying. In itself sorrow has no magic power.

Some are hardened, some embittered, some made selfish by chastisement. It is in happiness and not in sorrow that men feel best. In happiness they feel they can love God, and do His will best. Sorrow is like fire, whose effect depends upon the substance with which it comes in contact. Fire melts wax, inflames straw, and hardens clay. So it is only in afflictions borne for Christ's sake-that is, in Christ's name, and with Christ's spirit-that we can rejoice. Forasmuch as Christ has suffered in the flesh, arm yourself likewise with the same mind. The Cross alone extracts life out of pain and suffering; without this it is death-giving.

And observe, it is specially the humble, womanlike, passive side of endurance, the courage of patience, that is the peculiarity of the Cross. The Christian spirit is totally distinct from that of stoicism or mere manliness. It is one thing to bow to fate, and another to bow to God; it is one thing to submit because we must, and another because we ought. Perhaps there is nothing in the whole range of human history so sublime as the Stoic's defiance of pain; but

this is not the Spirit of Christ. All honor to courage; at the least it is unselfish, while cowardice is selfishness. The sailor who cuts out the ship under the fire of the enemy's batteries, is noble; the North American Indian suffering torture without a single groan; the man who has a vulture-sorrow gnawing at his heart, but who goes on with a stern defiance a godlike indifference to the thing which is preying upon his very life-is sublime and grand; but the spirit of the Indian is one thing, and the Spirit of Christ another. The man who with closed teeth in his own room can resolve that no extremity of suffering shall wring from him one groan is manly; but manliness is not blessedness. He only can rejoice in infirmities, in reproaches, in suffering, who, taking the cup gently, lovingly, humbly into his hand, can drain it to the dregs, and say, as did his Master, "The cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it ?”

II. We learn the strength of dependence (ver. 10)· "When I am weak, then I am strong." "My grace is sufficient for thee." This is the Christian paradox. A paradox is an apparent contradiction; it is that which is contrary to experience, as if a man were to say to another who was ignorant of a ravine that intervened, that the nearest way to a neighboring point was twelve miles round. There are two kinds of strength-that which we have in ourselves, and that which we derive from outward appliances and help. For example, the swimmer's strength when he buffets the tide is soon exhausted; but the same man's strength when the tide is with him, by a slight exertion, will bear him on for miles -the sailor's strength when he rows against the wind and stream, and when, almost passively employing the forces of nature, the wind or the waves carry him forward. "When I am weak, then am I strong." "" Man is the weakest, and yet the strongest, of living creatures-because he obeys the laws of nature: he has the strength of the lion, the speed of the antelope; he bids the sun be his painter, and the lightning carry his messages, and the seas bear his merchandise; because he is the servant, therefore he is the master. This is precisely analogous to the way in which a man becomes spiritually strong. If he stand upon his own will, takes his own way, the strongest fails at last. Whatever may be his force of will, his genius, or his talent, if used against mankind, he must ultimately be overcome. The conqueror of the world died on the rock of St. Helena. And so, whoever does what is wrong, and says to evil, “Be thou my

good," whatever may be his adroitness, his resources, or his talent, will find that the laws of God's universe are against him, and too strong for him, because he is against God. It was no mere figure of poetry in Deborah's triumphant song, "The stars in their courses fought against Sisera." Every thing fights against a man who is not on God's side, while he who does right, not because it is profitable, but because it is right, who loves the truth, arms himself with God's power, the universe is on his side, and he will surely know what the apostle meant when he said in the Epistle to the Romans, "All things work together for good to those that love God."

Thus did the Christians of old triumph-this was the his tory of the contest of one hundred and twenty weak men against the world: they were overwhelmed by sarcasm, exposed to lions, hurried to destruction, the earth was drenched with their blood; but a single fisherman could stand before the assembled rulers and say, "Whether it be good to obey you rather than God, judge ye." And eighteen centuries in the advance of Christianity has ploughed the result into the history of the world. Because they were weak, therefore they were strong. Our own strength must yield to pain. In the Middle Ages, those who had studied the arts of torture knew well that the man who could face the lion in the amphitheatre, or sit boldly on the heated iron seat, would be overcome by the simple dropping of water, day by day, on the same place, like the firm rock corroded by the waves of ages. So in the sense of a moral uprightness, we feel it impossible to do a thing abhorrent to our principles. "Is thy servant a dog, that he should do this thing?" No, not a dog, but only a man-a man, yet relying on himself. Resign yourself passively to God; there is no other strength that lasts. Give up self-will. Lie like a child in your Father's hands, and then you will say in the depths of your spirit, "When I am weak, then am I strong;" "I am evil, but Thou art righteous; clothe me with Thy righteousness, and I shall be saved."

III. The Scripture view of God's reply to prayer. St. Paul besought God thrice that the thorn might be removed -when the answer came, not in the removal of the trial, but "My grace is sufficient for thee." Was this to deny the petition? No! it was to grant it in greater fullness. Here lies the difference between God's way and man's-man keeps the word of promise to the ear, but breaks it to the

hope; God keeps the promise to the hope, though he may seem to break it to the ear. For was not St. Paul's real desire that which lay at the bottom of his request-this, to experience God's power in him? He loved those spiritual ecstasies with which the thorn seemed to interfere. But God showed him that it brought His presence in another and deeper way. Not as the Spirit came, in ecstatic triumph, as at Pentecost, but in a calmer, gentler manner, as the dew upon the grass; as he came in the office of the Comforter. Take a few examples of prayer: "O that Ishmael might live before thee." God gave the legitimate Isaac instead of the half-born. Abraham's prayer for Sodom and Gomorrah. The history of the man from whom the "Legion" was expelled. Here you have two prayers granted, in curse; one refused, in love. When the two disciples asked to sit, the one on His right hand and the other on His left, He said, "Ye know not what ye ask." In the dispensations of God there is no favoritism. The favor of God is only granted on certain laws and under certain conditions; and while He seemed to deny their request He granted it; for to sit on His right hand and His left, was to drink of His cup, and to be baptized with His baptism.

The common idea of prayer is, that it resembles the magic ring in the Oriental tale-as if it gave a power to man to bend the Will of God. But take as a crucial test the prayer of Christ-"Father, if it be possible, remove this cup from Me." Here were all the requisites of true prayer-humility, perfect submission, true faith; yet the cup did not pass from Him. Either the prayer of Christ was not granted—and to assert this were blasphemy-or God grants an answer to prayer in different ways. Think you that your prayers will get what Christ's did not-what you wish? Nay, but something better than what you wish-what God wills. Is that not better? Which was better, that the cup should pass from the Redeemer, or that He should have strength to drink it?—that the suffering should be avoided, or that an angel should strengthen Him?-that the apostle should have the thorn removed, or that grace sufficient to bear it should be given to him? The true value of prayer is not this-to bend the Eternal Will to ours; but this to bend our wills to It. Not as I will, but as Thou wilt.

IV. The two-sided nature of man. It was the same man in the 2d and 3d verses as in the 10th, yet so different that the apostle spoke of them as two men. This may teach us