on all of us for honest self-inspection. None of us are without sin; yet should we greatly desire that our sins should be detected and cast out. Some of you may perhaps be satisfied, because you do not take God's name in vain; some because you are not dishonest; some because you are not licentious and impure. But can you say, "So do not I, because of the fear of God?" Is there any sin from which you abstain, on a religious account, and because you fear God? Of how many evil crimes can you say, I was tempted, but did not yield; I might, and should have committed great wickedness; but "so did not I, because of the fear of God!"

Cultivate, then, more and more, an honest conscience. Let not your mind and conscience become defiled, and impaired by sin. Never silence the reproaches of conscience. Whoever else may be ignorant of your wickedness, you yourselves are privy to it. And it is a knowledge that never can be obliterated. A sense

of guilt is painful for the time; but there is no hope of reform, of repentance, of pardon through the blood of Christ, where conscience is not suffered to speak out. When she speaks, listen; when she smites, bear the blow; else will the wound never be healed. Plead guilty to her charges, and bear the burden to him who bore our sins in his own body on the tree.

Be careful, too, to keep your hearts in the fear of God. "Happy is the man that feareth always." Live in the habitual fear of offending God. We should all be afraid of offending God. We are not safe from sin, from soul-destroying sin, without the fear of God. That life is the happiest life, it is the most cheered life, where God is most feared. "The Lord taketh pleas

ure in them that fear him, and them that hope in his mercy." Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty, the whole blessedness, the whole and chief end of man.

SERMON XIX.

THE WANDERER RESTORED.

PSALM Xxiii. 3. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.

It is remarkably characteristic of the Scriptures, that in their free and abundant use of figurative language, they borrow their imagery from the simplest objects. They do not have recourse to the fine arts, nor to the extended circle of the sciences; for these are familiar only to the learned; but, for the most part, they illustrate and impress truth by images borrowed from the appearances and productions that are familiar to common minds.

This twenty-third Psalm furnishes a beautiful illustration of this remark. "The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures; he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul; he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness, for his name's sake." In our reflections upon this clause of the Psalm, three things deserve our consideration. Men are wanderers from God: God himself is their Restorer: the evidence of their restoration is the fact, that they are led in the paths of righteous

ness.

I. Men are wanderers from God.

There are not a few severe and humbling delinea

tions of human apostasy presented in the Bible; while there are those that are marked by affecting, touching tenderness. "All we," says the Prophet Isaiah, "have gone astray like lost sheep; we have turned every one to his own way." There is not a good man on earth, nor a redeemed sinner in heaven, but has been brought to this sad confession. "I have gone astray," says the Psalmist, "like a lost sheep; seek thy servant, for I have not forgotten thy commandments." "My people," saith God, by the mouth of the Prophet Jeremiah, "hath been like lost sheep; they have gone from mountain to hill, they have forgotten their resting place.”

Some have indeed wandered farther, and more visibly than others. Some have been restrained from outbreaking aberrations, and more aggravated sins, by the power of conscience, by the force of education, by afflictions, and by the strong bonds of society; but all are wanderers. The time was when they took no delight in God, paid no regard to his authority, and had no thought of their eternal interests. The "green pastures" of his truth and grace had nothing inviting to their corrupted taste; and the "still waters" where the divine Shepherd would fain lead them, had to them lost all their sweetness. A desert and dry land as it is, this world was their portion; and here, under its sultry skies and barren sands, heedless of their everlasting good, they sought their joys from the phantoms of earth, and time, and sense.

This spirit of wandering is never effectually cured this side the grave. Within the bosom of every regenerated man, there is still "an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God." God is not always his chief joy; there are innate and strong tendencies to

forsake him; there are backslidings of heart, and many a sad hour when, in bitterness of spirit, he utters the wish, "O that it were with me, as in months past His closet is sometimes neglected, or the devotions of it are hurried over and slightly performed. The word of God remains for days and weeks unconsulted, and when consulted, is a sealed book. He forsakes the assemblies of God's people, some idol intrudes itself into his heart, the Tempter intwines his snares about him, and he falls from his steadfastness. He is a wanderer from the fold. He is houseless and homeless; he strays amid the dense wilderness; beetling cliffs confront him, and he trembles on the steep precipice. His retrospect is the retrospect of a wanderer; throughout his whole course, he gives painful proof that the natural disposition of his heart is to wander from God.

Yet he does not wander fatally, nor beyond recall. He may look to a happy end to his wanderings and his journey, in the Canaan above. The wanderer shall be restored; for our text assures us,

II. In the second place, that God is the restorer of his people.

"He restoreth my soul." The Psalmist himself had been a good shepherd, and had jeopardized his life for his sheep. He knew the toils and cares of that occupation, and the attention that was necessary, especially in Eastern countries, to the most useful, and, at the same time, most defenceless of all the creatures which God has formed for the service of man. None knew better than he, how to bless God for restoring grace. Who does not need it? Who will not prize it? Who

does not implore it?

To restore those who had gone astray, to "call sin