security, its fortress, and high tower.

2. The human will also needs to look above and beyond itself for the Rock of its support.

“There is,” says a profound writer, “a sentiment to be found in divers forms among all men, the sentiment of the need of some external succor, of a support to the human will, of a force which can lend its aid and strength to our necessity.”

How true this is every Christian knows by sad experience. “To will is present with me,” says Paul, “but how to perform that which is good, I find not.”

How changeable our volitions. How many purposes unexecuted lie like wrecks along the shores of our past history. The best of resolutions glow for a time in the soul, but the genial spark thus kindled is soon blown out in the wild tempest of the passions. Our states of mind are variable as the sky. They carry the will along with them. There are tides of human feeling, just as there are tides in the ocean, which ebb and flow in ceaseless agitation. That old Saxon monarch who with his courtiers went down to the shore and issued his command to the ocean surges to go back, till the waves, in mockery of his authority, dashed over his feet, was as successful as he will be, who thinks to subdue with the voice of his own authority the active elements within him, and to subject to the mandates of the human will the troubled sea of thought and feeling in the soul.

Oh, when thus my will is powerless for good, when resolutions strongly framed and guarded go down one by one under the shock of temptation, when thus I climb and fall backwards, repent and sin, and repent again only to resolve anew, then it is I feel the need of something more potent to fix my resolutions and give stability to my purposes. Then it is I wait to hear the voice of God’s authority, and ask to be led to some “Rock higher than I.”

3. Again, to such a Rock as this the believer’s affections naturally aspire. Unless some object more excellent and worthy than self be discovered, then is selfishness the highest virtue. Such an object cannot be found in the creature things which surround us. Magnify them as we may, the soul feels that they are inferior to itself; in all its attempts to love them and go out after them, the soul has a secret consciousness of degradation. It feels that it is stepping downwards and not upwards, when it turns its love upon the material vanities around it. There is, all the while, a suppressed sense of dissatisfaction, a wish and a longing for something better to love, something higher for the heart to reach after.

This feeling in the Christian makes him look upward. God as revealed in Christ is alone sufficient to fill his heart. He discovers the holiness and excellency of his nature. He sees him with all the attributes of divinity and humanity harmoniously blended together, the chief among ten thousands; the one altogether lovely. He feels that he is worthy of his love. He is drawn to him with the cords of love. He is looking higher than self. There is none upon earth he desires besides Him. Now he has found the only object he can safely love. Other things have mocked him: earthly vanities have trifled with his affections; they have betrayed his trust; but Christ fills his heart. He is a higher rock than himself, and he turns thither as his only rest. Lead me to this Rock; let my soul climb here above the lower level of earth and sense; for here my hope shall not be put to shame.

4. This higher Rock is the only refuge I can find when I feel the need of pardon and sanctification. The human conscience testifies of guilt. God’s law has been set at naught, and its penalty has been incurred. Justice demands a satisfaction for transgression, else the gate of reconciliation is closed for ever. How can this fearful difficulty be overcome? How can God forgive the guilty? Shut me up to myself, and I am in despair. I could commit the sin myself, but I cannot give the satisfaction. All my present attempts to obedience can have no effect upon what I have done before. My guilt is where I cannot reach it. My prayers and tears and vows cannot wash out the damning record which stands against me. Even could I reform my life and tread in the path of holiness from this time forth, there is guilt already which I cannot cancel.

Oh, the utter helplessness of the soul is one of the most agonizing feelings which attend conviction of sin. Guilt stares me in the face, after all my strugglings. The dark waters go over my head, and I sink for ever, were it not for a rock I can seize hold of, which is Christ a Saviour. The gospel points me to an atonement made for me in the death of Jesus Christ, and bids me look by faith to the sacrifice of the cross. This is precisely what I want.

Oh let me reach this Rock, and I can count over my transgressions without despair; for here the justice of God is satisfied. Here is a full atonement for them all. Here God smiles upon me with a look of forgiveness, for the law is magnified, and grace abounds. Here is my refuge against all the accusations of conscience and the terrors of guilt. Here on this Rock I rest in peace, a high Rock, above the clouds where the lightning flashes of wrath play and justice hurls the bolts.

Lastly, this divine Rock is the Christian’s only support in the trying calamities of life. Whatever be their nature, whether temptations, or afflictions, or spiritual distresses, he meets them by looking above and beyond himself for aid.

There is a kind of heroism which the world applauds, exhibited sometimes by men in the trying straits of life, a gloomy heroism which inspires them to breast misfortune with an iron nerve, and “take up arms against a sea of troubles,” in firm reliance upon their own indomitable will. It never quails before the face of danger, but will perish in the fierce encounter rather than submit to fear. Often it assumes the form of a grim and sullen stoicism, which sheds no tear over the desolation of cherished hopes, and utters no plaintive cry over the wreck of lost affections. With dogged silence it buries the last of kindred, and at last lies down to die with features cold and mute as marble, and with sealed passports departs to the eternal world.

This, which the world calls manly firmness, is a foul libel on humanity, but a few degrees removed from the sublime stolidity of the brute.

The Christian lays claim to no such heroism, but looks for aid in trouble. He is willing to be helped. From the end of the earth will I cry unto Thee when my heart is overwhelmed, “Lead me to the Rock that is higher than I.”

The idea suggested is that of a sufferer struggling in the angry billows; and while he feels his strength rapidly wearing out, he turns his eye in every direction across the boundless waters to find some succor. No friendly sail is seen. Not a spar or plank is left of his shattered vessel. Every thing has gone down beneath the remorseless tide. But yonder looms a solitary rock high in the air. Storms rage about it in vain. The surges dash and roar around its base. The maddened waters are lashed into foam and spray. But there it stands, firm, unmovable, invincible. Heedless of tide and wave and storm, it looks tranquilly out upon the chafed and angry elements, as unconcerned as though naught but sunbeams played and zephyrs whispered.

What that rock is to the wrecked and exhausted mariner who has at length reached its base, and lain down in its friendly clefts, such is Christ to the tossed and troubled believer. In the upheavings of life, when all other trusts have failed, and the waters of affliction